I think that Grant is maybe brilliant, and was a significant influence in moving the bike industry and product offerings towards more practical products that better fit the needs of non-racers. I wouldn't be comfortable saying he has a better understanding of bike design than any other living individual. That's a pretty tall statement. No disrespect meant to Grant at all, and it's not like I can rattle off the names of other builders/designers who I think have a better understanding of bike design. I mainly can't wrap my head around how you'd even begin to analyze and quantify that.
Grant moved the market by focusing on product and meeting an unmet demand. He recognized the disconnect between what bicycle market segments had become, and what kind of product would actually be practical and fun for non-racers to ride. His first product move in that direction wasn't a radically new design, it was a modern revision of a 30yr-old+ market segment: a relatively lightweight, performance-oriented road frame that had better tire clearances and more relaxed geometry/handling than a typical contemporary road/race frame, without the extra weight and stiffness of a traditional touring frame. That market segment in the production bike world had mostly disappeared, and Grant brought it back to life. I don't want to minimize that in the least, because it took vision to see that, and cojones to bring something to market that almost no other product manager thought was missing, or that even had a place. But it also didn't come out of nowhere. People were still riding '70s-era Cinellis, Mercians, Raleigh Internationals, Schwinn Paramounts. Custom American builders had built lots of sport-touring frames through the '70s and into the '80s, and a lot of those bikes were still around. Grant's contribution was seeing those designs not as a dead end, but a way forward. Grant and his products have come a long way since then, as has the bicycle market as a whole. I don't know that if it wasn't for Grant, no factories would be building drop-bar road frames that fit tires wider than 28mm, or be spec'ing production road-ish frames with flat/upright bars. But he certainly got the ball rolling, and demonstrated there was demand for non-racing bikes that weren't ATBs or hybrids. And bringing it back to his business model, in relation to his product, he certainly knows his customer base, and he knows how to reach beyond it a bit as well. Paul Brodek Hillsdale, NJ USA On Sunday, July 26, 2020 at 12:10:22 AM UTC-4, jack loudon wrote: [snips] > In all cases, the Riv model was the archetype for my choices, and I'm > pretty sure, with no first-hand experience, that Grant has a better > understanding of bicycle design than any other living person. I do think > his frames can be needlessly stiff, and I'm not a particular fan of ornate > lugs, but that does not take away from what he has accomplished. > > Jack - Seattle > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/4f7cdec4-c922-414f-a45b-88b7e7022247o%40googlegroups.com.
