The Radavist

If our Top Ten Beautiful Bicycles list serves as an indicator of your interests, our Top Ten Review Bikes speak to the readership’s curiosities and potential next bike buys. This year’s Top Ten Review Bikes ran the gamut from carbon gravel bikes with proprietary passive suspension to actual full suspension bikes and everything in between.

Let’s check out what review bikes pushed the needle for you this year!

While our favorite stories are always ride and event coverage, people love flocking to The Radavist for our opinion on products. We view ourselves as the bike industry’s press corps, offering nuanced takes on hot items each year, while pushing back ever so slightly on the long arm of the industry’s marketing. This year, we cracked a lot of hard nuts but walked away with some compelling products—some of which deserve extra recognition—all while deciphering the world of bikes we know and love, and penning opinion pieces that garnered lots of eyes throughout the past twelve months.

Let’s check out The Radavist Product Awards and our Top 10 Articles of 2023 below!

Greetings and good tidings from Nutmeg Country, or welcome to the world of love, kindness, friendship, and joy. Maybe you’ve felt it all year long, or maybe you’ve been yearning to finally make the pilgrimage to the largest gathering of wool and steel on the East Coast. Either way, Jarrod Bunk has no doubt that stories of the soft times had in Nutmeg Country have reached your ears. The allure has been written about many times in this corner of the internet. The annual Nutmeg Nor’easter masquerades as the best alt-cycling weekend but Jarrod’s here to tell you that what you’ll find when you arrive is the biggest group hug you could ever hope for. This is a cycling festival that’s more about the people and the riding is just the reason to gather. Read on for Jarrod’s recap of the 2023 edition of the Nutmeg Nor’Easter.

Unveiled at the 2022 Philly Bike Expo to much fanfare, the Alumalith is a realization of Ronnie Romance‘s dream to incorporate his favorite aspects of vintage mountain bikes into a deciededly modern offering. Featuring a non-suspension corrected Switchblade-style fork, rim brakes, sharp angulation, and 6061 aluminum fabricated by renowned craftsman Frank Wadelton–but with internal dropper routing, clearance for 27.5 x 2.6″ tires, and a contemporary approach to geometry–the Alumalith is nostalgic delight for riders of today. Josh picked up an Alumalith earlier this year and has spent months building it, riding, refining, and riding some more. Continue reading below for his review of this niche yet capable and fun machine…

We interrupt our ongoing MADE coverage with an important announcement!

When carbon bicycle frames were first introduced, the evil carbon fiber bike industry did all it could to bad-mouth aluminum bikes. It took decades, but we’re seeing an abrupt re-emergence of aluminum frames, particularly from smaller cottage industry brands like Beach Club and Ron’s Bikes.

Growing up in the 1990s, it was common for publications like Mountain Bike Action to do “shootouts” between two aluminum bikes. So, we at The Radavist thought it’d be fun to pit two of our favorite companies against each other in a democratic voting process. Check out our ALUMIWARS Shootout Special featuring sneak peeks at the forthcoming Beach Club Al Dente aluminum gravel bike and the Ron’s Bikes AluMAX grav grav daddy bike…

We’re here in Portland, covering the 2023 MADE Bike Show, looking for bikes that we thought you, the readers of The Radavist would appreciate. Josh and John have been scouring the halls of the show for bikes to document, and we’ve got Part 01 of our coverage for you to enjoy…

Thanks to 1-Up USA for sponsoring our continued 2023 MADE Bike Show coverage!