Casey’s Manzanita Cycles Rigid 29er Klunker MTB, aka the Klunquazita – Casey Clark & John Watson | The Radavist | A group of individuals who share a love of cycling and the outdoors.

Teased in the Campandgoslow Shop Visit and Trout Tape post, John got to shoot Casey’s delicious rigid 29er klunker Manzanita Cycles mountain bike while visiting Great Basin Pottery in the foothills of the Easter Sierra. This bike is a perfect mix of vintage throwback and modern mixed-terrain sensibilities. Check out a detailed photo gallery below with words from the bar tape/potter Hemmingway, Casey himself, along with a Q&A with Nick from Manzanita…

The One That Got Away

In 2010, I was only 30 years old, but I had already developed the crusted salty patina of a much older mechanic. I was tired of working in conventional bike stores and bored with the bikes they offered, and I wanted out. To hide from it all, I took a job as a mechanic at my local community shop, refurbishing old rigs and teaching people how to perform their own repairs. I’d also shed myself of most of the conveniences that modern cycling had to offer. Every bike I owned was secondhand steel and there wasn’t a disc rotor or indexed shifter in sight.

I prized low-maintenance, easily repairable machines, and I preached about it to anyone who would listen. You probably won’t be surprised to learn I was already peeking through the knothole at Rivendell and that I’d read through the stack of old Rivendell Readers someone had donated to the shop library. I was a fan of Grant’s writing and the way he dug in his heels, but I never aspired to own a Riv until I saw the Hunqapillar. This one was a real mountain bike, and that diag-tube was a delightful nod to the old Series 1 Breezers I had seen in so many photos. I loved and wanted it, and I definitely couldn’t afford it.

Allan’s Klunq and John’s, which he never should have sold!

Fast forward a dozen years, and a lot has changed, including my tolerance for technology. You won’t find any plastic bikes or battery-powered derailers at my house, but index shifting and disc breaks abound, and I take great delight in mixing old and new bits on my builds. I’ve also accumulated a collection of pretty cool bikes, but I never got that old Hunq out of my head. I spent years trolling the forums and used marketplaces hoping to catch one, but they were always the wrong size, too far away, or still too expensive. And deep down inside, I knew those 2.4 tires and rim brakes weren’t gonna cut it for me. Out here in the Eastern Sierra, our rugged, rough-and-tumble trails are more fun to ride with big rubber and powerful disc brakes. A new bike started to shape up in my mind…

Meet Nick from Manzanita Cycles

Nick Jensen moved to Reno in 2018 and set up shop as Manzanita Cycles a year later. By then, I had moved out of Reno and out to the country, but I’d heard about him through a few mutual friends, and I’d seen a few of his bikes at events. It took a few more years and a trip to Portland for the inaugural MADE show before we actually met him in person, and I liked him right away. His versatile building style and beautiful but not flashy aesthetic were right up my alley, and I suspected we had a lot in common. I spent the drive home thinking it over, and by the time I’d hit Klamath Falls, I’d made up my mind to pitch him an idea for a very modern, old-school trail bike.

Wende Cragg’s Breezer Series I

A Very Brief Design Brief

I’ll be honest: I don’t know much about designing bicycle frames. Head tube angles and bottom bracket heights are one thing, but there’s a dizzying selection of tubes and components available to the modern framebuilder and an infinite number of ways to stick them all together. So when Nick agreed to build me a retro-inspired modern trail bike, I didn’t want to be over-involved. We had a few conversations about how I wanted to use the bike, and I sent him a photo of John’s Hunqapillar from this very site and a photo of a Series 1 Breezer, “Like these, but make it shred,” I said, and then left him to his work.

A Hardball Interview with Framebuilder Nick Jensen of Manzanita Cycles

What was your first reaction to my pitch for the bike?

My first reaction was I can’t believe a cool guy like Casey wants me to make him a bike :)

[The author rolls his eyes]

Is there anything you found weird or challenging about designing the frame?

With any bike I design I first focus on the constraints. In this case, you wanted big tire clearance (29×2.6), room for a dropper post, and a Brooks B17 saddle. All of my hardtails will clear a 29×2.6 tire and long dropper posts, so that was no big deal. But designing for the Brooks is tricky. The B17 in particular has a unique shape and where you sit on the saddle is almost directly above the center of the saddle rails. In comparison, modern plastic saddles position the rider well behind the center of the saddle rails. To get you in a comfortable position, I used a fairly slack 72º seat tube angle, which would be the rough equivalent of a 73.5º seat tube angle with a plastic saddle. When you look at the geometries of more classic bikes like Rivendells, you’ll see they use slack seat tube angles because they understand that a lot of their customers will be running a Brooks B17.

I asked for the diagatube, which is inherently stiff, and then I asked for a bike that isn’t super stiff. It rides great. How’d you do it?

First off, I don’t have an engineering background. I have a degree in International Studies, which probably competes for least practical degree a university can give out. My design intuition comes from riding a ton of different steel bikes: from skinny-tubed randonneuring frames to more modern, stiffer designs. To give your frame some forgiveness, we agreed that a steel fork was the ticket. The fork has long, tapered blades that help absorb some of the trail feedback. I then increased compliance in the frame by using a skinny down tube and long chainstays.

Structurally, a bike frame is two triangles, which doesn’t allow much room to add in vertical compliance, but a frame functions like a 2D object side-to-side. It’s my opinion that the flex people attribute to steel frames comes from the lateral movement of the bottom bracket when pedaling hard or absorbing impacts on a descent. You can see this flex if you straddle your bike, press down firmly on one pedal, and watch the bottom bracket shift to the side. A steel frame with skinny tubes will shift far more than a beefy carbon frame. In your frame, the skinny down tube and long chainstays allow for more of this movement. My theory is that if the diag-tube is positioned high enough it doesn’t have an outsized affect on lateral flex.

I know you’re a bike nerd, but I’m wondering if you had spent much time delving into the Rivendell philosophy before this project came up? What about early mountain bike history and design? Were the Hunq and those early Breezer bikes already on your radar?

I got hooked on bikes around 2006 because of bike touring. While everyone went head first into the fixie scene, I was lusting after the Rivendell Atlantis. The first bike frame I made in 2007 was at a framebuilding class with Doug Fattic and it was heavily inspired by the Atlantis. To this day I appreciate Grant’s dedication to simple, practical bikes that have that undeniable classic style. When you described what you wanted, the first image that popped into my head was the Atlantis with its rainbow double top-tube. I’m sure Grant was inspired by the old cruisers those dudes were using as mountain bikes back in the day, but for me it’s the Atlantis that comes to mind.

You’ve built a wide range of styles, from super modern hardtails to very traditional looking Rando and touring bikes, to your limousine gravel bike. Tell me why.

I like riding all types of bikes, especially bikes that are a little out of the ordinary. For many years, I was enamored with Jan Heine’s enthusiasm for the old French randonneuring bikes. And then, somewhere around 2015, after my friends got me into riding hardtails, we played around in my rudimentary workshop making frames with more progressive geometry. Recently, I made myself a gravel/bikepacking frame with 520mm long chainstays. I understand a lot of people don’t want these types of bikes, they are typically looking for a “normal” bike that fits and rides well. But these experiments help inform how I design frames, and I use what I learn from riding bikes with really low and really high trail figures, or really short and really long chainstays, to fine-tune the handling and flex of what I make for my customers.