The Radavist

Where do I even begin here? DiNucci is a damn living legend in the frame building world and anytime I can get my sweaty palms on one of his bikes, I take extra time documenting it. Case in point: this beautifully-lugged classic road bike with Campagnolo Super Record. I love everything about this build, from the lug work, to the Enduro headset, right down to the bright, sparkly arrow reminding you to keep pushing forward. With a bike like this, however, I doubt the owner will need any motivation. Mark, if you’re reading this, it’s always a pleasure to be in such great company.

The Olivetti namesake comes from an Italian typewriter company. That was Peter’s grandfather and he is carrying on the Olivetti name, but with bicycles. This Thunder Pig rigid mountain bike was an experiment in making a robust, fun and practical frame, with clearances for a 3″ tire and a rigid fork. It was the first time Olivetti had made a segmented fork and I’d say his experiment worked wonderfully, down to the pure silver coin caps. As a side note: every Olivetti customer gets to select a silver coin to be brazed onto their frame if they so choose. These coins were passed down to Peter and it’s nice seeing them live on with his art…

Baltimore’s Chris Bishop of Bishop Bikes hasn’t been to NAHBS since 2013 and this year, he brought what he’s known for and then some. You can always count on Chris for the finest fillet and lug construction, but I was completely surprised to see him soft-launch a production line called Item 4, named after the substrate specification used in gravel roads in the North East. Item 4 is a collaboration with Vicious Cycles, who is tig-welding the front triangle of these frames, with Chris fillet brazing the rear and all the accoutrement needed for a rim brake or disc brake road bike. Chris really wants to expand the Bishop Bikes lineup, to get more people out on bikes that he’s designed and to be honest, I can’t wait to see more of these roll out of his Baltimore workshop…

Rody Walter of Groovy Cycleworks was devastated when Jeff Archer from First Flight Bicycles passed away in 2016. Jeff and Rody were good friends and Jeff was loved by all, but especially by the mountain bike industry. Jeff always wanted a klunker, so this year at NAHBS, Rody made him one to ride in peace. This bike is an homage to a lost brother and is a symbol that good people never really leave us, just like classic designs and approaches to cycling. Rody put all of his time and energy into making this bike and his friends at Magura helped make it extra special. You see, the original Klunkers used Magura moto levers, so they gladly supplied Rody with some to make this bike extra special…

When a frame builder has access to an in-house graphics department and paint booth, great things happen. Thomas from Horse Cycles‘ partnership with Ben Falcon has really paid off. Ben’s paint mixed with Horse’s frame design and construction delivers show-stopping road bikes like this.

No matter how high tech the road bike gets, nothing beats the lines and elegance of a classic road bike. For this year’s NAHBS, Bryan of Royal H Cycles brought this beautifully-lugged road bike with equal parts practicality to functionality. At first, I didn’t even notice the Di2…

Remember that DeSalvo dream bike NAHBS contest? Well, here’s the winning bike concept. Mike’s offerings each year are usually clean, minimal road bikes but this year, it was a special treat seeing a bike like this in the DeSalvo booth. This dirt drop frame features the Fox AX “gravel” fork, a KS LEV dropper, Sim Works To Smile dirt drops, color-matched PAUL and White Industries. A few builders brought bikes like this to the show and personally, I’m into it.

What McGovern Cycles is bringing to the carbon fiber road bike market is not necessarily a new concept, but seeing it made in California is a first for me. His 27.5 carbon fiber road bike will fit a 27.5 by 2.1″ tire or a 700 by 45mm, is light as hell, features beautiful details, and has the stance of a race thoroughbred machine. These frames are built using tube-to-tube construction, not a mold, so a completely-custom geometry is possible. The 3T Luteus 2 fork gives ample clearance, without drastically increasing the ATC measurement. Last but not least, can we talk about that paint job? Outstanding work by John Slawta of Landshark!

Down on Rando Alley here at NAHBS is an entire lane dedicated to the randonee constructeur. Right there, next to J P Weigle is Chapman Cycles, the Rhode Island-based builder with a knack for creating both highly elegant, yet functional machines and exceptional drillium. Brian Chapman went the distance on this machine, drilling just about everything he could, down to the SRAM Red shifter paddle, yet the detail that really piqued my interest is the rim generator device, that’s able to be switched on via the non-drive side downtube shifter…

I say this a lot at NAHBS, but when I saw this big and beautiful Northern Frameworks single speed MTB in their booth, I exclaimed “HOT DAMN!” This bike is for a tall rider and I love seeing how builders balance the proportions of large bikes with modern MTB geometry. The client spec’d all brown anodized PAUL and White Industries, to complement the rich, copper paint.

A few weeks back, around the time of the Giro x Radavist collection drop, Mosaic reached out, saying they had the perfect bike to display the goods with at NAHBS. I was into it, Giro was into it and I think you’ll be into it. This GT-2 build by the Colorado-based builder features a geometry more tuned for long day dirt rides and lightweight bikepacking, custom Spectrum-powdercoated decals with matching OD green King Kages, and a set of custom bikepacking bags from Colorado’s JPaks Bags. The beauty of the JPacks frame bag system is the nesting frame bag that fits under this partial frame bag, allowing you to either run bottle cages, or an additional bag for storage. You can see this bike for yourself at Houston’s Bicycle Speed Shop.

Brookyln’s Weis Manufacturing first made an appearance here on the Radavist not too long ago. With their asymmetrical seat stays and robust dropout design, the look and feel of their framesets felt very unique to me. After seeing their bikes in person, it further solidified this. While their construction is top-notch, I couldn’t help but be drawn into their Splatter Track finish, which was executed perfectly, in my opinion anyway, by the paint shop at Horse Cycles.

Breismeister Bicycles is a frame builder out of Queens, New York and for this year’s NAHBS, Doug, the owner brought along this beautiful 650b road bike made from Columbus Max and featuring a bi-lam head tube, Pacenti fork crown and a loud, vibrant paint job. The colors on this bike are just too good!

The team from Stinner Frameworks brought one of their most outrageous paint jobs to this year’s NAHBS. I always find it ironic that disruptive patterning attracts so much attention, but that’s what happens when you cover a single speed mountain frame entirely with Splittermuster 31-inspired graphics. It was an all-hands-on-deck situation leading up to NAHBS at Stinner, with the paint job alone taking four days to complete. Each layer of patterning took 5 hours to just peel and apply the mask. I’m not usually one for fancy paint jobs on a mountain bike, but this bike is complete insanity. Then, to up the ante, the same pattern was used in the custom Yanco bags.

Let’s not get too caught up on the finish, however. Even though this bike is shown with a rigid fork, it can be converted to a hardtail configuration with the Cane Creek Angleset headset, which adjusts the head tube angle between .5º and 1.5º, enough to allow the use of an appropriate travel fork. For now, however, the Whisky fork and cockpit, Whisky rims, Chris King hubs, along with the Thomson dropper makes this a lightweight and completely capable single track assault vehicle.

Kris Henry from 44 Bikes knows how to craft a beautiful, functional tig-welded machine that will live by the brand’s mantra of “Swear to Shred.” This Huntsman road bike features clearances for WTB Nano tires, Shimano flat mount brakes, the powerhouse group that is Ultegra, and a geometry tuned for road riding of all substrates. With a paint job by Jordan Low of Hot Tubes Paint, it’s got plenty of pop!

Where do I even begin here? A bunch of awesome brands working together on a unique concept, featuring unique products and a lot of uniqueness. Is that even a word? Sklar and Benedict, aka Ultra Romance teamed up to build the ultimate bicycle. It’s so ultimate that I don’t even know what to call it. Is it a road bike? A touring bike? A mtb? Who knows. Right now, the consensus seems to be just “Nutmegger,” so that’s what I’ll call it. Before I go any further here, I’ll just say this bike begs for more than the brevity associated with copywriting of my NAHBS galleries and maybe one day we’ll dive in deeper, until then, I’ll give you the gist.

This is a part fillet, part tig welded steel frame in a nickel finish, with a custom stem by Hubert from Madrian Fabrication. It’s got a long wheelbase, mid-trail and a truss fork design, along with a double top tube to support the massive head tube. When you ride this thing, you’re really IN it, not on it.

The 66.6cm wide Crust bars are mated with a custom Swift Industries bag and nestled in that top tube space is an Andrew the Maker Bag. Those perty Paul and White Industries bits are custom annodized brown. There’s even a Connecticut State Coin as the top cap! It was assembled in Benedict’s mom’s kitchen and is still kinda sorta being built up as I’m writing this. Yes, the derailleur cable is long, there are no brake cable crimps and I had to stop Poppi from shallacing the tape as I was photographing it.

So what is the Nutmegger? I honestly have no idea. It’s a bicycle that embodies Benedict and that’s all it needs to be. Will Adam from Sklar make you one? Helllll nahhhhhh.

NAHBS isn’t always about $3,000 paint jobs, expensive carbon components, and electronic shifting. For Squid Bikes, their paint jobs cost more in time than they do in materials and the sky’s the limit for their designs. This year at NAHBS, the bike that jumped out at me was this tracklocross fixed gear built with Paul Components and White Industries, using their ‘cross bike frameset. There’s even a nifty little stash container built-in to the handlebar end to keep things even sketchier… but still safe. This bike beckons for some #RubberSideUp action.

We’re kicking off NAHBS this year with a unique build by Kentucky’s Stanridge Speed. A client in New York City contacted Adam about building a him a unique track bike, prompting Adam to design and construct an homage to the 3Rensho Broad Axe, a frame from cycling’s heyday of experimental design. For the build, Adam used various tubing specs and construction techniques, a custom-manufactured Phil Wood left hand hub, ENVE hoops, FSA Olympic-spec Vision Metron cranks, FSA Metron 5d bars, and paint by Jordan Low. As far as track bikes here at the show, this one takes the cake…