Beer is a natural rack load
The front rack was made by my buddy Alex. He's got another one in the queue for me too. I can't believe how lucky I am to get my mitts on these racks. They're light, strong, smart, and so easy. With the proper front-end geometry, a front rack beats the pants off of any other city-commuter-easy-hauler solution. And unloaded, the same low-trail geometry that makes riding with a load so easy, makes for a really light and responsive handling bike.
200 Bumble Bars for BTW week
The gearing on this bike has turned out to be perfect. With a 44/30 up front and a 12-28 in the rear, I've never wanted higher and I can grind my way out of the few moments where I want a lower gear.
This bike is suitable for trail riding, fast-ish city riding, all-day ride-abouts, S24O's, loaded touring. You name it. I love this bike.
7 comments:
Hey, you, uh, gonna drink all that beer by yourself?
This would be the Tour of Pain bike? Still pining to do that?
Cool bike! It seems to me the handling would be weird with a load in front, or at least I think it would be on the bikes I have. Never tried it, though ...
Bradley: I'm not gong to make Tour of Pain -- I'm riding to the west side that weekend. I would've road the RB-1 on the tour of Pain. I'll be riding this bike (blue RB-T) for the ride across the state though.
Apertome: it's likely that handling would be weird on your bike with a front load -- as just about all production bikes sold in the US for the last couple decades are high-trail bikes, which make for really floppy handling with a front load. I wrote a bit more about trail here: http://cyclingspokane.blogspot.com/2006/12/making-perfect-bike.html
To handle nicely with a load in the front, the bike must be designed for it. I think we'll see a production bike by a big maker with low-trail in the next couple years.
John, I forget -- did you convert your RB-T to 650B, or is it still 700C? Alex's RB-T is still 700C, right?
Jim: it's 700c. I have an 83 Trek 520 that is converted to 650b.
It's the typcial bike nerd problem: building the same bike over and over again with minor variations.
Great quote! "I can't believe how lucky I am to get my mitts on these racks."
I've said that before myself.
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