Leg Day is a newsletter about pursuing joy as a city cyclist. Today, I’m noodling on a story I read.
A few weekends back, I ran into an acquaintance from college who had recently moved to the city. Despite the fact that she was the only one among us in full Lycra, she referred to me as “the bike guy” (Not derogatory (I think)). Word travels fast!
As more cosmic confirmation I am becoming at least a “bike guy,” if not “The Bike Guy,” so many friends and colleagues sent me “The Art of Taking It Slow,” a New Yorker piece about Rivendell Bicycle Works founder Grant Petersen and his bike company. It is always a delight when the journalism gods conspire to deliver unto you a story by one of your favorite writers (Anna Weiner of “Uncanny Valley”) on one of your favorite topics (biking for non-psychos).
I’m pretty confident Mr. Petersen, designer of bikes with easy-to-repair components in order to outlast you on this earth, would hate my current favorite ride. It’s a 2017 Cannondale Synapse, kitted with multiple components that have batteries you have to charge or replace every few months. This is obviously demented, I can accept this. But it’s also so fun to ride! The feather-light bike has started to feel like an extension of my legs, especially now that I’ve gotten more comfortable using clipless pedals.
For anyone who is not literally a professional bike racer, it is strange to be obsessed with having a bike with the speediest shifters, most aggressive race geometry, disc brakes, carbon fiber wheels. Any Lycra bro who tells you that you need a bike with any of this stuff is an obvious huckster.
Candidly, though, a lot of the old stuff sucks. My main ride, a 1973 Schwinn Continental, has friction shifters, awkwardly placed at the joint where the head tube meets the handlebars. (On some bikes of this era, manufacturers thought it was a good idea to put them on the bottom tube, I guess because they all had extremely flexible backs and noodle arms.) I hate them! I have spent hours trying to figure out the exact right amount of force I need to push into them to coax my bike into actually shifting gears, to little avail. I mostly just leave it in the big ring now.
This was obvious to me from the moment I decided to buy the bike, which had been in the personal collection of a man in Michigan. His garage was filled with vintage bikes, mostly other Schwinns, and he beamed with pride as he told me about how unique the bike was, with its original brake lever covers, grip tape and branded shifters. When I mentioned that I’d probably have to replace the shredded grip tape and seemingly broken derailleur, the seller’s face fell. He actually made me promise not to sell the lever covers on eBay.
It was that day that I learned there are folks who would rather see a bike kept in its exact historic condition than for it to be actually ridden. When I now hear of anyone obsessed with something that isn’t in production anymore, I cannot help but think of that Midwestern bike hoarder.
Clearly, Rivendell is motivated by different goals. Grant isn’t just sitting on a stable of unrideable bikes hoping they would appreciate in value enough so that another person with a larger garage would take them off his hands. The company is building a fleet of bikes that bring the perfection of the past into the present.
It hasn’t been easy. As many of their suppliers have shifted (sorry) toward more electronic components, Rivendell has had to produce more of its own parts than is probably ideal for a manufacturer. The results, however, seem sublime. The friction shifters you’ll find on a Rivendell work perfectly. Eben Weiss (who you might know as NYC Bike Snob) described using them in a piece for Outside Magazine:
With modern chainrings, cogs, and chain, the friction shifting on my new Rivendell was a revelation, and yielded the smoothest shifting I’d ever experienced, electronic included. Sure, you’ve got to finesse the shift lever now and again, and it’s possible to mis-shift, but complaining about that is like returning your Rolex because there are no numbers on the face.
Well done, Rivendell!
That said, while I can delight in the company’s success and popularity, I doubt I will ever buy a brand new bike. Once I return the Cannondale, I’m going to try and replace it with another used speedster. I am hoping to get something with electronic shifting, rim brakes, and enough clearance for wide, nubby gravel tires. There are plenty of bikes that meet this criteria (a few of which are actually in my size) on sites like The Pro’s Closet, Buycycle, Brooklyn Carbon Co that currently cost less than a new Rivendell. And probably more on Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace, if I’m looking to take a larger risk.
But on the fateful day my Schwinn kicks the bucket, maybe I’ll be able to find a vintage Rivendell. I hear they last forever.