rons bikes blog dot com

hi everyone, been meaning to take these photos and blog this blog for a few months now. you see a friend of mine came across this Rivendell Blariot frame/headset/fork on the Rad Bazaar a few months ago and sent the link over to me. the seller had a bunch of really good ol’ pre long rear end riv stuff he was letting go, and this Bleriot he had listed for only $300. he said I was 3rd in line and he would let me know if anyone dropped out, so I messaged back offering $400 (still a deal)… SOLD!

that Bleriot guy is the first guy to fly over the English Channel. someone had already swam (swum?) it in 1875 though… I’d take a boat, personally. anyway, I think what is more important about this bike is that this was by most modern people’s perception, the first modern age production 650b bike. yah yah, Ritchey did it … the French did it … but thats ancient history, and none of them are Taiwanese production bikes that you could buy from QBP. thats right, these were available to most every bike shop out there in 2005. also they were the first Taiwanese Riv frame. click ahead on this link for the Internet archive of the catalogue, its a fun Grant read. so many more tires available these days. what a tire world we live in.

big 650b fan here — but the significance of this bike for me goes several onion skins deeper. lets chop!

I think ive written about this before, but in 2007, I built one of these up for a guy I worked with at North Cove Outfitters — Stephen Wall. this was the peak of my body shaving, and I routinely pedaled my BMC street fire (at least it was aluminum) into work so I could do a workout after. sometimes I would take my country fixed gear with mustache bars. when he noticed the mustache bars, he unloaded all this french wheel size knowledge, misunderstood as nonsense to my bike brain. knowledge or nonsense? enter me peeping the rivbike.com website for the first time to figure out what to do with the cloth tape he wanted me to wrap his bars with …. isn’t this rim tape???

I took the bike out for a test ride and instantly got it. this was a moment for me. ever since I’ve wanted a Bleriot, but their production was short lived, and long ago. the big size is rarer. riding pal Ballz has one, and they love it. they have lots of bikes to ride, but the Bleriot is what they go for. I was always kinda put off by the lack of canti mounts … but I have gotten over that now. these long reach tektros are light, attractive, and simple. I used zero compression housing to make up for the brake flex. seems like it worked a little.

I was ready for a Blertiot in my life. Especially since I’d tried to look up Stephen Wall a few years ago, and found that he’d passed in 2017. he was not very old. I wanted to thank him.

so I got to work getting this thing together a few months ago. it was a fun project that I had most of the parts for. I first opted for some nitto rando bars, but did not like them after about 100 miles, so I swapped them out for some shallow drop kinda nitto noodles that blue lug offers. I flared them out, of course. thats a sine wave beacon dynamo light. the sign wave guy grew up in New London CT. fun fact. its a good light.

started snowing 5 miles into this ride and then it just got dark and I didn’t realize it until I ran out of clicks on the ISO knob. this is out of sequence though. there are more in brighter light to below.

campagnolo 10 to Shimano 8. 9 speed waxed chain. iso taper 102mm bb with a suntour xc pro set up as a wide range double sucked all the way in.

ultradynamico cava JFF 650bx47 with tubes and sim works taco pedals. I like the pedals. made by MKS of course. they say these are the biggest MKS platforms out there, and I would say they still look pretty classic, so pretty cool look on a build like this.

crust rims are my favs. also thought the all black cockpit was a fun departure from my usual.

so I like mine all right. I like it a lot better now that I swapped the handlebars out for something that felt a bit more stable being up that high. many of my drop bar bikes these days have gotten pretty aggressive in the positioning, so I was hoping to kinda have this one as a more rivish relaxed drop bar ride. the seat tube angle really slacks back there, so it’s not meant for really putting the power in … and while its a much more racy riv on paper than anything they offer now, I do think my roadini rides better as a comfort drop bar bike. and as far as 650b bikes go, I also do think my crust lightning bolt rides better too. this bike just feels too muted. will have to further inspect why. it looks too good not to ride it a bunch though … I think Stephen would approve!

happy holidays and hope you get out at least for a little pedal about in these cold & short times … it works wonders, I swear!

XX RR