I think I've mentioned Rivendell bikes on here before, haven't I? Maybe not. They're just the most beautiful bikes in the world--all handmade lugged steel frames, designed for real life riding and not racing or tearing around mountain trails, and with gorgeous cloisonne head badges as well. They also start at around $3,000 for a complete bike, so clearly not something I'd ever buy.
Except now apparently they are building a bike for me. It's a mixte frame (of all their bikes, the current mixte is my favorite) and will be named the Betty Foy. Betty Foy was a character in a Wordsworth poem--the overly responsible and somewhat guilt-ridden mother of an "idiot boy" who she loves more than anything in her life. In the poem, she is forced to send her son off for the doctor when she's caring for a sick neighbor, and her son doesn't return. Thinking the worst, she tears all over the English countryside (insert 400 lines of ghastly romantic poetry here) looking for her son and berating herself for ever letting him leave. Eventually she finds him sitting staring at a waterfall.
I don't know why they decided on Betty Foy for the name of their bike (except for all the tearing all over the countryside bit) but clearly I have to have this bike. The good news is, they're having it built in Taiwan instead of Japan or the U.S. so the frame will be around $700 instead of the normal $1,600, and the completed bike will probably be under $2,000. I need to start saving my pennies now--the bike won't be available until next year sometime.
2 comments:
I am glad she found him in the end. Actually I think Betty Foy is a good name for a beautiful and yet practical bike. Betty Foy hadn't intended to go on adventures - because she was too responsible - and yet, adventure happened anyway.
Oh, that's a good way of looking at it! That's probably more what they had in mind than targeting the "moms of autistic kids with water fetishes" market.
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