Rivendell Big Dummy Review

Rivendell Reader – big pdf

A mildly charming Big Dummy review on page 46 of the wonderful Rivendell Reader. Don’t bother getting annoyed by any of the rest of it, he’s trolling you…

A wonderful concept, characteristically fantastically pulled off by Surly. Huge applause for everybody who had anything to do with it

🙂

I can’t read any of that shit, I know he trolls, and it still winds me up. Tosser…When I’m king…. 👿

a swift email to the Tolkien foundation should sort them out. rivendell? bombadil? they’ll have grey suited intellectual property lawyers all over them in a flash!

They’ll have grey suited intellectual property lawyers all over them in a flash!

Too late. Rivendall have already had the call and responded…

Got a call today from a lawyer representing the firm that owns the rights to the middle-earth names in the Movie, and we can keep Rivendell (we predate the movie by far, and there are numerous companies with Rivendell in the name); but they have a prob with Legolas, and might squawk some about Bombadil and Quickbeam (but they weren t in the Movie, so maybe not); and Baggins won t fly for sure–. So we may have to rename the Bombadil and Quickbeam. This is a much more pleasant call to get than, Your carbon fork snapped, and my client s family… The lawyer was seemed sincerely normal and friendly, and it s not like BIG news here, just a little things we have to deal with. If our names came before the Movie, we may be off the hook. Legal things, we ll play according to the law and the right standards, but I ll be bummed if Bombadil has to go. How does Yves Gomez sound for a mountain bike?

I don’t know, but I suspect J.R.R might have been rather appalled by the idea that the name “Tom Bombadil” was anybody’s property.

I wonder if anyone would go after you for using Muzzlehatch instead?…

🙂

Tom Bombadil is/was? the most pointless bit in the whole Ring trilogy. It is entirely fitting that Peterson named one of his bikes after him.

i quite like the bike tho, looks nice.

agree on the tom bombadill part of the rings.
total waste of a fair few pages.

total waste of a fair few pages.

IIRC there’s a lot of that going on. “This damn thing is going to be three fat volumes if it kills me!” – J. R. R. Tolkein (maybe)

Still, that bike is a good way of avoiding heel-rub on the panniers.

The Rivendell bloke sometimes verges on being a parody of himself, but he does make me cackle. While his constant digs at carbon fibre, mountain bikes and the like can be a bit tiresome (I really wouldn’t ride that Bombadil thing off road, it looks like death on a stick. Quill stems FFS!) I completely agree with the idea that most people don’t need the newest, lightest or fanciest thing.

the most pointless bit in the whole Ring trilogy

I cannot agree – part of the attraction of the story is the varied sentient bestiary and the near immortality of many of the characters, with their differing levels of involvement with mortals. Bombadil represents primeval uninvolvement and Nature as a thing apart.

Simon, very well put.

Quill stems FFS!

What’s not to like?

Bombadil represents primeval uninvolvement

Plus he can save you from any lurking Barry Whites.

Yes, I understand what the character of Bombadil represents, and why. But as a piece of writing it is at odds with the rest of the tone of the books. It just doesn’t work that well. IMO.

Can you imagine riding that Bombadil on anything tight and/or technical? I’ve got an 80s rockhopper that has similar geometry and it’s a complete disaster on anything tricky. Good for fireroads and going to the shops though!

I suspect it’s good for a lot of what those chaps seem to like doing. They appear to build bikes for the Rough Stuff Fellowship and their ilk. Very nice bikes indeed. The Bombadil is just at the gnarly end of the RSF spectrum, isn’t it? It does not look wildly dissimilar to various bikes on here of a CX/crossover variety with a view to light touring. For what they’re building for it looks rather smart.

My Kona A’ha is lurking around trying to find a function at present. I rather wonder whether some small racks and a nice upright position for off-road cruising wouldn’t give it a new lease of life.

🙂

Oh I quite like the bike and can see how you would ride it (pretty much as my Dad used to ride his rockhopper, sweating along in his hiking boots, farmers coat and slacks – no helmet of course), it’s just the way he (trolling as you say) dismisses the evolution of mountain bikes into something different and, for technical riding at least, more capable. I think even popping the front wheel up a curb would be tricky on the Bombadil, not on your Kona though.

most people don’t need the newest, lightest or fanciest thing.

We might like it tho.

Seems like the retro kit brigade are under the illusion that everyone apart from them is a slave to the latest shiny new marketing ploy… Still – gotta have something to react against eh, even if it is an illusion 🙂

It’s cool that Grant likes to build bikes that he likes to ride, that’s fine, it’s the constant grind of “I’m right me, and not only am I right, but everyone else is blinded by technology and marketing and they’re absolutely wrong”. I dislike absolutists whether they make otherwise nice bikes, or not.

Molgrips, it ain’t no illusion. Look at the number of people on here who are constantly changing, upgrading and swapping their bikes, or parts thereon. Look at the threads on here about HT11 BBs! Read your average bike mag, and the comments along the lines of “if you’re still running X, you might as well be filling your tyres with builder’s sand and oiling your chain with glue”. Yes, most people learn to take it with a pinch of salt, but it’s still annoying.

What’s not to like?

Not having to carry two humungous spanners around in your toolkit, for starters. Have to admit that none of those bikes would look “right” with a threadless stem though.

I do wonder what proportion of his customers are repeat business “upgrading” (?) to the latest and best retro ride from Rivendell which has dispensed with all innovation and is at the perfect peak of functional what-work-ism.

😉

I dislike absolutists whether they make otherwise nice bikes, or not.

Absolutely!

My Kona A’ha is lurking around trying to find a function at present. I rather wonder whether some small racks and a nice upright position for off-road cruising wouldn’t give it a new lease of life.

My Lavadome is going to become an Xtracycle. Just as soon as I can unseize the 17 year-old bottom bracket…. 😯

Well, my A’ha’s been an Xtracycle already, it needs a new challenge!

😀

Bigdummy I like the idea of a negatively proportional upgrade cycle, very funny.

Threaded headsets and me were a bad combo – either bound tight or loose and wobbly – threadless is a huge improvement.

Although this one’s quite nice:

Modern stems are ugly. The quill Cinelli on my track bike (that goes with the matching Cinelli bars) is just perfect. Slim and elegant, which matches the tubing of the frame (531).

Shame the same can’t be said for the rider….

But as a piece of writing it is at odds with the rest of the tone of the books

couldn’t you level the same criticism at “The Hobbit” ? – which is clearly part of the same story.

There’s a lot going on in this thread isn’t there?

😉

There is.

However, can’t engage on JRRT’s novels. I tried reading TLoTR when I was a child, but its awfulness made me feel physically sick.

I have printed off the Rivendell Reader PDF (thanks work!), and will read it later. There’s a lot to be said for questioning reletenless progress, and there’s something to be said for wearing a hair shirt naw and again, but not both at the same time to the exclusion of all else.

I do wonder what proportion of his customers are repeat business “upgrading” (?) to the latest and best retro ride from Rivendell which has dispensed with all innovation and is at the perfect peak of functional what-work-ism.

I like BikeSnob’s theory that one day they are going to produce a bike made entirely out of lugs, which will be the retro-grouch equivalent of a carbon monocoque.

If you want to talk about functional what-work-ism, surely that honour goes to Surly? Most of their bikes are as about as glamourous as a pair of beige socks. 😉

but look at the pedals on that Surly, new fangled nonsense I tell you.

And we’re back at JRR.

I suppose so Si. But Tom Bombadil was first introduced as a children’s character in a Poem (I could have my dates wrong about this, so this may very well blow my theory right under the waterline), and the Hobbit is also a children’s book. So, to mind they belong together. Although the characters in the Ring are essentially the same thing, they’re from a different perspective, more real (obviously these are all fantastical creatures; more fleshed out, is probably better), whereas Tom just isn’t, he’s still a children’s storybook character.

There’s nowt wrong with utilitarianism, but to the exclusion of all else? wool makes me itch, anyway… 🙂

whereas Tom just isn’t, he’s still a children’s storybook character.

OK, I’ll accept that. I suppose I take the episode as an amusing diversion. Even if it doesn’t exactly fit, I don’t think the story is improved by removing it – and I missed it in the film.

but its awfulness made me feel physically sick.

I wouldn’t class it as great literature, just an involving read (for some of us). It started off as a fairy tale for his own kids, and I think later it became a vehicle onto which Tolkien attached made up languages and histories

I think Jackson removed it as it wasn’t an “essential” bit of the story, and as it’s a longish film anyway.

I remember reading it as a teenager just thinking “Eh? what’s this all about” Perhaps I need to re-visit it.

but look at the pedals on that Surly, new fangled nonsense I tell you.

If it had a hand-polished set of those MKS jobbies with the ridiculously baroque design, and toe-clips accessorised with calf-hide straps, then it would tick the retro box, but might be a tad impractical. I have to stop looking at that bike now actually, it’s making me feel a bit depressed…

two humungous spanners

I’m a Bontrager rider and all my clocks stopped in 1995. 1″ Bonty quill stem, King threaded headset and – the horror! – Rock Shox Judys… 8)

If you want to talk about functional what-work-ism, surely that honour goes to Surly? Most of their bikes are as about as glamourous as a pair of beige socks.

Yep, I’d agree with that. However, as a company Surly are also prepared to do slightly crazy things like build and sell Pugsley or Big Dummy frames so there is a reasonable amount of innovation at work. Maybe not innovation in the sense of ideas being brand new, but they are bring these ideas to the market at a price point that other companies are not.

I have to say I am a bit of a Surly fan. No, their products aren’t flashy, but they’re well built, not too expensive, they work and they should last for ever (unless you crash them into something hard at speed!). And some of their staff are complete nutters, which is nice.

Er, I read that Rivendell Reader last night whilst sitting on the sofa and letting the TV drvel pass me by.

WTF is he on? Or is it all just trolling?

I’ve likewise read a couple and been mildly bemused. He’s interested in stuff, and likes to refine ideas BUT the ideas that he is refining are very self-consciously not mainstream.

It’s an extreme example of singlespeeders in merino wool shirts drinking 24 year old single malt while discussing the benefits of 853 tubing.

My guess is after reading a fair few of them, and not touching MBR at all, over a few years it would all make a lot more sense…

😉