The 2015 Rouge Roubaix Builder Challenge: Argonaut

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The 2015 Rouge Roubaix Builder Challenge: Argonaut

Part of my job during the Rouge Roubaix was to document the Rouge Roubaix Builder Challenge, or #RRBC2015 as the internet likes to catalog things. Last year, in a late night hot tub session, somewhere in SoCal, Ben from Argonaut, Billy from Echos, Aaron from Mosaic and myself were discussing NAHBS. Part of the frustration Ben was voicing was that he had infinitely more fun riding bikes with people, than sitting in a tradeshow booth for three days.

The idea expanded, phone calls were made and soon, the RRBC was born. Sort of. You see, it couldn’t be just one team, so a few were invited. Out of 5 teams, three committed: Argonaut, Breadwinner and Mosaic. Each team would send out a call for entries and select a team mate from the applicants, build them a bike and race the Rouge Roubaix with them.

For Argonaut, they chose Stephan Kincaid, a power house from Pennsylvania.

Since Ben had never met Stephan, who goes by the nickname Geronimo, the RRBC was just as much about the bike as it was new-found camaraderie. We arrived in Baton Rouge on Thursday and had two days to gather course intel, shoot photos, drink and prepare for the race on Sunday. This gallery represents those days in St. Francisville, Louisiana.

Stephan’s bike is an Argonaut disc road with Shimano Dura Ace, Chris King, Reynolds Wheels and ENVE cockpit.

Team Argonaut would like to thank ENVE, Shimano, Reynolds, ENDO, Rothera Caps and Chris King.

Bishop Bikes: Supersprint Track

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Bishop Bikes: Supersprint Track

Photos by Keith Trotta

I know we’ve been immersed in NAHBS this past week and everyone’s probably reaching their limit on amazing, custom handmade bicycles but this one needs some exposure. Chris Bishop’s latest track bike is nothing short of amazing. This Supersprint bike has Samson track ends and a clean fastback seat stay, accented by Todd Eroh’s paint. See more at the Bishop Flickr.

Handmade Carbon Fiber Wheels and Rims: Zipp Speed Weaponry

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Handmade Carbon Fiber Wheels and Rims: Zipp Speed Weaponry

On the eve of NAHBS, Zipp invited a handfull of journalists to visit their facilities in Indianapolis, Indiana. Back in 1988, Zipp first launched their products with a disc wheel at Interbike, which back then was in Anaheim, California. Over the years, Zipp has stayed true to their roots, constructing both disc wheels and aero sections by hand in their facility.

Having moved from Speedway to Indianapolis a few years back, Zipp’s facilities themselves are far from space-aged, yet the technology used to cut, mould and form their carbon fiber aren’t that dissimilar from military-grade carbon facilities. Everything is precise, clean and for most of the process, done in secret.

While Zipp will gladly open their doors to media, a lot of the how’d they do that remains a secret.

I’m in Indianapolis with Zipp Today

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I’m in Indianapolis with Zipp Today

What better way to segue into NAHBS and documenting handmade bicycle frames than to visit a facility that produces handmade carbon wheels. Today I’ve been touring the Zipp factory in Indianapolis where I got to see the process from cutting sheets of carbon to testing current and future products. As you could imagine, a lot of this process is top secret, but Zipp allowed photos of specific areas throughout the afternoon.

Expect more reportage to come before NAHBS content begins.

Tomii Cycles: Annie’s Road Build

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Tomii Cycles: Annie’s Road Build

Photos by Chris Raia

It’s framebuilder’s week here at the Radavist. Each year, I immerse myself into the world of custom bicycles for the week leading up to NAHBS in an attempt to psyche myself up for the workload that awaits at NAHBS. Covering the world of custom bicycles and framebuilders stems from a love for the industry. An obsession for details, an eye for proportion and the story each bicycle tells without uttering a word.

While NAHBS is all about the exhibition, it’s most importantly a venue for the public to connect to the private world of the framebuilder. These artists spend their time behind lathes, torches and files for most of their days. NAHBS gives them a moment to share their hard work with you, their potential clients.

For builders like Nao Tomii at Tomii Cycles, his work is displayed to the public via his Flickr and other social media outlets. While Nao won’t be at NAHBS this year, it doesn’t mean his work is any less worthy of a spotlight. Case in point is his latest build: Annie’s road. Built with modern Campagnolo, made in the USA White Industries crank, made in the USA Camillo brakes and a mesmerizing paint job by Jordan Low, this piece of art is sure to bring Annie many miles of joy.

Custom frames like this are examples of an artist’s work, but most importantly, they’re vessels that bring clients miles of joy. Well, that and pretty photos for us to ogle. See more at the Tomii Flickr.

Personally, I can’t wait for NAHBS. It’s my favorite event of the year.

Repete Cycles: Grizzly Cross

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Repete Cycles: Grizzly Cross

Repete Cycles have been featured here on the Radavist before. Their handmade in the Czech Republic, custom frames are simple machines with clean, austere lines. That is, until you start to really examine their cyclocross bike, the Grizzly. Subtle elegance can be found in the bent Columbus Spirit HSS stays and the matte brown finish. Details that make this bike as fierce as the alpha predator from which it formed its namesake.

Oddly enough, this Czech company will be at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show in Louisville this week and I’m not complaining! You can see more of Repete’s work at the NAHBS Exhibitor Feature website.

Back Home Before Heading Back Out

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Back Home Before Heading Back Out

Photo by Ryan Wilson

Austin is my home base, however a lot of my time the past few years has been on the road. As such, I’ll be nomadic for the next few weeks, toting my life with me in a duffle bag and a photo backpack, occasionally with a bike in tow. As things calm down, between and after these events, we’ll be sharing content about what the Radavist crew has been up to. Here’s some of what’s in store, and what you can expect to see in the coming months:

-Zipp Factory tour
-NAHBS
-Rouge Roubaix
-Photo Show at Velo Cult
-Eroica California
-Sea Otter

Should your schedule overlap, come say hi. Hopefully, I’ll get to chat bikes with a few of you. While it’s a busy time of year for me and the entire crew at the Radavist, I really enjoy meeting readers and getting feedback from the community.

English Cycles: Steve’s Two Face Flat Bar Super Commuter

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English Cycles: Steve’s Two Face Flat Bar Super Commuter

Oh my… English Cycles is most known for crazy experimental TT road frames, as per their recent NAHBS exhibition machines, yet they still dabble in daily riders and lightweight road frames. This bike, however seems to be dealing with a severe case of flash and that’s not a bad thing. Steve’s flat bar road is one of the raddest bikes I’ve seen come from English since that wild TT bike they debuted at NAHBS two years back.

See more of this insane machine at English Cycles.

The Radavist’s 2014 Year in Review

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The Radavist’s 2014 Year in Review

This year was a whirlwind. I think I traveled somewhere around 220 days, jumping the pond a few times and yes, spending lots of time in California. But what was the pinnacle of the year was the rebrand from PiNP to the Radavist. The pinnacle because it meant more contributors, more photos and ultimately, more, good content.

Without the contributors to this site, it wouldn’t have been such a successful year. Those guys really killed it.

Before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s start from Day 01…

The Radavist’s Top Beautiful Bicycles of 2014

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The Radavist’s Top Beautiful Bicycles of 2014


The stick that held up the bikes in this Gallery…

I shot a lot of bikes this year. In fact, I shot more Galleries this year, than any other two years combined. From April 1st’s launch of the Radavist, until last week, the entire team worked hard on bringing a full photo gallery just about every weekday, sometimes twice. Pulling in those metrics took some time, but rather than limiting this year’s selection to just ten, I found the following bikes to be all within the same realm.

Some of these bikes never dropped a chain in terms of year-long momentum, still churning in pageviews and social media chatter to this very day. Surprisingly to me, a few were completely stock bikes. These were all chosen for their Facebook likes, social media engagement, comments and overall traffic. I feel like there were a lot of bikes that were flops as far as traffic was concerned, but I wanted to be fair in selecting the list.

Before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s back up a bit.

We began the year with a few big stories, all leading up to one of the busiest weekends of the year, NAHBS. After record-breaking traffic, the world of Beautiful Bicycles culminated in the 2014 NAHBS Drive Side Gallery. From there, it was onto traveling for stories and documenting Beautiful Bicycles along the way… We’ll start off in Prescott, Arizona for the Whiskey Off Road.

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I Love Berkeley Supply!

Eli, aka “extra cream cheese”, is one of the absolute nicest dudes you’ll ever meet. That is, if you happen to go to his shop in Denver, Berkeley Supply. His store sells only made in the USA apparel and even though Eli doesn’t talk about here, or show it for that matter, he’s got one of the sickest bikes from NAHBS last year too!

I hope you’re still riding your Avery County Cross dude.

Keep killing it! Nice video, Adam!

Festka: New Zero Dazzle Road

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Festka: New Zero Dazzle Road

Festka‘s work has always has an edge, from their first NAHBS bikes to their artist collaborations, the Czech builders have an eye for design as well as the ability to finely tune carbon fiber as a material. Continuing on their previous Dazzle-inspired road bikes is their new Zero frame.

Complete with Di2 and Rocket Wheels, the paint job on this one is much more profound and incorporates Festka’s new logo and font. It captures your attention but allows the bike to communicate differently depending on the side that you are viewing it from. It was originally designed for Michael, one of Festka owners.

With 1.5″ headset bearings, oversized tubing and a pressfit 30 bb shell, the Zero comes in at 1,300 grams. Not intended to be an ultralight frame, it was designed from oversized tubes and lugs to extend the lifespan of the bike.

See more of this incredible machine below!

Pearl Velo is Closing Its Doors

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Pearl Velo is Closing Its Doors

When Tyler from Pearl Velo emailed me last month, saying he was going to be closing the shop’s doors on September 1st, I was pretty bummed out. Granted, the only time I have been to Pearl Velo was during the Denver NAHBS and the #Outsideisfree party, but I was impressed with the community’s support of the shop, even during a blizzard.

What Pearl Velo stood for is what we need in US bike shops: selling an experience, not just products. The shop was small, but you could see an intent through it all. Tyler really believed in what he was doing, unfortunately, like everyone, his life changed and as a father, he wanted to spend more time with his family.

If you’re in Denver, swing through Pearl Velo and give Tyler a high-five.

Matt’s RetroFat SS with Whisky’s 70w Fat Tubeless Rims is Insane!

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Matt’s RetroFat SS with Whisky’s 70w Fat Tubeless Rims is Insane!

Matt just fired over some photos of his 2009 NAHBS RetroTec Cycles RetroFat SS, retrofitted with the new Whisky 70w Fat Tubeless Rims to Industry Nine hubs… the consensus? I dig it, especially the color, the Cambium and those Surly Nate gumwall tires.

I think it looks like a ton of fun and if you’re going to Saddle Drive this year, you’ll probably see it mobbing around.

Check out a few more photos below!