Category: Bikes

I told the folks at Rivendell if they ever sold the silver Charlie prototype, I would love to buy it. The Charlie evolved into caliper brakes, which I wasn’t interested in, so this was quite literally the only Charlie H Gallop frame I was interested in. I also loved that it was silver, because that played perfectly into my plans for the bike: an ordinary looking commuter bike that rode like a dream and had an “if you know, you know” vibe about it.

Well, about 18 months after I sowed that seed, I got my opportunity – they decided to sell the v1 prototypes when the v2’s arrived, and they called me to offer me the bike!

However, I missed that phone call. And I missed that they had called altogether.

A few days later they listed it on the “garage sale” section of their web store and a blessed stranger on Instagram DM’d me to tell me it was on the site. I didn’t even get this message for about two hours – but when I frantically navigated to the web shop, there it was, still available. I think I stared for less than two seconds before clicking ‘add to cart’ and calmly but quickly checking out to make sure I didn’t lose out.

A few minutes later, Will’s email update went out – and mention that it sold while he typed the description for this bike was included. If that email had gone out before I bought, well, I wouldn’t have had the chance to buy it. Serendipitous if you ask me!

It came “as is, where is” with a build that wasn’t exactly what I had planned, but had a lot of very good parts. It had the saddle I would have bought for it anyway, already included. It had the right length crank arms. The tires are basically ideal for my purposes. I swapped some parts from my Bridgestone and parts bin, and I was almost where I wanted to be already.

It’ll evolve a bit more before finding its final form, but I’m pretty darn confident that when it gets there, it’ll be a bike I don’t fuss with often. And hopefully, it’ll be a bike I ride a lot. I plan to commute 100+ days a year on this bike, 32km each day. That will add up!

In summer of 2022 I bought a Brompton, which served perfectly as a commuter especially since I could either ride the whole way, or take the train part way to work. It largely overlapped with the Charlie, and the Hillborne overlapped on the other end of the spectrum. So in November 2022, I sold the frameset with select parts to a friend.

In April 2023, I bought it back, having realized my mistake (and changing jobs that resulted in a long, hilly commute without a train option). I built it back up similar to before, but with a few differences – and I think it’s better than ever!

Comically, I once again sold it in July 2023, this time to someone in Oakland CA. The reason for the (second) sale was because ultimately the Crust Wombat won the battle for the final available spot in my quiver.

My 700km review of the Charlie can be found here. In the end I had put just over 1500km on it, and certainly loved every bit of it. If I had the space I’d have kept it, but alas.

Most owners of the clearcoat-over-raw Bombadils have long since repainted their rides, spooked at the first indication of surface rust from the coating’s lackluster corrosion resistance.

I came to own my Bombadil after it had lived a decade in the PNW, and honestly, the corrosion situation didn’t seem too bad. However, the somewhat yellowed tint of the clearcoat didn’t really spark joy, and I knew that if this was going to be a lifetime bike, I should start anew with a fresh coat of paint sooner than later. That’s more time for me to add my own beausage to the new paint, after all!

The frame spent a couple months with Chris Dekerf, and no corners were cut. The result was a stiff bill but a beautiful frame. In addition to the new paint, I redecorated the bike with a host of new parts such as a nine-speed, friction shifted drivetrain and big Rene Herse knobbies under Velo Orange fenders.

I expect that most people take a spin around the block as a shakedown ride, but my first ride on this bike back when I got it was an ambitious 50km mountainous singletrack ride, so I felt compelled to at least get out into the woods so long as the bike felt more or less operational.

And more or less, it was. The initial brake installation left a lot to be desired, and even touching the rear brake was embarrassingly loud. Turns out I had the pads in backwards (don’t worry – not cartridge!) so that probably didn’t help. I have a list of other things I need to fix.. but the bike propels.

I chose to venture into the Seymour valley where this bike often calls home. I should note that we had a big dump of snow a couples weeks ago but temperatures have been well above freezing lately, and the snow is gone around town. I crossed the bridge into North Vancouver and climbed up residential streets to a trail network I knew would be good for photos, which is where the photo above was taken. No snow to be seen, and this was higher elevation than where I was headed, so I was good!

Narrator: He was not.

To my surprise, when I popped out of this completely snow-free trail, I was met with a packed snow and ice concoction blanketing the main trail. The lack of tree cover plus the packing of snow from this trail’s higher use meant that it stuck around during the recent rains, and those rains only served to encrust this snow and make it hard to walk on, let alone ride.

Stubbornly, I continued on with a mix of careful riding and walking as necessary. I made my way down Fisherman’s for a bit, even though my Strava had quit at this point so it didn’t even count!

I didn’t make it very far though, and instead climbed up a connector to the hill on the other side of this valley to visit a friend. Thankfully, once out of the valley, the snow relented.

Well – mostly.

It went back and forth.

I then was out on roads again, and any trace of snow disappeared. I didn’t take any photos of those roads because they weren’t interesting. As soon as I got back onto a trail though, I took the following shot. This trail took me down near the bridge which brought me back to my neighbourhood.

A buddy’s dad, who worked at construction sites, had a handful of abandoned bikes that he took home from a site because he didn’t want to see them go to scrap.

So we did what any reasonable person would do. We cut them apart, found unique and ridiculous ways to weld them together using an oxy-acetylene torch, coat hangers, and absolutely no welding experience whatsoever.

Video of it in action

I came up with the concept and basically cut apart bikes and tried fitting tubes together until it made sense. Once it it was together, it took me more time to work up the courage to actually mount it than I expected. But it worked!

I was going to college at the time so I brought it to campus. Once I’d shown off my silly creation to my peers, I just left it un-locked at the bike rack. Each day I’d ride it a little bit and leave it somewhere else on campus. It moved around from other people trying it. This went on for probably a month, but one day I found it in the bike rack like below – it finally broke.

So as you may have noticed from my bike history page, mountain bikes were front and center when it came to my interest in bikes basically from my teenage years through to my thirties, when I started to diversify a little – but MTB remains an important thing to me.

For all of my twenties, basically, I was a hardtail diehard. Then, in 2010 or 2011 I tried a buddy’s full-suspension Banshee and was immediately sold. I went through a few bikes but the Knolly was the first “dream build”, made possible by a very generous bonus at work that year. The frame I found used, and the build centered around the just-released SRAM XX1 drivetrain, which was the first 1×11 to market – kind of wild to think now, but this was a brand new concept at the time and only available as a top-end spec.

The bike was built by Matt at North Shore Bike Shop, after hours while I sat and watched drinking beer (I had brought him a 6-pack not realizing he doesn’t drink). My first ride on the bike was Ladies Only on Fromme, and the bike performed admirably – this is a pretty hectic trail to ride on an unfamiliar bike (at least at my moderate skill level) but it felt comfortable straight away.

This bike consolidated my MTB quiver to one, from previously owning a Bandit 29er and a TR250 park / shuttle bike. It survived many Whistler bike park trips, slabs of Squamish, and many north shore days both pedaling up and shuttling.

Notably it also carried me through a three-day bike-packing trip in the South Chilcotin mountain range, fittingly its namesake. I rode this with one buddy, and the fact that this is grizzly country never left our minds for a moment. We were fortunate (unfortunate?) to see a group of grizzlies hunting marmots on the final ascent to Windy Pass – which meant we didn’t spend a lot of time on the summit. Too bad too, because it was the most picturesque point of the whole trip.

Going back to the mid 2000’s, I was really only into mountain biking and biketrials. Mountain biking had been a part of my life from childhood, while biketrials was something I picked up in my early 20’s. Riding on pavement was never something I was interested in – it was a means to an end only.

Then I test rode a Giant Bowery singlespeed road bike and was blown away by the pure speed. That test ride changed my perspective entirely. However, it wasn’t until this bike, my Soma Rush, that I really felt a deeper connection to a pavement-oriented bike.

Even brakeless, I rode this bike all over the place. This was a time before strava but I’d love to see my mileage and heatmap from these days – I lived in Pitt Meadows at the time but rode this bike all over Vancouver, North Vancouver, New West, and beyond – including a number of 100+ km days in preparation for the 2009 Ride to Conquer Cancer which yes, I rode on this bike.

The fact I rode that 230km event on a fixed gear with 49-17 gearing is a bit baffling in retrospect – the weather was absolutely terrible, I remember that, but otherwise I had no concerns about the bike or my fitness. Weird!

This was a Craigslist score for $1200 in 2013. The previous owner did a great job with the build, and I’m afraid all my changes over the two years or so that I owned it only drew it away from the balance it had, which is likely why I sold it. Below is mostly as-purchased form but all the racks and panniers were my additions.

The above was a test fit for a tour that is depicted perfectly in the following photo – the farmer’s market on Mayne Island.

I wasn’t convinced about the moustache bars at the time, and tried drops .. and they didn’t spark joy either. Then I fitted some Jones loop bars which were pretty good, but never really felt like things were exactly right.