I would vote two bikes, one being the Appaloosa because I'm biased just like everyone else here and we all have an insatiable thirst to see more of them built up. The other, a disc brake bike for winter if you plan to ride year-round because while V-brakes are great in the dry and still pretty good in the wet, they're pretty much useless when frozen as you have no doubt experienced! I hate how loud disc brakes become in the snow, but to their credit, they keep working. Depends on your riding though - if you are just cruising MUP's in the winter, maybe that few moments of delay on the brakes (while the pads heat the rims) isn't a big deal, but if you're commuting in the city and need to be able to stop quick to avoid a collision, I'm team disc brakes once it's snowy.
It's frustratingly hard to find a bike with Riv-like geometry and disc brakes - some compelling bikes made by Crust, Black Mountain etc but tend to be drop bar fit so probably not suitable for the bars you're likely thinking for an Appa. A Crust Evasion for winter and an Appaloosa for summer sounds pretty excellent as a two-bike household IMO! I'd actually go Hillborne in that situation, as it's quicker but still capable of all the things you've listed. Cheers! On Sunday, 13 March 2022 at 14:19:41 UTC-7 Will wrote: > I have a Toyo Atlantis and my son has an Appaloosa. They are very similar. > The Appaloosa has longer chainstays but that doesn't seem to change > handling much. We're in Wisconsin and can ride from March until December. > In December the roads get icy and it's not worth putting on studded tires > for the couple of months we'd want them. > > Both bikes are wonderful all rounders. You can''t go wrong with either. > Both take fat tires. My son's bike will easily take 700x45s (fendered) > which is plenty of tire. It will probably take 50s with fenders, don't > know, but suspect it would. > > Your concern is brakes. The Appaloosa comes with V brakes. They do well. > Not sure that discs would do much better. > > I'd do the N plus 1 route until you're sure about the Appaloosa. It's a > great bike. You won't do better. > > You'll want an Abus U lock for it. It's that beautiful. > > On Sunday, March 13, 2022 at 11:42:34 AM UTC-5 trevor....@gmail.com wrote: > >> First time posting here. Not yet an owner, but working on it! >> >> A few years back, I sold my year round commuter (a Surly Steamroller with >> custom Canti mounts) in favour of a bike with disc brakes, thinking that >> would be the way to go for all-season riding. For reference, I live in the >> middle of Canada where we have snow up to 6 months of the year, with >> temperatures hovering well below -20C for a lot of that. >> >> I've recently been eyeing up the Joe Appaloosa as a contender for my next >> bike. The idea is that it would be commuter as well as tourer/light >> trail/etc. There would be some overlap with other bikes, but I am going to >> be honest and say that I am smitten with that bike. >> >> Does anyone have any experience riding their Riv in awful wintery >> conditions? I've survived on 33c CX tires before, so that aspect of the >> bike is less of a concern. I am mostly thinking about the rim brake >> concerns and any other things to watch out for. Or maybe I am just trying >> to coax myself into moving distinctly into N+1 territory. >> >> I would be happy to hear any thoughts about riding Rivs in awful winter >> conditions. >> > -- 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/543ff120-ca03-449b-98c5-4e33c5261f42n%40googlegroups.com.
