The Radavist

What would your dream bike look like? For the team at The Cub House in San Marino, California, just outside of Pasadena, they specialize in curated, custom dream bike builds ranging from Firefly road bikes like this one to basket bikes and everything in between. One of The Cub House‘s most recent builds was for a customer named Sheldon who wanted to put a bit of himself into this custom machine. We’re lucky to host Sheldon‘s words below, so read on to see what he did and why with this specific build…

It’s that time of year again! ENVE’s Open House, aka the Builder Round-Up and Grodeo event is this weekend in Ogden, Utah, so I packed up my bike portrait kit and drove up through beautiful summer monsoons to document a selection of bikes from this year’s event. Check out a thoroughly documented stable from the Round Up below, beginning with Chumba, Falconer, Firefly, Mariposa, Scarab, Sklar, and Tomii…

Last year, ENVE opened its doors to the public for an Open House event. Once inside, visitors took a tour of its Ogden, Utah facilities and were greeted by two-dozen custom bikes from builders across the globe. This year the pandemic forced ENVE to pivot a bit, holding a virtual tour and framebuilder showcase they’re calling the Builder Round-Up. We’re pleased to once again host this showcase, with two-part coverage, so read on below for a full breakdown on these Beautiful Bicycles along with a few teasers of new ENVE product…

We shoot a lot of bikes here on the Radavist. A lot. From my estimates, including tradeshows, and events like the Chris King Open House, or the Moots’ Employee Bikes, and even the Speedvagen Build Off, we shot 220 or so bikes in 2018. That’s a lot of bikes. A lot of details. A lot of component selection, build styles, and uses. From road, to mountain, and everything in between, noting the permutations that exist in this ever-so-special era in the cycling industry, I really feel like we’ve shown you just about everything you could see this year.

Out of those 220 bikes, I looked at the data in the form of traffic metrics, social chatter, and comments to pick the Top 10 Beautiful Bicycles of 2018. While many bikes had a lot of comments, some had higher traffic or social media shares. Compiling all the numbers, a very compelling list was formed. Not included in this lot are bike reviews, of which Morgan’s review of the Midnight Special and Kyle’s review of his Chubby Cosmic Stallion took the highest metrics from all others on this list. I guess they’re in a league of their own!

At any rate, check out the complete Top 10 Beautiful Bicycles of 2018, in no particular order, below!

When I began working with the team at Firefly on my first disc brake road bike back in 2014, I wanted it to be perfect. The problem was at the time, the industry was very imperfect when it came to disc brakes on road bikes and all the accompanying standards. That was three or four years ago. Flat mount wasn’t on the table, many road forks used a 15mm thru-axle, and SRAM’s 1x XD driver had just switched to the road market after a successful introduction into the MTB market years prior. Trying to figure out the specs on this bike took a lot of back and forth for both me and Firefly. I wanted this bike to be perfect… this is, after all, a dream bike!

Since getting the Rad Rod in 2015, I’ve had this bike built up a number of different ways, traveled the globe with it, toured on it, and came to the conclusion that I truly do love it. So when Tyler emailed me, asking what I’d think about sending it back for a retrofit, I was intrigued.

His proposal was a rear-end retrofit, with a new Firefly thru-axle dropout but most importantly, a new 3D-printed titanium yoke that would allow for a large tire and the use of a 2x drivetrain. By this point, I’d ridden a number of other drop bar “all road” bikes, but really wanted a straight up “chubby road,” or a disc brake, 650b, 2x road bike.

I last saw this kick-ass woman at the first Grinduro. That’s over three years ago and in that time, she’s continued to crush races with what always seems to be such finesse. Hell, even at the start of this year’s Land Run 100, I hooped and hollered at her in the first few miles, to which she returned a smile and pedaled off into the dusty abyss.

Dani‘s endeavors in the cycling industry are proudly supported by Tenspeed Hero and Firefly. This year, she’s upping the ante by starting a team of all-female dirt road racers. These ladies are looking to travel to events like Land Run 100 and others, in search of competition and glory. The team is dubbed Bitch ‘n’ Grit, and is sponsored by BitchStix, a company that makes lip balms and sunblock, while donating all net proceeds to organizations that raise awareness for domestic abuse and sexual assault prevention programs.

This is the bike Dani will pedal as she joins her teammates in races. It’s Firefly number three for her, hence the SHRED SL3D and is the bike that’s dedicated to dirt road racing. I could go on for a bit longer about the bike, its integrated seat post, and her perspective, but I’d rather send you to her blog to read all about it.

Oh, and she got third place in the women’s category on this bike… Dani, we’ll see you again soon – sooner than three years! – and good luck this season!

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2015 was an amazing year for the Radavist. Not only in terms of traffic, or stats, but in terms of content. We take pride in the site, the rides we record, products we feature and yes, the bicycles we document. This year was huge in terms of the places we traveled to and the people we met along the way. With people and places come Beautiful Bicycles and a lot of work!

Without rambling on too much, here’s a list of the Top 10 of 2015 ranked by traffic and social media chatter, from highest down…