Expanding the Fleet

In 2011 I visited R+E Cycles and ordered a custom Rodriguez bicycle. Since 2013 this had been my only vehicle. For the past decade or so I’ve been thinking about what a second bike may look like.

This year I decided I was finally ready to make a move. In the beginning of January I called R+E (once you’ve had them build one bicycle there’s little motivation to look elsewhere) and relayed my dreams. After two or three weeks of hashing out the build, I placed my deposit. 6 weeks later they shipped me a new bike.

Back in 2011 I was interested in a bike that could take me on any road. So it made sense for the second vehicle to be one that didn’t need roads. If it was 1994 this would easily be classified as a mountain bike. In 2024, the industry uses that term to refer to something completely different, and I have no idea what they would call this type of build.

The wheels are 26”, with a SON 28 dynamo hub in the front and a Rohloff SPEEDHUB in the rear. The frame is the same Reynolds 725 as my road bike, and in the same size, but with all the extra bits needed for a purpose-built Rohloff frame. Jones Loop H-Bars give me a range of positions.

This past summer, when I decided that I was ready to start thinking more seriously about a second bike, I first asked myself if I would rather spend money on my existing bike. If I had an unlimited budget, what would I change? And the answer was nothing. There may be some minor components I’d be interested in experimenting with here and there, but that bike is basically the idealized expression of everything I think a road bike should be. It took 12 years to get to that point. I’ll spend the next 12 years perfecting this one.