San Antonio is in an urban revival, with the real estate of two large and historic downtown breweries recently developed into upscale condos, shopping centers and upscale restaurants (not quite black tie tacquerias, but close - snob appeal rules in SA). The city has already done and is continuing a very good job on bike friendly, bike trails, and greenways. There are a couple of routes following downtown expressway access roads, where the have laid a curb barricade to designate the bike lane. The thing to do is haul your bike into the near northside park system, and bike into downtown for the day. It's become a better city to ride than Austin. Riding downtown is a breeze, and bikes can keep up with downtown traffic and light queues very easily. There are, however, a dearth of safe routes from the suburbs into the near northside. But they're working on that, too, turning every creek drainage into very nice greenways, with plans to connect them all (while the skinny, tired bike paths in Austin decay, and Lance's bad publicity isn't going to help). There is a new city bike culture springing up mostly in the downtown bike shops, though leaning toward 3-speeds and fixies, which are not useful in the Texas hill country (which begins just south of my house). There is also a frankenbike culture, where anything old rules in any form. We're don't have a Riv bike culture - no all-purpose, all-terrain, all-qualified, any-challenge bike shops, not even models represented in one or two shops. The suburb bike shops are all about racing or mountain bike tech and the few non-racing bikes they carry are at best 3-speeds. Except for downtown and one or two mechanics, you can't go into a bike shop without running into the tech snob salesman who is delighted to tell everything that is wrong with your friction-shifting steel frame dinosaur (they remind me of the fly tackle salesmen at cabelas). I see see these 30 somethings selling small-frame racing bikes to 50 somethings, and most of these guys will be spending $1500 for a garage ornament. The frankenbike swaps, which happen every month around town are a real hoot, though. Closest thing we have to a Riv culture.
On Friday, April 19, 2013 4:15:03 PM UTC-5, Jim Thill - Hiawatha Cyclery wrote: > > In the recent thread about SunTour's comeback, this quote was presented: > > "Junzo feels the time is right to re-enter the bicycle component > business. As he puts it “the market is too race-centric; carbon fiber, > electric shifting, full suspension, 11 speed, doesn’t really enhance the > enjoyment of cycling. In the 1970’s and 80’s we cycled to be closer to > nature, for the environment, for our health, for the simple beauty of > cycling.” For these reasons SunXCD will focus on touring and randonneuring > components which were the focus of SunTour during its heyday." > > Of course, most of us Riv fans will note that this echoes Grant's > published opinions over the years, as well as the sales pitches of a few > brands who've tried, with varying success, to get into the Riv-ish segment > of the market. I "discovered" Riv almost 10 years ago because I wanted a > certain type of bike that didn't seem to exist at local shops. What I > wanted was a touring bike, and the Atlantis I bought filled that desire. > Had I been able to find a Trek 520 locally, or if the LHT existed back > then, my story may have taken some different turns. But it was certainly > true back then that any readily available higher quality bike was going to > be some kind of impractical skinny tire road bike. Not my style. > > But things have changed drastically. Sure, many of us are baffled by > electronic shifting and seemingly delicate CF and 11-sp cassettes that have > become available. But at the same time, a HUGE variety of touring and > "adventure" bikes, parts, and accessories have become not only available, > but mainstream. So while I wish Junzo and SunTour success, I thought his > rationale seemed hollow, or at least 5-10 years too late. > -- 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 post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en-US. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
