650B Ritchey
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kaiser":c4vm11zl said:
you serious ? look at the size of the feckin headtube, Cameron's clockwork has a shorter seattube :shock:
doctor-bond
Feature Bike
Gate syllepsis
I'm with K on the gate issue, which I'm convinced has been the object of a conspiracy cover-up for years (Gate-gate).
At what point did it become acceptable to derride frames that fit their owner and purpose as un-aesthetic? Imagine someone suggesting that sadly-small frames with unduly long seatposts are all Napoleons or Kona-dilds?
Yep - it's only a protoype Pioneer
I'm with K on the gate issue, which I'm convinced has been the object of a conspiracy cover-up for years (Gate-gate).
At what point did it become acceptable to derride frames that fit their owner and purpose as un-aesthetic? Imagine someone suggesting that sadly-small frames with unduly long seatposts are all Napoleons or Kona-dilds?
24pouces":24qw18vr said:Cool bike but a mtb still need 24" or 26" wheels
29" or 650B are only hybrid bikes, not real mtb
Yep - it's only a protoype Pioneer
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Whoever wrote the story on the caption has got very muddled up. What they write is a mixed up concoction of various anecdotes.
The claimed 1977 date of manufacture does not tie in with any known history and would place the existence of this bike alongside that of Breezer number one.
The first custom built mountain-bike.
The English Woodsie "rough-stuff" bike mentioned on the bikes caption did have 650b wheels but the versions made by Ritchey in 1979 used 26 inch rims and tires not 650b as the caption implies.
The real story as I understand it goes as follows:
About 1978, Gary Fisher who had missed out getting one of the first batch of 1977 Breezers, asked Ritchey if he could build him a Breezer style mountain bike. And around the same time, John Finley-Scott asked Ritchey to build a 650b wheeled copy of an English "Woodsie" Roughstuff bike. Both bikes were made in 1979, the Finley-Scott bike Roughstuff bike with 650b wheels fitted with narrow tyres. Whilst the mountain bike built for Fisher had 26" wheels fitted with fat tyres. Thus started the relationship between Fisher/Kelly and Ritchey, where Ritchey made bikes that were then sold by Fisher and Kelly's "MountainBike" company.
Initially the Ritchey' built mountain bikes were all made with 26" wheels However in 1980 English off-road cycling pioneer Geoff Apps contacted Fisher and Kelly and told them of the large diameter Nokia Hakkapeliitta tyres that he used on his own bikes. Apps then sent some 650bx44mm samples, and Ritchey was asked by Fisher and Kelly to build a frame in readiness. Ritchey and other NorCal frame builders went on to build many bikes using the big tyres that Apps exported to Fisher.
Information based on Geoff Apps' letters to Fisher and Kelly about exporting these tyres would date the Tom Ritchey 650b bike on display to late 1981 at the very earliest. Though the earliest published account I can find relating to these "650b Competition bikes" is from 1982. A full five years later than the 1977 date claimed for the bike on display at Interbike.
By 1984 the erratic supply situation from Finland coupled with higher import costs of these adult sized tires made Fisher lose interest. As by then cheap high quality 26" tires were readily available.
The claimed 1977 date of manufacture does not tie in with any known history and would place the existence of this bike alongside that of Breezer number one.
The first custom built mountain-bike.
The English Woodsie "rough-stuff" bike mentioned on the bikes caption did have 650b wheels but the versions made by Ritchey in 1979 used 26 inch rims and tires not 650b as the caption implies.
The real story as I understand it goes as follows:
About 1978, Gary Fisher who had missed out getting one of the first batch of 1977 Breezers, asked Ritchey if he could build him a Breezer style mountain bike. And around the same time, John Finley-Scott asked Ritchey to build a 650b wheeled copy of an English "Woodsie" Roughstuff bike. Both bikes were made in 1979, the Finley-Scott bike Roughstuff bike with 650b wheels fitted with narrow tyres. Whilst the mountain bike built for Fisher had 26" wheels fitted with fat tyres. Thus started the relationship between Fisher/Kelly and Ritchey, where Ritchey made bikes that were then sold by Fisher and Kelly's "MountainBike" company.
Initially the Ritchey' built mountain bikes were all made with 26" wheels However in 1980 English off-road cycling pioneer Geoff Apps contacted Fisher and Kelly and told them of the large diameter Nokia Hakkapeliitta tyres that he used on his own bikes. Apps then sent some 650bx44mm samples, and Ritchey was asked by Fisher and Kelly to build a frame in readiness. Ritchey and other NorCal frame builders went on to build many bikes using the big tyres that Apps exported to Fisher.
Information based on Geoff Apps' letters to Fisher and Kelly about exporting these tyres would date the Tom Ritchey 650b bike on display to late 1981 at the very earliest. Though the earliest published account I can find relating to these "650b Competition bikes" is from 1982. A full five years later than the 1977 date claimed for the bike on display at Interbike.
By 1984 the erratic supply situation from Finland coupled with higher import costs of these adult sized tires made Fisher lose interest. As by then cheap high quality 26" tires were readily available.
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Some interesting information on the origins of this bike can be found here:
http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewto ... 54#1702954
http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewto ... 54#1702954
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Marin frame-builder Lennard Zinn recalls these early 650b Ritchey/MountainBikes made machines:
"When I was working in Tom Ritchey’s framebuilding shop in 1981, he made some bikes for himself and friends to fit some Nokian Hakkapeliitta 650b tires that Gary Fisher was importing. (At the time, Ritchey was building bikes that Gary Fisher was distributing through his shop in San Anselmo, CA, and they carried the Ritchey logo with “Mountain Bikes,” Fisher’s business name, superimposed over it).
The Hakkapeliitta tires were great compared to the 26-inch mountain bike tires you could find at the time. The Hakkapeliitta casing was supple, the weight was low, and the tread pattern was refined, fast, and quite aggressive, whereas the 26-inch tires of the day were just big square blocks on a heavy carcass. You could even get studded Hakkapeliitta 650b tires, as those were used for bike racing on frozen lakes in Finland, where the tires were made. According to Wikipedia, Nokian adopted the Hakkapeliitta name for its winter tires in 1936. It still uses it.
We used Super Champion 650b tandem rims back then, which were lighter than most 26-inch mountain bike rims of the time.
After all, you should remember that a primary reason 26-inch became the default mountain bike tire size starting in the 1970s and 1980s was simply that import duties on them were cheaper, as the US Customs Dept. charged a higher duty rate on adult bikes than on children’s bikes, and it considered 26-inch to be a children’s-bike tire size.
The sweet fillet-brazed Ritchey 650b bikes Tom was making then were great – light, nimble, and faster-rolling than the Ritchey standard-production 26-inch bikes.
When I left Tom’s employ and came back to Boulder, I took a Ritchey 650b bike with me and rode it for years, including in some cyclocross races as well as all over the Crested Butte area on my honeymoon in 1983. I loved that bike. It always drew lots of looks, because there were no others in Colorado at the time.
I built a number of 650b mountain bikes after I started my own framebuilding business in 1982, and my customers loved them, but when Fisher could no longer get the tires in 1983 or 1984, I quit doing so".
Taken from VeloNews: What's the big deal with 650b?
By Lennard Zinn
Published Jun. 26, 2012
http://velonews.competitor.com/2012/06/ ... 50b_252295
"When I was working in Tom Ritchey’s framebuilding shop in 1981, he made some bikes for himself and friends to fit some Nokian Hakkapeliitta 650b tires that Gary Fisher was importing. (At the time, Ritchey was building bikes that Gary Fisher was distributing through his shop in San Anselmo, CA, and they carried the Ritchey logo with “Mountain Bikes,” Fisher’s business name, superimposed over it).
The Hakkapeliitta tires were great compared to the 26-inch mountain bike tires you could find at the time. The Hakkapeliitta casing was supple, the weight was low, and the tread pattern was refined, fast, and quite aggressive, whereas the 26-inch tires of the day were just big square blocks on a heavy carcass. You could even get studded Hakkapeliitta 650b tires, as those were used for bike racing on frozen lakes in Finland, where the tires were made. According to Wikipedia, Nokian adopted the Hakkapeliitta name for its winter tires in 1936. It still uses it.
We used Super Champion 650b tandem rims back then, which were lighter than most 26-inch mountain bike rims of the time.
After all, you should remember that a primary reason 26-inch became the default mountain bike tire size starting in the 1970s and 1980s was simply that import duties on them were cheaper, as the US Customs Dept. charged a higher duty rate on adult bikes than on children’s bikes, and it considered 26-inch to be a children’s-bike tire size.
The sweet fillet-brazed Ritchey 650b bikes Tom was making then were great – light, nimble, and faster-rolling than the Ritchey standard-production 26-inch bikes.
When I left Tom’s employ and came back to Boulder, I took a Ritchey 650b bike with me and rode it for years, including in some cyclocross races as well as all over the Crested Butte area on my honeymoon in 1983. I loved that bike. It always drew lots of looks, because there were no others in Colorado at the time.
I built a number of 650b mountain bikes after I started my own framebuilding business in 1982, and my customers loved them, but when Fisher could no longer get the tires in 1983 or 1984, I quit doing so".
Taken from VeloNews: What's the big deal with 650b?
By Lennard Zinn
Published Jun. 26, 2012
http://velonews.competitor.com/2012/06/ ... 50b_252295
Chopper the ex Copper
Alpinestars Fan
Re:
'Compact frame' is such a diplomatic term for people buying the wrong sized bike and having more seat post exposed than the length of the frames seat tube, a strange condition that seems to have become most rampant the last few years.kaiser":2yn0x0ic said:
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Familiar looking geometry, but its from 1986.
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Re: Re:
and dont forget bars wider than the rider is tall
Chopper1192":yh7bvrz9 said:
and dont forget bars wider than the rider is tall
