Here is our first scoop from the North American Handmade Bicycle Show before the doors event open! Tom Ritchey is getting into the fat-bike scene! We will have more on this development soon but for now here are a couple of teasers of the show bike from the assembly room at Ritchey before it headed east to Charlotte for the show.
The original Ritchey Commando was designed to be a mountain bike with no limits, a machine to conquer cow trails and dry creek beds in the days before mountain bikes were common. Now that adventurous spirit lives on in the reinvented 2014 Commando. And, while Tom Ritchey did not invent the fat-bike, his four decades of framebuilding mastery brings the light and nimble feel of a Ritchey to the world of fat-bikes.
Some highlights of the new Commando:
- Show bike fillet brazed by Tom Ritchey – production model available October 2014
- Premium seamless, heat treated, triple-butted Ritchey Logic II tubing
- Forged and machined headtube, stronger and lighter than standard 1-1/8” head tubes
- Spacing: 135mm front and 170mm rear
- Room for 26 x 3.8” tires
- MSRP $999.99
1st rule is…
I love the Ritchey P29. If this bike handles like that one, then I will be all over it. Really wish it had a 44mm head tube though.
Was hoping it would be called the P-fat, or Phat, or something. Cool though.
Looks pretty cool to me! I would ride one for sure. A little suprised at the 170mm rear end with the new 190mm rear that are coming out. Seems like that is the direction that things are heading but I have no issues with 170mm at all.
I so want one of these.