mobilemail

None. It's Grant Peterson.

Darth Lefty 

Grant Peterson has seven degrees of freedom

3speedslow

I shot, I missed.

mobilemail

Grant Peterson can ride a single speed at no less than eighteen distinct cadences. Grant doesn't need to be aero because the wind obeys him.

jethin

Grant Petersen once beat Johnny in a fiddle off and won the Devil's golden violin. He melted it down and forged it into an "anniversary" edition frame and sold it back to the Prince of Darkness for a handsome profit.

Dave Cutter

I finally got around to downloading "Just Ride" to my phone. So I'll have it handy for reading at those times when I am forced to... just wait.

John Hood

I probably agree with about 75% of the stuff GP writes, but those Rivendell bikes are just stupid expensive. Most of the reason I like the C&V stuff is because there is a lot of it that is high quality stuff at a good price. The Rivendell stuff on the other hand is pretty much new retro stuff at a cutting edge carbon fiber price.

mountaindave 

That's simply the cost of hand-making bikes in America these days. If you want cheaper, go TIG welded. If you want real cheap, look at China. If you want quality, new, American made, that's just what it costs. Frankly, I think you're getting more bang for your buck than a similarly priced carbon fiber, electronically shifting featherweight bike. Not everyone wants a Rivendell, that's why we have choices. Apparently enough people vote with their wallet to keep Rivendell going.

John Hood

I think that more precisely, that's the cost of hand-making a certain kind of bike on a small scale in America these days. Just look at all the lugged steel bikes from yesteryear. They may not have been made in America, but the places they were made weren't exactly third world and while they weren't cheap back in the day, they were nothing like the cost of a "modern" Rivendell.

mountaindave 

A nearly top of the line (e.g. Gitane Tour de France) bike-boom era bike cost around $250-ish around 1971? Inflation makes that bike cost almost 6x that in today's dollars. You can get yourself into a Sam Hillborne or Cheviot with change left over for that price. A $400 bike-boom era bike puts you easily in range of any other regular production Rivenell. Yes, small scale increases costs. But I would venture that Rivendell quality is better than what was being produced in the bike-boom era - which was still hand-made, but in large, quickly assembled quantities.

fender1

You clearly have not priced higher end carbon lately........thik 2x-3x to Riv's current pricing.

iab

Price is determined by what the market will bear.

Cost is irrelevant.

KonAaron Snake 

Production is determined by projecting price and volume figures against projected costs to develop projected margins and comparing to other possible choices. Cost is relevant in deciding what to produce and how much to produce.

RJM

Yeah, for the price of a complete Roadeo you can get a mid range carbon race bike.

noglider 

I'm eager to know what you think. Please let us know. I enjoyed it. I took some of his opinions with a grain of salt. People who don't like him don't know that's what they should be doing, which is funny, because he tells you to do just that in the beginning of the book!

etherhuffer 

The late 90's, 2000's and onward will go down in history as the most expensive bikes never ridden. There is a lot of carbon and aluminum hanging in garages all over that is not ridden. When you consider how fast a bike loses value, its truly amazing. 2K on up to keep the roof rafters from flying up in the air.

mobilemail

It's really hard for me to pay that much for a new bike when there are so many really quality old bikes around. I'm still just as at home on a 12-speed as a 33-speed...although I do appreciate compact cranks ("alpine" gearing?) and aero brake levers where the cables are out of the way.

Dave Cutter

This is a perfect book for reading in bits and pieces on a phone screen. As it appears to be written in small chunks (short chapters). It is easy light reading... with nice pose.

In the roughly 8-9% I read while waiting for my granddaughter in the school pick-up parking today. I liked some of his points on riding time... or better yet "rides"... opposed to riding "miles". Of course I'll never give up tracking miles (he called that too) but I had even decided last season to do more destination riding (instead of just logging miles).

I am now considering (thanks to Petersen) to readying a flat pedal bike with fenders and a chain guard. Maybe even put a mirror on the handle bar. Something that I can hop on and get in a short ride... before it gets dark, or just around the block in the dark since I missed riding before it got dark. Or before it rains, or on the still wet roads. No kit, no prep, just hop on and ride.

Heck... I might even consider a short slower ride without a helmet. But I haven't read that chapter yet.

rootboy 

GP strikes again!

Darth Lefty 

I read "Just Ride" and enjoyed it. It contained nothing revolutionary. I did find it odd that the guy selling $3000 "country bikes" was advocating 1980's mountain bikes for the masses, a dissonance only reinforced by the recent Clem advertising kerfuffle.

RJM

What was the kerfuffle with the Clem advertising?

John Hood

Carbon bikes start at about $800 new and go up to insanely high levels, but it's easy to find them for under $1500. Performance Bike, Nashbar, Bikes Direct and many others all carry carbon frame bikes within that price range. You probably won't get the Ultegra group set on them, but I'm guessing you wouldn't find that level of componentry on a $1500 Rivendell either.

John Hood

Sheldon Brown claimed the life expectancy of a department store bike was 75 miles from showroom floor to landfill. Unfortunately, the same is also probably true of a great many high end bikes. Just think of all the nearly new looking bikes there are on Craigslist, or of the bikes whose only wear seems to be due to neglect rather than use.

KonAaron Snake 

Beauty!

I don't know the models that well...Roadeo?

The Golden Boy 

I just saw a Rivendell Road custom on the Ebay, right before I read your post!