On Tue, 2013-05-07 at 20:09 -0700, Jim Thill - Hiawatha Cyclery wrote: > Undersized tubing? Maybe it's not obvious to everybody, but a lot of > plus-sized people are drawn to Riv by the promise of high-bar comfort > and sturdiness. Put some chugging 270-pounder on a bike with > undersized tubes, and it's likely to get a bit too exciting to be > enjoyable.
I really don't like your use of the term "undersized." Riv tubes are OVERsize. That's what it was called when it was introduced, and that's still what it's known as. The stuff that's even larger diameter is known as "over-over-size". You can have high-bar comfort without excessive stiffness; the two are not inextricably linked. Furthermore, there's a lot of difference between a 190-220 lb "plus size" rider and the 270 pounder you write about. I haven't seen too many 270 pounders, but plenty of those in the 0.1 ton category (including myself), and we do not necessarily need the excessive stiffness Rivs now provide. In fact, that excessive stiffness takes away a good deal of enjoyment in my opinion, especially by making the bikes reluctant climbers. > I come down on the Riv side. I shy away from the faintest whiff of > daintiness and anything that seems French. I draw a lot more parallels > between RBW and Surly than I do between RBW and the integrated rando > bike concept. > And you know what people say about the Surly LHT: rides like a tank, way overbuilt for unloaded riding. I've never ridden a Surly LHT, but I have owned two Rivendells. While I think they were excessively stiff, they definitely didn't ride like tanks. While many randonneurs have turned Rivs into rando bikes, Rivendells are perhaps the exact opposite of "integrated." Doug Brooks called it "resourceful" vs "resolved." -- 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 [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. 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.
