Old School time, a day late for Throwback Thursday, if that's still a thing.
'98 Riv Custom, built by Joe Starck, back in the day when
designing/building a short-reach caliper frame with rock-bottom brake shoes
("Look out, Courageous, it's Rock Bottom!!!") and clearance for 32mm 700c
tires was a big f'in deal. If I got this part right, the lugs were
designed by e-richie for Grant/Bridgestone, were nixed by B'stone Japan
because they were too complex/expensive, then Grant was able to use them
after going indy. The seatpost caps look like they're from Waterford, maybe
a carry-over from early on when Gary Boulanger was managing the W'ford side
of Riv production frames? I've got them on a couple/few later W'fords, and
don't recall seeing them anywhere else.
I think I'm only the 3rd owner, unsure of the mileage, but clearly the two
previous owners have treated it nicely. I criminally barely put any miles
on it, but I did recently crash up on it and cause a bunch of organic
physical body damage, but nothing but small qr-end/pedal-end/bar-end scuffs
on the bike itself. It's lived a charmed life.
Was trying for a relatively period-correct build, with as much shiny silver
Dura-Ace as possible, and somehow the med/long-cage D-A rder had to make
that cut. Which made my preferred 1x build impractical, so I messed around
with 1x-granny setups till I got this 40x24. Would'vd preferred a 38t, but
couldn't go lower than 40t on the outer ring, because of chainstay
clearance. Even with a short-cage CX-70, a 38/39t ring scrapes the top of
the chainstay before the teeth get close enough to the rings. I tried at
least one of the mega-short-but-clunky modern Shimano ATB fders, but that
was sub-optimal. I think that was a midnight oil-burning operation, so I
can't remember exactly why I gave up, just remember a loud "Feh!" and
yanking it off. I decided to use a protective chain-drop thingie just to
make sure I didn't have any drop-off problems hitting the 24t granny.
Ferget who made it, it was a one-man small Sumguy operation, but they've
been in production since the '80s, and discontinued for a while now.
The 700c Soma SV SLs on skinny Aerohead rims are about 30mm actual width,
and already a bit tight. Could probably go a full 32mm but with very tight
front/rear caliper clearance. Short-reach centerpulls, like GC450s might
help a bit there, but I wanted to stay D-A on the calipers and avoid the
extra cabling/etc of centerpulls.
The RD-7701 med-long rder came to me with a stripped cable anchor bolt, and
the stupid-shallow backside clearance made it pretty impossible to helicoil
it. I managed to tap it from M5 to M6, and the bigger M6 bolt looks a
little clunky, but it properly anchors the cable now.
Front end has a proper D-A stem and fairly uncommon and wide Nitto
B177-48cm Dream Bars. Prolly coulda gone with non-aero D-A brake levers,
but I usually want 'cross levers for Jersey traffic, so I went aero there.
Nitto Racing cages 'cause it felt more racey. I kinda mostly/only ride
Thomson posts, so no D-A there. The Brooks Team Pro is a dark green, though
that doesn't show well in the pix.
It's a little on the tall/long side for me, 63cm dt c-c, 60.5cm tt, which
is kinda de rigueur in Riv Land these days but was maybe a little less
common back then. BB drop is 76mm, chainstays are longish at 44cm and wb is
104cm, so a crit bike it ain't.
Pix or it didn't happen, more and higher-res on flickr.....
Paul Brodek
Hillsdale, NJ USA
[img]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51218631413_cc5a80d181_k.jpg[/img]
[img]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51217707602_31d1bfcc06_k.jpg[/img]
[img]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50365316941_c7a4475dda_k.jpg[/img]
[img]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50440286627_b8fb4c3792_k.jpg[/img]
[img]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50440286327_bd34374447_k.jpg[/img]
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