I want to do an update on the 2024 PVD Gulfstream RD+. A couple of years of riding and this gem is still shining. Good design lasts and has many uses.
After a short time using the bike for road riding and testing for fit in that element, the drop handlebars were swapped for a more relaxed urban bar (Whiskey Scully 23°) and I went on a Europe tour with on the bike with my wife. Once home, it found it’s place as a commuter that I use about 3 times a week to get to work.
Commuting on a bike, the way I do, has a few constraints. It’s intermodal. Bike and bus. My commute is generally riding from Fairfax to San Rafael, get on the 101 or 132 at the transit center, off at the GGB toll plaza to ride through San Francisco to SFSU. 12.2 very hilly bike miles and 11.0 highway bus miles. Both ways.
Periodically, I’ll take a nice adventure or dirt section in the city. I might go over Twin Peaks, along Ocean Beach, through Golden Gate Park, or up and over Market Street. One favorite is the dirt trail on Land’s End. This is one of the more amazing sections of trail in the bay area. Not for the bike riding but for the views of the Golden Gate Bridge, Marin, and the Pacific. It’s a really nice place. There are a few challenging staircases that I like to ride on the bike, just to test it’s prowess.
I was never thrilled with the Whiskey Skully handlebars but they worked fine enough. They are now being marketed as Teravail Swale Bar. The big issue was having a stem that could place the grips correctly was a problem. It’s an old fashioned design. They are poorly designed bars for use on modern bikes but as good that I was going to get at the time. I also wasn’t sure if the sweep was too much. They never felt right.
Then came the Tumbleweed Persuader 30° 800mm bar. This seems odd if I wasn’t sure about too high of a sweep angle on the Skully bars. I took a risk. Sometimes, it pays to imagine that the problem you have is that you haven’t gone far enough. This is what I might call the “false bracket” problem. Things get worse moving in one direction before they suddenly get better. In this case, as a few times in the past, I was right.
Once in place and in use, the Tumbleweed bars have been awesome. They feel amazing in the commute mode. Very relaxed and chill but still able to do some work when the time comes. I just want to cruise around now. A lot of great vibes.
I’m forced to use sub-760mm width due to the under bus bay of the Golden Gate Transit buses. This also means that I need a grip with a hard sliding end. Much wider and the bike isn’t going to fit, even on the lower tray, without removing the front wheel. That sucks so I try not to. If I do, the bike still has a fast removable skewer.
Cutting the bars down, I show some math. I have a little inside knowledge that these handlebars are defined as 840mm and the 800mm versions are just cut shorter. Because of how the bars are defined, I’m also going to use 31.8 degrees as the sweep angle, using 30.0 degrees would be fine as the difference is trivial to most..
The one issue with the Tumbleweed handlebars is that once cut to 760mm, there is zero space for more to be cut. More important to me now is that the bend is blocking the shifter from being in the most opportune position. If the handgrip area were increased and the front straight section decreased, this would be so much better. They need to fix this on the next run.
The setup is different from a performance road or dirt bike. Since the main mode of the bike is seated use, the pitch of the handlebars is 10° rather than 20°. The radius and angle of the grips is 828mm and 59°. This with the 80mm 6° stem. The bar width is 760mm.
The bar-ins are “just ok” on this. Really not great. They are first generation prototypes built for the M2-F2. With the sweep of these bars, they end up pointing forward similar to drop bar hoods…which is pretty bad. I need to make some updated versions on my next print order that will be more similar to what was done on the Corsair. This will be a huge upgrade when it happens.
I’ve been using tires in the 42mm range for this commute. They aren’t the lightest or fastest but they mellow out the rough roads and paths that I end up on. When in dirt, it’s a real help.
I apologize for the straggly looking cable routing. I’m waiting on SRAM to release some mineral oil flat mount calipers. Then I can match the brake levers to the shifter and dropper levers. I don’t want to cut these hoses down for use on other bikes.
The print for the bike as currently ridden.
Given the improvements seen with these bars, I would consider doing a new version of this bike. Something that was about 25-35mm longer and with just a little bit more tire clearance up front. That would still fit on the bus, have a comfortable riding position, and be a lot nicer in a wider variety of terrain. The known seatpost issue is fixed with a bump up to a 240mm dropper. A 60mm x 15 degree stem adjusts for the change to 695mm front center.
