Last autumn I was at Free Range Cycles in Fremont, checking out their various Rando bicycles. I’d been interested for a while in a 650b, low trail bicycle and after that previous summers tour in the mountains I was more interested in forest roads, fire trails and other routes off the beaten paths. Talking about this with the fine folks at Free Range on of them mentioned the forthcoming stock National Forest Explorer being pre-sold…
My Rivendell Atlantis at Ten Years February 2005 my Rivendell Atlantis that I had ordered late 2004 arrived at my apartment in Woodinville, making it ten years old today. In the intervening years I have ridden this bicycle nearly 40,000 miles on many hundreds of commute trips, hundreds of errands, all over Washington State, across the country, into Canada, over the entirety of the Cascade Mountain range and most of the Sierra’s, in Seattle, San…
Quickbeam on Beacon Hill As the days get shorter and the temperatures lower I’ve found that I’ve been enjoying taking little short rides on my Quickbeam. I’m generally more of long exploratory ramble kind of guy, but I often set out late as the mood strikes. In the winter that leads to my riding being a lot more utility based, or the occasional pre-planned more “epic” outing. But since I’ve moved to the Beacon Hill neighborhood in South…
A Quickbeam in the grass, alas It’s been some time since I’ve done much riding on the Quickbeam. The winter months were much more suited toward the Atlantis what with it’s generator light, fat durable tires and ability to carry multiple extra layers of clothes. Also while I’ve done the commute on the Quickbeam, climbing Capitol Hill isn’t really a good time on the single speed. Doable, but not going to make my top ten…
My new (to me) Rivendell Quickbeam Upon my return from Bar Harbor after my cross country tour I found myself without my trusty Atlantis for over three weeks. Up to that point my one bicycle lifestyle had served me well. While a bit of a break from riding after the tour was acceptable by week two I was itching to ride around my new hometown of Olympia. I began scouring Craigslist for interesting, affordable options…
I tend to do my upgrading, changes and fixes on the bicycle at the end of winter in conjunction with cleaning off the accumulated winter gunk. This year due to one of my fender struts snapping off I did a round of work much earlier. I’d been contemplating replacing my fenders for years now but it’s not exactly thrilling work and since the old set is steel they continued to function well now matter how…
My Atlantis stripped bare by her bachelors, even Part I: DIY Things have been pretty solid with my Atlantis for years now really, but as I’ve mentioned in the past I’m trying to replace all the original components. This year that included the rear derailleur which since I replaced the front one last summer completes the replacement of derailleurs. I also replaced the shifter pods with the ones that Rivendell makes which as I mentioned…
The Naked Atlantis I mentioned in an earlier post that I was replacing components as I was going along this year and this weekend I did some extensive updates. My long lasting Shimano brakes were driving me crazy with what a pain they were to adjust and replace pads so a few weeks ago I replaced them with a set of IRD Camfam brakes. These have a threaded post and are much easier to…
2005 Rivendell Atlantis As I mentioned in the post about my Safari these entries are based on the bicycle pages on my old Those Who Look at the Sunset website. My whole philosophy of cycling evolved from touring – I’d been reading tourist accounts and started off quite practical. I came to Rivendell from that stance and their focus on practical, durable and elegant really matched up with me. After I’d come to the conclusion that…
2003 Novara Safari REI’s 2003 Novara Safari was my first touring bicycle and primary ride for several years until I got my Atlantis. When I got the Atlantis I’d added info pages to my old web based bicycling site and this is the data from that page. This setup reflect the Safari as of the time I got my Atlantis, several years of modification. Primary changes were replaced the original suspension seatpost with a Nitto…