Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Grove to EWR

Not much of a secret that Bill Grove, founder of the bicycle company Grove Innovations, was involved in the original run of Eastern Woods Research frames produced for Jay DeJesus, the founder of EWR. DeJesus is not a frame builder, but rather a designer. ( I stand corrected!...through word of mouth from some of my old fart cronies...I've been informed that both Jay and Kenn Rymdeko from EWR have frame building experience, and actually welded the original EWRs from 1991-1993!) That means somebody with some polished skills and refined abilities in fabricating and welding has to do the dirty work of putting together the bizarre looking EWR Original Woods Bikes that I love so much. Bill Grove, come on down!
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Of course, Grove had been building frames under his own label for years, and quite a few of Grove's designs, it could be argued, have much in common with the EWRs. Judging by his own product designs, and their reputation for being overbuilt, durable and resilient stuff, its safe to say that Grove is a fan of the woods bike concept in his own right. Truth be told, and timeline as witness, Grove predates the EWR-OWB with a few products that surely DeJesus was peeking at when he concocted the OWB.
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A good many features in the Grove Xtreme bear that out. Higher than standard bottom brackets, (although admittedly, not quite EWR high), laser cut Grove designed dropouts, (used on the EWR-OWB), and an obvious similarity in stand over height-providing frame design, ("Ball-Room to Dance", as Jay would say), are just a few of the similarities between the Xtreme and the OWB.
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The EWR-OWB, shown here circa 1994
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and the Grove Innovations Xtreme.
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Very similar indeed, although the EWR sports the seat tube strut piercing the top tube and butting against a mitered downtube, while the Xtreme sports a more traditional downtube. The Xtreme seat tube strut reminds me of something... Hmmm...


...oh yeah!

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By any measure, the Xtreme looks like a fun little toy, although rare as hen's teeth. I don't suppose I could justify three EWRs AND a Grove, could I?

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Or could I?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

If I could find a small Grove, I would find a way to justify it. I might have to sell a kidney or other unnecessary organ.