Atlantis Build Inspo

The Atlantis frames in Sergio green are up online.

Thought this demo bike at the Kamiuma store that Tani the Rivendell master of Blue Lug might be an inspiration for people who already got the frame or considering to get one.

Tani’s words from below…

This is not the 2025 Atlantis. This is from the 2018 batch.

The frame is our painter, Konno’s but he wasn’t riding it recently, so I used it to build up a demo bike for the shop with my collection of bike parts. The theme of the build is “If I were to ride the Atlantis”.

The geometry of the 2018 version is no different to the 2025 Atlantis. The only thing that is different is the pump peg that was added to the new Atlantis

This was a cool update in my opinion. It makes me want to put a frame pump, even if I’m not sure I’m going to use it that day. I consider myself as a psi geek, so I always bring a pump if I’m going to “ride”, so I was very hyped about this update.

The frame size of this demo bike is a 53. The owner Konno’s PBH is 84cm

The saddle height looks like it’s around 74cm in this photo. I’d say go with size 50 if your saddle height is lower than 71cm.

I get a lot of questions about the size. The quickest way to figure out your frame size is to measure your PBH. (Pubic Bone Height)

Rivendell has a video of how to measure your PBH.

The Atlantis is a bike that looks the best within your PBH range, due to its standover height.

Back to the bike check.

To me, this is “THE” Rivendell Bike. Especially since this model has been around for 25 years.

There are many ways to build this bike. Hope this inspires yours.

I was feeling the Billie Bars for this build.

I love a “Full Rivy Build”, a build only using parts that are on rivbike.com. I think a Full Rivy Bike that has a character instead of a “mass produced build”, even though all the parts are from rivbike.com, are the best looking Rivendells. (Like Grant’s builds)

Now, I’m not saying that builds with other parts are not beautiful. Bikes are meant make you feel free. There are no wrong answers.

What’s unique about the Billie Bar is the length of the fore grip. (where the blue tapes are in the pic)

I think the key feature of recent Riv bars are the long spacey fore grip. Fore grips are great when climbing hills, riding through rough ground and riding over a curb or a log in the trail.

Therefore, it’s important to get the cables out of the way from the fore grip. You will need to do some tricks in order to make room for it, like the picture below. I like using a front derailleur shifter, flipped up side down as a rear derailleur shifter.

I got so obsessive with clearing the fore grip for this build.

The length of the grip area. I often secure about 130mm of space, if I’m just putting a normal grip, but I decided to just secure 110mm for this.

I’ve seen Grant go down to 90mm for this space, but I still lack mastery of this style, so I went with 110mm. Now I have 20mm + plus space for fore grips.

These are the Shimano DXR levers from my personal collection, which unfortunately are now discontinued. I’m glad I grabbed them.

These levers are cool, but the adjuster bolt and the lockring hurts my hand when holding the fore grip.

Let’s just get rid of them.

If you’re seeing this and think I’m crazy, remember the T780 XT? They didn’t have the lockring for the cable adjusters and the adjusters don’t spin on themselves without it so relax.

Ah, nothing to get in the way. Just a comfy fore grip.

The grips are the Rivendell felt grips, we’re currently testing. You can cut these grips into whatever length you’d like. I love the rubber band idea from Grant.

If you want to use the Billie Bar on correct size Atlantis, I would recommend a 100-130mm stem. For this build, I used a 130mm stem for a size 53 frame, thinking that someone who is about 180mm tall and has 74cm saddle height.

I borrowed the wheel sets from Konno, the owner of the frame.

I noticed that he painted the Phil logo in teal, when building the bike. I thought that was pretty sweet. He is a painter after all.

Velocity Atlas rims designed by Rivendell. Love the cool logo.

The max tire clearance is 55mm(2.1″) but it should be able to fit around 2.3 – 2.4″ if the geo is the same as the previous Atlantis. I haven’t tried 2.4″ with the new batch. Someone want to let me try?

Ultradynamico Mars tires FTW.

These tires roll really good on pavement as well, so it’s always good to have these tires, if you want to build “a Riv bike that can also ride off-road”.

Drive train.
I threw on some components from my collection, which I had sourced for the Blue Lug Kamiuma 10th anniversary frame that Rivendell is making for us and will (hopefully) arrive someday.

Sugino triple cranks I bought at Chouchin Cycles

and the Rapid Rise RD I bought from an old bike shop. Ain’t the red jockey wheel beautiful?

I have a personal policy of building Rivendell bikes with more than one chainring. I will build them with an FD, no matter what.

Putting baskets on a Rivendell is always great, but Riv bikes feel way more light and fast without them. I just want to tell Riv riders that it’s the baskets and racks that make Rivendells slow and heavy. I wanted people to try rackless Rivs, so I just put a Banana Sack

We might be getting a new batch of Sackville bags soon.

Keep in mind, I didn’t want to build an off-road bike.

I wanted to build a get arounder that can also ride great in a gravel path along the local river and even commute to work the next day. I want this bike to be a bike you can ride anywhere, seamlessly.

A tool for weekdays and a toy for the weekends. In other words, an “all-rounder”.

It seems like many people in the states build the Atlantis as a touring bike. Front and rear racks with a saddlebag. A set up to load up all the camping gear.

(This is an Appaloosa, but you get the gist)

However, the Atlantis is also great at doing ATB/MTB type riding, like Mr. Ronnie Romance says.

Konno had that type of build in the past.

Rivendell bikes have a unique and relaxed feel to the ride quality, that you won’t feel with any other bikes. I want everyone to test out our bikes like the people at Riv let us when we visited their HQ. That’s why I try to build a demo bike for each of their bikes.

Thank you for reading to the end.

-Tani