Originally Posted by
canali
Rivendell is an innovative company that offers real benefits to the
customers it serves, the non-competitive cycling enthusiast (which
includes tourists of many varieties.) The list of advancements in the
technology of cycling that Rivendell supports could go on and on for quite
a while.
Um sorry, but this is not wholly true.
Pretty much all Rivendell have done is picked up a copy of the Cycling (UK Publication) yearbook from the 50's/60's and reintroduced a style of bicycle to a market oblivious to the fact they ever existed.
Full length mudguards, saddlebags, (comparitively) large frames, fancy lugs, all these things are at least 60 years old.
Whilst I can't agree that Rivendell are innovative, they are certainly inventive. Taking something that seems "innovative" and because they are in a field of (almost) 1, slapping a boutique price on is certainly shrewd.
If you wanted to be as shrewd, you could do worse than pick up a 50's/60's frame off ebay uk for a few hundred of your US dollars. Fancy lugs, room for 32c's/mudguards etc made by some old hand who probably churned out 10 frames a year.
Rivendell is just emperor's new clothes, which isn't that bad in itself, but why pay through the nose?.