If you are part of the RBW Owners Bunch or visited our Flickr page, you’ve already caught a sniff of this. Here is the official “letting the cat out of the bag”.
Soma is working on a road frame project with Rivendell Bicycle Works. We have admired Rivendell’s amazing frames and their work with Nitto for years and are excited to have a chance to collaborate on this project. We shared with Grant Petersen that we wanted a “road sport” frame, but he was free to interpret what that meant.
Specifications we like to share with you at this stage ---- Project name: San Marcos (named after a lovely place in Guatemala where our main warehouse guy was born)
- Full Rivendell lug set
- Tange Prestige heat treated tubing
- Threaded fork with flat crown (1”)
- Original geometry from Grant (not a clone of anything Rivendell has in its stable)
- Two of the smaller sizes may be 650B
While we are letting Grant do much of the design work, the frame will follow Soma’s philosophy by being tough and reliable and by being affordable to most cycling enthusiasts. We have just received the first prototype and will probably doing a second before this gets green-lighted. Graphics and paint are subject to change, but this prototype does show an alternative graphic scheme we are introducing on some 2010 frames (more news on those later).
As for the question “When can we get one?” Our reply to that is, “It will be ready when it is ready. We want to do it right and ‘right’ takes time.” We are planning a 2011 release, but if it is ready earlier, then we'll release it earlier.
17 comments:
Wow! That's really an exciting looking project. There have already been a bunch of conjectures and questions over on the RBW Owner's Bunch list, so it's helpful to get the "more official" info this early.
Best of luck in this endeavor! Hopefully it will be wildly successful for both parties.
- Jim
moderator/RBW Owner's Bunch List
http://www.cyclofiend.com
Wow, very exciting! Looking forward to hearing more about it as details emerge.
wow. found pictures of this bike from the Rivendell forum. The bike looks amazing. Makes me rethink about my belriot frame. Any idea on the on the frame specs for the frame?
-Manny
Awesome, awesome news!
I've been looking around for awhile for a 1" threaded, lugged road/touring frame that comes in well under Riv's (beautiful, but too pricey at the moment) $1K Hillborne. The San Marcos sounds like it's going to satisfy that criteria. Love the new logo lettering too - SOMA's best yet. Greatly anticipating more info on this project as it becomes available.
Any rough idea of a price for frame/fork? I know things can change very much in a year, but if it the frameset was to be released today, any idea what would it come in at, approx.?
Keep up the great work, guys...
I'd be more inclined to buy one if my size was 650b-wheeled. (I ride around a 53cm)
love the color -hope you keep it. Looking forward to pictures of the frame and fork and a built up bike. Really hope this hits the green light stage as it looks like a great frame for my quiver ;-)
Ryan
I look at this frame -- and I know I'm going to buy it. I've never bought a new frame before, but this is the one. I can feel it.
Very nice looking frame and pretty close to what I want my next bike to be. Seems very close to a Stanyan (which is a frame I really like), any significant differences between the two frames other than threaded vs threadless?
I hope you are able to get it out sooner than 2011. I want one. :)
My dream bike in every way, but I just don't get the 1" threaded fork/headset. That antiquated design is the only reason that I chose a custom built Tom Teesdale mountain touring frame over a Rivendell Atlantis. In my 30 years of riding before threadless, I've had nothing but problems with creaky, flexy, sticky quill stems and pain-in-the-butt to adjust headsets. 1" threaded headsets need to be buried with freewheels, toeclips, and Biopace.
I would like to put in a vote for the little ones in 650b. I have been looking to build a Rivish road bike up for my wife. She rides from a 47-50 deponding on the frame, and a top tube closer to 50, not 52 helps. Custom is out of the budget, and the Saluki is the next closest, but also out of range.
Keeping my fingers crossed on these, hopfully it can be a bday gift by the end of summer.
Patrick Keenan Devlin
Patrick Keenan-Devlin
I'm hoping to get one of these when they come out. I hope you'll stay with that color blue.
any ETA on release?...will it accept larger tires (up to 32cm) with fenders?...wonder how it will differ from their famous rambouillet???
I ride a 54CM frame. I will NEVER buy a 650B frame and forever need to buy/search for special tiny person's tires, tubes, rims, and wheels. NONE of my 700C tires, rims, tubes, or wheels can be mounted on such a frame. I agree with Grandy that the 1" threaded design is antiquated. I also realize certain people like special, fancy-schmancy stuff and perhaps this frame speaks to that segment of customers.
If the San Marco were offered in black or flame red, with chromed lugs like the Stanyan, it'd be a steel-geek's wet dream. With an aerocrown fork it might just drop the going price of RB-1s by half. It would definitelyly derail my buy-a-new-Torelli fund.
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