I hope you continue to have a great time this holiday season. We’re now in that golden period between Christmas and New Year’s when the pressure is off. Whew!
Rawland is a new steel make from Sean Virnig that is designed to use the big 650b knobbies from Kirk Pacenti, the 58mm Neo-Moto and the 51mm Quasi-Moto. The design, by Pacenti & Ben Witt, is reminiscent of the early unsuspended MTB bikes, with drop bars instead of flat or bull moose bars.
Sean recently put some blemished framesets, including the single-speed Olaf, the cantilever brake Sogn and disc dSogn, on sale for $350. This is a great deal on a Maxway-produced frameset. Maxway makes Surly framesets, produced Rivendell’s 650b Bleriot and now makes Riv’s new Betty Foy mixte and Sam Hillborne 650b/700c road&randonneur bike.
I grabbed one of the disc-only dSogn frames in medium-large. It arrived just before Christmas and to my eye it is without any flaws. The powdercoated paint is a little thin in a few nooks and crannies, which I understand is the challenge of powdercoating vs. spraying.
I posted a set of photos of the unboxing at my Flickr page.
I have not had a chance to begin building it. I’m going to transfer the parts from my LeMond Poprad disc, which is a great frameset but can’t take big tires. It can take 650bx42mm tires, but there are no knobbies in that size and I want to run those fat Pacenti tires. Plus, the Sogn can take 700c wheels with 35mm tires, which are about the same overall size as the Neo-Moto.
Gino Zhand raced his dSogn with 700x35s this fall; see his photoset for views of his bike set up both ways. Like the Poprad, the dSogn uses a threadless steerer tube and tig-welded steel; I expect it to set up a little heavier than the Poprad due to the steel fork compared to the Bontrager carbon fork used by Trek.
I plan to put the Poprad disc frameset with Cane Creek headset on sale. Contact me if interested. It’s a 2008 58cm disc-only with lots of steerer remaining above the headset. It has just three rides so far totaling less than 100 miles and virtually no marks. It’s a great cross racing bike that can also take fenders and racks, with the smart placement of the rear disc mount on the chainstay.
Stay tuned for a ride report once the dSogn is up and running.
The Daily Randonneur 
Hi Ed – very smart looking frameset. I love that fork. Can’t wait to see it built up. Looks like a very versatile steed. Thanks for sharing!
Jeff
Ha! -I’m doing the same thing: trading a Poprad disc for a dSogn. Rawland has found the sweet spot for this kind of bike, though I was very close to ordering a Fargo.
looking for Rawland Disc Sogn bike