Originally Posted by af895
http://www.livejournal.com/community...s/1390707.html
EXCERPT: "Rivendell is a marketing company founded by an ex-Bridgestone USA employee. They have a couple of different American framebuilders do the custom bikes. The production bikes come from Japan... Nice bikes, but not worth the money."
ALTERNATIVES:
Circle A
Vanilla
Jonny Cycles
ANT
Independent Fabrications
Google them. Vanilla's are GORGEOUS and attainable.
Vanillas are gorgeous looking bikes. Nice lugs, beautiful dropouts. Thanks for reminding me about them.
But that comment about the Rivs being made in Japan and the lousy paint jobs... I gotta check that out. I don't buy it. Walnut Creek CA is up the road a couple hundred miles. (disadvantage of Vanilla... have to go all the way to PDX to check them out). I know of Joe Bell of JB paint... his work is good, (he painted one of my 20+ year old bikes way back then... ) he is local. I think the live.journal bikepirates site is wrong.