Grant Petersen, Paleo Man?

In our latest CampyOnlyGuy tweet, we explore the possibility that Rivendell's Grant Petersen is in fact more than 150 years old:

https://twitter.com/CampyOnlyGuy/status/330390110220742656

 

Grant Petersen's "Just Ride": The Campy Only Review

Years ago, long before my friends and I were old enough to drive, we rode our bikes everywhere. We rode to school, we rode to friend's houses, we rode to the movies. At the time, motocross racing was exploding in popularity, and we updated our Sting Rays to look like the motorcycles our heroes rode, adding nobby tires and sturdier handlebars and number plates with decals on them. Forget that we were just kids pedaling bikes along a dusty trail in a not-yet-built subdivision--we were having fun, and the trappings of motocross racers we followed were part of that fun.

In many ways, Grant Petersen's new book "Just Ride," reflects the spirit of those early days of cycling that most of us share, when riding was done for fun end enjoyment, without the need for 100- and 200-mile endurance tests, superlight bikes, and a seemingly neverending focus on speed.

Petersen speaks at the US Bicycling Hall of Fame

Petersen, founder in 1994 of Rivendell Bicycle Works and before that a marketer and designer for Bridgestone USA, has in many ways never left those days too far behind. Yes, he dabbled in racing (in fact, he competed for almost a decade), but his focus in his Bridgestone and Rivendell years has been on creating bikes that hearken back to an earlier era. (Full disclosure: I own two Rivendell bicycles, and I can attest to the number of comments and questions I get about the bikes, usually something like, "How old is that bike? It sure looks like a classic.")