

Tom Ritchey (born 1956)

What is the difference between a Ritchey P-Series from 26 years ago vs the Ritchey frames you're making in 2015?



Tom Ritchey: The P-Series mountain bikes started with the P-23 in 1989...some 26 years ago...and that was really the beginning of the Logic tubing story. Those bikes were inspired by really knowing the value of steel and its benefits, and wanting to build a steel frame that could compete in the racing world. Mountain bike racing was truly international at this point and skyrocketing in visibility, so there was a lot of tech and marketing being tossed into the fray.

Many of the big brand factory team riders were on the newly popularized oversized aluminum bikes weighing in somewhere around the 25 pound range, and when Don Myrah showed up on a Ritchey P-23 that was two pounds lighter and won at the inaugural World MTB championship in Mammoth, it made a lasting impression. The bikes were celebrated and it proved that steel was still a great material even in the face of the space-age aluminums everyone was working with in the day. Those bikes were revolutionary. Today, there's not a huge difference in Ritchey's latest bikes and the original P-series bikes. A lot of work was done back then on force analysis, butting profiles and heat treating and much of what we learned then is still applied in today's tubing, with a few important updates. The new bikes have a heat-treated downtube that curves near the head tube and is very strong and light. This provides clearance for fork crowns and the front-end reinforcement of a gusset without the added weight and point-loading that gussets cause. This, when combined with our forged and machined integrated head tube, provides a very strong, very light front end. And of course we're offering P-series bikes now in 650b and 29er wheel sizes...I was aware of the benefits of larger wheels as far back as the 1970's, but world wasn't ready for that until fairly recently.



Ritchey Logic tubing was a game-changer when it was introduced. What's changed with the latest version of Logic tubing?



Tom Ritchey: The latest version of Ritchey Logic steel tubing is nearly the same as the original with the exception of some larger tube diameters and the shaped downtube. Few people fully understand just how advanced the original tubing was when it first came out, and how little room to improve upon it there is. When I developed the original Logic tubing it was after a decade of building frames with existing tubesets all previously designed for lugged construction in traditional diameters and butting profiles that had been unchanged for practically a century. No attempt had been made to challenge that thinking and really optimize tubing, especially fillet brazing or TIG welding, until I came along. The original Logic tubing became the new standard in steel tubing and was proven in the field by Team Ritchey and numerous other builders. The latest tubing embodies everything I've learned back then and along the way since and it's probably the best steel tubing in the world.