The final piece of the puzzle was the Violet Chris King Gripnut we sourced from our friends at Blue Lug.īicycles are vehicles of hope, for sure, and this magic carpet ride of a steel bike opened up many opportunities to rip, dip and have fun over the last year for Andrew to connect with other folks on bikes other folks that share the love of that feeling and have embraced him as part of the community. Fortunately, you can still find a good selection of friction-based parts out there, so we used some Dia-Compe bard end shifters and a mix of derailleurs, with a Rivendell Silver Double to set it off.
The advent of newer shifting systems has left us with narrower and (what sometimes feel like) weaker chains, but 9-speed remains one of the best systems for the long haul. Oh, and they’re USA-made by a bunch of wonderful people. In a linear-pull brake, I don’t think there’s anything currently available on the market that’s better and they’re even rebuildable. When it came time to pick out the perfect brakes for a mix of modulation and slowing down fast, we chose the Paul Components Moto Lite/ 2.5 love lever combo.
We then wrapped the wheels in one of the burliest touring tires out there, the Super Yummy from our friends at SimWorks. So we laced up an M18 rear hub and SON Widebody to a set of 36-hole Velo Orange Voyager rims, which offer up a pretty burly package that will still rip and can even be set up tubeless. White Industries hubs, though, have yet to fail me. Weighing 340 lbs myself, I’ve blown apart so many rear hubs over the years. With the frame out of the way, we tackled the next on the most likely-to-fail list - the wheels. Rivendell’s Platypus frameset was the perfect place to start the adornment. When it came time to start talking about the next bike, we went with a bike with a bunch of extra tubes to ensure it was extra stout and something that would absolutely rip given the chance. But, with that knowledge, Andrew and I went to work on making the dreamiest bike for someone of his stature. As a larger cyclist who is well beyond the “normal” size and scope that seems to have been established by the cycling industry, I have broken more parts just riding along than I can count. That’s where we at Hope Cyclery came into play. To me, if Surly is like the entry to a love affair with a steel bicycle, then Rivendell seems to be peak enlightenment.Īndrew went from zero to 100 over the course of a year, spending a bunch of time on his bike, ripping everywhere and conquering mountains, and eventually, as one does, started falling for the sweet romantic allure of a Riv of his own.
Andrew came by and we built him a swoop bar Surly Bridge Club. Well, a few years later I finally had a brick and mortar shop of my own, and that spark never quite flickered out for Andrew thankfully. Those eyes and words can pierce through all the stoke you may have as a larger cyclist, and make you give up before you even get to start your love affair with bicycles. Until that moment, Andrew had visited several shops locally and always got the glance you know the look if you’re outside of the “normal” scope of a cyclist, whether that’s your size, appearance, or, hell, I’ve been in the industry for nearly 20 years and I still get the look. Playing polo and ripping around the parking lot on the big bouncy bikes looked like something fun to him. I met Andrew years ago at a fat bike event we hosted here in Johnstown, PA.
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