Greg’s 650b dropper Flaanimal 4.1

How much of a bike’s design and build spec is hype and how much of it is function? Those sorts of questions get discussed endlessly on the internet almost by default every time a new product or specification is launched. “Gravel” is a hot word these days. Is it marketing or is it popular because people are having fun? Is 1x hype? Is 650b hype? Are dropper posts on drop bar bikes an incredibly desperate attempt to sell people new gizmos they don’t need?

It is very personally important to me as the founder of Rodeo that our bikes be grounded in function, not hype. But I’ll never be an impartial voice in the matter because by nature I want to sell bikes therefore I may be biased towards sales and profit. That said I sleep great at night knowing that every bike we sell is built exactly for each customer and that we only recommend how to build our bikes after we’ve had a great conversation with each customer about how they want to ride their bike and what they want it to do. You build a great bike not by telling a customer what they need, you do it by listening to the customer describe who they are, how they ride, and what their goals are for their bike.

A month or go Greg came to us looking for a Flaanimal 4.1 build. Whereas some customers don’t know that they want in a bike Greg knew very well what he was looking for. We didn’t have to work hard to sort out his build spec we just let him tell us what to make.

Normally we just post photos of a build with a few notes on spec when we post a build gallery but a week or two after Greg got his bike he sent us a really cool email with a detailed breakdown on how his first few rides went and what was going through is head on each ride.

The thing that stuck out to me the most about Greg’s email was that he described not really knowing 100% if he would be happy with our bike until he had ridden it more than a few times. This is a concept that I think of constantly. It is truly amazing to me the amount of trust people extend to us when buying a Rodeo bike. 95% of our customers can’t just swing by our office in Denver to check the bikes out. Nor can you really go anywhere on the internet and read any sort of real review on our bikes. Why then do people chose to spend many thousands of dollars on our bikes sight unseen and most definitely without a test ride? I actually can’t answer that question insomuch that people probably trust us for different reasons but at the end of the day trust is trust and buying a Rodeo requires a lot of trust. The inverse of that is that we feel the trust when we’re working with customers and feel a genuine responsibility to do right by everyone who has our bikes not just on new bike day but during the entire ownership experience of the bike.

I asked Greg if I could share is first ride impressions and he graciously allowed us to do so. So in addition to his build gallery here are his actual ride impressions un edited. Thank you Greg for trusting us to build you a great bike!

10/31/18 @ Glacier Park (20% road, 50% 1xtrack, 30% gravel):

11/3/18 @ Woody Hill (10%road, 60% 1x track, 40% gravel):

11/4/18 @ Bluff Point (80% gravel, 20% 1x track):

Build Spec: