The first bike I rode the crap out of was a Rocky Mountain 700c commuter hybrid thingy. It had fenders and a rack and kitty litter panniers that my laptop and school stuff and camping gear could fit into – it was great. There are loads of flat, endless paths and roads around Olympia that I’d cruise for hours at a clip on. Comfy and useful and a great escape from life stuff.
The first bike I loved was my father’s hand me down Motobecane Grand Jubile. A school teacher and later a hipster who I rode from Olympia to Portland with put the bug in my ear about “Randonneur” bikes. I’d given a friend of mine in college this old Motobecane to paint and build up but it never happened. Eventually, this same friend took a traveling nursing gig in Portland and, bringing the bike with him, moved in to the house I’d just bought in Portland. The picture above is the oldest picture of it I have but it went thru a number of rando-ish iterations before it ever looked as nice as it does in that picture.
I had a hard time getting comfy on the bike. I had an extended super plushy saddle w/ shock post phase. I eventually bought a Brooks Flyer, which helped a bunch, but riding a Cannondale CAAD 4 for a while taught me two crucial things; (1) skinny tires guzzle monkey balls* and (2) going fast is really fun.
* This is a statement of opinion, not fact.
The Motobecane, at one point, could fit 700c x 32mm tires front and rear with fenders. Then it couldn’t. Today, I prolly could’ve figured this out. Back in the day, I couldn’t, and riding with a 28mm up front (it was a daruma bolt clearance issue if I recall correctly*) and a 32mm in the rear was making me grumpy. Bigger, longer rides still hurt my bum bum. And the Motobecane didn’t seem like the right bike for what I wanted to do**.
* Did you know that’s what iirc stands for? Nobody told me that shit and I couldn’t figure it out forever!
** Back in the day me was incorrect
I ended up selling the house in Portland and moving to Port Townsend when my girlfriend (now wife) got a job at a pediatric clinic. With some of the house sale money, I bought a Soma Grand Randonneur.
This looked like the thing. It was 650b (which I thought I wanted), it could fit 42mm tires and fenders (which I HELLA thought I wanted), it was low trail (which I thought I wanted) and it wasn’t $1500 or more dollars for the frame and fork – which was over the budget I’d set for the whole bike, using a mix of new and used parts.
Homie at the local bike shop, who I bought the bike thru and who built the wheels, let me borrow his 650b wheelset until my ultra sexy SONdelux/Ultegra & A23 wheels were built. Once the bike was done, I was thrilled. I dug the low trail, the fat cushy tires, the 105 10 speed brifters with the cable routing thru the bar wrap and not in the way of the wildly expensive and uber sexy Swift Ozette bag.
It was a really sweet bike.
I got her adventure ready!
We went on adventures! And I got pissed off! And had chains break for no good reason!
We went on MORE adventures! With 42mm knobby Soma Cazadero tires into Olympic National Park and back thru Bon Jon Pass.
And up to San Juan Island for a night with my wife, where she had her final break up with her Peugeot PX-10, picking up the bike and throwing it into the woods for very understandable reasons.
After some measurements, some chin scratching and purchasing some tires, I made a discovery. The Soma Grand Randonneur has a secret.
If you get a little sassy with some channel locks and a big bolt (ideally wrapped in electrical tape in order to go easier on the paint), the Soma Grand Randonneur becomes a baller ass bikepacking/drop bar mtn bike!
NOTE: This only works with the 1st generation Soma GR. The fork crown on the 1st gen is 60mm wide on the inside, so a 2″ tire, like the Quasi Motos in the picture or, better, Thunder Burts (really great tire) fit just fine. The 2nd gen Grand Randonneur is closer to 50mm on the inside.
The rear triangle on the 1st gen Grand Randonneur very nearly fits the 2″ tire but, for me, it took maybe 2-3mm worth of dimpling, primarily on the seat stays, maybe a touch on the chain stays, to get the tire to spin freely and have room in case the rear rim got a little out of true.
Throughout our love affair, the Soma and I, there was still the Motor Bacon, the lovely 1976 Motobecane Grand Jubile, the family heirloom, the vintage French sex pirate, shod with super fancy 700c wheels but otherwise outfit with the best of what was left over from the Soma build – sitting there. Looking good. Rarely getting ridden. But between the intertubes and suggestions from the local bike shop, I purchased a set of old Dia Compe long reach centerpulls…
and immediately had a problem. The Soma is stiff. It’s like a dead fish. The frame puts everything where it should be, has loads of room, loads of braze-ons, easy to configure and build up – but she’s dead! ZOMBIE BIKE! Loaded up for the Oregon Outback and shod with 560g knobby tires under 20psi front and rear and she’d get a little zombie bottom bracket booty-shaking, but certainly not that mystical sensation of “planing”*. Lady Miss Bacon Booty, however, is a lively, writhing go fast monster, and after my suspicions of how much quicker the 650b Motobecane was than the Soma were confirmed by Strava – my relationship with the Grand Randonneur began to deteriorate.
Especially when you consider the price, the Soma Grand Randonneur is a phenomenal bike. When fully kitted out with travel gear, the bike wakes up a bit and begins to work with you. And, factoring in the low trail and room for nice big plush tires, it makes a great deal more sense to me than a Surly or other straight gauge tank. The one drawback here being the short chainstays, making heel strike with rear panniers a problem. But if you pack it up similar to how I have it laid out above, you have capacity for damn near everything. If memory serves, I only ever put all that on the bike once, and that was so I could carry everything for my wife and myself for a camping trip (ie – to keep as much weight off her bike as possible). I pack light, but I think what I’m saying is, even if you want to carry the kitchen sink, the Grand Randonneur is a good bike for it.
Quick brevets? Well, quick anything, I’d look for a different bike. But for a townie, or hauling or touring or even bikepacking, this is a great bike.
The Motor Bacon Blog 