Yesterday I discussed I had a brand new bike coming, and late within the day it lastly confirmed up:
It’s a Rivendell Roaduno full, within the mustard coloration (round right here we are saying COLOR, not “COLORWAY,” goddamn it!), ant it arrived not a second to quickly, as a result of a one-speed bike with a lugged metal body was precisely what I wanted to floor myself after all of the Y-Foolery by which I’ve been participating currently:
The Roaduno is mainly the Anti-Foil, proper right down to the colour; each are mainly yellow, however one yellow is meant to appear to be gold, and the opposite’s alleged to appear to be a condiment.
So excited was I to lastly obtain the Roaduno that I intercepted the UPS man on the nook and carried the field all the way in which down the road to my chateau, whereupon I dragged it into the basement and put it collectively in nice haste so I may very well be the primary individual on the Web to point out one off–and to that finish I’ll now bore you with just about the identical pictures you may see on the Rivendell web site, solely taken by an fool in a darkish basement with an inexpensive smartphone:
That is precisely how the entire Roaduno arrives within the field, besides I added saddle, grips, and pedals because it doesn’t include these issues. The saddle and the grips had been merely the primary ones I used to be in a position to seize from my dangerously cluttered storage cage with out inflicting an avalanche, so don’t ascribe any particular significance to them, and the pedals are the Grip Monarch within the Panda colorationmethod:
Aside from the colour they’re the identical pedals I’ve on the Homer, they usually’ve been nice.
In any other case, the bike comes with a Nitto cockpit, together with a four-bolt open-face stem:
Inexperienced-and-silver IRD brake levers for a little bit singlespeed aptitude:
The brand new Silver3 crank, which is a bit more sculpted than the unique:
These gravel tires which might be so sizzling with the children proper now:
And large-ass calipers that match round them with room to spare:
Rear spacing is 120mm, presumably to commit you to singledom…
…and but there’s a derailleur hanger:
You may additionally have observed the bike comes with a further chainring on the crank, and there’s even a shifter boss on the non-drive facet:
It’s because the concept is you may add a entrance derailleur and a sequence tensioner and set it up as a frontal dinglespeed and even tringlepace, which is a phrase I simply made up:
[Photo: Rivendell]
There are some singlespeeders who’re offended by provisions for gears as they spoil the bike’s “clear strains” or no matter (the phrase “clear strains” is nearly as annoying because the time period “colorway”), however so far as I’m involved it’s all the time good to have choices, and the rear spacing ensures the bike will all the time stay rudimentary and due to this fact true to the spirit of simplicity and/or inconvenience, which is what singlespeeding is all about. (Plus, when you like singlespeeds you most likely additionally like tinkering, and this bike begs to be tinkered with.) Anyway, even when you by no means use the shifter boss, it looks like place for a bell.
And naturally being a Rivendell the body will take racks, and a fender, and a body pump, and a kickstand, and it additionally has elegant decals:
And a spiffy head badge:
I’d have favored nothing greater than to scamper off on the bike indefinitely, however with night time falling and home duties beckoning I used to be solely in a position to take it across the neighborhood for a fast take a look at experience:
First impressions had been extremely encouraging:
I’ll experience it inventory to start out with then let the tinkering muse take mw the place it’s going to, and I’ll hold you posted whether or not you prefer it or not.
