William's Ritchey Montebello

This week we're proud to feature William's Ritchey Montebello.

William came up from Brooklyn for a fit session with the goal of finding a steel randonneuring bike with a good amount of tire clearance.  After considering a few options, we found that the Ritchey Montebello would meet or exceed all of his requirements for a reliable and versatile rig.

The Montebello frame is built from Ritchey's legendary triple-butted Logic steel tubing, designed to be very resilient over harsh terrain as well as incredibly responsive under hard efforts.  Originally developed in 1984 by Tom Ritchey for lugless construction, it has undergone some changes over time such as shortening the butts and tapers in order to put the metal where it matters most, simultaneously strengthening and enlightening the tubes all in the pursuit of improving the ride quality.  

The exact wall thicknesses, butt lengths and taper lengths are a closely guarded secret, but it is rumored that the wall thicknesses at each end of a given tube aren't identical because Tom designed the front end of the frame to absorb vibrations differently than the rear end of the frame.  In a sea of carbon, properly engineered steel is still very real.

William wanted to retain a classic look for the build, so he chose to stick with Ritchey's classic silver handlebars, stem, seatpost, bottle cages and the Classic Zeta Disc Wheelset. Since he does most of his riding in and around New York City, we selected the Rene Herse 700x35 Bon Jon Pass tires with the endurance casing for a fast rolling, smooth ride and enough puncture resistance to combat NYC streets.

The Shimano GRX 2X group lends William the perfect gear ratios for cruising the city, and with 48/31 chainrings paired to an 11-36 cassette he'll have no trouble loading up the bike and getting out into the woods for overnight trips.

We wish William the best with this dream build, congratulations William!