Back To Being Single – Bike Snob NYC

Yesterday I mentioned I had a new bike coming, and late in the day it finally showed up:

It’s a Rivendell Roaduno complete, in the mustard color (around here we say COLOR, not “COLORWAY,” goddamn it!), ant it arrived not a moment to soon, because a one-speed bike with a lugged steel frame was exactly what I needed to ground myself after all the Y-Foolery in which I’ve been engaging lately:

The Roaduno is basically the Anti-Foil, right down to the color; both are basically yellow, but one yellow is supposed to look like gold, and the other’s supposed to look like a condiment.

So excited was I to finally receive the Roaduno that I intercepted the UPS guy at the corner and carried the box all the way down the street to my chateau, whereupon I dragged it into the basement and put it together in great haste so I could be the first person on the Internet to show one off–and to that end I will now bore you with pretty much the same photos you can see on the Rivendell website, only taken by an idiot in a dark basement with a cheap smartphone:

This is exactly how the complete Roaduno arrives in the box, except I added saddle, grips, and pedals since it doesn’t come with those things. The saddle and the grips were simply the first ones I was able to grab from my dangerously cluttered storage cage without causing an avalanche, so do not ascribe any special significance to them, and the pedals are the Grip Monarch in the Panda colorway:

Apart from the color they’re the same pedals I have on the Homer, and they’ve been great.

Otherwise, the bike comes with a Nitto cockpit, including a four-bolt open-face stem:

Green-and-silver IRD brake levers for a little singlespeed flair:

The new Silver3 crank, which is a little more sculpted than the original:

Those gravel tires that are so hot with the kids right now:

And big-ass calipers that fit around them with room to spare:

Rear spacing is 120mm, presumably to commit you to singledom…

…and yet there’s a derailleur hanger:

You may also have noticed the bike comes with an additional chainring on the crank, and there’s even a shifter boss on the non-drive side:

This is because the idea is you can add a front derailleur and a chain tensioner and set it up as a frontal dinglespeed or even tringlespeed, which is a word I just made up:

[Photo: Rivendell]

There are some singlespeeders who are offended by provisions for gears as they spoil the bike’s “clean lines” or whatever (the phrase “clean lines” is almost as annoying as the term “colorway”), but as far as I’m concerned it’s always good to have options, and the rear spacing ensures the bike will always remain rudimentary and therefore true to the spirit of simplicity and/or inconvenience, which is what singlespeeding is all about. (Plus, if you like singlespeeds you probably also like tinkering, and this bike begs to be tinkered with.) Anyway, even if you never use the shifter boss, it seems like a good place for a bell.

And of course being a Rivendell the frame will take racks, and fenders, and a frame pump, and a kickstand, and it also has classy decals:

And a spiffy head badge:

I would have liked nothing more than to scamper off on the bike indefinitely, but with night falling and domestic duties beckoning I was only able to take it around the neighborhood for a quick test ride:

First impressions were highly encouraging:

I’ll ride it stock to start with then let the tinkering muse take me where it will, and I’ll keep you posted whether you like it or not.