The Radavist

McGovern Cycles makes carbon bikes by hand in Nevada County, California. I don’t know why, but I can’t help think that a tequila sunrise was the inspiration for this John Slawta-painted McGovern Cycles road bike. That or a desert sunset.

Either way, this red, white and orange bike just popped out during NAHBS and I couldn’t wait to photograph it against the blacked-out background.

Alex from Portus Cycles was the late Ezra Caldwell’s biggest fan in Germany. After fighting cancer and documenting the process for six years before passing away in 2014, Ezra inspired many people, even today. For Alex, it became his inspiration and helped him through his own father’s battle with brain cancer. Ultimately, Alex’s father passed away, inspiring him to live life to the fullest and keep on keepin’ on with Portus Cycles. This bike is an homage to both Ezra and Aelx’s father.

Powered by the unique, made in Germany, Pinion gearbox, this hardtail was used in one of Germany’s 24-hour mountain bike race, Sleepless in the Saddle. If you’d like to know more, head over to Portus Cycles.

Eric Baar is a man of many talents. He can wield both welder and a paint brush to many forms of materials. At NAHBS this year, he brought his 2016 creation: the Steel Aluminum and Titanium track bike. You should be able to guess which part of the bike is which, but I’ll give you the information anyway. Eric made the rear triangle of this track from machined titanium, down to the track ends. This is then bolted to the aluminum front triangle, using cleverly located and designed hardware. From there, he left it up to a bladed steel track fork to complete the tryptic of materials.

The final touch was a series of one-touch paint experimentations, all of which Eric lays down by hand. Follow Ground Up’s work at their Facebook.

W.H. Bradford brought one of the most fun bikes at this year’s NAHBS. This Yeti homage has every detail worked out, from the classic looptail, to the flat top tube and even the fork, there’s not much Brad left out.

Pairing the Yeti turquoise frame with purple anodized Paul Components was the cherry on top.

We’ve seen this frame offering from Sim Works before, during the insane bicycle tour we got to partake in while in Japan with our friends from Circles. For NAHBS this year, Sim Works brought their Doppo touring bike, set up with 650b wheels, fenders, drop bars and their new Volummy tires. This bike looks great, painted in a matte olive drab, with custom Sim Works anodized green Paul components Klampers and skewers.

Arigatou gozaimasu, Sim Works!

Like the great old one Cthulhu, this Oddity mountain bike pulled me in with its ominous appearance. The tendril-like fork coming from the head tube looks like some alien beast reaching out to make you part of its low-carb diet. It drew me in. The titanium cockpit, post and fork were powder coated neon green to match the steel frame, angering the locals in Fort Collins, Colorado. Or so the owner of the bike said.

Then I noticed all the dicks painted on the bike. Dozens of them. Dozens of dicks. On a show bike. Then I loved the bike even more. Oddity, you’re one strange builder, but I think I love you.

If it were possible to craft a carbon road bike from molten lava, Calfee would be the ones to do it. This new Luna Pro is magma. It’s fire. The color pops so much, it burned the sensor in my camera. Joking aside, this might be one of the nicest Calfee road bikes I’ve seen at NAHBS. It’s bright while still being subtle in the details. For 2017, Calfee has updated the tubing on the Luna Pro, making it all the adjectives you want to hear when it comes to carbon fiber bike design.

Best of all, the Luna Pro is still marketed as the least expensive US-made carbon fiber road frame.

Oh, you like donuts? Do you like donuts a lot? Perhaps you have a stem cap or a bottle with a donut on it. In this world, there are people who are willing to commit to a donut on a t-shirt, and there are people who are so committed to donuts that they make their carbon fiber road bike one giant donut. This year at NAHBS, Appleman did just that.

How’s that for donut dedication?

Inspired by the BMW M Sport livery, this Breadwinner Lolo disc road bike has speed in its bloodline. As part of Breadwinner‘s limited edition runs, this bike will be offered with varying build kits and will go live next month. With these bikes, Breadwinner offers a limited edition paint job, with plenty of class and flash, all ready to roll for a quick turnaround.

White bikes really pop when shot like this and I gotta say, this one was my favorite of the day…

Where do I even begin here? Kyle from Golden Saddle Cyclery loves the Grateful Dead and the team at Stinner Frameworks loves a challenging paint scheme. After a few design emails were passed between the two, this is the final product. Built with all the t’s crossed and i’s dotted, this bike is ready for just about anything Kyle can throw at it or jump off of with it.

SRAM’s Eagle 1×12 drivetain will ca-cawww into the San Gabriel mountains with those plump 2.8″ ONZA tires and King bits all around. That rowdy Pike will make minced meat out of the granite babyheads and all the while, Kyle will be singing his favorite Dead tune. Yes, this is a delightfully absurd bike and I can’t wait to see it dirty!

Some of the finest bourbons in the world are unobtainable, so it would make sense that Chris King‘s newest limited edition color was so small batch that only a select few builders were able to put it on their bikes at this year’s NAHBS. This was not their intention, however. It seems the brown anodizing was nearly impossible to get consistent, so making headsets, hubs and other bits to match wasn’t gonna happen. Big frowny face. There are two other colors which King has launched at NAHBS this year, which I’ll get to in a bit. Up first is this fire red Cielo dirt drop MTB. Now, this is their standard frame, which can be run as a rigid or a hardtail, with dirt drops, set up for touring with bikepacking bags. These frames no longer use slider dropouts and switched to front and rear thru-axles.

I dunno about you, but I wish that bourbon brown would happen because it’s so damn smooth!

For 2017, Mosaic has launched a new paint program with multiple tiers of finish offerings. Customers can now choose between 30 colors and 6 layouts, making their bike unique. The paint is executed by the newly-acquired Spectrum, which Mosaic owner Aaron Barcheck purchased last year. While the Spectrum label is under Aaron’s control, it is still a separate entity from Mosaic.

This year at NAHBS, Aaron brought his fendered road bike with Dura Ace Di2. By utilizing ENVE’s GRD fork and fender attachment, this bike will be good on the Colorado roads throughout the spring.

Continuing our discussion, or at least my rant about proper nomenclature with drop bar bikes today, Andrew Low brought this prototype disc road bike to the 2017 NAHBS. Designed to ride on sealed or dirt road and everything in between, this bike features a tapered steerer, disc brakes, clearance for a 40mm tire clearance and 7005 FLEXshape alloy tubing.

Like all of LOW’s bikes, these are made by hand in San Francisco and feature smooth welds that are hand finished. I dunno about you, but I’d ride the hell out of that thing!

I have a feeling we’re going to be seeing a lot of disc brake-equipped, drop bar bikes at NAHBS with clearances for bigger tires and while I’m not a huge fan of the nomenclature I’ve adopted, I can honestly say I’ve thought about other alternatives to “all-road.” As we were going out to shoot this bike yesterday, Adam and I had a discussion. The gist of it was that I look at a bike’s geometry, not it’s build kit in determining its “type.” So, for instance, if a bike has the geometry of a road bike and fits big tires, I call them road bikes. People get hung up on this though, because of the tire spec. Yet, if one of these bikes has the geometry of a ‘cross bike, it’s still just a cross bike, flat bars, drop bars, 1x, 2x, SS, it doesn’t matter, ATMO anyway.

So you’ll have to giggle when you read my titles for NAHBS bikes this year, as it’s taken me a good amount of time to figure out what the hell these things are, without using the oversaturated keywords being lobbed all over the cycling industry: gravel and adventure. It’s just a damn road bike.

Ok, enough of the rant, let’s check out this bike’s build kit. It’s built with Force CX1, Industry Nine AR25 wheels, Sim Works cockpit, Thomson post and some big ol’ fatty WTB Riddler tires. Once this 56cm beaut finishes making the rounds at NAHBS, it’ll be for sale too. Email Sklar for details.

I wish I could keep shooting bikes in the Moab desert, but alas, I’m in Salt Lake City as you’re reading this, firing away in the Salt Palace.

Each year when NAHBS rolls around, many builders use the opportunity to build themselves a new bike. This year was Curtis Inglis‘ time for a new hardtail. Over the years, Curtis has experimented with the Funduro model, altering the bottom bracket drop and angles ever-so-slightly to dial in what he feels like is the ultimate hardtail geometry. As a pretty tall dude, he decided to give the 29+ platform a spin, resulting in a bike with a large stance and aggressive geometry.

Over the past few days, Curtis has been riding this show bike and not exactly babying it. He’s got one of those new White Industries headsets on the bike, along with White hubs, cranks and a Paul stem, PIKE fork, XTR rear mech, with a Thomson dropper.

I’m in Moab, Utah with a handful of framebuilders and will be previewing their NAHBS offerings leading up to the event…

Fans of the Rebel Alliance would know that paint scheme without even reading the title. Ted Lincoln is an artist, one that paints scenes from the Star Wars Universe using mother of pearl in what he calls “Mother of Pearl Art.” Ted has been officially endorsed by George Lucas and has gained quite the traction amongst the Star Wars fans. Traction like a 27.5+ tire on sandstone! It just so happened that before Ted was big, Jeremy Sycip knew him in San Francisco, so for this year’s NAHBS, he asked Ted to paint his own personal hardtail for the show. What you’re seeing here is Ted’s first ever mother of pearl bicycle art.

Even as a photographer who loves challenges, this bike was particularly hard to document without my studio light setup allowing me to make the details pop out, but then again shooting bikes in Moab > shooting bikes in a convention center…