2020 Riese & Müller Tinker Vario CX Refurbish/Refinement

Howdy all,

I recently purchased a 2020 R&M Tinker Vario CX from my shop that'd we'd been using primarily as a loaner for service customers (as well as me using it as lunch-getter.) It'd been in service for about three years and had about 1,600mi/2,500km on it. As I was the one who originally built it and have been the one maintaining, I felt safe buying it without a warranty for very cheap ($1000USD.)

It has an older System 2 DU with 75nm of torque, a 500wh battery (~40mi/65km per charge), Intuvia display, and a Enviolo C380 CVT hub with a Belt. Overall it's a really fun bike I know I like even with the stock build, but I want to upgrade/change a number of things on it to make it more suited to my preferences and needs so I'm launching another project thread.

Immediate thoughts are:

• Upgrade the Tektro brakes to Magura MT4s
  
• Swap the stock flat bar for something with some back-sweep
  
• Install a better suspension post
  
• Upgrade contact points (Saddle, grips, pedals)
  
• Install more fashionable tires as it can clear most 20"x2.4" BMX tires :3
  
  

It's likely going to move along pretty quickly, so stay tuned if you're interested.

No pictures:(

Fixed.

dream bike

dream bike

It's pretty special. I'm stoked I was able to get one for myself on the cheap. I think the only R&M I like more is the Packster 40.

Thinking more about the cockpit; I'm considering switching out the Intuvia for a Purion and installing a more minimal twist-shifter that lacks the little display of the guy on the hill. Losing the clock will be a bummer, but a cleaner cockpit will be nice I think.

Looks class, have Enviolo improved the cable-munching issues with that different shifter?

Would like to know that, too :)
I service a cargo bike with this (the older) enviolo shifter and about every 2-3000km the shifter manages to mangle the cable inside the shifter housing. i think the bend between the barrel adjusters and the inside of the shifter is too narrow/sharp in longterm use.

Another part of the problem is the lack of return spring for each cable at the hub itself - each cable is dependent on the other for tension, so at each end of the gear range one cable has no tension and gets bunched up in those tight turns in the shifter. Have found that running outer a bit longer than normal and making sure the ferrules are really well pressed into the barrel adjusters helps wee bit (but not much!)

Hm... could one somehow build a mcgyver-return spring assembly, that sits like an inline-barrel adjuster somewhere convenient along the housing? a gap in the cable outer and the 2 end ferrules have some spring thing between them?

Supposedly the more minimal shifter is the 'pro' version but as far as I can tell that's more to do with the material used for the internals.

We sell a lot of Enviolo Bosch bikes at my shop and the issue of cables getting mangled in the shifter is most often traced to the lines being under-tensioned either because of drag in the housing due to dumb routing/not replacing it often enough, or someone forgets to set the barrel adjusters after reinstalling the rear wheel or a total loss of tension after the cable fails at the overdrive pinch bolt due to repeated shifting under-load. That cable tends to fray one strand at a time, the strands get pulled up into the housing near the hub and it cascades from there.

I link the CVT concept a lot, but I'm not a fan of the quality of Enviolo. We've warrantied a number of hubs that have failed within the first 5,000mi/8000km and the fact that they're not very serviceable irks me quite a bit.

I could always get the necessary driveside dropout chip to run this as a derailleur bike, but I'm not as keen on the maintenance that comes that living in Seattle.

I'd also flirted with moving my Rohloff over, but I'm not a fan of the feel of mechanical Rohloff on middrive bikes and there's no room in the frame for the DC/DC converter needed to run E14.

Enviolo it is.

Swapped in a Comfort bar from a Roadster that a customer converted to flat-bar (yay free stuff) and installed some ESI grips.

The MT4s are a really nice upgrade. I hadn't noticed how much rattling on this bike comes from the slop in the Tektro Auriga levers.

More free stuff - We had one of these byShculz G.2 ST posts from a Tinker2 customer who decided last minute to upgrade to a Kinekt. It's definitely better than a Thudbuster, but not as nice as a Kinket. Also replaced the awful SR saddle with a WTB Volt that came off my boss's new MTB.

Modified the adjustable steering mast today as the bars are too high even in the lowest setting.

I addressed this by drilling a second hole in the insert and relocated the brass spring-pin, allowing me to effectively drop it down one more step.

Still would like it one step lower I think, but for that I'll need to trim the insert as it bottoms out before it goes down a full step.

I have this bike but in orange. Subscribed.

Lay back bars is a great shout and I need to replace the seat post so might steal your suggestion. Already have a Brooks Cambium C17 Carved.

I have barely done 500 miles on it in the last 4 years but it's going to get used a lot now with the little one growing up. Mine has a rack mounted Hamax Caress which works really well.

Nice! The metallic orange was my favorite.

I land on tanwall 20"x2.4" Van x Cult tires as I really like the 20"/26" set I've had on my Tradesman for the last 10mo or so. Will post photos tomorrow.

New tires are on. Here's the bike in it's current state.

May be a little bit until I approach the shifter and display - not a lot of time at the moment.

Installing the new shifter on my lunch today. I think these two colors will look smart against the metallic blue (also never mix up overdrive/underdrive again.)

Fuck that's a good idea! I hated going back and forth triple checking which was over and under.

Looks great! I have the same bike, no belt drive, will upgrade that I think. Also changed bars too. I def need a seatpost upgrade too.

Sweet. What bars did you end up going with?

Not quite as swept back as yours, On One OG. Works great.

With your new seatpost, did you get a new clamp? I found the stock seatpost was a weird size, don't really like it being quick realease.

Love this build

Yes, I replaced the QR clamp with one of R&M's regular ones. They're 40.0, which is an odd size. Problem Solvers make 34.9-to-31.6 shims that open up more options for seatposts, that's what I used for this.

Thanks! It's been a fun project so far.

Fuck man. So creaky. I've shimed in a new seatpost and saddle, but couldn't find a non QR clamp that fit, you say you got it from them? I looked and had no success, can you link me please?