Staff Directory

For bikes, parts, orders, or anything else that doesn't have to do with the web site, find the appropriate staff member below and email her/him. For web site feedback or bug reports, send email here. (Please don't send merchandise questions, or Rivendell-speciific stuff, though. Those should go to the friendly people below. Thanks!)

If you don't hear from us in 2-3 business days, please call us at (800) 345 3918.

Email is great, but not foolproof, and we are far from perfect. Call if there is any doubt, or you need immediate assistance. 

Mark Abele [email]
Mark has been with us since 2002, and his duties include coordinating the custom orders, running the bag program, assembling bikes, designing and developing new products, customer service. and whatever else comes along that's not specifically and only for somebody else. He's a cyclo-cross racer and the staff barbecueist.

Specialties: Well, he is our head mechanic, so certainly anything mechanical having to do with the interfunction of parts. Mark's favorite kind of riding is one-to-three hour mixed road and trail rides with lots of climbing. He ride the lightest bikes and parts of any of us here, dividing the time between a Legolas, Quickbeam, and his couple of customs. All his bikes have cantilevers, and all who know his skills regard him as the best cantilever brake adjuster in the land. 

Mark also co-ordinates our custom frame orders.  Ask Mark.

Mary Anderson
Business manager, bill payer, owner's wife, Anna's and Katie's mom. Here from the start, works mostly from home but visits daily for filing and other stuff. Keeps the numbers in order and tells us where we are, so we don't keep doing the wrong things.

John Bennett

General Manager. Here since 2000. Hires, fires, holds meetings, makes sure we're doing what we should be doing. In charge of customer service & satisfaction. Widely believed to have coined the expression, "In for a penny, in for a pound."

Got a major gripe with us? Talk to John.

Mark Brandt [email]
Former racer, current Saturday guy. Swims and rows in the San Francisco Bay. Appreciates a fine jeweled automatic watch as much as the next fellow. Maybe more. "Les gens heureux n'ont pas d'histoires." 

Miesha Cason [email]
Here since 2004, enters orders and helps with the retail store displays and so on. Plus, she's a willing model, which is valuable at a place where nobody else can stand to do it. Mother of Brian, Laiya, and Freddie.

Want to change your address, request a catalog, check membership status, or have questions about an order? Ask Miesha.

Spencer Chan [email]
Spencer was Rivendell's first employee, then he went away, now he's back. Helps with keeping the web site up-to-date, and does the bulk of the receiving. Has wide ranging and eclectic taste in music.  

Robert Kurosawa [email]
One of 3 cyclo-x racers here, & head of of our crackerjack shipping team. An artist on his own & a cardboard artist at work. He sets the country's standard for beautiful, compact,creative packing. A reluctant catalogue model, says the boss overexposed him in ads and catalogues during the Bridgestone years. Raised in Hawaii. At RIV since 2000. He's in his mid fifties and hasn't an ounce of fat. Somehow. Even though he seems to eat anything.

Rich Lesnik [email]
Jazz musician (clarinet and saxophone) and former UA mechanic. Our main buyer, wheel builder, and membership-grower. Also has a side business called Hands On Wheels, and Rich builds wheels that are as good as wheels can be built. Here since 2002.

Rich likes touring and wheels. Every year he plans some kind of a longer tour than any of the rest of us do. Sometimes solo, sometimes with a group. He has a custom touring bike, a Quickbeam, a Saluki, maybe something else. Rich is the most prolific wheel builder we know, and builds about 2.5 wheels each day, He owns and uses some really complicated wheel-building toolsultra-gadgets from the Swiss maker DT, generally, and really gets into them, figures them out, and in general just enjoys to high heaven every aspect of building a wheel. The whole world of wheel building is Rich's. But his knowledge is vaster than that, so you can ask him anything. But if you have a wheel question, be sure to ask Rich.

Eric Leutzinger
He of the local legendary Leutzinger clan, bike riders all, and Eric at 19 is the oldest of his many siblings. Part time, mostly in the shipping department.

Keven Mowen [email] 

Keven is with two e's, yes. He started December, 2005 and has worked various jobs unrelated to his human biology degree, including bicycle guide in Italy. He's fluent in Italian, so if you have any friends who want our stuff and speak only Italian and like to do their own ordering on the telephone, he's your man. Keven likes Chi-running and riding, and races cyclo-cross.

Keven knows all about our bikes and fitting methods and can help you with anything. The one area he owns is  can handle general sales questions about anything.

The one thing he does that nobody else does is manage orders for non-custom frames. Anything to do with them, from timing to paint, delivery, and so on. Wanna know  where your frame or bike is? Ask Keven. He's calm all the time.

Daniel
Daniel was born in the neighborhood of 1981-82 and is currently a part-timer here while working on an international business degree at S.F. State. He worked here more than a year ago, then went to school in Germany for a year, and now he's back. He's near-fluent in German. Here, he assembles bikes and answers the phone, enters orders, does some of everything. He's 6-5 and rides a lot, and is always game for camping out in the hills.

Daniel's favorite thing is bike touring and bike camping. He's rather a gearhead, as they say, and more than anybody else here, is obsessed with racks, lights, and tech-y gear in general. He always knows about that stuff, because he uses it. He is equally good with all Riv-specific things, from fitting to function, which bike to get, and so on.

Daniel goes on many S240's (sub-24-hour overnights, or "quick local bike-ride-campouts in the local hills and parks). He just graduated from college and is planning to ride the Great Divide trail this summer, from Canada to Mexico. Odd among us, and odd particularly given his equipment obsession is that he owns solamente one bicycle: An Atlantis. He loves it, but being Daniel and all, has his eyes on others, notably a Bombadil. Ask Dan'l. 

Grant PetersEn [email]
Here since the start, main jobs are writing the Reader and catalogues and designing/developing the bikes. Disorganized, well-intentioned, clean but not all that neat. Will be more productive again once his mousing-related armpit-to-elbow injury is healed. Until then, asks for some slack, and apologizes in advance for short email responses and typos.

Good for general and technical questions, but tends to let things "slip through the cracks." Tries hard, tends to complicate simple answers with an overabundance of information that leads to confusion, under the banner of "helping."