T.R., have I told you lately...

...that I loved your bikes?  But, sadly, it was an unrequited love.  When I began riding MTBs, there were two brands that I remembered as being prized above all:  Ritchey and Fisher.  Gary Fisher was still doing some fillet brazed stuff like the Mt Tam but was moving fast toward outsourcing to TIG'd assembly line frames.  Tom Ritchey's work was the I-Ching of bikes IMO.  The Timbercomp was my dream bike.  I even loved the name.  It sounded like something you would want to just disappear on over the horizon, dashing and dancing through the Aspens.

There was a local guy that was the Ritchey 'dealer' and he would do these CRAZY big rides back then...50 to 100 milers when we could barely ride ten miles.  He was a small 'g' god.  Even the production P23s and P21s were very cool, even though they were a bit racing focused for me.

But now we have this:  The Ritchey P-29.  Oh baby.

There is a lot of controversy right now on an MTBR thread on just how pure and authentic this is since it will be made on some assembly line instead of being birthed by hand by Tom Ritchey hisself.  Bah.  TIG is just fine.  Brazing is nice for artisans and allows for some give and take in tubing spec, but really it is not an issue.  If Tom actually designed the tubing, and the P-29 is not the realization of some quirky idea that 29ers need to be sporting some super steep and quick handling geo, etc, then this thing will be at the top of my wish list for a steel hardtail.

Why?

• Well, for one it is just drop dead gorgeous.  Some bikes just look right.  Some do not.  No odd bent top tubes like some broken backed camel, no weird angles or twisted sister tubes...just pure triangles of graceful steel.

• I hope that TR, at this point in time, is not just a bandwagon jumper for the 29er parade.  If he has been on big wheels (and I think he is a pretty tall guy), then I have to believe that he knows how to do it up right.  He sure has the pedigree.  I learned more about bike/frame design in 30 minutes of talking with Joe Breeze then I had learned in years of hanging around other folks.  These guys know what is going on down there and why.

• Pure emotion.  I love the fade color.  Man, that just takes me back.  And somewhere in the back alleys of my psyche is a signpost that says "Ritchey Parking Only.  All Others Will Be Judged Accordingly."

I will never have a Timbercomp, but the dream just got a bit of a B-12 vitamin shot just seeing the P-29.

Gabriel, come blow your horn.

With apologies to angels everywhere....


It all started with a heroic pic shot by JeffJ of a local buddy on a ride recently.  It began like this...

...and ended like this. Voila'.  The god-like (little 'g') pose deserved some, ahhh...inspired photochopping to reveal the Hermes within.  In Photoshop, just select the layer and apply the 'Reveal Deity' filter.  Eezy-peezy.

Now, as seen through the skilled lens of JeffJ, the Ansel Adams of the 29er world, I bring you the next revelation in 'more than meets the eye' photography.

First, you strike a pose....

...then select the layer and apply the 'heavenly vision' filter. 

Huh.  Who would have known?

This is what you do when it is raining and looking like snow in So Cal.  Hey, it is better than Oprah!

Memory Lane.

A pic of my first sweetie...no not the wife...the first MTB....a Nishiki Cascade circa late 80s, I think?  Saw this posted on a forum and it sure brought back memories.  Mine had Bullmoose bar copies and I think roller cam brakes F/R with no chrome fork, but the odd three-pulley SunTour rear der is there and the frame color is right.

The bike shop sold me the wrong size (a 23") so standover was horrible, but I had a blast anyway.  I had it a year or so and then upgraded to a Schwinn Paramountain frameset and custom build.  I have no idea what I did with that Nishiki.

The wrong gear for every occasion?

I am thinkin' again and it is likely to lead me to an odd place.  I actually rode my road bike this weekend.  It is a bike that most of the time languishes in the rafters on hooks, but every so often, it gets rolled out when enough time has gone by and I have forgotten how much I dislike riding it.

I really can't blame the bike too much, it is just a few parts and some set-up issues that I do not like, but it is a buzz kill for me.  The frame is actually pretty sweet.  It is a hand built steel bike, all mini brazed by Curtlo Cycles, and is a mix of RC2 True Temper tubing with an MTB OX-3 TT for a down tube.  I figure it was built in the mid 90s.  It is parallel 73*, 59cm square, with an aluminum SR Prism fork.  I bet it does not have 1000 miles on it.  Maybe not even 500.  It actually is a very nice riding bike and it just over 20 pounds.

But the parts are killin' me, mostly the shifting and the cockpit.  It has bar end shifters and 7 speeds with a Shimano 600 front crank.  That is fine....I like bar end shifters well enough I guess, but I had the wheels built with some cool Bullseye hubs that were left over from my first custom MTB wheelset, pre-Shimano Hyperglide, as I had the hubs just laying around.  The hubs are light and smooth, but the rear hub takes a thread-on freewheel and the Sachs/Aris 7 speed never indexed right with the Shimano shifters.  It sucks.  The H-Bars have a crazy amount of forward bend and hardly any flat up top, so I look like I am time trialing all the time...the hoods are almost useless as a place to rest your hands.  Not helping this is a stem that is likely 1.5" too long.

And every so often (every time I ride it, about 15 minutes into the ride) I think about upgrading some parts, but the cost of a new rear hub/wheel, the shifters, at least a rear der, maybe a front too, then getting a stem for that old, threaded 1" steerer and new bars....well, it just seems so expensive for something I am not sure how much I will use.  Would I be better off just grabbing a new, close-out road bike?  Maybe carbon?  No soul there, but lots of zip.  Ah, I don't know?  I really like the classy old girl at heart...steel is pretty nice, especially a good custom one.

SO...here I am thinking about all this and, as I stood out of the saddle, pedaling that 39/23 gear that the 7spd allows for, up a long uphill grade, it kinda came to me.  How hard would it be to singlespeed this bike?  Do people even RIDE SS road bikes besides fixie hipsters?  Maybe.  But it is NOT flat here.  Quite the contrary.  But I have come to love the SS off road.  I wonder if it would be the same on road?

Or, as Guitar Ted remarked, "It would have the wrong gear for every occasion".  Yeah, that could happen too.

But it would solve some things for me.  It would be cheap to do.  An ACS freewheel is 20 bucks.  The bars I can handle...and a new stem...well, there are adapters to get a quill type stem to convert to a threadless version so I can use things I have sitting around.  I have shims if need be.

It might be fun.  Well it WOULD be fun, I am sure, but would it be practical?  Maybe not for group rides where I would get dropped on the flats or the fast runs out of the canyons.  But it could be VERY cool for long, solo or coup'la buddies-type training rides.

Of course, I may find that it simply will not work with the hardware I have.  Not sure yet.  If so, I will likely hang it back up and let it sit there another few months till I forget again why I hate it and wheel it out one more time.  Insanity has been described as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.  That applies nicely to my road bike and I.