so how about that rawland ravn?

General CX/MTB
61

I tried riding my rando (35 mm trail) on some singletrack and it was completely sucky. I love how light it feels on road, esp with a front load. Off road however, it feels too twitchy, too directionless and the front wheel is easily disturbed by small bumps, the light weight blades flex torsionally and you never know where the wheel is pointed. Very disconcerting.

I think the flexy fork and resulting lack of disc brakes is total pants. What a fail of a bike.
1" threaded? Give me a break.
26"? F off.
26"x 130 rear? Stop already

Looks like the consensus on rcog is for 853 frame and fork to be available for USD1200.

62

^ If Mike likes low trail and MTB then I’m all for it. And this isn’t purely a MTB, so that has to be considered.

My 26" x 2.xx bikes are my favourite to ride of any I’ve owned, but I don’t know whether that’s just because I just really love the bikes them selves. Hard to say. And I don’t know how 650b x 2.25 would differ from 26. My guess would be that 26 allows for massive tyres while retaining road like geometry?

I’m also not so keen to crucify it without seeing a true prototype and hearing about how it actually rides. The B’stone XO-1 was crucified in '93, but it looks mighty like what everybody is riding at the moment. Not saying 26" is going to make a come back or anything, but maybe it rides like a dream. Don’t think that non conventional innovation should be so quickly shot down anyway, I’d rather rag on Di2.

It is sort of like he consulted Jan, Grant Peterson, Charlie* Cunningham and then the old guy from his local bicycle touring club and mashed all of their dream bikes into one. Super dream bike!! (Maybe)

Also I think the stuff about it taking a quill stem might be hearsay, I don’t know where I got that. Seems to be 1" threadless.

63

But why would you want road like geo on a off road bike that carries load? Surely a rigid 650b or even 26" disc bike with 1 1/8th or even better tapered.
If it was off-road id prefer rear load I would think but I’m usually wrong
What would HMC tour off road on?

64

I should clarify, the drakkar has low 40’s trail and by load I mean a sleeping bag on the bars, a mat and a tent on the forks, and by off road I mean easy single track -but it had 29x2.1 MTB tyres.

Not narly as good as a my MTB unloaded but better than a loaded MTB (of the same build) I reckon, I have ridden my MTB loaded but I can’t really remember how it road on ST.

65

Eh, geo hasn’t been released so I’m only speculating. I don’t know. You can use 1 1/8th stems on a 1" steerer with a shim, 1" just keeps the bike aesthetically nice with thin tubes. Tapered wouldn’t be better on this bike, it’s not a hard hitter. I like front loading for easy access and so I can keep an eye on it, I don’t like having to constantly check rear panniers and not able to visualise what I can and can’t clear when riding trails. I guess it’s not made exclusively for single track anyway, it’s more of a compromise between a range of road surfaces.
It’s kinda growing on me… What was all that stuff I was annoyed about again… I guess I already have a heap of cantis…

66

Nice to see you posting Rambler. Don’t be shy.

Looks like a loser of a bike though, although I’m keeping my mind open (a bit). The bit about UK>Taiwan tubing and manufacturing really pissed me off.

67

Yeah right, that’s the stuff I was annoyed about… Kinda sounds like a personal jab at previous production difficulties mixed with some racism. Not something I’d want to support.

Elephant NFE much better option.

But still excited about the tyres and maybe future Rawlands if they climb back up the crazy cliff

68

So most of you have probably switched off from this by now but I just spent a lot of time swimming through a lot of really whiney comments on the Rawland forums to retrieve info. This has all probably been covered in this thread already but here it is again all in one easy comment!

Essentially it is a road bike with low trail geometry and 55mm lightweight supple tyres, to offer very sure footed road bike handling on a wide range of surfaces. It can also carry a front load. I’m thinking mixed terrain randonneurs and endurance off road stuff.

Apparently the ‘Island in the pacific’ bad-taste-in-ya-mouth comment was a tongue in cheek reply to an earlier comment made by somebody else, asking about the origin of the tubing. So it was quoting somebody else’s offensive misstep. Still a poor move but whatever.

Will be available as frame/fork for $1200 in Reynolds or for around $725 in the same Taiwanese 4130 usually used by Rawland. Seems that the Rawland geeks are deciding which to go for, but as with everything they try to decide on it looks to be split 50/50 so I would guess that both will be made. Same super light fork will be used on both. Also available as a full build with Reynolds tubing for $4,500 which is what this deposit is for.

The disc brake thing - as Sean puts it it’s a bike ‘designed around peddling, not braking’. So basically, being a road bike and not a mountain bike, he’s envisaging that it will not really need the extra braking power of discs and the pros of being able to use an ultra lightweight fork outweigh the cons. I think the shock of non disc is amplified by the fact that it is a mountain bike standard wheel size, if it were 700c (and uh, 2012) there’d be fewer eyebrows raised. I’m skeptical on this one despite not being a huge disc fan, but I’m willing to put a bit of faith into Sean’s design and experience. And I don’t really mind cantis.

As for why a bike with such large supple tyres would need super light fork blades - It is so that the bike handles road surfaces, where a higher tyre pressure is required, just as well as it does off road surfaces.

It is 1" threadless, and it seems that the frame is probably going to be 132.5 spaced after all.

Also as for colour, each individual tube on the bike will be painted a completely different colour, sort of like that funky Volkswagen Golf in the 80s.

Nah just kidding. Only about the colour.

69

It’s slowly making a little more sense, I prefered it before you came along where I could be judging with out a voice of reason,

70

Let’s all just think about this for a minute.

71

Where did you see that it’s threadless? It says it’s Rinko compatible and everyone who loves quills is getting excited?

72

Rambler- good posting

73

I don’t buy it, there was a throwaway comment about two islands (taiwan and UK), which was nothing in itself, but sean’s reply was “custom drawn in england, not an island in the pacific” emphasis his.

Plus some fuckbag over there deleted my post from the list where I corrected armchairgineer steve chan who was just googling anything and everything to try and prove that somehow 853 can get stronger than it’s heat treated strength after welding and also I mentioned that sean’s comment was some jingoistic bullshit.

Scott: I guess threadless might be “rinko compatible” in the vein that you can pull a fork just as easily by removing the stem and topcap as by hand unthreading a headset?

74

So while I have less than zero interest in this frame I’d like to point out that all my favourite beardos and and materials engineers have given this the thumbs down.

plus dayne has lost his marbles over this (im pondering an international court case for cruelty)

i cant explain how little this bike seems to make sense outside of a wicked small groups of peoples minds (who are likely to build it up… post it and then let it gather dust while they start planning for another project).

i am however looking fwd to more posts in this thread…

75

Got the popcorn right here.

Still really struggling to see what this offers that a 90s mtb doesn’t, apart from superOMGcustom-drawn tubing, flexy fork, and clearance for balloon tyres.

76

Meh, we get it already.
If you hate 26er, get out of the 26 love thread

77

can you post a link to that thread?

78

So AL9000, I know what you mean, and I agree it could, but I seriously doubt rinko means threadless (unfortunately)

79

Have we had enough lecturing from the international authorities

80

Thought this was the Rawland lol thread, as per OP. Soz.