My second Rivendell was purchased only two months after my first – during the holiday break in December 2019, Rivendell put the 45cm Clem H on web special of $750. At the time, I was riding an old Nishiki MTB as my around-town bike and it was fine, but a Clem Smith Jr would be the ultimate for this utility job – and all the little upgrades I’d made on the Nishiki would swap right over!
It’s initial build carried over from a Nishiki Barbarian
I made a small handful of upgrades over the next year, but ultimately sold it about a year later, after around 1100 km put on the bike, because as you can probably surmise by the seatpost extension, it wasn’t quite the right size for me. A 52 would have been a tad large, but better, though it wasn’t available on the web special anyway.
We had funThe final form before I ultimately sold it
I co-planned this ride with a pal, but ended up not being able to join the 8am start – instead, I found myself walking the dogs at 9:30am, and every paved surface was so icy that I was constantly nearly falling and choosing to walk on grass whenever possible. I couldn’t believe that nine friends had already endured 90+ minutes of this (there were plenty of crashes).
But I got the green light to go at 11am, and headed out. It was still very icy! There was a couple instances of wanting to turn, trying it and finding out that the front tire was just going to slide, and deciding against turning in general.
The route plan was about 115km, with about 40% gravel and the rest pavement. Due to the treacherous roads, I ended up taking more trails than initially planned just to keep on a more grippy surface.
If there is one thing I am known for, it’s finding all manner of sneaky trails, connectors, and decommissioned roads to connect up where I want to go – it comes from a place of really not wanting to share my space with cars, and also the joy of exploring my surroundings.
I followed the Trans Canada Trail (more or less) for the first 30 km of the ride, which took me to a favourite brewery that had just released some barrel-aged stouts. I picked up a couple, and headed further east towards Pitt Meadows by way of the Poco Trail – a really lovely gravel MUP that was seeing a lot of use today, despite the cold temps.
I then crossed into Pitt Meadows, known for its flood plain topography and acres upon acres of farmland segmented by dykes you can ride atop. The birding here is good, and I always see a bunch of bald eagles.
Past that, farmland roads of steadily deteriorating quality took me to the most pothole strewn kilometer of my life on a dirt road that provided access to the Pitt Addington marsh pathways. These are mentally and physically taxing to ride, as they are deeply rutted and bumpy, but provide the most incredible views of this magical valley.
I should have taken a photo of the “paved” road out of this valley which I had looped to. Those who’ve ridden to Pitt Lake know, but otherwise it’s hard to convey just how rough the pavement is. Roubaix-like, for certain. I was running relatively low pressure in my Babyshoe Pass tires and was struck by how well they damped out the vibrations. Still rough, though! And the odd pothole large enough to send you over the bars if you hit it straight on.
I’m getting a bit ahead of myself on the photos though – below is the main dyke that runs along the south edge of the lake (to the left is actually “marsh” but sure looks a lot like lake here). At this point it was just after 3pm, and I was 60km from home with about 75 minutes of daylight left. I fished my lunch out of the bag and ate it while riding, because I couldn’t spare a minute at this point. I knew as soon as the sun set, the ice was coming back. It never left the surfaces which didn’t see sun, mind you, but that wasn’t most surfaces thankfully.
The sun set when I was about 30 km from home after a good hustle on the flat farm roads back out of Pitt Meadows, helped by a gentle tailwind. Below was the last kilometer or so of Pitt Meadows – the bridge in the background was what took me out of this suburb.
While it was now dark, and increasingly icy, I really wanted to complete the route as planned and so I took the Burnaby Lake trail which was technically closed as of 20 minutes earlier. This is part of my work commute, and is a beautiful stretch of double track that feels extremely rural despite being a stone’s throw from the highway at points.
I didn’t take too many photos of the last 20 km because it was dark, and generally not that interesting – I did pass through the main roosting location for much of Vancouver’s crows at a really neat time (about an hour after sunset). The trees are completely packed full of sleeping crows on every branch, on both sides of you, for hundreds of feet – it’s really neat to experience. Thousands upon thousands of crows, yet it’s nearly dead-silent.
The ride finished at just shy of 115 km, and not a ton of elevation though that is somewhat misleading with the undulating trail for the first 30 km and then long miles of gravel, and barely-roads. I am toasted!
This was my first Rivendell, bought not too long ago at all, really! Ordered in October of 2019 (and received in November), in the first two years I had already put more mileage on this bike than any bike previous (about 5800 km), despite having had many others for longer.
The parts, initially, all transferred over from my previous bike: a Soma Grand Randonneur. This made ponying up the cost of the frameset a lot more digestible. The only changes I made was the bar and stem to account for the longer top tube – a short, 5cm Nitto Tallux and initially a Crust Towel Rack bar. The latter was changed to a Simworks SoBar (50cm version of a Noodle) a few months later and this worked much better for my neck and shoulders.
The very first iteration (left) and two days later (right)
Not much has changed in the two years I’ve owned it at the time of writing this – in fact, while my bike spending was at an all-time high for 2021 (and same with my riding mileage!), I spent nary a cent on this bike! It’s just the way I want it.
This is the first and only bike I’ve owned that I’ve been completely sure I want to keep the bike forever for the entire two first years of ownership. I don’t expect that feeling to change. It’s just a magical bike – surprisingly quick, immensely comfortable, and can do just about anything. I’ve legitimately thought about a second one, set up with flat bars and a big front rack, but instead the Bombadil fills those shoes.
I’ve experimented with Albatross bars on the bike now a few times, which works really well – though I went back to the drop bars a couple times because of the overlap that exists once I have a Hillborne with Albatross and a Bombadil with KT bars.
For 2024, I’ve tucked the Bombadil away and am focusing on riding less bikes – the Hillborne being one, and as such, it’s now free to take on a slightly different role: the everyday bike as well as the long distance and road-ish bike. Above shows the build as of the end of November 2023, and 9600km on this bikes’ odometer.
[This is a favourite loop of mine, and also many of my riding pals. I’ve done it many times, but the loop documented here remains one of the best, as the forest just had something extra magical about it that day.]
I had this particular route in mind when I bought this frameset from Joe. It’s just outside of town here in Vancouver BC, and its quite unique and special. We have an immense wealth of trails on our north shore, though most are technical mountain bike or hiking trails. I love those trails, but this route features the only extended stretch of gravel that is fully closed to motorized traffic (except service vehicles, which I’ve never come across) as well as the only paved parkway that extends into the wilderness in this region.
I can ride it from my doorstep; it’s about 11km to get to the ‘good stuff’, taking bike routes and a bridge to get there. The climb in is significant; this is a mountainous area. After pedaling up the access road, the first few kilometers into the forest are along the paved parkway – a special gem that is shared with many cyclists, walkers, rollerbladers etc in the summer. Now that the temperatures are barely above freezing and it’s usually raining, the path is much more empty.
This path carves through the rainforest for about 5km, leaving cell service behind, until a pretty hard-to-miss singletrack turnoff takes you down a steep embankment to this grand clearing, known as The Spot among friends here. Despite its established looks, it’s both well hidden and hard to access, and therefore goes unknown to many who ride this region.
From here, my route follows a steep downhill stretch of singletrack to a marsh, where a gravel access road begins and will take me a further 7km into the valley and away from the city.
Above is a trail that loops around the marsh, the backside of which requires riding through about a 40 foot wide drainage area that is between 6 and 12 inches deep. Tough to get through with dry feet!
This access road, called Spur 4, used to be charming double-track with grass up the middle but it was graded this year with fresh gravel. Unfortunate, to me. Bears and cougars inhabit this area and humans are few and far between – combine this with the lack of cell service and the fact you’re now over 10km into the woods, it can be pretty humbling to ride alone.
A connector trail brings you back to the main parkway, where most people are. It was a little wet today, but that’s fine by me. I can’t imagine life without full-coverage fenders!
Above is the view of the lake, which is as far as you can go. It was only about 2:30 but already the sun was falling behind the tall peaks to the west; I’m far enough north that it’s getting dark shortly after 4pm now.
Above is just a little more appreciation for this bike. What a capable machine for such multi-surface adventures.
The first leg of the return route is called the Hatchery Trail, and it’s the highlight of the whole route for me. It’s a non-technical trail that winds through the moss-rich forest, including placards with information on local wildlife. It’s beautifully maintained and quite wonderous, considering the nearest vehicle parking is 10km away!
There is a beautiful bit of sandy beach along the river here, which is visible on the way up Spur 4 from partway up the hillside on the other side of the river.
This trail puts you back on the paved parkway, well north of where I had turned off to head down to the ‘back route in’. Just a few hundred meters up I noticed a large mammal immediately beside me; a deer who had no concern of my presence at all.
I followed this parkway the full 10km, it’s beautiful but I didn’t stop for any more photos. Once I reached the end, where most park their cars, I followed a trail eastward which dropped 120m in elevation in no time at all. It was STEEP! This is not one of the steep spots, but it gives a good sense of the trail.
As I dropped in elevation I entered a pre-sunset fog. Combined with the beginnings of a sunset, it really made for a cool effect with the moss and lichen covered trees.
The rest of the ride out looked similar to below. The trail ends at the end of a long residential street; bombing down that for a kilometer or two brings you to a major road that funnels to the bridge which brings me home.
The full route from my door falls a bit short of 60km, which is a nice length for me – big enough to be rather epic, but can be done in about 4 hours and leaves me with a bit of gas in the tank so I’m not a wreck for the rest of the evening!
Thanks for following along with my ride report / coming to my TED Talk! This bike rules.
This is the page for my 52cm Bombadil which I bought off fellow Riv-lister Joe in autumn of 2020.
While I don’t know all its details for certain, I do know it’s a fairly early batch – when they still did two top tubes for the 52cm size, and they were using parallel top tubes rather than the diaga-tube which came in mid-production. Here is a photo from my very first ride on it, about 24 hours after it arrived.
The wheelset came with the frameset, and the rest were parts I already had laying around from my Clem Smith Jr (or in the case of the tires, from the Hillborne’s alter-ego build).
The very next ride on the Bombadil was over 50km of mixed terrain with quite a lot of technical singletrack, and a lot of elevation as well (including getting past the snowline!). A very ambitious “shakedown ride” in retrospect, but the bike performed great and I had no issues other than the bars rotating a bit in the stem from taking a couple drops.
Not long after this, the Bombadil received some fenders an an upgraded drivetrain. I also ordered up a new wheel set, going all-out with a SON and White Industries hubset and Cliffhanger rims. Thanks to the bike boom, it was six months before all the parts were received though. In that time I had countless adventures on this bike.
A particularly treacherous but exciting ride involved visiting Seymour Lake via my favourite loop, where the weather was snow- and frost-free before the valley but we were surprised with snow and ice, including a solid sheet of ice on the paved parkway back (for over 5 km!) due to a thaw-freeze cycle.
It has undergone some updates, including trying a Nitto Wavie bar in place of the MAP Ahearne bar, upgrade to some old XTR cranks, the addition of a Nitto Campee rear rack, and a small variety of tires.
The bike was disassembled in September 2021 for a fresh paint job by Chris Dekerf, and back on the road as of January 2022 with an assortment of new parts: Nitto Albatross bars, Pass & Stow front rack, and Rene Herse Umtanum Ridge tires wrapped in VO Fluted 63mm fenders.
The new paint was selected from a swatch, a pearlescent green with gold, which worked out beautifully. I didn’t expect the tires to work with fenders, but while the clearance was minimal, it was fine!
The build continued to evolve: the Albatross bars were swapped for Nitto Wavie with Ergon grips, which leaned into the ATB roots of the bike. Later, the Wavie bars were swapped for Crumbworks’ KT bars, which had a similar sweep but played better with a front bag and also had some rise so the stem didn’t need to be so high.
Above is the development ten months later – went back to 48mm tires (Ultradynamico Rosé, but also Cava mixed in sometimes) because the additional fender clearance helps, and the Pass & Stow rack ultimately felt like too much. The Bombadil feels best with only a modest front load, as close to the bars as possible.
Above was June 2022’s bike camping setup – still had the Pass & Stow, which worked great with the rack bag from Outer Shell and the big MUTs from Randi Jo Fab.
Below is an image from the Good Friday ride of 2023, where the Bombadil has taken on commuting duties as well as being the defacto adventure bike. As of mid-April, the Charlie H Gallop returned to my quiver and the Bombadil can be relieved of commuting duties.
