Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Rough Riders News: September 8, 2009

Hello, fellow Rough Riders!

We have a bunch of exciting news to report, so this is more of a newsletter than a single feature story.

MORE ON RIVENDELL
• BikeRadar's "First Ride: Rivendell Bombadil"
"Riding a bicycle loaded "Grapes of Wrath" style up and around the foothills of Mt Diablo in Walnut Creek, California has always been a pleasure, and the new Rivendell Bombadil, a double top-tubed steel 650B mountain bike model, is more than ideal for this and other two-wheeled exploits."

• BikeRadar's "Grant Petersen Interview"

"There's no stopping the technological advancement of the bicycle. Yet no one seems to have reminded Rivendell Bicycle Works founder and president Grant Petersen of this fact, and apparently that suits him just fine. Petersen clings to his beliefs like a mother to her infant child. Petersen believes strongly in what the cycling days of old conjure up, not only in the mind, but in the simplicity and beauty of a curved, cast lug. His passion goes beyond the aesthetic, though. At Rivendell, there's a focus on practicality beyond anything in our ragtag industry, and this has been enough to keep the company afloat since 1994, the year Petersen started it in the back office of his home in Walnut Creek, California."

My Interview with Grant Petersen, back in August, 1992.

MORE ON MOUNT LAGUNA
Our friends at Velo Cult bike shop in San Diego recently cycled and camp edon Mt. Laguna, one of our favorite places in the world. It's a great rough riding, and road biking, locale and will be the awesome venue for our new Mount Laguna Bicycle Classic in April. Check out Velo Cult's spectacular black and white photos of their recent adventure there: Click here. Here's a sneak peak at one of the shots:LOCAL GIRL MAKES GOOD
That's the cute headline which "Cyclotourist" used to describe Elizabeth's appearance on the back cover of the Rough Stuff Journal, the fun and always interested publication of the UK's Rough Stuff Fellowship. RSF was founded in 1955, long before "mountain bikes," and dedicated to cyclists who wanted "to get away from roads and cycle on tracks and byways," i.e. off-road—our kind of people! Links: This pic in Cyclotourist's Flickr Photo Stream and Rough Stuff Fellowship

ROUGH RIDERS AT D2R2
Next year we really hope to participate in the Deerfield Dirt Road Randonnée. Meanwhile, we'll enjoy the photos, including this shot of one of our Rough Riders jerseys in action. More about R2D2.

ROUGH RIDING THE SANTA MONICA MOUNTAINS The Southern California Rivendell Appreciation Society enjoyed an outing on some of our favorite dirt roads over Labor Day Weekend. You can see photos here. Here is their Flickr Group home page.

Thanks for your support and enthusiasm, everyone!

2 comments:

cyclotourist said...

My picture of a picture is famous!

The Santa Monica ride was FANTASTIC. The amazing part was seeing less than 40 people out there walking, biking, whatever over the course of the day. A VERY underutilized resource :-(

Rick @ Bicycle Fixation said...

Esteban put up some more pix of the Santa Monica Mountains Ride here--also very nice.

I rode it fixed on my Taiwan weldie fat-tire track bike...well, it's a weird bike, but was great for this ride.

Was glad to find that the road (which is a dedicated street) was closed to cars.

At one point everything started to look familiar--and I realized we had reached a point I had hiked to from the other direction--twenty-five years before!