What a portrait, those eyes look like he did two six-day races on his own in twelve days...

Am I the only one who has never heard of this brand until this thread. Some nice looking road bikes!,,,,BD

63 world and Olympic titles have been won on a RIH, so you can safely assume they ride as nice as they look. But I think the men behind RIH were always more concerned with, and better at building bikes than developing the business.

Saronni. nice post. the funny thing is that I have a comparable RIH dating late 50 begin 60s. this one has 5411 as a frame number. notice the different nervex lugs. this baby is for sale by the way. http://www.flickr.com/photos/dutchbi...7631730024923/ http://link.marktplaats.nl/692158071

elderly home barnfind
 

Hello,
First I like to thank you all for the amount of information on this site. It helped me in my first steps of discovering my bike. Like example to find the place of the serial number of my bike.:thumb:

Since my youth I own a RIH frame that my father turned in to a nice race bike for me by painting the frame blue and adding a shimano 600 set to it. After years of cycling I left my elderly house, studied, married and started my own family, and the bike gathered dust. Until this year when the rice bike virus caught up on me again since my first miles on my pinarello. And my enthusiasm is growing. So I dug up the old RIH and since then the internet hours for the quest for information are a real competition to my training schedule. The thing is that I can't find the correct build year of my bike nor the colour numbers and correct decals for my planned restoration. I hope you can help me out.

The frame number is 6597 under the lower part of the head tube. Underneath the frame there is a number 40 that doesn't mean a thing to me. Also see the photo's.

greetings
http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=331004http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=331005http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=331006http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=331007http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=331008http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=331009http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=331012http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=331013http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=331014http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=331015

Wow, nice bike!! Love the whole combination of color, lugs, the whole package! Lower that stem though, it looks dangerous!,,,,BD

And let me be the first to say, PLEASE don't repaint this bike! Disassemble, carefully clean/polish the paint and the components, and reassemble with new cables and fresh grease. I think you will be shocked at how nicely it will turn out. By all means touch up the few chips, but I see nothing that warrants a repainting.

Hello, Martyl, welcome to the unofficial RIH owners club! Lovely bike. Fifties, I'd say, with that serial number and those lugs. I agree with BD: just clean, lube, polish and take it from there. Pretty cool decals too. A bit small for you, isn't it?

Thanks for the enthusiastic reactions. I admit the colour is a good one but a rat-look bike is not the thing I want. Besides, the frame was painted by my father and is not in a original colour. Does anyone had the numbers of the original colours?

No, but metallic red was quite popular. Have a look at woutervanwijk's RIH from the same era (see post 64) for reference.

Clean and polish it, then it will not look like a rat bike. Hell, it doesn't even look like a rat bike as is? I guess I'm just more nostalgic than the next guy. All I have to say on the subject. It is yours to do with as you wish.,,,,BD

Polish can do some amazing things... The shop owner where I brought it to measure it for the housing, KNOWS vintage bikes. The first thing she said coming around the counter, was "Who did you get to do the repaint on it?":D.

Before....

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...ps697d3dc5.jpg

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...psfba2c18d.jpg

After...

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...psbba2723b.jpg

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...psfbc7f781.jpg

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...ps29f75554.jpg

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...ps81bdd4c5.jpg

^ That's a mighty nice looking bike, BD! Even though it's not a RIH, I'll let it stay as an example of what elbow grease can accomplish. (BTW, who did do the paint job? :D)

@Martyl: I agree with Bikedued re keeping your paint. You are not going to improve on the current paint job unless you have it professionally done, which will be costly, and it will still not be original. At best, it will look like another RIH. Yours is special.
Also, I think it is a very nice shade of blue, that fits the bike. Clean, polish and line the lugs with a gold paint marker. And I, for one, really like those Cycles Champion decals.
If you want to spend money, I'd spend it on a nice, well-used Brooks Professional saddle (that will improve the looks if only because it will allow you to drop the seat pin a couple of cm's) and maybe some more period-correct blingy parts. A chromed cottered Stronglight crankset would be nice.

Having said that, it's your bike, not mine, so please feel free to completely disregard all of the above. :) Enjoy your RIH!

Hello everyone,
First: BD, I love you're bike. The paint is still in a very good condition, also are the decals. Wauw :thumb:

In the last weeks I followed my own stubborn advice (sorry) and removed the blue paint on a few spots on my frame in search for the original colour. And what I found what a combination of mostly gold and a red contrast colour on the vertical and diagonal tubes. I also found an old photo from myself on the bike at the age of about 13, and yes it was a golden bike.

Another nice thing that happened to me last week is that I finally got in contact with Wim van der Kaaij, who is restarting with a shop in Amsterdam. His goal is to train a group of youngsters and to learn them the old school frame building. Nice to know that there seems to be an next step in the history of RIH. It was nice to speak to Wim and hear the old stories of Peter Post and Kneteman.
It seems that they plan to restart at the end of this year, so that gives me the opportunity to let my frame respray in the original colour. So it will become a winter project.
Keep you posted!

wow, that's awesome news that vd. Kaaij is restarting his shop! where do I sign up for a framebuilding course with him?

You know you're going to have to post that picture now, don't you? :)

That probable restart is good news indeed. I had heard it from several sources but yours seems to be the most direct source up till now :)

I have swapped the, as it turned out just too little blue Rih, from this thread out for another pretty one that fits me better by the way. ;)

Do we get to see it?

Here it is, I was waiting for an opportunity to shoot them with a more inspiring background but these will have to do.
The blue Rih went to a girl that posted an ad on marktplaats specifically asking for a Rih in that size so I think it has found a good home

http://i41.tinypic.com/11gro5s.jpg

I bought this copper/celeste coloured frame together with the crankset which already had this celeste infill and the celeste cage.

http://i39.tinypic.com/2cdzj80.jpg

Finished with nuovo record and a pretty Ideale saddle and it is nr 9082

Beautiful! That celeste/copper combo is interesting, but it works great. The only minor point is that the infills are a bit too green. The saddle is amazing as well.

Thank you! Nice bike too. And yes, that saddle is terrific.

Yes, great colour combo. No fan of the modernish tape and cage. Would try to find period correct substitutes for that.

Newbaum makes Celeste. Wrap it from the center of the bars down to the drops, no tape end tape.

Thnx for the input.
I have just been playing with this colour combo, no real fan of this corktape myself as the colour turned out is to light compared to the rest and it is to newish for this bike indeed.
I had also seen that Celeste Newbaums indeed as a good altenative.
As soon as I find a reasonable way of getting it to Europe (probably when one of my friends make the trip from *******) I will certainly look for an upgrade, no hurry as it is not readily available in Europe apparently. :)

The cage is yet to be decided. I actually like it but I see your point Mel.

I am not quite ready with it anyway as I thought the ride felt unstable compared to the blue Rih's i have/had for instance.

As a first test I will try it out with another set of wheels to see if that makes the difference.

Wauw, pullup, this bike looks like new. Must say an interesting colour combination, but it looks fresh.

okay non-fixie, just for you so please keep it quiet. http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=332854

Unfortunately you can't see much of the bike. But as you can see the colour is gold. Wim van der Kaaij told me that there were some problems with that colour, that it would not stick very good. These days the paints are much better.

That, sir, is one of the nicest pictures I've seen on this forum in a long while. Thanks for sharing it. I'm revising my opinion on the repaint. It would indeed be very cool to restore it.

http://www.bikeforums.net/attachment...4&d=1375633982

Great picture indeed :)
Someday i will have to dig up my old biking pics

Short update on the RIH;

Got the following parts and some of them are already on the RIH.

Dura Ace PD-7401 pedals
Dura Ace BR-7403 brakes
Dura Ace 7400 hubs with Mavic open 4 CD rims
Dura Ace ST-7400 shifters

Pictures are coming soon!!

Today a customer came in the store and he has a RIH model Campagnolo with serial number 83125. Which build year could this RIH be?

125th build from 1983 would be a good guess. Sometime after he took over, Wim van der Kaaij introduced a new numbering system, where the serial number is preceded by a date. I've seen YYserial and MYYserial.

BTW, did you tell the customer to come here and show his bike? :)