More thinking out loud. [Free writing advice from a professional writer, tho’ one who writes in a debased medium: write; get up and go away for at least 2 hours and do something else, and then come back to your composition and re-read it to observe all the obvious lacunae and faults; augment and repair. Repeat at least 3 times. Anyway.]
I’m at the stage where I no longer like working on bikes; I’d much rather ride them. So adding a fourth bike to my stable, even a very nice road bike, will have its drawbacks in that regard. I was happy when I whittled my stable down to 3 customs that suited my own kind of riding very nicely — short, =/< 30 miles, but agressive — I was surprised to find that Sunday’s 40 mile ride left me feeling the next day no different from one of my usual 20 mile fixed gear out and backs on a windy afternoon. Only, one of the whole points of this new kind of longer but slower riding is to go further afield, and this means longer and steeper hills; and at 70 I no longer feel like, or — to be honest, am capable of — grunting a fixed gear even with 25% IGH gear reduction up steep mile-long hills as I could do back when I was a youthful 60-something. At this point in building castles in the air, I’d prefer to clone the 1999 gofast in derailleur form since that bike is so perfect. Musing out loud. On Wed, Sep 10, 2025 at 8:06 PM Patrick Moore <[email protected]> wrote: > I asked this on the boblist, but this bears more directly on Rivendell > models. > > I’m not ready to buy one yet, but longer (for me, >30 miles) or hillier > (steep or long hills on distances over 20 miles) rides the bikes I now own > are non-ideal, at least for a rider who is basically fit but 70 years old. > I need, or would like, a wider range, more ratios, and a *freewheel.* > > The wonderful 1999 Rivendell Benchmark Bike is handicapped by its fixed > drivetrain and, even with the wonderful TF hub, I get only 1 alternate > gear, 25% below direct/cruising; thus with the usual 76” direct the > climbing gear is 57”. > > The Matthews #1 — dirt road road bike — has the widest gear range, not > surprising because it’s the only one that has a derailleur drivetrain; with > the Soma slicks, from 96” down to 32”. But while it rolls very nicely on > the flatlands I generally ride it on, on steep hills either the weight or > the admittedly non-sparkling Somas (despite their 360 gram weight for 51 > mm), it felt rather like a pig on the steepest climbs last Sunday: too much > effort expended for forward and upward movement gained. [I think to myself > that the 1999 fixed gofast at 18 lb versus 30 lb might well climb as > easily: much better on shallow inclines, not too much worse, although > requiring standing, on the steep ones; but it’s the steep *and long* ones > that worry me. > > The Matthews #2 might be better: fixed gear, but 3 of them: 72” 65” and a > stump-pulling 54”. But it weighs 26 lb and with the extra light RH Naches > Pass 42s it just doesn’t feel as fast-running as the gofast. > > Both Matthewses were predicated on a more or less Rivendell-like handling; > that was one of Chauncey’s principal remits; and the #2 is a geometrical > clone of a custom Riv road so that’s all right. The Matthews #1 handles > rather like a Riv road with the 622 X 51 mm Somas but obviously even quite > light 29” wheels are not going to handle like very light 26” wheels with > narrower tires. > > Long, long windup. Question begins here: > > Should I look at a Roadeo? I see that there’s a 14 month or more waiting > period after a $1400 non-refundable deposit, but one might score a used 57. > > Used Riv Road? > > Roadini? > > Used Ram? > > I’d probably use 32 mm tires, RH extralights. This will be a *road* bike > for longer distances and hills; I have all rounders and dirt road bikes. > > But I owned a Ram and while it was “not bad at all,” it just felt a bit > staid even with Paris Roubaix open tubulars. I hear the Roadini is quite > stout, and was even told once that I ought to bypass the Roadeo because > with its OS tubing, probably not thinnest-wall, it would probably not > match my proclivity for light tubing. As I’ve said, I sold on m 2003 Curt > custom because the stout tubing (so I assume) seemed always to slightly > hold me back, this over 17 years of riding it. > > Other suggestions? Several suggested LeMonds from a certain period. > > I think of getting a builder to custom-clone that 26” wheel 1999 road > fixed gofast for a derailleur drivetrain; probably not much more expensive > than a Roadeo or a high-end off-the-shelf model as I’ve got most of the > parts for a build. > > Thoughts, general as well as particular? > > Again, just thinking out loud at this point. > > I might just get narrower, 44 mm, RH extralight Snoqualmie Pass tires with > TPU tubes on the Matthews dirt road bike. I have a 50mm+ knobby wheelset > and don’t need 50s; the Somas don’t do well in sand, as it turned out. > Worth the expense? > > Thanks. > > -- > > Patrick Moore > Alburquerque, Nuevo Mexico, Etats Unis d'Amerique, Orbis Terrarum > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Executive resumes, LinkedIn profiles, bios, letters, and other writing > services > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > *When thou didst not, savage, k**now thine own meaning,* > > *But wouldst gabble like a** thing most brutish,* > > *I endowed thy purposes w**ith words that made them known.* > -- Patrick Moore Alburquerque, Nuevo Mexico, Etats Unis d'Amerique, Orbis Terrarum ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Executive resumes, LinkedIn profiles, bios, letters, and other writing services ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *When thou didst not, savage, k**now thine own meaning,* *But wouldst gabble like a** thing most brutish,* *I endowed thy purposes w**ith words that made them known.* -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. 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