Another beautiful Ritchey!!!
Here's some info that may clarify things
I have talked Grayson Bain , one of the original founders of Rocky Mountain about my 1985 lugged Ritchey and this is what he had to say :
Tom Ritchey went to Japan in 1981 to explore the Shimano and Sugino Mountain Touring gearsets and brakes. He also met with Tange to make the new Ritchey designed mountain bike tubesets for his bikes.
Again Tom went to Japan in 1982 to solidify plans for the first Ritchey frames and complete bikes made outside of California. Through TR, Rocky Mountain bicycles was introduced to the Japanese factories of Toyo for TIG welding and National Panasonic for the lugged frames. On this trip, he brought along Jacob Heilbron, manager of Rocky Mountain Bicycles and Pippin Osbourne manager of West Point Cycles. When Jacob came back we put into place a plan to import 3 new bike models for manufacturing in Japan under the Ritchey name. The new Tig'd mountain bikes for Canada arrived in late 1985 and were called Enduro (Lugged), Comp and Team Comp (Tig'd) for the Canadian models.
Most all of the Canada bikes I've seen didn't have a model name on them including mine.
The same Tig'd bikes were sent to the US and called the Ascent. Same frames, just different components and paint.
After speaking to TR, he confirmed that the lugged Ritcheys' were just a Canadian model only but he designed all the overseas bikes. The partnership between TR and RM was so they could order enough bikes after the Ritchey/Fisher/Kelly breakup. The '86 Ritchey Ultra was a totally different Tig'd frame, geometry was same as the handmade Ritchey Team Comps and made from Tange Prestige.
