I got into cycling with mountain bikes. After several years of trail riding, I and a few friends decided to do some road cycling as well. In 1992 I bought a Trek 5200 from my local bike shop. I rode it through the Jura and through the Seeland a lot but left it at home during my language year in California in 94/95. It went with me to Sonoma County, when I moved there in 1997. For 4 more years it was the bike I used to climb Cavedale Road just outside Sonoma and Pine Flats after I moved to Santa Rosa. It became my daily commuter after I bought a Litespeed Ultimate until the drive-side chain stay broke in 2006. The bike had a lifetime warranty and Trek USA gave me a Trek Madone 5.2 as a replacement, even though I no longer had the purchase receipt from my Swiss LBS. The Madone 5.2 was built up with the components from the 5200 and took over as my commuter bike; first in Santa Rosa and later in Biel, Switzerland after we moved across the pond. In Switzerland, I upgraded it to a newer Ultegra groupset including Ultegra wheels, and sold it in 2010 to make room for another bike. The Litespeed Ultimate was the road bike I owned and rode the longest. It took me across every climb in Sonoma County and climbed across the Chasseral countless times. It served as a single-speed commuter after I built a Neilpryde Alize. In 2014 I bought a fairly inexpensive Volagi Viaje frameset, which forever changed road cycling for me. I went back to what I call a traditional road bike when I built a Ritte Snob Disc. Had I known back then where the Volagi would be taking me, I would have in all likelihood not purchased the Ritte. As gorgeous as this bike is, it was born under a somewhat unlucky star. After two rides, the Enve fork broke. A few weeks later, Enve actually had to recall that fork. Ritte was great though and sent me a replacement fork in the matching paint. I rode the bike for a couple of years and loved it, but ultimately the Volagi with room for much wider tires took over. When I bought my third Volagi and sold the first one, I decided to move the SRAM eTap HRD groupset from the first Volagi to the Ritte. But before doing so, I wanted a small paint damage on the steerer tube repaired. The fork replacement years earlier came with a lower headset change from 1 1/4" to 1 1/2". Extracting the lower cup and pressing in a new one caused the paint to come off. The paint shop I hired for the repair then realized that a small local paint repair would never be 100%, so we repainted the whole bike. A move in 2019 and the addition of a Nordest Albarda allroad bike halted the completion of the Ritte, but finally, in 2020 it was carefully put back together. So, there are currently three road bikes in my stable; the Ritte put together with old and new parts, the third Volagi Viaje built with an NOS frameset I had found online in 2018 and an inexpensive Nordest Albarda also built with a mix of old and new parts. Here's the list of the road bikes I've owned over the years.
Comments