The Radavist

After spending nearly six months riding Polish builder True Love Cycle’s Heart Breaker, Hailey Moore pens a long-term review of this drop-bar 29er, and compares and contrasts two vastly different build specs.

This past week, in the lead-up to the annual Sea Otter Classic event in Monterey, CA, Chris King Components held their second Guest House event across Monterey Bay in Santa Cruz. The festive event showcased a variety of unique builds – all featuring Chris King components – many of which were the recently re-released vibrant 3D Violet color. Below, let’s take a look at this eclectic mix of bikes that spans categories across road, gravel, touring, and MTB!

Earlier this year, I purchased a Bug Out, the new “stock” steel frame offering from Zach Small’s framebuilding operation Amigo Frameworks. While visiting Zach in Nashville, we spent a few days building it up in his shop before heading out for first impressions on some springtime Middle Tennessee mixed-terrain riding at the Gosh Darn Gravel Gathering. Since then, I’ve put hundreds of miles on the Bug Out and swapped components a few times to get it where it is now—an intersection of pure enjoyment and mechanical perfection. Genre-wise, this bike pushes a lot of boundaries, and I’m not sure what it is: Dropbar MTB? Adventure bike? ATB? Touring bike? Monster Gravel? At some point, labels stopped mattering, and I realized this might be the most fun bike I’ve owned. Let’s look at the Bug Out, and some build highlights, in detail below and find out why!

Santa Cruz, California, is home to many wonderful framebuilders and many of which we’ve documented here on The Radavist over the years. From Rock Lobster to Black Cat, and Hunter Cycles, there’s no shortage of Shop Visits from the area to browse. However, one shop I’ve long wanted to document is Caletti Cycles, so when the Chris King Guest House event happened earlier this month, based out of the Caletti Cycles shop, I made sure to photograph this wonderful space along with one of John Caletti’s recent personal builds.

Let’s check out what goes on Inside Caletti Cycles below!