Appaloosa 5,000km / Roadini 3,000km impressions

[Dan]

I’m privileged to have been a Rivendell rider for almost two years now. In that time, I’ve ridden my two Rivs for a combined ~8,000km. To put that in perspective, that is just over half of the total number of kilometres I have ridden in the same time period.  I thought now would be a good time to reflect on what I like about each bike, some changes I’ve made recently, and what I think the future holds for each.

Appaloosa

I’ve come to think of the Appaloosa as a dependable companion. Its combination of unequalled comfort (particularly for my upper body), wide-enough tyres and generous and intuitive gearing/shifting mean that it fades away beneath me as I ride. It’s weird to say, but on the Appaloosa I sometimes feel like I’m not riding at all, but simply going. To be clear, that’s a good thing.

I reach for the Appaloosa when I want to get out into the hills on fire trails, or want to explore the suburbs in an unhurried way. It’s my first choice when I lead monthly social rides as on it I am comfortable and in-control so I can focus on leading the ride, not what my bike is doing. It doesn’t mind being loaded up for trips to the shops or cruising between cafes with friends. 

In terms of load-carrying, I’ve reached a nice place where I use the half frame bag for day rides when I want to retain full steering control, a basket bag for commuting or overnighters, and a rear rack and panniers when I want to carry more. The Appaloosa is a champion at carrying loads in the rear.

Sometimes I find myself wondering what the two-degree slacker head tube on the newer Appaloosas would be like. Or whether a ‘proper’ mountain bike would be better for navigating singletrack. But the reality is, I do that infrequently, and on the Appaloosa I can still go there - go anywhere. It really is the best bike for 90% of the riding I do, and 90% good for all else.

The most recent change I have made on this bike is to swap the tyres for Fleecer Ridge in the Endurance casing. These are quiet, comfortable, and feel fast enough for their size. They hold air well and grip well enough off-road. Their ~2mm reduction in size vs the UD Mars tyres I was running mean they don’t rub on my kickstand any more when pedalling hard. They are a great tyre for the bike.

What would I change? Well, I do want to try those new Bar68s, one day. But I’ll keep the Ortho bars on hand because they just feel so good. 

Roadini

The Roadini is my first ‘road’ bike and it has achieved my aim in being a bike that I can ride when I want to feel swift, ride with friends on road bikes, or travel long-ish distances mostly on the road and in a fast-ish way.

I’ve found that the first year of ownership of any bike inevitably involves the changing and adjusting of parts to mould the original build into something that better suits the way you actually ride. For the Roadini, that has meant changing the brifters for the excellent TRP RRL brake levers (seriously, they feel soo good) and bar-end shifters. More recently, I made two very, very minor changes that I can only describe as having ‘clicked’ pieces of the ride-experience puzzle into place.

The first of these was to slam the stem. I know, I know, it’s a Riv! So slam is a very relative term. But with the quill stem as low as it can go, the bars end up a couple of cm below the saddle, and a slight feeling I had, not of discomfort, but of something just not quite right, was gone. It feels good for the riding I do on the bike.

The second was regarding the brakes. In my 1,000km-impressions post here I mentioned how I was having trouble setting up the Paul Racers without having the pads of the front brake rub the tyre under hard braking. Over Christmas just past I spent a lot of time obsessing over other Roadini builds on Insta and Blue Lug when I came to a revelation. I’m running fenders on my Roadini, which is relatively rare. And my fenders were initially set up with the mounting point between the brake caliper and the fork crown. The height of the tang and the proximity to the headset meant that the brake calipers were cantilevered ~5-6mm further out from the crown than they would otherwise be if the fenders weren’t there. I suspected that this, combined with how much lower in the arms the pads had to be as a result, was contributing to the flex I was experiencing. I was right.

My LBS sourced some Sheldon fender nuts and mounted the fenders on the back of the crown/brake bridge. The rubbing was able to be easily adjusted away, brake lever feel improved, and the fender line and coverage was better. Finally!

The only thing I am currently thinking of changing on the Roadini is to try some ‘true’ 38mm tyres when I wear through these. The ~41mm that the Barlow Pass ELs measure just, and I mean just, work trouble-free under my fenders. But they look and feel great!

The combination

The Appaloosa and Roadini complement each other perfectly and realistically cover all of the riding that I actually do. If I could only have two bikes it would be these! But I worry about locking them up while I’m out to dinner so I have a singlespeed I use then, a folding bike unlocks a whole new travel experience, and so on….

I’m grateful to this community and to Rivendell for championing a slow, practical, joy-focused way of cycling. I reckon if I see someone with a Riv, I can be fairly sure they’ll be someone I’ll get along with and whose views on a whole range of things are similar to mine.

Thank you for reading!

[ascpgh]

Very nice write-up and summary of your time with both bikes, Dan. Thanks for putting into words what so many of us go through as we "settle in" a new bike.

You've delivered great descriptions of use that define a two-bike stable for your riding.  I really enjoyed your Roadini impressions and changes; it is similar to my Rambouillet's evolution, on a shorter timeframe. 

Andy Cheatham

Pittsburgh

[Isaak Oliansky]

I concur with your feelings on ole' Joe Appaloosa, I've had some of the same experiences. The Ortho bars do make an excellent pairing. I've got the same basket setup as you on a lightweight Nitto rack. This saved a good bit of weight moving away from the Tumbleweed pannier rack, which shimmed when top-loaded with a basket. Moving to two rear panniers and a lightweight Tubus Vega has been a dream. I wish you and Joe many more happy kilometers together! 

[Patrick Moore]

Two very nice bikes; kudos!

Apaloosa: Following someone on his tall Clem the other day very agilely negotiating tight* flat singletrack makes me want to try a sweptback-bar Rivendell on dirt roads and tracks. I've thought about a Clem before; it's still on the "Wouldn't It Be Nice To Have" list, after the Brompton.

His Clem was no more a handicap to him than the extreme -- 3" -- toe overlap of my Matthews "road bike for dirt" with 54s and 80 mm fenders was to me.

Roadini:

That's very nice; and set up very like the way I have my bikes set up: bar 2-3 cm below saddle, saddle far enough back so that your torso cantilevers (held up by core muscles) over the bar to avoid hand/arm/shoulder pressure -- the "piano playing" test. I noticed that the other day on a long -- for me 5 hour ride of which at ~3.5 were riding the bike. Really, setting up the saddle with sufficient setback is critical to fit; measure saddle wrt bb, measure bar/brake levers wrt saddle.

I've just got a new seatpost with decent setback for the new-to-me Roadeo, in order to get my saddle back another 1/2" or so, and thus properly positioned wrt the bb. The bike came with a Thompson Elite no-setback post and despite hammering the Flite on the nose with a rubber mallet it's 1/2" too far forward.

[Very nicely discounted Paul Tall and Handsome, new tho' third owner, of which I cut ~4" off the bottom, as not needed for the Roadeo. Saved 63 grams!]

Patrick Moore, amputating bar widths and seapost lengths for 40 years, in ABQ, NM.

On Mon, Mar 9, 2026 at 12:36 AM Dan <gril...@gmail.com> wrote:

... 

Roadini

[Jason Fuller]

Enjoyable read and nice pairing! I have a similar two-Riv quiver of Hillborne and Bombadil, so a lot of what you describe are things I've found also - but now you've got me wanting to try lowering the bars on my Hillborne - and am now considering putting canti's back on so I can use the RRL levers (which I have on another bike and totally agree, they are amazing).  Currently running V-brakes with the Cane Creek linear pull drop levers, but their ergonomics leave something to be desired. Not awful, but not super comfy either. 

I also fully identify with "I could easily live with only these two bikes, yet I have several others which I also really enjoy owning"

[Nick A.]

Agreeing on all counts. Atlantis/Roadini over here and couldn't be more pleased with the contrast between the two. To me, my coveted Atlantis allows me to do anything. And Leo allows me to feel fast and free.

Wishing the wind for everyone.

Nick in Falls Chuch

[Dan]

Thank you everyone.

Patrick:

I thought of you when I realised the subtle but welcome difference in riding position brought about by a couple of cm change in bar height. Nothing crazy - just different, and better for now. Nice too to hear that the tweaking doesn't stop even after 40 years!

PS: A Brompton is great. It grows on you. Surprisingly fun in a very different sort of way. Took me a while to get everything set up as I like though - the challenge was saddle setback!

Jason + Nick: 

The 'fat Riv / thin Riv' combo (to borrow Blue Lug's terminology) is great, isn't it. Nick, I couldn't have put it better myself when you said the Roadini allows you to 'feel fast and free'! Jason - embrace the RRLs! I'm honestly surprised how much I like them. I like fiddling with the QR buttons as I wait at stop lights too.

[Robert Lord]

Great write up Dan, are you a fellow Australian based Riv enjoyer?

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[Dan]

Yes, there are dozens of us! (maybe)

I'm in Adelaide. I've met one other Riv enjoyer here and know of one or two others.