The Radavist

Next week, I’m loading up the Troopy and heading West to the Keyesville Classic. Every year, vintage mountain bike aficionados descend upon the Kern valley to race vintage bikes while the “real” race occurs. This vintage race is quite the spectacle, and if you’ve never seen it in person, you ought to check out Erik Hillard’s gallery he shot a few years ago for The Radavist.

At any rate, I just finished buttoning up my bike I’ll be bringing to Keyesville to ride and, yes, take part in the vintage race. Let’s check it out in detail below…

I found this Bridgestone MB-2 as a complete on Marketplace in December of 2021. It’s January of 2023 and I’ve just wrapped up the build. The time in between was spent having some frame modifications made, aging the frame, making custom head badges and acquiring various components. Once I had my parts, the build should have only taken about a day but stretched into a week as I inched along with minor changes. The final outcome, though, is better than I could have hoped!

It’s no secret Rivendell Bicycle Works pulls inspiration from Tolkien’s Middle Earth. Grant Petersen is a big Tolkien fan and, over the years, many of the brand’s bicycles have adorned names from Tolkien’s writings. When it comes to beings of power and mystique, there are none more significant than Tom Bombadil. Older than Middle Earth and more powerful than any, Bombadil was omitted from the Jackson-envisioned big-screen movies for several reasons, but that didn’t keep Grant from naming Rivendell’s first mountain bike after the most powerful being in Middle Earth.

A Bombadil is a rare bird. Perhaps as rare as the fabled Legolas, Riv’s ‘cross bike, so I never expected I’d find one in my size, a 60cm. Then, one morning, an eBay alert popped into my email; there it was; a sunny Bombadil just begging to be purchased…

While we love our share of vintage mountain bike builds, dressed with period-correct components, and embrace the patina that has been rubbed in over the decades, there’s something to the resto-mod style of vintage builds. Baskets, racks, modern bars, and the like all add to a bike’s longevity and encourage its use. Plus, a vintage mountain bike just oozes cool and generally is cheaper to build up from a parts bin than buying something brand new. On my last trip to Los Angeles, I was hanging out at The Cub House, avoiding the rain, when Simon, their mechanic, showed me a customer’s bike that rolled in for some TLC, and I had to document it…

Brave New Wheel bike shop is a Fort Collins, CO staple and community hub that has been around since the 1980s. Co-owned by Johnny Daggett and Mike Woodard, the shop focuses on service and repair, wheel-building, and suspension work. Johnny recently finished building a Monē Bikes El Pebblito gravel rocketship with custom Squidfork from local builders Oddity Cycles. Continue reading below for Johnny’s full rundown with a chilly photoset from Aaron LaVanchy…

Will Bender is a bicycle frame builder based in Fort Collins, CO. His custom frames run the gamut from all-road to gravel, touring, and modern hardtails. Last summer, Josh paid Will a visit to document his shop and learn about his background and approach to building bikes. While he was there, he enlisted Will to build the touring MTB of his dreams — a comfortable 29+ rig capable of carrying heavy loads and designed to harmonize with the Oddity Squid Fork made concurrently by another Fort Collins frame builder, Sean Burns. Continue reading below for the full rundown on this build…

Beach Club, the fun, not-so-serious bicycle brand started by Sean and Danny from Team Dream Team, seems to be getting more serious. An indicator is the new bike models coming out over the next few months, with the latest being the Gravioli disc gravel bike…

Growing up in a small South African town in the late 80s and early 90s meant David Mercer was largely shielded from the travesties of the apartheid era. But in 1994, in a coincidental coming-of-age historical convergence, the status quo was cracked open, not just for Mercer but for the whole country. The same year he turned 16, South Africa officially ended apartheid as the country held its first democratic elections. At this point, Mercer was well enmeshed in his love affair with bikes, having grown up a young BMX ripper but becoming fully infatuated with mountain biking as a teen. Many youthful afternoons spent pouring over bicycle magazines like MB UK and Mountain Bike Action led him to develop a fast fascination with steel-wielding magicians like Dave Yates and Chas Roberts and were responsible for his own framebuilding aspirations. However, the end of apartheid brought a wave of foreign frames as longtime sanctions were finally lifted. This swift influx quickly decimated the local steel bicycle manufacturing industry and a deflated Mercer went on to become a veterinarian. The dream of bikes was always there, simmering in the background, but it would be nearly a decade-and-a-half before he’d pick up a torch himself.

Following the review of his MASH SF Steel All-Road from earlier this year, Chris Corona is back with yet another MASH bike review. This time, he’s built himself a steel “Rockbanger” 27.5 hardtail mountain bike and documents it in his stunning photographic style. Let’s check it out in detail below!