The elves of Rivendell are delivering for Christmas!

      I received notice that my new bike frame is coming from the painter and should be shipped later this week which means it may make it before Xmas!  Hooray!  It was a long decision to make since they are very expensive, as bike frames go, and it wasn't easy to pick the right bike.  I wanted a bike for fully loaded touring and, being a fairly stout guy, as cyclists go, I wanted something intended for somebody over 215# with another 30# of gear to tote.  They make a couple bikes, the Atlantis, which for some reason never appealed to me, the Hilson was lighter and more suited for credit card touring, the Hilborne was definitely a better candidate but I wanted something hefty enough and with the clearance necessary to use off road on forest paths and trails occasionally.  That meant the Bombadil:

It is a stout tube bike made for mountain biking and fully loaded touring with a reinforcing second top tube.  It looks like an awesome bike, with it's simple clear coat over polished steel, it looked like something out of a Mad Max movie.  It also had these two built in bosses on top of the fork crown

which I'd never seen anywhere else and they piqued my imagination.  I thought they would be useful for some sort of "commuter  accessories" like, you know, an RPG launcher and an Uzi submachine gun.  The kind of things a guy needs in traffic.  I pictured myself blazing through rush hour traffic, barreling past  terrified drivers
brandishing a bright green light saber with my shoulder length red hair blazing behind me like an afterburner.  But I really  needed the opposite, a bike made for touring  which could be used off road occasionally, and, after all, it's unseemly for a man my age to grow his hair that long.
      Fortunately Rivendell introduced the Hunqapillar which is a design intended to be a compromise between the Hilborne and Bombadil.

 That's the one I ordered, a stout touring bike which could be used off-road.  Not only was it a compromise functionally but it more than split the middle on price, not a small consideration--$700.  I think it also has those interesting "accessory" bosses I mentioned, might have to rethink the hair thing.
   If you don't know who they are, Rivendell Bicycle Works is a magical place in the forests of northern California where elves and fairies design and assemble particularly beautiful bikes.  Using time honored techniques and attention to aesthetics, they fashion them from special tubing made of alloys mined, hand forged and drawn by an ancient race of Dwarves who live deep inside Mt. Diablo.  The Hunqapillar is named after an extinct breed of mastadon only found recorded on a cave wall in France.  Therefore it was given the French name: Hunqapillar (hunk-qua-piyah) which means."strong friendly...ah...thing!"
   Warning: there is another story about this circulating on their website (Rivbike.com), something about a former Bridgestone exec; it involves Japan, Taiwan, exchange rates, all sorts of technical stuff, a name on amailbox somebody couldn't forget-- but that's all just cover.  If you believe in such things, you were probably one those mean kids who would let Tinker Bell die and don't believe in Santa.