Robin Williams stole my bike

Hey ho, here I am on a Renovo hardwood BADASH 29er mountain bike.


Renovo Panda

Ken Wheeler came to the San Francisco Bay Area over the weekend with a load of demo bikes and invited me to take one to review for the week. “You can take any of these,” he happily told me. The one that happens to fit best is a 54 cm R3 Road Bike, which Ken (or his web copyrighter) describes as “a high performance scene-stealer in nature’s own carbon fiber.” And it’s certainly that.

I pointed at this scene stealer and Ken kind of hemmed and hawed and told me, “Okay, you can take any of these except that one. I promised Robin Williams he can have that one tomorrow. Sorry.”

So I have the Elwood Hybrid instead. This $4,700 commuter bike comes equipped with fenders, disc brakes, 700×35 tires, and rack, and oh what a commuter bike it is. Even in moneyed Palo Alto, this bike turns heads. In Santa Cruz, I called paramedics for several cases of whiplash because of numerous double takes.

I’ll put this commuter through its paces. It’s no lightweight but I might even make the trip up and over the Santa Cruz Mountains to see what happens. If you’d like to give this bike a try and know where I live or work, feel free to find me for a ride. San Francisco residents and visitors can also visit Renovo’s showroom in Sausalito. Ken tells me his Marin County operation has brought him lots of international business as tourists riding through on their rental bikes like what they see.

This commuter model, incidentally, is named for Ken’s friendly cow colored standard poodle.

Elwood the poodle

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