Pivot Cycles’ Vault gravel bike has plenty of amazing tech securely (wink wink) stashed in the frame making for a comfortable and uncompromising riding experience. Spencer is ever chasing something other than geometry inflation to review and Pivot’s patented ISO FLEX technology caught his eye. Make sure you take a peek inside the Vault for all the hidden treasure below…
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Kona Ouroboros Adventure Bike: First Look
There’s a lot to love about Kona’s latest drop-bar bike, the Ouroboros. From the name (duh) to the stance and details, it’s got a lot going on. John got his hands on the Supreme build spec ($6999) and shot some photos before today’s release, so let’s take a closer look at this adventure-ready platform.
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The Dust-Up: Old Man Yells at 27.2 Seatposts
In this Dust-Up, Travis claims 27.2 mm seatposts are symptoms of the gravel industry’s refusal to evolve. Turns out there’s more to it, but he’s still upset.
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Long Term Relationship: A True Love Cycles Heart Breaker Review
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.
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Bridging Community: Santa Fe Fat Tire Society Bridge Building Day
Like many towns along the Rocky Mountain corridor, Santa Fe has easy access to endless singletrack that spans many mountainous ecotones. You can pedal from town at 7000′ all the way above tree line to where our bike-legal trails top out at 12,500′, on almost exclusively singletrack.
This dense network of trails is stewarded by our local organization, the Santa Fe Fat Tire Society, and over the years, they’ve been putting in work adding new, legal trails, keeping the current trails running smoothly, cutting deadfall, fixing blown corners, and adding signage in a hope to bridge the various trail users in this community…
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Spotted at The Cub House: CJ’s Salsa Ala Carte Commuter Conversion with White Industries
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…
Radar
Radar Roundup: Cycles Manivelle Unirack, MAAPxPAM, X11 Cotton Ron’s, Drinking and Cycling, Salsa Recall, Migration Gravel Race, and Made in New England
Our Radar Roundup compiles products and videos from the ‘net in an easy-to-digest format. Read on below for today’s findings…
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Radar Roundup: Chromag Darco Ti and Steel Full Suspension, Wilde Dream Engine, Sim Works x Doom Bars, Speedvagen Brings Back ‘Cross, PAUL Duplex Levers, This Rider, Sticks and Stones, and Exploring Success
Our Radar Roundup compiles products and videos from the ‘net in an easy-to-digest format. Read on below for today’s findings…
Radar
A Super Fun Tenkara Bikefishing Video
Our friends at Tenkara Rod Co pulled together a video showcasing a recent bikefishing ride they did in the mountains, searching for native Bonneville Cutthroat Trout… If you haven’t tried bikefishing before, Tenkara is a great place to start! If you want to see some bikefishing rides, check out our Related column below…
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Inside / Out at Why Cycles and Revel Bikes: A ‘Reel’ Good Time in Carbondale, Colorado
It’s not often that I have to buy a fishing permit to do a Shop Visit but when Why Cycles and Revel Bikes offered up a good time riding and fishing in and around the Western Slope city of Carbondale, Colorado, I couldn’t resist the offer. The collision of outdoor activities is my favorite and knowing a whole weekend of mountain biking and fly fishing awaited me, I was eager to see how it would play out, all while learning about the brands the entire bike industry seemed to be talking about…
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Readers’ Rides: Katherine’s Dirt-dropped Hardtail Frankenbike
This week’s Readers’ Rides comes from Katherine in Colorado with her do-it-all Orbea hardtail. Check out more details and the history of this unique submission below…
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A Discussion About Wilderness: Backpacking and Fly Fishing in Northern New Mexico
There is a case for wilderness in the American West, which is defined in the Oxford dictionary as “an uncultivated, uninhabited, and inhospitable region.” The problem is, this classification was written by colonizers and erasers of indigenous history. Humans have long inhabited these areas, before the Spanish or the Pilgrims infiltrated these lands, long before it was called New Mexico.
This topic is a heated one. Organizations like the Sierra Club lead the way in this classification, establishing rules about who can or can’t visit these lands: for instance, cyclists. I’m not here to talk about whether or not bikes should be allowed in areas classified as wilderness, so let’s step back a bit and discuss what that word, wilderness, means in the context of the original inhabitants of the Americas.
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Bike Touring the Continental Divide Trail CDT in Northern New Mexico
DISCLAIMER: Travel is limited to New Mexico at this time and there is a mask requirement. This trip was planned before the recent changes and we adjusted to ensure safe distances and to limit any small community contact. Be safe.
Starting at the border of Colorado and following along the Continental Divide Trail, some friends helped hatch a plan to traverse the central highlands of New Mexico by bike over 3 days, covering 100 miles of unbelievably-beautiful country.
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Santa Fe Rides: Bikefishing on the Rancho Viejo Backcountry Loop with Tenkara Rods
Please note: this trail is closed as of 2021 due to fire damage and flooding. We will update this post once it opens again. Please do not venture into the backcountry on this route!
It’s no secret that the bicycle can be a vessel for linking together with other interests and hobbies. Be it pack rafting or in this case, fishing. The bicycle can get you deep into the backcountry in a relatively short amount of time, compared to hiking, and access areas autos or motos can’t go. With this mobility comes a few problems that require solving first, however. Mainly, how do you carry a fishing pole with you on a bike? Much less a fly rod? Sure, there are a lot of fly rods that pack down to a manageable size, but none are as compact as the mini, yet mighty Tenkara rods.
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The Radavist’s Top Ten Beautiful Bicycles of 2019
Wow! What a year it’s been. In the past twelve months, we’ve shot roughly 300 bikes. From gravel races, to NAHBS, the Philly Bike Expo and our normal travels, we really captured some unique builds and we’ve got a good handle on the bikes the readers of the Radavist enjoy checking out based on some key metrics.
Every year we try to do our best to sort through twelve months of archives to narrow down to this list. The first filter is the comment count, which we start at 50 comments. Then comes page views, with the minimum number being 20,000 views. Finally, we look at the social media chatter; including Instagram comments and how many times was the post shared across various platforms.
What we end up with is a list that is filled with a plethora of interesting, versatile, and quirky bikes. The only editorial decision I myself made was to omit reviews of stock bikes. So no Santa Cruz Stigmata or Cannondale Topstone this round!
Check out the full Top Ten Beautiful Bicycles of 2019 below, in no particular order…
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Width Without the Waves: A Few Rides in on the 560mm Wide Crust x Nitto Shaka Bar
Crust Bikes gives the people what they want and that ranges from frames, to complete bikes, accessories, parts, and yeah, handlebars. Their small-time operation allows them to pivot easily to follow trends and in a lot of ways, set the trends themselves. With road bikes permuting into even more capable off-road machines, a lot of the ideologies of mountain bike design and technology have found its way onto drop-bar bicycles. Sure, the obvious moves are those shorter-travel suspension forks but something that not many people have touched on is bar width.
That’s where Crust Bikes and Ultra Romance have really influenced and inspired the question: what is the appropriate width for a drop-bar bicycle? We already looked at my Sklar with the Towel Rack Bars but after much demand – and my own curiosity – I decided to try out the Made in Japan by Nitto Shaka Bar.
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Summit to Sea with Salsa Cycles, a Grinduro Japan Warmup
I arrived with a crew from Salsa Cycles a few days before Grinduro Japan was set to go down. With the impending storm putting a slight damper on the length and rideability of the course for the weekend, I started to look for some alternative riding in the immediate area around the mountain. While the mountain offered plenty of dirt roads, they remained forested-in which didn’t do the Japanese landscape justice. On the map, I noticed that the coast wasn’t too far away and would be a big ole descent for most of the way. Once we secured some fellow folks to shuttle us back from the beach in our rental cars, I got to work cobbling together a GPS track for us to follow. I connected the small bits of off-pavement and tried to string them together with bike paths as well as a visit to a city park that had a castle, duh. Lets go to the beach!
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Grinduro Japan: Soaked n’ Stoked
With Grinduro spreading its wings across three continents this year, landing on the western side of Japan at Madarao Kogen with Salsa Cycles this fall. A resort mostly known for its deep powder and tree skiing welcomed some early season visitors as over 300 cyclists descended upon the ski town. The resort’s main chalet served as the staging ground for the expo and meals for the event. With the threat of Typhoon Hagibis on the horizon, the largest Typhoon to hit this region of Japan since 1958, people were nervous about the viability of the event. The storm was forecasted to reach the resort and produce very heavy rains and strong winds midday Saturday, right during lunch between the two planned rides for the day. With safety and ride-ability in mind, the organizers decided to swap the afternoon ride to the morning and add a segment. This was the more dirt/singletrack focused portion of the day which I don’t think anyone was bummed about. At 19 miles the route still has over 3000 ft of elevation gain.