Roadini ride quality

[Douglas Toh]

Hey everyone

I've just gotten a Roadini 2022 frame in 54cm, looking to save up money for parts and build it up slowly.

I'm really excited- never owned a Riv before, much less a Roadini.

For Roadini owners, how does it ride?

Cheers,

Doug

[Piaw Na]

I got the same frame and it rides great. I think the BB could be 5mm lower, but I think you'll be hard pressed to find a production frame that's got a 80mm BB drop anyway. The bike handle greats on pavement and even better off pavement --- I've ridden it with 25mm tires, 30mm tires (which measured 28mm), and it now has 40mm tires (which measure 38mm) on it and I ride it on trails that other people ride mountain bikes on, but that I don't like driving to. I bought it as a backup bike for my custom touring frame and it serves very well for that.

[Brady Smith]

I have the 2020 Roadini in 54cm. I would describe the ride quality as "fabulous." By comparison, I also have a Black Mountain Cycles Monster Cross that I set up for randonneuring. In most situations, I would say the bikes are quite similar, even allowing for the fact that the BMC is shod in 44mm Rene Herse tires and the Roadini currently has 32s. The biggest difference I've discerned is in stability at speed. The BMC starts to feel a little squirrelly north of 30 mph, never enough to be worrisome, but just enough so that I don't push down canyons on that bike as hard as I do on the Roadini, which is stable even beyond 40mph. I also think I can say that the Roadini spared me significant injury on one occasion. Last summer I hit something (an unseen rock or pothole, probably) coming down a steep hill at maybe 25 mph, hard enough to knock me on to the top tube and bend the handlebars down a bit. I remember thinking, "I am going to crash," but the bike kept going in a straight line long enough for me to bring it to a controlled stop. The front rim was dinged and I had to get out the allen keys to put the bars back where they should be, but otherwise everything was in good working order. Great bike. I can't ride it enough. 

Brady in SLC

[Piaw Na]

I looked up the BMC Cross geometry and it has a higher BB and with bigger tires would ride even taller, which would lead to the feeling of instability at speed. I've never understood why gravel bikes that aren't going to jump logs are designed with such high BBs. It seems to me that the bigger the tire you intend to use, the lower the BB should be so you don't end up with the instability at speed that you describe.