First Riv consideration

[G Ram]

Hello all,

I am interested in getting a Rivendell. With the Charlie H Gallop preorder coming up I am really tempted to go for it. My use case will be commuting and fun riding (mostly road) and light credit card touring (or supported tours).. Will CHP  (size 53) be a good fit for it? My PBH is 85cm (5' 9" tall). I have been thinking about either getting a AHH or Sam Hillborne but I will have to wait much longer as they are not due to arrive well into next year. Blue Lug has a Sam Hillborne frame in my size (54) - and Analog Cycles has a Appa as well. I am trying to decide which of these 3 options are worth pursuing.. Has anyone bought a frameset from BlueLug - is the importing process into US a hassle?

Anyway, very excited to join the Riv family

G Ram

[Joe Bernard]

I'm 79pbh and would get a 53 Gallop. You might want to chat with Riv about it because you can ride a 53 or 57 and the longer reach to pullback bars on the 57 may work better for you. 

Any of the 3 bikes you listed will work for your use case, the Appa may be a tad overbuilt unless you find yourself loading up bags and/or bombing down trails.

As for waiting or jumping now, my advice is always to get the one you really want. Paying a lot of bucks for a bike and later wishing you'd gotten a different one isn't fun! 

Joe Bernard 

Clearlake CA 

[Drew Fitchette]

Hey G Ram! 

Seconding Joe here, having had both the Atlantis and a Sam I'd say for what you're describing a Charlie or a Sam might be a better call. A Sam landing in between a Charlie and an Appa might be the best option as I ride mine on a lot of trails/gravel but it's zippy and fun on road rides too. The Atlantis/Appa feel a bit longer and more planted, super fun on trails/singletrack and handle full camping loads like champs. But maybe a little overbuilt for commuting/daily riding on mostly road, as Joe said. 

Congrats on taking the plunge, you won't regret it! Here's a fun reference catalog from Blue Lug if you haven't seen it.

Drew Fitchette
Atlanta GA

[Ryan Mulcahy]

Hey, the Charlie looks like such a great bike - I'm thinking I might get one on the next go-around. We have a Joe App and an Hilsen in our family and we love them both. For what it's worth we bought our Joe through Analog and it was a great experience - awesome people, awesome shop. Good luck! Whatever you get, you're not gonna regret it.

[G Ram]

Thanks everyone.. I had a great chat with Vince today and he patiently answered all my questions. Ultimately it comes down if I need more load carrying capacity - if yes, then perhaps Sam is a better choice.. which means I will have to import it from Blue Lug...I do not know how much any customs/duty will cost. Or simply try to snag a CHG and keep the loads on the bike to less than 15 lbs.. or n+1 bike:)

By the way, Vince did say that ever since the NYer article came out about Riv & Grant, the interest in Riv has increased and possibly CHG might get sold within seconds..!

[Nguyen Duy Tho]

Hi G Ram!

C&L Cycle in Montreal, Canada has a 54cm Sam available https://www.clcycle.ca/en/cadre-rivendell-sam-hillborne-allroad-lig-64150376.html

[G Ram]

Thank you. Really appreciate it 

I called C&L unfortunately this frameset was sold over the weekend it seems!

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[Piaw Na]

On Monday, October 21, 2024 at 9:08:09 PM UTC-7 grbi...@gmail.com wrote:

Thanks everyone.. I had a great chat with Vince today and he patiently answered all my questions. Ultimately it comes down if I need more load carrying capacity - if yes, then perhaps Sam is a better choice.. which means I will have to import it from Blue Lug...I do not know how much any customs/duty will cost. Or simply try to snag a CHG and keep the loads on the bike to less than 15 lbs.. or n+1 bike:)

By the way, Vince did say that ever since the NYer article came out about Riv & Grant, the interest in Riv has increased and possibly CHG might get sold within seconds..!

 Unless you're super heavy, that 15 pounds probably won't overload the bike. The rider weight limit on the frame is 220 pounds! The only time when I ever had trouble with a road bike was when I was towing 60 pounds of load in a trailer on my Ti road bike (which was so flexy my 200 pound friends said they saw the fork visibly flex when they test rode it!). Steel bikes don't fail catastrophically, and I treat my Roadini the way other people treat their MTBs.

[G Ram]

Thanks. This is reassuring. I’m 150-153 lbs on a given day.

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[Toshi Takeuchi]

I am also in the ~150 lb range, and for my A Homer Hilsen, I never felt any flex until I loaded about 20-25 lbs of groceries in the back. The bike felt sprightly with the weight in the back.  I don't know if the spring-like feeling I got riding out of the saddle is planing, but it sure felt good.

I'm guessing that the Charlie is built for ~185 lbs if not more, so I personally would not hesitate to add 20 lbs on a rear rack and another 5-10 for the front (for your weight).

Toshi in Oakland

[Donzaemon]

I've been wondering about weight limit myself. I have an AHH and weigh around 160 lb and have thought about doing some light touring with it. I wouldn't characterize the tubing as delicate at all and I feel pretty confident I can take what I think is an average loadout with it. Almost all of my gear is midrange except for maybe my 2p tent which is roughly 2.5 lbs. 

[Jason Fuller]

Based on my experience with the CHG prototype I had, the Susie I have, and the frame geo and tubing on the production CHG - I am willing to bet it will have quite a noticeable flex to the frame, but I don't mean that in a negative way at all, quite the contrary!  But if you commute with one heavier pannier like I do, it might feel weird. I found the Charlie to become overly noodly if I had stuff in my front basket and a pannier out back. 

I think that if you wanted to run a rear rack (Nitto 32R would be perfect) and pair of panniers as a typical max load, the Charlie will be perfect. If you want to be able to run a pair of panniers out back and then a sizeable load up front as well, I would wait for a Hillborne.  Keeping all the load at one end will minimize the additional stresses on the frame and I wouldn't personally worry about even heavier loads in those panniers (though I'd ride a little more gingerly at those times)  

[Ryan Mulcahy]

t's hard for me to imagine touring with the hilsen wouldn't be totally fine. we have one of those (me) and a Joe (my wife), and though the joe is clearly stouter, they don't feel too dissimilar in weight and neither is a wimpy bike in the least. I'd actually like to see a little more distance between the sam and the HH (whose non-fender clearance is now 48) in the form of at least slightly wider clearances for the former. I would like to get another riv -- I'd always like to get another riv -- and love the look and features of the Hillborne, but it seems too close to my hilsen. as things stand now, I'll prob end up getting a gallop in the next round or maybe a second, bigger joe (for me!).

[Piaw Na(藍俊彪)]

On Thu, Oct 24, 2024 at 2:13 PM Ryan Mulcahy <rmulc...@gmail.com> wrote:

it's hard for me to imagine touring with the hilsen wouldn't be totally fine. we have one of those (me) and a Joe (my wife), and though the joe is clearly stouter, they don't feel too dissimilar in weight and neither is a wimpy bike in the least.

I was re-reading Gary Erickson's Raising the Bar (https://blog.piaw.net/2008/06/raising-bar-revisited.html), and  at one point he describes glissading down a snowfield with his bike using the bike's pedals as a make-shift ice axe. The bike he was riding was a Ritchey Road Logic. My wife's Ritchey Road Logic frame is half the weight of a Roadini or Hilsen. If a Ritchey Road Logic is able to withstand that type of abuse rest assured your much beefier Rivendell can handle anything you're willing to ride.

[Patrick Moore]

FWIW. I’ve never toured but for decades I’ve carried heavy rear pannier loads (up to 50 lb) on lightweight frames including 2 Riv custom roads, a Ram, a heavy but very noodley Raleigh Technium (once carried ~20 lb of library books in a tall stack in my left pannier, nothing on right, across town), and on my best rear load carrier of them all, a very light, tout 531 1973 Motobecane Grand Record racing frame. Tubus Fly or custom racks. There was often a bit of tail wag — but less on the Motobecane for some reason! -- but apart from long distances on very rough roads I’d not worry too much about it.

IME and IMO, Rivendells are overbuilt for riders well under 200 lb and I’d not worry about it.

If I’m going to carry more than 30 lb on the current Riv-cloned 2020 Matthews with thinnish wall, normal gauge 531 tubing I do prefer to spread the load over front and rear panniers, say 20/30 f/r.

Patrick “currently about 170” Moore

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Patrick Moore

Alburquerque, Nuevo Mexico, Etats Unis d'Amerique, Orbis Terrarum

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[R Olson]

FWIW, I think Riv is very conservative in their weight ratings.  Even their "light" offerings are very sturdy.  I am 275 lbs and have owned several of their bikes and never had a problem.  That includes a 61cm Roadeo and 61cm Roadini.  Both were pretty stiff even with my weight.  I road both mostly on pavement, but also on some light gravel trails around the City (Denver).  I put maybe 10-15 extra pounds on the Roadini in a rear saddlebag and no issues.  Actually the most flexible Riv I had was a 64cm Clem L, which is probably understandable given the low stepover and very long effective top tube length.  I used to load that one up with groceries all the time in a front basket - probably another 20 pounds.  It was fine, but a bit flexy.

-Ryan

[Dorothy C]

G Ram 

One consideration I would have for a commuting bike is a kickstand plate - the Charlie and Roadini don’t have that. I own a 47cm Roadini (650b) that I was able to make work with the Soma chainstay mounted kickstand if I am careful about what I have on the bike, but my 50cm Roadini (700c) wouldn’t work with a Greenfield aftermarket plate or the Soma - they kept loosening, and I was afraid of mashing the chainstays if I tightened them any more. This was with Newbaums or strips of leather underneath. 

Homer, Platy, Sam, Clem, Roaduno, Atlantis, all of those come with kickstand plates. 

I have a multi modal commute on the train where the main bike support for a stack of up to three bikes is a strap round the upper part of the bike. There are wheel straps at the side, but they are fiddly to reach without kneeling on the floor. This is on Metrolink in Los Angeles. 

[Jason Fuller]

I think the Charlie does have a kickstand plate?  I could be mistaken, I saw a photo of the BB area that looked like there was none but this photo from the Riv product page leads me to believe that it's there, but was just out of frame in the other photo because of the long chainstays.  

[Dorothy C]

You are right - I called and spoke to James, the Gallop does have a kickstand plate

[Richard Rose]

I doubt Rivendell would manufacture a long chainstay bike without a kickstand plate? I think it doubles as a a stiffener for those long stays. I think it actually works quite well.:)

Sent from my iPhone

On Oct 31, 2024, at 12:40 PM, Dorothy C <doroth...@gmail.com> wrote:

You are right - I called and spoke to James, the Gallop does have a kickstand plate

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[Ryan Schlichting]

Hi all, this is actually my first post. I’ll send another introductory post soon but I wanted to respond to this. 

I live in the East bay so I actually tested out the Charlie Gallup a few days ago. It definitely has a kickstand plate. I loved the ride. I’m originally a roadie and was thinking about getting a Roadini next month but decided to try out the Gallup just for fun. I was blown away by it. You can really feel the flex but in a springy way. I rode it on two different days just to be sure and decided to get one. It’s the ultimate comfortable road bike that’s still light and fast. Even though it’s meant for swept back bars, I think drops will be perfect for it as long as I get the right stem length. 

Anyway, my two cents worth.

Ryan 

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