Trade? Rambouillet for lugged Roadini

[Arvi]

Hello. I'm tentatively considering whether my new to me Rambouillet (blue, size 58) has a long term home in my stable. It's a great bike, but I already have a perfect-for-me 700x30 road bike and a 650x42 randonneur, and the Ram overlaps with these.

A 54 lugged roadini would fit me and be a little more different, with bigger tires and slacker angles. Let me know if a trade (with $ to balance as needed) interests anyone. I'm in Oakland, CA.

(I would not be interested in other, stouter-tubed Riv models or non Rivs, thanks!)

[Shannon Menkveld]

I'd not be at all surprised if even the Roadini has thicker tubing than your Rambouillet. If that's true, the Roadini will not only be heavier, but noticably stiffer. If you're sensitive to a stiff bike, I can see you preferring one or the other on that basis alone. (I dislike stiff frames. Others prefer them. Most don't care.)

Just a thought.

--Shannon

*Also, that's a stunning bike. I'd have to actively hate it before I'd sell something that pretty.

[iamkeith]

On Monday, February 16, 2026 at 1:00:25 AM UTC-5 shannon....@gmail.com wrote:

I'd not be at all surprised if even the Roadini has thicker tubing than your Rambouillet. If that's true, the Roadini will not only be heavier, but noticably stiffer. If you're sensitive to a stiff bike, I can see you preferring one or the other on that basis alone. (I dislike stiff frames. Others prefer them. Most don't care.)

Just a thought.

--Shannon

That's a good point.  I have this vague recollection that the 58cm was the cutoff pount after which some of the tubing became more stout, too.   I could be wrong, but I have a 60 Ram, next size up, so it stuck with me for some reason.  It might have been a number of years back when the someone in this group was measuring members' bikes and creating a spreadsheet.

[Patrick Moore]

That is a very nice Ram indeed. I owned a 58 of the same edition. I think that I'd have Shannon's view if I were in your position. Won't the Ram take true 38s? My 58 took true 32s with fenders, tho' the gap between tire and fender was less than ideal. It was a darned nice bike. Tho' have to confess that I did sell mine on for overlap reasons; but then OTOH, those it overlapped with were lighter tubed road bikes with even more tire clearance.

OTOH again, the Roadini gets universal praise. OTOH yet again, I thought I was not sensitive to tubing gauge and wall thickness until I replaced an OS 2003 Riv road custom with a normal gauge thinner wall 531 clone; yes, a difference.

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[iamkeith]

I take that back.  I must be thinking about a different bike.  Here's historical info on ram tubing:

https://web.archive.org/web/20070513053057/http://rivbike.com/webalog/frames/50074.html

BTW, it was Reed [Idlewide?] that was measuring tubes.  Look for threads titled "unmeeting", from around 2008.

[Arvi]

Thanks for the kind words! Yes, it's a nice bike and takes 38s for sure. (Shown with tires that measure 37mm actual and there's still some room).

Yes, Reed Idlewild was the one with ultrasonic tube measurements. His sheet has two Rams with oversize ~8/5/8 top tubes (which matches the info above), and a Roadeo with oversize ~7/5/7. For what it's worth, when I asked Riv about tubing, Will told me "the Roadini is similar to a Ram, and the Roadeo is lighter than either".

-Arvi

On Monday, February 16, 2026 at 8:50:40 AM UTC-8 iamkeith wrote:

I take that back.  I must be thinking about a different bike.  Here's historical info on ram tubing:

https://web.archive.org/web/20070513053057/http://rivbike.com/webalog/frames/50074.html

BTW, it was Reed [Idlewide?] that was measuring tubes.  Look for threads titled "unmeeting", from around 2008.

On Monday, February 16, 2026 at 11:30:47 AM UTC-5 iamkeith wrote:

On Monday, February 16, 2026 at 1:00:25 AM UTC-5  wrote:

I'd not be at all surprised if even the Roadini has thicker tubing than your Rambouillet. If that's true, the Roadini will not only be heavier, but noticably stiffer. If you're sensitive to a stiff bike, I can see you preferring one or the other on that basis alone. (I dislike stiff frames. Others prefer them. Most don't care.)

Just a thought.

--Shannon

That's a good point.  I have this vague recollection that the 58cm was the cutoff pount after which some of the tubing became more stout, too.   I could be wrong, but I have a 60 Ram, next size up, so it stuck with me for some reason.  It might have been a number of years back when the someone in this group was measuring members' bikes and creating a spreadsheet.

 

*Also, that's a stunning bike. I'd have to actively hate it before I'd sell something that pretty.

On Tuesday, February 10, 2026 at 7:17:28 PM UTC-8 Arvi wrote:

Hello. I'm tentatively considering whether my new to me Rambouillet (blue, size 58) has a long term home in my stable. It's a great bike, but I already have a perfect-for-me 700x30 road bike and a 650x42 randonneur, and the Ram overlaps with these.

A 54 lugged roadini would fit me and be a little more different, with bigger tires and slacker angles. Let me know if a trade (with $ to balance as needed) interests anyone. I'm in Oakland, CA.

(I would not be interested in other, stouter-tubed Riv models or non Rivs, thanks!)

 

[ascpgh]

I love seeing the wonderful Rambouillet builds. After I got my orange 64cm, I rode it across the country on a credit card TransAm ride with a Nelson Longflap on the saddle. Since then, mostly without luggage. Either way, I appreciate that it isn't rigid or floppy.

I did the now-uncommon thing: I learned the bike. I incorporated its character into how I ride it to take advantage of its strengths and avoid shortcomings. This is how I learned that the widest tires it can fit don't make things better; they actually dulled handling attributes that I'd come to appreciate, and produced the single tank-slapper shimmy on the front end that I ever had on that bike. I've been down that same road many times since then on supple 32s without event or concern.

I see tube wall specs with caution since frame size will dictate tube lengths, and things like the length of the parallel wall tube run between the butted segments can affect a bike's ride and handling. I ride larger frame sizes and always wondered if production model runs objectify 58cm,  once the highest-selling size, with the most optimized expression of the design, the others being a bit blurred from that.

Andy Cheatham

Pittsburgh