Rivendell Prototype mountain bike for sale

[David Blessing]

I am offering for sale, my Rivendell, prototype mountain bike. I do not know a lot of history about this frame. I believe that it was one of only a few prototypes of a mountain bike format made by Rivendell. I have owned this bike for many years and have never run into anyone else who owns one.  I am not sure when it was made, although some posts I have looked at suggest that Rivendell was planning a mountain bike somewhere around 1995. I purchased this frame from a BOB, built it up and rode it once before hanging it in my office shop along side of my Atlantis and my Rambouillet, both of which are also for sale.  I am approaching 71 years of age, and it is time to clean out the stable.

This bicycle has a frame that is 49cm from center to the top of the seat tube or 19”. I’m not up on mountain bike sizing, but I am 5’9” and I think it fits me fine. This Bicycle has White Industries hubs attached to 26 inch Velocity Aeroheat AT  rims, a Shimano Deore Mega 9 front derailleur, and Shimano Deore rear derailleur, cool unidentified handlebar, and Nitto Technomic stem. It also has Dura Ace brake levers and Suntour XC Pro cantilever  brakes. The rack pictured goes with the bike. Stamped into the bottom bracket is the serial number K96087. The saddle and pedals are not included and  I will probably keep the Baggins bag. I am not sure if  the seat post is a Nitto or not. The crank is a Suntour XC Pro triple, 42x32x20.  Shifters are Silver Bar ends. This bicycle is beautiful, but not new.  It has some nicks and scrapes especially around the chain area.  Some can be touched up, a couple would only be repairable with a repaint.  I have included a picture of the worst.  I call them beausage. 

This bicycle will be packed by my wonderful friends at the Bike Shed in Kearney, Nebraska and shipped via bike flights. I will be happy to subtract $200 from my price if you would like to road trip it to my home or near my home near Elwood, Nebraska to pick it up.

Price:  $1850.00 shipped to you in the CONUS.  

Should you be interested, I will be happy to supply you with further pictures of your choosing.

[Cyclofiend Jim]

My, my, my.... that is a piece of RBW history right there...

My guess would be a 1996 build. I think the "K" meant a "Kurt" build. (Curt Goodrich) But I'm not sure. (J or JS would have been for Joe Starck)

RR#3 talks about the Mountain model (Mountain/Expedition was another name for it) - there were _very_ few ever built.

https://notfine.com/rivreader/RR03.pdf

(page 37)

[Josh C]

Love it, just killer. 

[Richard Rose]

A beautiful bicycle indeed. I have but one question & please consider this coming from a Gus owner; what about this made Riv think “mountain bike”?

Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 4, 2024, at 7:24 PM, Cyclofiend Jim <cyclo...@gmail.com> wrote:

My, my, my.... that is a piece of RBW history right there...

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[Johnny Alien]

That's what rigid mountain bikes were like in the 90's. The geometry and 26" wheels size would be the primary thing.

[lucky...@gmail.com]

And the drop bars! A la Cunningham! 

On Jul 4, 2024, at 18:08, Johnny Alien <johnny....@gmail.com> wrote:

That's what rigid mountain bikes were like in the 90's. The geometry and 26" wheels size would be the primary thing.

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[David Blessing]

This bicycle has been sold.  Thanks for viewing and being so kind.  

[Ryan]

That is a piece of history all right. This might be a moot point since the bike has been sold, not surprising...but I seem to remember in the depths of Rivendell lore, either in  a reader,  maybe in a  response to a question someone asked that Waterford assigned the letters of the alphabet sequentially to indicate the month of production A=Jan, B= Feb....so K=November and then followed it with year of production

[Danny]

Very cool! I know it's sold, but can we get some more photos of it in this thread before it's shipped off?

Danny

Madison, WI

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[David Blessing]

I will do my best. It gets a bit boxed up, today at the bike shop. What pictures are you wanting?

Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 4, 2024, at 10:23 PM, Danny <scre...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[David Blessing]

Tried to send multiple pictures, but they were rejected by Google groups. Sorry about that.

On Jul 4, 2024, at 10:23 PM, Danny <scre...@gmail.com> wrote:

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[Danny]

Thanks for attempting, probably just too big of file sizes for one post.

If you want to PM me with the images I can resize and post.

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[Ted Durant]

On Thursday, July 4, 2024 at 6:10:17 PM UTC-5 David Blessing wrote:

Stamped into the bottom bracket is the serial number K96087. 

It was built in Waterford in 1996. The "K" indicates which builder at Waterford wielded the torch. 

Ted Durant

Milwaukee WI USA 

[R. Alexis]

That is a Rivendell Mountain from the first production bikes made by Waterford when Rivendell first started. From what I understand very few Mountains were produced. My guess is probably less than 50. I have one that I ordered new from Rivendell. 

You are relatively local and this is in my size range. If I was not overrun with bikes and didn't already have one I would have snagged it and been at your place today!

Hope the new owner is happy with it. 

Reginald Alexis

On Thursday, July 4, 2024 at 6:10:17 PM UTC-5 David Blessing wrote:

[Father of Sam]

Hello all,

Weird that this is my first time ever responding or posting anything to this group in 15 years, but I thought it might be helpful to drop this here:

https://waterfordbikes.com/w/support/serial-numbers/

The letter corresponds to the month of the year (skipping 'I'), so this beautiful bike was the 87th frame built at Waterford in October of '96.  What an absolute treasure!

-Peter

NorCal

[Ryan]

Thanks for that Peter...I knew I had read about this somewhere and wasn't just making stuff up...I do know the later customs have the initials of the builder along with the year. That being said, it is a lovely bike from the classic era and may go some way to explaining why I can't seem to let go of my 97 A/R yet. Hoarding, I know

[Cyclofiend Jim]

Ahhhh... of course. 
The Mountain was "pre" Joe/Curt builds. 

Thanks for sharing that. 

[R. Alexis]

Who is the lucky duck that gets this beauty? 

Off topic, really should get a local area RBW/iBOB ride together. 

Thanks,

Reginald Alexis

[Brian Turner]

Jeff Frane (from Wilde Bikes, founder of All City Cycles, @bikejerks on instagra) purchased all three Rivs from this seller.

He made an Instagram post about it the day after this post was made here.

-Brian

Lexington KY

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[George Schick]

I'm puzzled by the posted frame size for this bike.  For a bike with a 19" seat tube I would expect to see a much shorter head tube.  Unless it just has a top tube with a lot of slope.  It's hard to tell from that photo because the picture was take with the bike on a downward slant.

On Thursday, July 4, 2024 at 6:10:17 PM UTC-5 David Blessing wrote:

[Eric Daume]

26” wheels will have a longer head tube, plus I think the Riv mtb frame did have a bit of top tube slope. 

Eric

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[Ted Durant]

On Jul 6, 2024, at 10:54 AM, Eric Daume <eric...@gmail.com> wrote:

26” wheels will have a longer head tube, plus I think the Riv mtb frame did have a bit of top tube slope. 

The top tube slope on mine (18” C-T) was 7 degrees.

Ted Durant

Milwaukee WI 53217

[Richard Rose]

Having just finished a fairly raucous singletrack session on my Gus I like how Riv’s concept of “mountain bike” has evolved.

Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 6, 2024, at 11:57 AM, Ted Durant <tedd...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Josh C]

Richard, 

Most folks don't think of the Gus when they imagine a mountain bike, either. I envision a thread in 20 years in which someone wonders what Riv was thinking considering the Gus a "mountain" (hilly) bike...

[David Ross]

Mine feels like a gigantic rigid XC bike. I get fairly rowdy on it but my tires never leave the ground. 

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[Patrick Moore]

Wasn't the original Riv mountain bike built generally along the lines of the All Rounder which was modeled on the Bridgestone XOs, thus with far lower stack than later Rivs?

The 55 cm (c-c) '92 XO-1 had a 56.5 or 57 cm tt and the All Rounder was modeled on this, thus with far less tt slope and shorter head and steerer than later Riv models. My 26" wheel '95 road custom was built with the All Rounder as general model (tho' with steeper angles and road tubing and lugs) -- in fact IIRC it had an even shorter 54 cm c-c st  -- with the same tt and only a slight upslope, along with only modestly extended head and steerer. To get a drop bar to fit properly you just had to use a high-rise stem. A Technomic or T Deluxe or Dirt Drop would have worked fine had they been available then, but I got a custom Salsa. 

For context, my ideal level tt frame size is 60 X 56-57 c-c. Two later 26" wheel road customs had taller frames (57 and 58, c-c), more tt slope, and much more steerer and head extension, so that I could get my Maes Parallels sufficiently high with standard "7" road stems.

[Richard Rose]

Josh, absolutely correct! Except I don’t have to wait - folks on the trail look at me like I am nuts & call my bike a “cruiser”. So it goes.

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On Jul 6, 2024, at 7:06 PM, Josh C <getjosh...@gmail.com> wrote:

Richard, 

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[Ted Durant]

On Jul 6, 2024, at 10:42 PM, Patrick Moore <bert...@gmail.com> wrote:

Wasn't the original Riv mountain bike built generally along the lines of the All Rounder which was modeled on the Bridgestone XOs, thus with far lower stack than later Rivs?

The Bridgestone to Riv jump was:

RB -> Road

XO -> All Rounder

MB -> ATB

The geometry on my Riv ATB was very close to the MB-1. The ATB was originally supposed to have a fork crown that looked something like a lugged unicrown. There was no way to bend the 753 blades to work that way, so they ended up using the All Rounder fork crowns, instead. 

At the time Grant was starting to include top tube upslope even on road frames, plus an extended head tube and spacers in the headset to “get da bars up dere”.  I remember the Reader copy trying to sell the idea and saying “it’s barely noticeable”, acknowledging the resistance people had to something that might look weird. Then the bike industry adopted the idea of “compact frame” geometry with sloping top tubes and sold it as a way to make frames lighter and stiffer, and suddenly sloped top tubes on road bikes were cool. It was a while later than the big bike companies started selling “endurance” road bikes with the sloping top tube and extended head tube to have a higher bar height. 

[Cyclofiend Jim]

George - read through the description of it in RR3 (page 37) and they talk about the taller head tube.

https://notfine.com/rivreader/RR03.pdf

J

[R. Alexis]

I was always curious what the the original Rivendell Mountain fork crown was supposed to look like. Per Rivendell Reader Grant writes: 

"The Rivendell mountain crown is less ornate, but it’s not your basic TIG-welded unicrown. The fork blades are silver-brazed to a beautiful cast lug, which distributes stress better than a TIG weld. It’s based on a design Waterford wanted to sell to S, after the separation, but it had the misfortune of being conceived at about the same time as suspension forks, so marketing forces snuffed it before it could ever be made. I saw the design, liked it, and added the shoulder window. No place for an epaulet!"

The description leaves a lot to the imagination. I was a little disappointed that The Rivendell Mountain didn't have its own specific design lugs. Don't know how I would have felt if it turned out to be the lugged uni-crown design. I know at that point I was expecting something similar to the Ritchey designed Bi-plane fork crown from the recent Bridgestone Cycle days. 

Thanks,

Reginald Alexis

[maxcr]

In case you missed this: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C9nB2DOuGJC/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==