My Rawland rSogn, The One Bike To Rule Them All

For the majority of my cycling career, I have longed for just one bike that would do anything and work in nearly any circumstance or setting. My slogan is "any bike, anywhere," and I live by that credo, having first brought this philosophy to the cycling world with my seminal "Mountain Bikes: Who Needs Them?" article in the the February 1993 issue of Bicycle Guide. (That article inspired a teenager named Sean Virnig to start riding his Bridgestone RB-1 in the woods near his Minnesoata home, laying the foundation for a bike company he'd later start called Rawland.)

I got to know Sean in the summer of 2010 when he and his wife Anna attended our Rough Riders Rally in Marin. Besides being the most interesting people to attend, they also won Best in Show for Sean's Rawland Drakkar bike, shown above.
Despite enjoying taking nearly any road bike down nearly any road or trail, I'd always believed that one optimal bike could really be "the one bike to rule them all." And so it is, after a 22 year quest, that I am pleased to own and ride such a mythic bicycle, the Rawland rSogn. This bike will go anywhere and do it with style and aplomb. It also has two sets of wheels for presto-chango self-reinvention.

Above: I prefer down-tube shifters in most circumstances. These are 8-speed era Dura Ace shifters which Sean had in his stash and kindly donated to me. Because these don't normally mate with modern Shimano derailleurs, the cable is attached at the rear with the Sheldon Brown routing.

Massive tyre clearance, front and rear: Above you can see the Rawland set up with 38mm wide Pacenti Pari-Moto road tyres, and below you can see it with the 2.1"/51mm wide Pacenti Quasi-Moto knobbies.

According to the Rawland Bicycles website, the rSogn is a contemporary lightweight steel all-arounder. Carrying on the success of the cantilever Sogn (cSogn), the rSogn is a reissue of this versatile all-arounder, hence the moniker. The rSogn was conceptualized and then specified through a month-long, open-forum process. Optimized for 650b wheel size without toe overlap in any tire size, the rSogn features the following elegant features many have come to appreciate, in no particular order:

• 8/5/8 standard-diameter tubing: MD and ML
• 9/6/9 standard-diameter tubing: LG and XL
• Non-heat treated tubing
• Pacenti biplane MTB crown
• Fits 58mm tires (e.g., Pacenti Neo Moto 2.3)
• 63mm rake for low trail; ideal for top-load
• Low, graceful fork bend
• Takes double-ring, spindle type cranks
• 68mm bottom bracket shell width
• 1-1/8” threadless steerer
• Stainless steel cast dropouts
• Head tube reinforcing rings
• Metal head tube badge
• Rear and front rack mounts
• Equidistance fender mounts facing the wheels
• Lowrider mounts
• Seat stay frame pump peg
• Triple water bottle mounts
• Star water bottle braze-on reinforcements
• Seatstay rack mounts
• Split brake cable stops at 10 o’clock
• Stainless steel chain hanger
• Down tube shifter mounts
• 132.5mm rear spacing for use with either 130mm or 135mm hub
• 27.2mm seat post diameter
Regarding the wheels:
The stock wheels on my rSogn are 32 hole, front and back, built by Mark at Rivendell. They have Shimano 105 hubs laced with straight gauge DT spokes to Velocity Synergy 650B rims. The tyres are 650B Pacento Quasi-Moto 2.1 (51mm) knobbies. Cassette is Shimnano HG40 8-speed 12-30. I have used these wheels with various tyres for quite a few years on various bikes and 650B conversions.
The alternative set of wheels were custom built for me by Dave Prion (below), the general manager of The Bicycle Outfitter in Los Altos, CA and my friend and wheel builder since the mid-80s. These are custom "event" or road wheels. The rear features a 24 hole Chris King R45 cassette hub laced with 24 butted Wheelsmith spokes to a 36 hole Velocity Synergy rim. 12 spoke holes in the rear rim are not used. The front features 18 butted Wheelsmith spokes laced between a 36 hole HB011 6-volt 3-watt dynohub and a 36 hole Velocity Synergy rim. 18 spoke holes in the front rim are not used. The tyres are Pacenti Pari-Moto 650B 38mm. Cassette is Shimano HG40 8-speed 12-28.
Here's the full build-up of the bike:

Brand	Rawland rSogn 2011 (Size ML; see size chart below) Saddle height: 77cm; Reach: 80cm
Serial #	M11051227
Headset	Chris King
Bars	Ritchey Classic Silver: 44cm width, 31.8mm O/S center section, 128mm Drop, 73mm Reach
Stem	Ritchey Classic Silver, 9cm
Brk Levers	Sram S500 road brake levers
Brakes	Paul's Neo-Retro cantilivers with Paul's Moon Unit cable hangers, Paul's Rack Adapter bolts, and Paul's Funky Monkey front cable guide (and Nitto rear cable guide)
Saddle	Berthoud Aravis, titanium rails
Post	Ritchey Classic Silver, 27.2, 350mm length, 25mm Offset, 43x38mm cradle
Shifters	Shimano Dura Ace 7402 8-speed down-tube
Front Der.	Shimano Dura Ace 7700 (9-speed era)
Rear Der.	Shimano XTR M971 (Recent 9-speed era) with JagWire inline cable adjuster
Bottom Bracket	Shimano Isis
Crankarms	Ritchey 175 with 34/50 rings; Arms custom polished and laser-etched by Tom at Perfect Perforations.
Pedals	Ritchey Peloton (Look Delta style)
Chain	Sram 8-speed
Cages	Nitto R (3)
Tape	Ritchey "cork"

Click here for a full slideshow of the bike with nearly 50 images.
Thanks for the amazing bike, Sean and Anna!

Two of my Rough Riders featured on the Velo Cult Blog

Thanks to Sky, Tom, Anthony, and the rest of the Velo Cult team for their amazing service as San Diego County's premier bike shop which caters to everybody except the mainstream - which means we fit right in! Today they have featured two of my Rough Riding bikes, and their recent work on them, on their blog.

Click on over to their always fascinating blog which is always VERY well illustrated with incredible photography. Today their blog features my 1983 Raleigh Competition, which Tom outfitted with a 3-Speed Fixed Wheel set-up, and my 2010 Rivendell Roadeo, on which Sky installed hammer Honjo fenders and Challenge Paris-Roubaix 700x29 tyres. They do superb work and are great people. And don't my bikes look as awesome as they ride???

Velo Cult is located in the South Park area of San Diego, just a bit south of University Avenue and west of the 805, in a really neat neighborhood with a great restaurant next door (Whistle Stop Bar) and a classic coffee shop (Rebecca's) on the corner. Velo Cult often show films or have other social events at their shop in the evenings,. They are a driving force behind the San Diego Tweed Ride and they also created the San Diego Bike Commuter online forum and the SDBikeCommuter.com Discount Program through which local merchants give discounts to customers who arrive by bicycle.

1982 Ritchey MountainBikes Catalogue

As a follow-up to the previous post, "Tom Ritchey: In His Own Words," here is Tom's 1982 catalogue. As you can see from the Fairfax address (Tom has always lived on the SF peninsula, not in Marin County), these were Tom's bikes, as sold by the Charlie Kelly / Gary Fisher partnership. Enjoy! (Remember, click any of the images/pages to see it bigger.) Special thanks to Tom Ritchey for providing the scans!

Related Links:
Tom's bio on Wikipedia
Tom's Mountain Bike Hall of Fame page
Tom's company, Ritchey Design
Other Ritchey-related posts on this blog

Tom Ritchey, In His Own Words

Above: A recent photo of Tom and his wife Martha on a one-of-a-kind Tom-built Ritchey BreakAway Tandem

Above: Tom brazing a 62cm Road Classic on December 15, 2010

In December, 2010 there was some discussion on the Classic Rendezvous (CR) email group about Tom Ritchey, the frame-builder and component and tire designer who was a co-founder of the first mountain bike company and built the first large run of mountain bikes ever sold.

The main question on the CR forum was "How does one tell which Ritchey frames were made by Tom himself?"

I've been a fan and friend of Tom's for a long time, so I contacted him directly with the questions, so that hearsay would be replaced with the true facts and history. Tom and I had an extensive back-and-forth, much of it via voicemail as he was traveling in Asia. I've typed up our correspondence, both written and verbal, which explains why it sounds a bit breezy and conversational, and present it here at "Tom Ritchey in his Own Words."

This dialogue started while Tom was in Asia, and all of this dialogue has happened while he was on the road in Asia, Hawaii, Australia, Tasmania, and lastly in New Zealand.

Chris Kostman (CK): Is it true that all fillet-brazed Ritchey frames were made by you, personally? Also, two people have said to me that Steve Potts built some of the fillet-brazed Ritchey frames, in particular the tandems. True or false?

Tom Ritchey (TR): I'm not sure where these urban myths take off from. Steve Potts is a very good friend, and builder, but he has never built anything for me. We've done many things together, mostly personal. In the beginning of his frame-building days he was often down in my shop on Skyline. You should ask him, but I think he would give me some credit for what he knows, particularly fillet brazing.

Furthermore, over the last 38 years, all the fillet-brazed (Ritchey) bikes that were ever built, were 100% done by me. There were some copies, however: people that copied my decals and used my Logic tubing and dropouts, and made some counterfeit bikes. Every now and then I run across a "Ritchey" bike and I look at it and I know immediately that it's a fake, because there's a lot of little details that the counterfeiters don't execute right. So basically I know that there are some copies out there and some misinformation out there.

CK: Tom, did you build any TIG-welded frames yourself?

TR: There was a series of bikes called Ascents, in the very, very beginning. A mil-spec TIG-welder friend of mine and I did a series of either 100 or 250 Ascents. (Just digging this stuff up is a blast from the past, from the recesses of my memory.) But there was a period of time when I made in my shop at Skyline a series of TIG-welded bikes with one other individual that was really skilled in TIG-welding. I made them with him. Basically he was my assistant. I did all the cutting of tubes and brazing and part of the welding and he was just a very, very competent welder that came on board after I started to test the idea out (of building TIG-welded frames). What I don't remember is if it was before or after Tange, or Toyo. (First I developed the Tange tubing, and then I developed a relationship with Toyo.)

The later “TIG bikes” were a collaborative effort mainly with Toyo of Japan who I taught many new skills to. At various dates, the TIG bikes had varying amounts of my personal hand work on them. But I’m comfortable saying that for the ones that were sold through Ritchey Design in the United States, 100% of them (up until the introduction of the BreakAway), went through my hands and my shop at Skyline which included quite a bit of personal work by me: braze-on brazing, finishing, and aligning. So even the TIG bikes, prior to the introduction of the BreakAway in 2004, had my hands and work on them.

CK: A few have questioned whether your fillet brazed frames were tacked together by somebody else first, or whether you were personally totally responsible for every aspect of assembling/brazing the frames. Also, a few people have even suggested that your frames were TIG welded in Japan and then you fillet brazed over that.

TR: There was a time when I was seeking to find ways of making bikes faster and I started to play around with TIG-tacking forks and ended up not being able to control it. It was through Tange and not being able to control the accuracy that I was looking for and the cleanliness of the joint and so I ended up basically taking a shipment and breaking all the tacks and doing them completely the way I needed to do them for accuracy. So there was a period of time when I was experimenting with it with forks, but never experimented with it in a frame, never brazed over any welded joints: that would have been stupid. I know that other people were doing that at the time, but I don't remember exactly who was doing it, but I know that other people who didn't have any good skills in frame building were doing that. There were some low-end frames that were being made like that.

I heard rumors at the time of people fillet brazing over TIG-welding. I remember there was a lot of interest in my work in the early 80s, and previous to that even, because I had probably built almost a thousand frames by 1980.

The way people could cover over just about anything with paint made it something in which people could do a pretty poor job and do a nice job with paint, and make something look reasonable. It always, of course, was a compromise and I was in the beginning of my Logic-defining years and, of course, I made my product logically and so I was always against doing anything like that.

I think Ross Bicycles was probably the first one that came along and did something like that, although I never cut a frame apart, never looked inside, to confirm my suspicion. That's what any of these armchair fillet brazers would have to do in order to make their statement to me or anybody, whether any of them had repaired or cut a frame in two and saw that a frame was TIG-welded and fillet brazed over it. Otherwise, they are just speculating about it. Needless to say, I was entirely against that and I never did it.

CK: What else can you tell us about the origins of TIG-welding in relation to frame-building?

There were kind of "winds" blowing and the first wind that really began to blow was in probably in '81, after Mike Sinyard took a couple of my first mountain bikes - fillet brazed mountain bikes, of course, because that's all I made - and brought them or the design over to Japan and had them copied. They first batch was TIG-welded, but after that he used lugs because, it's hard to believe at this point, but basically TIG-welding was something that really didn't have any credibility. People were kind of associating that with a BMX bike and not anything that would hold together and be strong enough. And in a sense, they were correct because the type of tubing that was being used was not butted, and so it was a great risk to TIG-weld non-butted tubing. I'd seen this wind or wave or whatever coming that had to do with how people were going to build mountain bikes more efficiently with TIG-welding and that inspired me to develop Logic tubing.

I first went to Columbus, and traveled to Italy and met with Antonio and then others about my ideas on Logic butted tubing, which was a new way of butting a tubing that no one had done to that point. It was condensed butting and longer, thinner center sections with differential tapers, force-directional butted sections and just a lot of things that I had been thinking about for years and years and years, that would make it possible for TIG-welding to work better, and it would also make a better fillet brazed bike, because you didn't have to overheat the tube away from the joint, which is what happens with a lug, because you have to heat a larger area.

Long story short, Columbus couldn't succeed. They tried, we developed mandrels, they didn't really know how to do force-directional tubing.

Again, another data point in history is that tubing maker Tange had not developed a heat-treated tubing until about '85. Both Tange and Ishiwata were two Japanese tubing makers that were kind of a similar level of quality, but Tange was the first to make a heat treated tubing. So with Columbus failing, I went to Japan and Tange succeeded. So that was the beginning of my relationship with Toyo and Tange. It was at that point that some of the TIG-welded versions of my bikes started to happen.

CK: When did you first start selling Toyo-welded frames?

TR: Probably about 86ish. The frames were Toyo-welded, but not completely built by Toyo, because I was getting them only partially finished. They didn't have braze-ons or bridges, weren't aligned, weren't slotted, weren't finished. I had a certain way I wanted to do things before the bikes got painted and sold, so I did all those things myself.

CK: Do you have any comments regarding the Wikipedia page about the Specialized Stumpjumper?

TR: I just read what it says about the Stumpjumper on Wikipedia and it's definitely different from what I know and what I think is correct. Wikipedia says "Early Stumpjumpers had welded steel frames because the lugged and brazed frames that designer Tim Neenan wanted to use were not available at the time." That is not what I recall and there are images of that original Stumpjumper showing that it was lugged. This Wikipedia page also doesn't reference the couple of bikes that (Specialized founder) Mike Sinyard bought from us, which Gary (Fisher) sold of mine, and it doesn't really reference that I made the custom bikes originally "marketed" by Gary and Charlie (Kelly).

The word "marketed" is not an accurate word in this case, since I built the bikes; we didn't just "market" somebody else's bikes. Also, it is kind of silly for Wikipedia to reference Specialized as having made the first "production" run of mountain bikes, when I had already made over 500 bikes at that time. (In 1980, I built over 400 bikes which were sold through Gary and Charlie's operation in Fairfax. I built between 400 and 500 bikes in the subsequent years, 1982, 1983, and 1984, and beyond. I was able to maintain a clip of between 400 and 500 bikes a year in those early 80s.)

CK: One last question, Tom: How many, if any, lugged frames do you think you have built ,and how and why did you make the shift to fillet brazing?

TR: The first frame I built in 1972 was lugged, and so were most all of my frames until about 1974. As I recall, during my first three years of building, until 1974, I built about 70 frames total, and then I discovered fillet brazing.

You have to have known the times: People were not ready to trust 100% in fillet brazing. I first started with the main three lugs and then fillet brazed the bottom bracket, because I wanted to ovalize the seat tube, and put a "park bench" between the chainstays (this became a signature of my frames, and something that most builders didn't understand how I did it).

Little by little, having top riders on my bikes and the overall trust of my lug-less (fillet brazed) work led quickly to my experimenting with larger tubes. (There were no lugs for larger tubes.) So 100% fillet started an oversized tube / fillet revolution. (I started out with oversize 1.125 top tubes. I built the first for Jobst Brandt, his first bike from me. He loved it. Then I used other diameters, depending on the size and strength of bike, and of course larger for tandems.

(Side story: Peter Johnson, friend/competitor, was the only other builder at the time who was trying to break out of the lug normalcy with me. Just like with the beginning of mountainbikes though, we were not intentional businessmen. We were builder/competitor-driven individuals, with more of a caveman approach to business and the opportunity that lay in front of us.)

You have to realize the times and that in the mid-70's frame-building was still dominated by European builders. My bikes were showing up all over the world now. I was known for the best lug work, and now a completely new fillet game that I was at the front of.

My best recollection is that, in 1975, my high school graduation year, I built about 70-100 frames, mostly lugged, on my own.

By the beginning of making a lot of MountainBikes, which began in 1980, I had increased my capacity to about 200 frames annually. At this point I was building more of a true 50/50 mix of fillet brazed vs. lugged frames. (I preferred to build lugless and rode it exclusively myself.) This was all before any employees. I built ALL the forks. I painted ALL the frames personally.

In 1980 I hired one unemployed 18 year old neighbor, who I kept busy mitering and prepping tubes, while I built the first 200 fillet-brazed mountain bikes for the new sport of Mountainbiking, and painted them. I still remember building 50 or so road bikes that year.

In 1981, 1982, and 1983, my MountainBike numbers were in the 400 annual range, with one more assistant: three of us total. By then, my first employee was able to assemble and tack main triangles, and a few other skills, like braze-ons, while I still did all the fillet brazing. I started sharing finishing techniques with my second employee, who had good artistic skills.

By the time I built the road bikes for Eric Heiden in 1985, I remember building only 12 road bikes that year.

(FYI, Chris, lugged frame building changed radically at about the time I stopped making any lugged frames (around 1980): As I was changing over to lug-less exclusively, Cinelli was making lug construction much easier by selling investment cast lugs. Every lugged bike that I made required taking very crude sheet metal lugs, and completely re-working them, so that they looked half-way decent. Then after the brazing came the true "lug finishing." This effort was what largely made a frame builder's reputation, up until that time.)

END

Coming soon: The entire 1982 Ritchey Mountain Bike Catalog will be posted to this blog!

Below: Photos from Tom's cycling and frame-building history.

Above: Tom at age 11 with his first good bike. "My Dad taught me how to repair tubulars and I paid the entire $99 cost of this bike by repairing tubulars for a local bike shop when I was in 5th grade."

Above: Tom, en route to winning the Marin Criterium in 1972

Above: On the cover of Bicycling Magazine in May 1981, the first cover of a national cycling magazine which featured mountain biking
Above: Ritchey Mountain Bike ad in Bicycling Magazine, 1982
Above: Tom in a race ad in 1985. The photo shows Tom competing in the 1985 NORBA National Championships in 1985.
Above: A bike which Tom built for Eric Heiden in 1985 (with Murray decals for the sponsor's benefit), as featured in the current (Issue 2) of Peloton Magazine

Related Links:
Tom's bio on Wikipedia
Tom's Mountain Bike Hall of Fame page
Tom's company, Ritchey Design
Other Ritchey-related posts on this blog
Here is the first of a few dozen pix of Tom Ritchey's newest rough rider models at the February 2011 North American Handmade Bike Show

1992 Bridgestone XO-1, 55cm, with Cyclart custom paint and restoration

This Blog's Namesake WAS For Sale!

Since I have only ridden it once in a decade, I decided to sell off my 1992 Bridgestone XO-1. It's a size 55cm and was custom repainted by Cyclart in the same "tusk" off-white with the pearlescent clear-coat as it originally had ("Cat. 2" level paint job). At the same time, I had a third set of bottle braze-ons added to the bottom of the down tube. This bike is better than new, truly. Grant Petersen gave it to me in 1992, when I was sponsored by Bridgestone Cycles USA. I raced it in the Triple Ironman in France and some other events, but quit riding it about 1996. I had it repainted by CyclArt in about 1999 and only rode it once after that. It's been taking up space (indoors, always) ever since.

Asking price: SOLD.

This bike has been heavily upgraded. In fact, the only original part is the moustache handlebars! All the components listed are new/unused, having been ridden just once since installation (except for the cranks, BB, and post):

- NEW/UNUSED Chris King headset in "3-D Violet"

- Two sets of wheels: A set of NEW/UNUSED custom 650c wheels with Ringlé hubs in "3-D Violet" with matching nipples (28 hole front and 32 hole rear Sun ME14A Rims) which you can see in the photos below. Also included are the original 26" wheels which have been respoked and the hubs regreased (not pictured).

- NEW/UNUSED 9-speed shifting: Dura-Ace down-tube shifters are mounted as bar-ends, with 105 front derailleur and Ultegra rear derailleur and chain.

- Used Ultegra 9-speed era 170mm cranks and BB with 39/53 rings. (These are the only components on the whole bike, except for the handlebars and seat post, with any miles on them!)

- NEW/UNUSED Tektro brakes of unknown type: allow sliding the brake pads up and down six mm's to use either size wheels.

- Circa 1985 Dura Ace non-aero brake levers give ideal cable routing with moustache bars (almost NOS condition).

Other parts include the original Nitto moustache bars, a 27.0 American Classic seat post, Concor Rolls Due saddle, Michelin tyres, and a 10cm Nitto stem which Grant Petersen gave me on a visit to Rivendell HQ.

Note: There are two flaws in the paint job: Some paint has flaked off on the very top edge of the seat lug, adjacent to the seat post. Also, there is a bit too much clear coat on the head tube, on the bike's right side, above the lower head tube lug. You can see both of these flaws in the photos, if you look closely. (Note that the seat post is installed to just above the limit line, which is why it looks high or tall.)

- Chris Kostman

La Jolla, CA

Team Bridgestone member: 1992-1994

Rivendell Owner/Rider: 1995 to the present (All-Rounder and Roadeo)