Rambouillet rambouillet bike rambouillet frame frameset frames touring road rivendell rivendale rivendelle rambouillet bicycle rambouillet frames
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In West Newton Since 1952 - On The Web Since 1995
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Rivendell's purpose with the Rambouillet was to make a bike that would:
- be made with the materials they like
- with the construction method they insist on
- and have design details that make it smart
- be made with labor they weren’t ashamed of
- and be affordable. Maybe not to poor folks, but at least to somebody with a job and bicycle priorities.
Frames
Hand-brazed, lugged, steel. Made for use, using Rivendell lugs, crown, and bottom bracket shell. They’re made in Osaka, by a small custom frame shop called Toyo. Toyo has been making superb frames for more than 30 years. The Rambouillet frames are strong, straight, beautiful, and consistent—everything that you’d expect from, say, a Japanese camera or car.Comfort
There are innumerable good things about the Rambouillet bike, but the one that smacks you in the face on your first ride around the block is their comfort. I’m not talking about the “sweet ride of steel,” since I don’t believe steel is inherently more comfortable than any other material. I’m talking about the relative position of the saddle and handlebars—specifically, how high you can get the handlebars. Because if your handlebars are considerably lower than your saddle, as they are on most bikes, then you’ll be carrying more weight on your hands, and stressing your neck and back more, as well.
The Rambouillet is designed to allow you to get the handlebars as high or even a bit higher than your saddle. What a difference it makes! You relax, instantly. You can ride longer with no pain during the ride, and no pain the next morning. Or, if you bring chronic back pain into the equation, you can certainly count on less of it. This “reduced back pain” isn’t just theory, but reality. Rivendell has dozens of letters and emails from customers who thought they’d have to give up riding, or road riding, or who just didn’t enjoy it anymore until they got their Rambouillet.Tires
The Rambouillet comes with 57 mm reach side pull brakes, and has clearance for tires up to 700x37. (The new blue Rambouillet is also available in 50cm and 52cm sizes, with equivalent large clearances for 26-inch tires). The added clearance makes them suitable for rough road riding and wet-weather riding, and why this detail isn’t included on all production road bikes is a question you should ask their makers. It doesn’t make sense to NOT build in these clearance; for a bike NOT to take fenders, or be suitable for rough roads. If your current road bike maxes out at 700x25, then it’s good only for smooth, dry roads. If that’s what you ride all the time, you’re in luck. But the Rambouillet has a smarter design that works as well for smooth dry roads, but easily accommodates rougher and harsher conditions.Wheel Sizes
The 50cm and 52cm Rambouillets take 559 mm (26-inch) tires; all the others take 622 mm (700c.) There’s no way to design a smaller bike for 700c wheels and still maintain good clearances for a range of tire sizes, but going to 26-inch wheels lets this happen.Brakes
All are designed for 57 mm reach side pulls, which allow fatter tires and easier fendering. The far more common 49 mm reach side pull is not nearly as versatile, and despite the fact that it’s on 99 percent of the road bikes made, in a perfect world, it wouldn’t exist. All the bikes designed for it would be better off being designed for long-reach side pulls.
Handlebars
The Rambouillet comes with Nitto’s Noodle bar, a drop bar designed by Rivendell to give you the most comfortable, useful hand position possible. The key feature of it is the flattish portion immediately behind the brake lever hood. The flatness gives your hand a comfortable place to rest, without any tendency to slide down the bar to the brake lever. A more noticeable feature is the slight backward angle to the tops of the bars. In theory, this brings the bars closer to you and makes them easier to reach, but the fact is, Rivendell did that just to accommodate the flat ramp (mentioned above). It has to do with how aluminum tubes bend. In any case, the Noodle bar is not noodley; it is a beautiful, strong, safe, and comfortable drop-style handlebar made by the best handlebar maker in the business. It is silver, free of holes or grooves (which add nothing but weakness); and free of “ergonomic” bends (which look unattractive and make it harder to move your hands on the bar). 
The bikes have wide bars, because Rivendell feels a wider bar is more comfortable and helps you control the bike better. But if you don’t buy into that and insist on a narrower handlebar, we’ll swap that out for you free of charge.
Cranks
The Rambouillet has a Sugino XD triple, in a 48x36x26 combination. Lengths appropriate to frame sizes. The frame will accommodate any road or mountain double or triple currently made or ever made. No limitations. The bottom bracket shell is the most common British threaded, so it’ll always be easy to get a proper bottom bracket. The stock bottom bracket is a Shimano UN-53. 
Gearing and Derailers
The Rambouillet comes stock with a 12x27 9-speed cassette, but we'll gladly exchange that for anything else including our famous Century Special 13-30 for a small extra charge. 
Shifters
Nine-speed Shimano Dura-Ace bar-end shifters. Against all odd trends, Rivendell still prefers bar-end shifters to STI. But we are happy to swap out the bar-ends for STI shifters, for about a $250 up charge.
Frame Details:
Other frame details:
The Rambouillet has a 132.5 mm rear dropout spacing. If this means nothing to you, here: A standard road hub is spaced 130 mm. A standard mountain hub and a growing number of touring hubs are spaced 135 mm. The 132.5 mm spacing on the Rambouillet bikes accommodates either, easily; don’t even THINK about a compromise. If you’re a heavy guy and want super stout wheels, Rivendell suggest opting for a 135 mm wheel, which will be stronger because the spokes are less dished (more mirror image, with more even spoke tension on the left and right sides). If you buy from us, we’ll swap the wheels for a nominal up charge.Geometry
It’s still based on a “semi-relaxed but quick enough” Rivendell road geometry; on a bike that in the past we’ve named the LongLow. Other vague & ambiguous names for this style geometry are or could be: Sport Touring, Road-Sport, Brevet-style….but in the end, it is what it is, and rather than dwell on the numbers, Rivendell jes’ gonna say it fits most people well and rides great. One noteworthy note about the geometry, however: We’re sizing the top tube slightly shorter than what we’ve done in the past for many Rivendells, in order to encourage you to get the larger of two workable sizes.
Tubing
If there’s one thing we’ve learned in the past 7 years, it’s that tubing pedigree isn’t all that important. Would you rather have a straight tube that actually measured what it’s supposed to, or a famous label on that tube? Rivendell know the answer to that, and don’t mean to imply ANYTHING by that, but it didn’t come out of nowhere, either.
The Rambouillet’s tubes are being picked for quality and accuracy, not label. There will be some Reynolds, some True Temper, and quite likely a tube here and there from Japan and Taiwan. Price is not the issue. All the tubing is butted CrMo. In addition, the seat tube, down tube, and chainstays are heat-treated. The seat stays will be double-tapered. The dropouts are forged steel. The rears are vertical, with two eyelets; the fronts are the same ones Rivendell use on Rivendells, and have a single eyelet.
Braze-Ons
SizesTop tube rear brake cable guides, split, located at 7:30, with the slots dead vertical. Rear dertailleur cable housing stop on the chainstay. The BB shell has derailleur cable guides (and a weep hole for drainage). Down tube shifter stops. There are 3 sets of water bottle mounts.
54-56-58-60-62-64-___ - 68
Price:
The Rambouillet Frameset costs $1300 and comes with a really nice headset.
| Rambouillet Geometry
Geometry charts don’t tell the whole story, and few riders
know how to interpret the numbers. You can "learn" that
a 74-degree seat tube angle is "steep," or a 59cm top
tube on a 57cm bike is "long," but numbers don’t
tell you how a change here affects a change there, or how the
bike feels. And geometry charts never, ever address such critical
issues as bar height, tire clearance, and overall comfort. So
we submit the Rambouillet geometry for the sake of tradition,
and in keeping with that, all specifications are subject to change
without notice, on a whim. But these numbers are good!…
All dimensions are in centimeters, unless stated otherwise. Seat
tube and head tube measurements are given in degrees. Our frames
are measured from the center of the bottom bracket to the top
of the top tube. Top tube lengths are effective, measured parallel to the ground.
The top tube slopes 2 degrees upward toward the front of the bike,
to help raise the handlebars into a more comfortable position. Rear axle spacing is 132.5 mm, splitting the difference between
road and mountain hubs. The frame will easily accept either 130 mm
or 135 mm rear hubs. * Stand over height is measured midway along the top tube, from the ground to the top of the tube. Stand over heights given are for bikes with Rolly-Poly (700x27) tires installed. |
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