If we’re lucky enough, we might have a love affair like Riley has had with a bicycle. Read on for a special Readers’ Rides featuring Riley’s words on his long-term “bad romance” with his Crust Bikes Romanceur…

“I want your love and all your lovers’ revenge. You and me could write a bad romance.” – Lady Gaga

What goes into a good romance? What goes into a “dream bike”? What goes into a bad romance? Hey, what is a gravel bike anyhow? You could wax philosophical all you want on the answers to these questions, but I really don’t think you could come up with a definitive recipe for any of them. I’m sure each of us has an idea of our own personal ingredients that go into the mix, but the spice of life is variety, and don’t we all appreciate a different flavor? Romance! Dream bikes! I think those two have a lot in common. How many of us have built a bike we thought was our dream bike, and it turns out it just rides like trash, or it just simply wasn’t our size. How many of us have had the hots for someone we thought was worthy of our particular flavor of romance only to find that they too, rode like trash and were just simply not meant to be? Just as you can’t truly force yourself to ride that frame a few cm too big, you can’t force yourself into a romance that simply isn’t yours to play out. But that doesn’t mean we don’t occasionally refuse to give up on either, for better or for worse. Love is a hell of a drug, and gosh, do I love a good bike.

Dream bikes, much like romance, take some deep inner work. Stare deep into the constellations of your soul and know what you truly want, know what you need, make a compromise, flirt, play around a little, try new things. Commit, set your soul alight, be sweet, indulge, jump! Persevere, go a little insane, but accept when things just simply won’t work. After all, “There ain’t no ash will burn.”
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But hey, ya know, sometimes things work out and from the soot of an acetylene torch, the frame of your beloved dream bike rises like a phoenix to carry you off to the romance and adventure which you’ve always dreamed. For me, this bike is a dream bike. Much like romances, we all might have a few dream bikes in our lives, but this is the one I’m flirting with these days. Growing and changing with each other as the years go on, just like the cutest little old couple you ever saw at the farmers market. Several tours, trips, and wonderful experiences are scattered throughout.

I first started making eyes at the Crust Romanceur because gosh by golly did it check off so many of my boxes. Level top tube, raked fork, rim brake, tastefully placed mounting options, ability to roll some phat meats, French fit, and a lugged frame (Although I do yearn for the lugs on whatever year’s model that was a lovely mustard color, 2017?). It’s a real modern-day Rough Stuff bike. Also, very importantly, it was a frame that could mostly be built up with very common and readily available bike co-op parts until it would eventually reach dream bike status. Think of it like going on a lot of cute, simple dates before you really start going steady. And that is just what I did with my Romancuer, it has lived a few different lives in a few different configurations but always with the goal of this bike being my one and only, whatever deep inner work that took for both of us.

HOWEVER! I must caution you, Dear Reader.

If you so choose to shack up with this hot lil piece of a rando bike, please, please please check your clearances! Lest your relationship with it end up damaged and weakened! What I’m saying is that you gotta make sure whatever rack bolt you put on top of the fork crown isn’t standing too proud, or else you will dent your downtube like I did whenever your handlebars swing to the side. Live, learn. Love, lose. Games, prizes. What would a romance be without its ups, downs, and pardons?!?!

Like unintentionally hurting a loved one, the axe forgets what the tree remembers, and I had mostly forgotten about the little dent on the downtube of my oh so tender-hearted Reynolds 853 frame, and geared it up to race the 2023 North South Colorado. This was my first real bikepacking race, and shoot, dang was it tough. It’s one hell of a route, and my respect goes out to its organizer and all who ride it. Rough, rugged, and handsome, this race down the Front Range in Colorado proved to be a bit too rough for my damaged frame, and I cracked my downtube just a few hundred miles in. My front end was oddly compliant as I noodled into the next town to get picked up by a good pal. I just barely limped into the Sonic parking lot when the downtube completely split in two. Race over, frame busted. Oh well, I wasn’t very fast anyway.

So say what you will about Crust occasionally earning its nickname “Crunched Bikes”. Perhaps those of us who choose to love these oh so plump, tired, yet tender-hearted machines may occasionally love bomb down a fire road a bit too passionately. Sometimes a bike simply has too much tire clearance for its own good, making its rider a bit too romantically inclined toward chunk. Perhaps, like Icarus towards the sun, we dally too greedily through the roots and cobbles. My Romanceur love affair had to be put on hold for several months after that race. One of us was lying against the wall, heartbroken and bent out of shape after a bad breakup. While the other still had a spark of dream bike romance burning in their soul. “We’re just taking a break,” I’d say, hopefully. I wasn’t ready to give up on this whole thing just yet. That was my dream bike, and steel is real after all, so I did my best to repair the relationship. I decided I’d learn how to braze with a MAPP gas torch easily found at Home Depot, attempt to splice the downtube back together myself, and ignore that painful brazing scar like nothing ever happened. This did not work (although I can braze racks n’ stuff now, that’s neat, really you should try it out, it’s just hot glue with metal) and the frame split apart again.

An on-again off-again romance after one lap around the block. I accepted defeat and decided that we needed professional couples therapy. I dropped the frame off with Good Grief in Colorado Springs, and in no time, a fancy new (and beefier) Columbus downtube was brazed into my beloved frame. With Dream Bikes comes Dream Riding, and ever since watching Ride the Divide with my dad as ta eenager, nearly all my riding since has been done with the Tour Divide in the back of my mind. I knew I wanted to ride the divide, and I knew I wanted to ride it MY way on MY bike. Now with a freshly rebuilt frame, some disposable income and the time off work approved, I set to building up my dream Divide bike. Yeah, it’s not the best tool for the job of riding the Tour Divide but that’s not the point. As any respectful big wall rock climber knows, “it’s not about getting to the top, it’s about how you get there.”

I knew I was very particular about how I like my bikes and how I wanted to ride them and where I wanted to ride. I feel so deeply lucky that I was able to somewhat achieve that riding goal and do it in style. Every day is a fashion show, sweety, and rule #1 is to look good. After some eBay scrounging, some choice parts collected over the years, a splurge on good tires, and some slight customs, my Romanceur was what I truly deeply wanted to ride the Tour Divide on. Obviously inspired by several beautiful, radically raw builds that avid Radavist readers recognize, I stripped the frame and prepared it with a darkening patina solution and dubbed it the “Bad Romance” with a gold paint marker and some clear packing tape. Get it? Bad romance, cuz it broke. Is it still a Crust? Is it a Good Grief? Still a Romanceur? Something something Ship oTheseus something something.

I’ll let the reader decide, I sure haven’t.

And so, like two sparrows in a hurricane, my “Bad Romance” and I set out on the 2024 Tour Divide. Somewhat abandoning my teenage dreams of racing the thing on account of being type 1 diabetic, and type 1 diabetes making an already hard race even harder. I mostly just wanted to be out there and not die of low blood sugar in the woods. I wanted to be a part of the event and meet new people, go to new places, and just experience what it is in whatever way I could. Isn’t that sweet? I only got 1700 miles into the Divide before having to go back to work, but I’m sure I’ll get to the last 1000 or so miles sometime soon. To each in their own time.

The bike did pretty darn well out there, I think. With a 2.2-inch tire, raked fork, and wide 26.0 clamp bars, the Bad Romance ate up an awful lot of the Tour Divide quite comfortably. Lots of compliance in this bike, that Ultra Ron Ronald Reuel Romance fella is on to something here. I only ever really felt under biked on just a couple of the super chunky miserable sections, anything rougher and normal folks would either walk the bike anyway or want some real long and low suspension. So, here’s the build in what it seems to be settling into. A nice, mature romance full of love and respect, with some occasional spicy new parts thrown in. The frame once again has a concerning dent in it, this time on the top tube, and it is slightly out of alignment. Not sure where it came from or how it happened, but sometimes, we really are blindsided by these things. There’s another romance metaphor somewhere in there, you find it. Off to the frame builder again.

Specs:

• Wheels: 650b Velo Orange Voyager rims and Velo Orange hubs. The VO rear hub oddly had a “break in
  period” was kind of sloppy for a while.
• Tires: Rene Herse Umtanum Ridge, endurance casing. Hot take its only worth it to get the endurance
  casing.
• Brakes: Paul cantis. If you’re using cantis, just bite the bullet and buy Paul’s. No matter what I do, the front
  brake will not stop squealing, which was kinda great on the TD, something to scare the bears away.
• Brake levers: Non-aero Campi levers from the bike co-op.
• Derailleurs: Shimano Deore XT in the back, Suntour Lepree in the front. Though I just found an old campi
  derailleur to throw up front.
• Cassette: Titanium Shimano 10 speed 11-36.
• Crankset: Old TA cranks with Specialties chain rings 26-42.
• Shifter: Shimano bar end shifter for the rear and a downtube shifter for the front. Friction of course.
• Pedals: RaceFace Chesters, pins all the way out.
• Cable Hangers: Surly in the rear and some parts bin hanger up front.
• Seat post: A Japanese seat post I found in a parts bin.
• Seat: Titanium rail brooks that I cut the gooch out of. Be not afraid to cut yor saddle and free thy gooch.
• Stem: An old Specialized quill stem.
• Bars: I switch between the smallest Towel Racks, Nitto m151’s, and noodles. I really didn’t want to like
  the Towel Racks, but damn is it a good bar. I put some Red Shift bar inserts under the tape, and they are
  super comfy.
• Headset: Velo Orange Grand Cru.
• Front Rack: Parts bin mystery rack with some added braze-ons.
• QRs: some neat ultralight Reynolds skewers I stripped the anodizing from.

We’d like to thank all of you who submitted Readers Rides builds to be shared here at The Radavist. The response has been incredible and we have so many to share over the next few months. Feel free to submit your bike, listing details, components, and other information. You can also include a portrait of yourself with your bike and your Instagram account! Please, shoot landscape-orientation photos, not portrait. Thanks!