The Radavist

So if you can’t tell, I’m holding out on posting big photo sets for now. I’ve got a new site on the way, with new galleries to fill and I don’t want to have to re-post it all on the new WordPress format. Bear with me for the next week, it’ll be live a few days before NAHBS, giving you plenty of time to familiarize yourself with the new formatting.

Other issues resolved include the shit, shit server speeds and iPod / iPhone / iPad compatibility. It’ll also be easier to see what you want on the site. If you only want to watch videos, or Beautiful Bicycles or photosets, you’ll be able to. The new PiNP is the result of many, many hours of programming and it’s worth the wait, promise.

Till then, here’s a solitary photo for Merckx Mondays.

Now, I’m not sure if this is a NAHBS bike or not, but Chris Bishop‘s gonna have one mean stable at his booth. My fillet brazed road frame is done and the paint scheme is designed. The other bikes are all being painted, or being assembled… This time of year is hell for builders but Martin’s singlespeed is looking mighty fine.

Photo by Brian Vernor

NAHBS is closing in on my schedule and these posts from Brian Vernor play as a reminder as to why the showcase of framebuilder’s work is so important. It’s all about the makers and their love for the bicycle. Check out a nice write-up on Nakagawa over on Brian’s blog.

While we wait on my Shop Visit photos to Baum Cycles, let this little mini doc give you the background on this superb bicycle framebuilder out of Australia. I was damn impressed with their bikes and operations at Baum. Expect to see them wow the world at NAHBS this year.

You thought I was going to update you on my Bishop road frame didn’t you? Chris had mentioned this project to me prior but I didn’t think the hubs would be done for NAHBS this year. The Bishop Bike and Victoire Cycles track hubs are made by Julien in his small shop in France. He machines each hub from 7075, which is arguably stronger than the commonly used 6061. Each hub is then finished by hand and prepped before being sent out. These photos are of the first batch.

The hub features a splined cog interface, with a traditional lockring-style threading on the way, along with hard anodized cogs, lockrings, axles and custom titanium bolts.

Check out more photos at Victoire Cycles.

Please let purple be the color of choice this year at NAHBS! One day, I’d love to have a frame painted by Keith Anderson. Why? Just check out that Jack Taylor-inspired box-lining on this Winter touring frame. I love everything about this. The lavender (mauve) frame and the purple head tube is right up my alley…

Someone’s got their mind right.

A year of saving money, selling my precious NOS parts and ultimately, my beloved Merckx MX-Leader was worth it. These two photos have me so stoked to see how my Bishop road bike is going to turn out. Keep an eye on the Bishop Flickr for more of his 2012 NAHBS progress.

I’ve been talking with Chris Bishop just about every day about my NAHBS road bike and the whole time, he’s been going on and on about David’s Columbus Air road bike. Building small frames can be a real pain for builders. Yamaguchi told Chris if he ever were to build a production run of bicycles, to always start with the smallest size. If you can make the smallest size work, the whole line will.

I can’t wait to see what David’s bike will look like in the end. He’s going to have a solid NAHBS line up.

I have been enjoying these interviews that Bespoked Bristol has been putting out. This one features Demon Frameworks, who made some great frames for NAHBS last year. Such a great head badge and logo, I might add.

Chris Bishop is selling that drop-dead gorgeous MS track bike we saw at NAHBS and the Philly Bike Expo. It’s not cheap by any means but is the nicest track bike I’ve seen come from a builder in years.

Here are the details:

“Although I hate to do it, the MS track I showed at NAHBS is now for sale (frame and fork; wheels and other parts optional). I originally built this bike for myself and I love it, but I could never bring myself to ride it around town as a bike messenger because I am too hard on my bikes. Bike is 57.5 c-t, with 56 tt. Mint, never ridden. Need to make room and $ for new addition. Contact me if interested. This bike really needs to be ridden! Won best steel bike at NAHBS 2011.”

Bishop Bikes

#STTB

Mick recently completed a custom bar tape order for Chris’ LOOK road bike. He’ll make custom tape for any project, so if you’re interested, hit him up! I’d love to get some for my NAHBS bike this year. Hrmm….

Well, I hope you all had a great New Year. I’m assuming most of you are back to work now and probably have some time to kill today during your lunch break so I invite you to check out a year in review. 2011 brought about a lot of traveling for me and like the increase in frequent flier miles, the site’s content continues to rack up. International, cross-continental and bi-coastal travels brought me to shops, events and in front of Beautiful Bicycles.

Check out Prolly is Not Probably’s Year in Review below!

I met Jay at NAHBS this year, very briefly, so when he flagged me down on the side of the road at the SoCalCross races, I recognized him. What I didn’t know was that he had quite the collection of cross bikes. Aside from his singlespeed Vanilla cross, his Richard Sachs cross bike is drop dead gorgeous. Now, I know Sachs’ cross bikes all look the same but there’s something about that red and white combination ATMO.

Check out more below!

One of my favorite frames at NAHBS this year was Winter’s “arrow themed” road. As a follow up to that bike, Eric just emailed me his lastest out of the paint booth. A customer loved the NAHBS frame so much that he wanted one of his own. In Spanish, flecha translates to arrow and this thing looks like it’s ready to launch. Check out more at Winter.

It used to be you could only get these from Paul at NAHBS or Interbike. They would produce limited editions with engravings from the event on the bottle openers. Now, just in time for the holiday season, Paul has listed these nifty little openers on their site. They even anodized them in holiday colors. Pick one up here.

Thanks for sharing JD!

At last year’s NAHBS, some of my favorite bikes came from the Winter Bicycles booth. So when Eric emailed me about Sam Ume’s track bike, I was a bit embarrassed that I haven’t featured more of his work here on the blog. With that said, head over to the Winter Blog to check out more!

I don’t know why but that Bishop show-stopping MS track bike never gets old. Is it the Mavic headset? Or the Fresh Frame paint job. Maybe it’s the slick custom stem. I’ve got no clue but at any rate, I’d uploaded a big gallery of random Philly Bike Expo coverage to my Flickr.

Check out a slideshow below!