I won’t lie.  This is the frame I am holding out on for my designated 650b wheeled bike.  Rivendell, Steel, Touring.  All up my alley.

Rivendell Bicycle Works prides itself on designing and selling only lugged steel bicycles, and the rideable art from the 16-year-old California company is meant to be ridden in all ways possible. A lug is a sleeve of metal that surrounds the frame tube at the joint, strengthening the joint. Most modern frames don’t have them, but most used to up until the early 1990s. The heart of the Bombadil is its US$1,600 frameset, with its investment cast lugs, fork tips, dropouts and bottom bracket joined together by master craftsmen with a heated torch and silver. One of the paint options is no paint, just clear coat, which shows off the curly Q lugs and handiwork. The unique double top-tube design stabilizes the frame, which was designed around the decades-old standard French 650B-designated wheel diameter.

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