If you get one, do not skimp on the brakes. I replaced the E4 with the V4 and replaced the Hope rotors with Shimano Ice-tech. We had smoke pouring off the disks at 40 MPH on the speedometer. I started off with the Hope E4 brakes, and they overheated badly when we needed to stop in a hurry on a steep downhill in Scotland. We have ridden some cow trails with it, but it is not a great off road bike. The bike itself weighs about 40 pounds, so it is not a featherweight. It is stable at speeds even with the fork mounted luggage. The bike has done a fair amount of local rides, and a couple of extended tours in the Scottish Highlands. I have had to break it into 2 pieces to fit on Scottish Rail bike racks, and we can be back on the road in 5 minutes. A partial dis-assembly to pack in our car may take me 15 minutes. and the bike is packed in the bags, I can put it back together in about an hour. Fully dis-assembled, meaning the brakes are off, the cranks are off, etc. The time to assemble depends on the degree of dis-assembly.
#Ritchey breakaway mountain bike plus#
All up, including riders and luggage we are carrying around 450 pounds, plus the weight of the bike. Spinnergy 700C Tandem wheels and Schwalbe 700C X 35 tires. Ours is setup as a flat bar touring bike. My regular road bike is a 61 ETT, so the bike is a little cramped for me, but it is still a pleasure to ride. I am about 6'3" and my wife is about 5'6". My wife and I have one of these, and we love it. There are other great options out there but probably none in this price range considering you don’t have to pay extra for the breakaway travel feature. One other issue we had from the beginning was a defective coupler which had bad threads on one of the bolts and took us a few months to thoroughly diagnose ( the shop never could). Cool stop pads and larger rotors have solved our issues. The shop put smaller rotors on and we can say from personal experience it can be rather terrifying to lose your brakes when they overheat. I also would recommend you run with the biggest brake rotors you can find.
The shop we bought the bike from put more road-oriented chainrings and gearing, and I have subsequently changed much of the components over to lower gearing suitable for gravel events. We had some headaches with component build. Better than our Cannondale but nothing compares to the Columbus tubing on the Santana. Very difficult to adjust timing chain tension. Limited water bottle mounts (4), insufficient for long gravel rides.Ĭheap front eccentric Bottom bracket bottom bracket. While not light, this is several pounds lighter than our Cannondale. If you want a corner-carving machine, there may be better options out there, but you will find tires make as much difference as anything in cornering. For gravel, the geometry works for us, including rake, etc. In numerous trips still have not paid a dime in fees. My short assessment of this bike is:īreakaway system works for airline travel. I also totally stumbled upon this bike on the Ritchey website and rolled the dice on it, as I simply could not find anyone who knew anything about it. We also own a Santana tandem with Columbus tubing which we have owned since new.įor us, this bike replaced a Cannondale 29’er tandem which we rode in the 2015 Dirty Kanza 200 and I sold two months later - it was heavy and unresponsive, etc.
For the last 9 months or so we have ridden this bike more than any other bikes in our stable, as we have gravel accessible from our house. It was purchased specifically for the purpose of riding gravel. Last year we rode Rebeccas Private Idaho on it as well.
We rode the Dirty Kanza 200 on it in 2016 and plan to again this year (did not get in last year). My wife and I purchased our Ritchey Breakaway tandem about 2 years ago, and have put thousands of miles on it.
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