Goin' up with the country bike

Hello, this is Masa (aka Lou) from Blue Lug global team, how have you been there?

First of all, let me write about myself a bit. I joined Blue Lug this September and have been working at the global online store as well as translating the blogs and putting the subtitles for our YouTube videos. Thank you for reading and watching them, I hope you enjoy them!

I like bicycles of course, and especially Rivendell bicycles. While a lot of my generation got into the whole track bike movement around 15 years ago, It took me 10 years to get into bikes and the trigger was the slow and easy going Rivendell bikes. I have been riding my Platypus everyday and everywhere, commuting, grocery shopping, cycling around with my family putting my son on the child seat and so on. The Platypus literary is my buddy.

While I ride the Platy everyday, I couldn’t help wondering how it’s going to be if I go for “a ride” with my Rivendell like the one Rivendell crew did with my colleagues this summer. A ride not on pavement, running with cars side by side nor even stopping every few blocks at traffic lights.

The other day, I happened to have an opportunity for that. This time let me report about the day with some photos taken by Ikura from our online team.

Please read this blog post while playing this song.

One day in December, we met up at our Kamiuma store around 9am. It was a chilly day but not too bad as this winter had been quite mild in Tokyo (now it’s getting colder). Had a bit of chat and preparation before the ride!

Let’s load the 7 Rivendells into the van for 7 of us!Drove few hours to the mountain where we are going for the ride. The weather was so nice without even a cloud despite it was raining quite hard until the morning, we were lucky and this could only be a fun ride!After unloaded the bikes we cycled just a little bit of pavement to reach to the trail road. Look how autumn leaves are beautiful there. The trail welcomed us with full of fun things! Pebbles, rocks, puddles and steeps. We immediately sweat and took off our jackets covered in mud. What do you need to do when you are tired? Just have some rest! We occasionally had some break to catch our breath. We all ride the same bikes together so it makes total sense to get tired of pedaling at the same timing.

Let me throw some photos until we reached the destination of the day. Here we are with the Rivendells! Let me briefly introduce you the crew of the ride.*Tani from Kamiuma store with his Clem smith Jr. *

Tani hosts the ride and he rode the Clem in “Hilli Bike” style featuring *RIVENDELL* comfort saddle and *MKS* pretzel pedal this time. Thank you for organizing the ride! Looking forward to the next one.*Aoki from Siesta Store with his Platypus*

He is the owner of the clothes shop “Siesta Store” in Setagaya, Tokyo. He’s an old friend of Tani’s and we all go to his shop often since it’s located near Kamiuma store. He rides a Cheviot for his commute and the Platypus for trail rides. Currently, he strictly rides step-thru Rivendells only! (Here’s the video features his first Rivendell, Sam Hillborne)*Kiyosu with his brand-new Joe Appaloosa*

Kiyosu is another old friend of Tani’s who recently got the Appaloosa as his first Rivendell. Here he shows his love for football with the pose. We all agreed that his Appaloosa is actually “completed” when it got covered with mud!*Ikura with his Sam Hillborne*

As I mentioned before Ikura is from BL’s online store team. He had no problem climbing up and going down the trail while taking all the photos on his Hillborne which he rides to commute everyday as well. Thank you for taking the photos!*Kari-kari with his loaner Clem Smith H-style*

Kari-kari is a mechanic from our Yoyogi-park store. He usually rides a A.Homer Hilsen but this time he rode the Clem gifted from Matsu of the Yoyogi park store.*Samba with his loaner Joe Appaloosa*

Samba is a trainee mechanic joined Blue Lug a month before I did. Usually he rides a MASH steel and CRUST’s wombat but this time he loaned Tani’s Appaloosa. He was the youngest and fastest of the crew!*Myself with the brand new A.Homer Hilsen*

This is myself with my second Rivendell and it got built just a few days before the ride. Thankfully, I got a lot of help from my colleagues to build the bike from lacing wheels to put the cables. The shakedown was much more fun than I imagined. Although, maybe the Platypus would have been more suitable for this kind of ride because Homer has lighter tubing and thinner tire clearance. That said, more importantly the ride bonded the Homer and I tightly. Now I can really feel this is my buddy!

Ok, let’s go down the trail before the sun goes down! We are all different in terms of age, birth place, what we do, what we like etc… but one common thing we like, Rivendell of course, tied us all together no matter how well we know each other. Well, I should stop it before it’s getting too corny but let me say that now I like Rivendell bikes even more than before. How many rides did you go in 2023 and which one was your favorite? This was one of my favorites for sure.