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Grant’s Matter Cycles Wolfbeard is a Capable Beast

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Grant’s Matter Cycles Wolfbeard is a Capable Beast

Boulder, Colorado-based Matter Cycles knows a thing or two about dirt. The Boulder area is a veritable playground for riders looking to keep their bikes dusty. Collin Schaafsma has an extensive background shredding in the Colorado mountains, and if bikes work well there, chances are, they’ll excel just about anywhere, including Los Angeles.

Coincidentally, Collin’s web guru, Grant just relocated to LA and has been steady shredding this Wolfbeard all-road bike. With 43mm Bruce Gordon Rock N Roads, Shimano Ultegra and Reynolds wheels, Grant’s got a do-it-all bike, with plenty of reliability built right in. Right now, it’s set up as his daily dirt road bike, but with a few add-ons, it’ll transform into a touring rig.

I’ve ridden alongside this bike for weeks now, and have been meaning to take some environmental portraits, in the woods, but I’ve yet to have the chance to, so this perty blue wall will do for now…

Cross is Coming: Get on a Speedvagen Team Issue Cyclocross Bike

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Cross is Coming: Get on a Speedvagen Team Issue Cyclocross Bike

With ‘cross season right around the corner, Speedvagen unveiled its new Ready Made race frame. These stock-sizing frames come in two Team Issue bike kits, the CX-R with SRAM Force 1 and CX-X with Shimano 1x and begin at $5,995 with three paint options. The pre-order is open for two weeks (July 18th – Aug 1st). Once the window is closed, they’re going to move into production and get your bike to you in time for Cyclocross season. Check out more photos and specs below and head over to Speedvagen for ordering information.

Niner Updates their BSB 9 RDO Frameset In Time for ‘Cross Season

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Niner Updates their BSB 9 RDO Frameset In Time for ‘Cross Season

At the heart of Niner is racing and while they’ve made a big push to expand their bikes from this lineage, they still know how to design one sick race machine. The newly updated BSB (blood, sweat and beer) 9 RDO is now available. These bikes are Di2 ready with seat post battery compatibility, feature a flat mount disc caliper design, thru axles, C5 Carbon warranty for 5 years and Niner’s no-nonsense race geometry. These are available in limited quantities, so holler at your Niner dealer for ordering. See more information at Niner!

Jeremy’s Stinner Baja Buggy 27.5 Monster Cross Bike

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Jeremy’s Stinner Baja Buggy 27.5 Monster Cross Bike

The 70’s were the automotive paint design heyday, ATMO anyway. Earth tones and bright hues intersected along cars, vans and trucks via a network of chevrons and stripes. While many manufacturers embraced these trends, it was the niche hobby market who took it to the next level. A whole culture emerged with vans donning intricate designs, long before #VanLife, yet it was the off-road culture that has always piqued my interest, most notably the baja bugs and trucks. Jeremy from Stinner Frameworks has always had an affinity for the early 70’s Baja Bug paint designs, ultimately these became the inspiration for this two-wheeled off-road machine.

Don’t Call it a Cross Bike: the Caletti Scrambler Flat Bar City Shredder

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Don’t Call it a Cross Bike: the Caletti Scrambler Flat Bar City Shredder

Ok, maybe you can call it a ‘cross bike, because that’s truly what it is at its roots. Before we get ahead of ourselves here, let’s take a step back. There are stigmas attached with the words “commuter” “city” “townie” and even “cross” bike. There are certain checklists that apply to each of those permutations. The most notable being fender and rack provisions. Even with the latter, “cross” purists want drop bars and 32mm tires for a bike to be true to its UCI roots. This bike has no provisions for racks or fenders, is sold with a 40mm tire, flat bars and a bell. It’s not as much as it is. It is whatever you want it to be.

Niner’s New RLT 9 Steel Available

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Niner’s New RLT 9 Steel Available

Niner’s tried and true RLT 9 Steel platform got some upgrades with its latest model. These upgrades include flat mount disc brakes, more bottle bosses, mounts on the fork as well as a bolt-on top tube bag attachment. These frames will fit a 1.75″ tire, as well as double and triple cranksets. The new RLT 9 Steel is available in 1-star up to 4-star builds from both Shimano and SRAM. Head to Niner to see more.

Radar

Niner’s New RLT 9 RDO

Niner took the popular RLT 9 steel model and made it a carbon RDO model. There are many reasons for this permutation, yet the overall difference is weight. I’ve seen and held one in person and it’s incredibly light. More on this to come this week, but for now check out this video and more information at Niner.

Taylor Phinney Had a Training Day

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Taylor Phinney Had a Training Day

… and we did our best to keep up.

Like many professional cyclists, Taylor Phinney heads to warmer climates in the off-season to train. It just so happens that his locale of choice is Los Angeles. Last year, he rode from LA to Joshua Tree “just cuz” and this year, he’s staying in the neighborhood, exploring the climbs throughout Los Angeles County. Yesterday, Kyle from GSC texted me a cryptic message “Cross Town Ride 11am – meet at Intelli.” Around 10 minutes prior to the meet-up, he included an additional note “I’m running late, but Taylor will be there at 11.” Meaning, Taylor Phinney.

It Takes a Village: The Radavist’s 2016 Year in Review

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It Takes a Village: The Radavist’s 2016 Year in Review

Over the years, we’ve all really strived to make the content and the characters here on the Radavist unique. It’s been a slow process, but as I’ve just spent a week sifting through the site’s archives from 2016, I can honestly say this has been our best year yet. These year-end recaps are always a joy to collate, as it allows everyone here at the site, as well as the readers to look back and relive some our favorite moments.

2016 was busy. Very busy. In fact, the archives are almost twice as long as the previous year’s, which were almost twice as long as the year’s prior, making editing the site’s content into a digestible post challenging. We’ve omitted bicycle reviews and Beautiful Bicycles for obvious reasons, leaving only ride, travel and shop visit Reportage as the meat of the gallery and storyline. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did and I’d like to thank everyone for making this site, well, rad! That includes you, the readers and the commenters. I couldn’t ask for a better community.

Before things get too sappy, read on below for the Radavist’s 2016 Year in Review.