Archive Re-Up: Benedict’s (Ronnie Romance’s) Clockwork Dirt Droooop Tourer

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Archive Re-Up: Benedict’s (Ronnie Romance’s) Clockwork Dirt Droooop Tourer

When we lost our 2014-2015 image bucket back in 2018, it was a huge bummer, but over the past few months, I’ve been digging out hard drives and re-editing some photos, in the hopes of filling in the bigger holes.

2014. What a wild time. I was living in Austin, TX and connecting with individuals who would become some of my best friends. From Matt and his prototype Crust Bikes Evasion to Benedict, aka Ronnie Romance, and his Clockwork Dirt Drop Tourer, some of my favorite bike and personality moments came from that era. Today, in conjunction with Bené’s Blue Lug post, I wanted to re-up this classic photoset, so enjoy!

Benedict’s Romantical Clockwork Bikes Dirt Droop 29er

I should also note that my intent here is only to upload lost photos, keeping the text and formatting intact.

Fork Yeah: John’s 1991 Team Fat Chance Yo Eddy!

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Fork Yeah: John’s 1991 Team Fat Chance Yo Eddy!

Before we jump in, let’s take a look back: This has been such a fun process to undertake over the course of the past nine months. For those who are just tuning in, I bought a frame from Martin, owner of Second Spin Cycles, last year after he had acquired a substantial Fat City Cycles collection. Among his lucky haul was this Yo Eddy! in the team lavender livery with rack mounts, a pump peg, and some frame damage.

While the bike was in Rick’s care at D&D for some repairs and a paint respray, I began collecting period-correct parts from various sources. After re-finishing some of them and getting the bike back, I just finished the build this week. Monday night was the maiden voyage of the new and improved Yo Eddy! and I took some glamour shots here in Santa Fe, so let’s check this beaut out below!

Eric’s Raw and Rusted 1985 Bridgestone MB-2 Wigsplitter

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Eric’s Raw and Rusted 1985 Bridgestone MB-2 Wigsplitter

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!

The Radavist’s Top Ten Beautiful Bicycles of 2022

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The Radavist’s Top Ten Beautiful Bicycles of 2022

We’d like to think we’re pretty alright at photographing bikes over here at The Radavist. The steeds we choose to document reflect our audience’s preferences and capture distinct trends in bicycle design. Yet, each year as we reflect on all the builds that have rolled through this cyber showroom, we’re always surprised to see what the Top Ten list reveals. This year, we’ve got a good mix of bikes, outfitted with flat and droopy bars, running rubber across the size spectrum, and made of steel, aluminum and yes, even carbon. Let’s get to it!

Then and Now: Suntour XCii Vs. MKS XCiii Pedals

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Then and Now: Suntour XCii Vs. MKS XCiii Pedals

With the pandemic driving up prices of vintage mountain and road components, many people are turning to modern recreations of these staple parts to finish out their build projects. Whether it’s a Salsa Pro Moto stem or in this case, Suntour’s legendary XC “bear trap” pedals, there are modern components inspired by these classic components but how close are they to the original? In this post, John looks at what makes the XCii so unique and how close the XCiii comes to the original…

New US-Made Larkin Cycles Stems in Copper, Brass, and Nickel Finishes

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New US-Made Larkin Cycles Stems in Copper, Brass, and Nickel Finishes

Speaking of Crust Bikes, they teamed up with Darren Larkin from Larkin Cycles to make these 1″ threadless stems. Yeah, you read that correctly, a 1″ threadless stem. Not many people are making these anymore but now might be a good time to ditch that 1990s aluminum stem you’ve been hammering and switch to a heat-treated Chromoly stem! Retail is $160 and shipping today from Crust Bikes.

Specs:
-Made in Los Angeles, California, USA using heat treated 4130 chromoly.
-Tig Welded
-Colors- Copper, Brass, Nickel
-Reach- 50mm, 70mm or 80mm
-Clamp Diameters- 31.8 only
-Steerer Tube Clamp Diameter- 1″
-Stack (Bottom of stem to center of clamp)- 60mm
-Weights- 50mm- 190g | 70mm- 198 | 80mm- 216g

A Look at the All New Wizard Works Pelagazam for the Pelago Rasket

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A Look at the All New Wizard Works Pelagazam for the Pelago Rasket

I love my Pelago Rasket on my Crust Bikes Dreamer but one of the things I’m not stoked about it is the limited bag offerings. After reaching out to a variety of bag makers, requesting a “custom” bag for my Rasket, the team at Wizard Works threw its wizard cap into the arena and offered to help me out. Well, after a few months, my Pelagazam bag designed specifically to the dimensions of the Raskett, showed up and I shot some initial photos of this nifty bag this morning, so let’s check it out in detail below!

Grepp Makes Sustainable and Reusable Gripper Handlebar Tape

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Grepp Makes Sustainable and Reusable Gripper Handlebar Tape

Grepp is a Swedish company that makes a reusable handlebar tape called Gripper. This cloth tape is woven in Sweden and is meant to be revitalized when it feels worn out, rather than pitched. The adhesive-free design increases the tape’s life-cycle: Once it feels a bit tired, you can give it a nice spa treatment. Simply remove it residual-free, give it a ride in your washer at 40°C, and reuse it as new. Available in olive, grey, and black from Grepp.cc or from Crust Bikes in the US.

Specs:
-Made in Sweden
-98% TENCEL Modal | 2% Natural Rubber Thread
-Colors- Charcoal (Black), Ultimate Grey, and Olivine
-Width- 27mm
-Thickness- 1.6mm
-Roll Length- 3m
-Weight (per roll)- ~76g

The Radavist’s Top Articles of 2020

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The Radavist’s Top Articles of 2020

Coming off a week of downtime after one of the most tumultuous years of our lives has brought clarity to this annual retrospective. To be honest, I had no idea what to expect as Covid-19 gripped the global community and changed life as we know it. We looked to our new home in Santa Fe, New Mexico and the surrounding areas for inspiration, pinged our good friends for their penmanship, and listened to communities that have been underrepresented in cycling. What resulted were a lot of articles that tackled some big issues and the realization that we still have a lot of work to do.

I’ve spent the past few weeks mulling over our content and have compiled a list of some of the most meaningful and fun pieces from the past twelve months.  Read on below for a selection of memorable moments from 2020, in chronological order…

The Radavist’s Top Ten Beautiful Bicycles of 2020

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The Radavist’s Top Ten Beautiful Bicycles of 2020

Each year I like to look at our content in its entirety and reflect back on bikes that took you, the readers of this website, by storm. Back in the mid to late 2000’s it was all fixed gears, then came the gravel bikes, the tourers, the MTBs, and the kooky, eccentric builds you’ve come to enjoy checking out in full-res detail. We’ve got some incredibly talented individuals contributing to this site and their hard work is something I cannot express my gratitude for enough. Going back through the 2020 content here at the Radavist, I am amazed at what we were able to accomplish all things considered.

For this year’s Top Beautiful Bicycles of 2020, we have compiled a great list of ten bikes, ranging from rim brakes to fixed gears, basket bikes, and more. This list is based on web traffic, commentary, and social media chatter, and each of these builds really brought something unique to our content. We omitted bike reviews here but included production bikes. Oh and I hope you like baskets!

Let’s jump right in!