The Radavist

This week’s Readers’ Rides comes from our home base of Santa Fe, penned by Ship of Fools Pedal Club and the Santa Fe Fat Tire Society‘s own Blake Hendsch. Below, Blake writes about a fun Specialized Hardrock basket bike build. Let’s check it out!

The new Specialized Stumpjumper didn’t exactly get a refresh. It got a reboot. It now has more in common with the critically acclaimed Stumpjumper Evo than the mild-mannered Stumpy we once knew. And its Genie shock promises unprecedented dimensions of tunability. But at first, the carbon-frame-only update came with an electronic-drivetrain-only twist. That’s why, when Travis heard an aluminum version was coming, he signed up.

Down in Tucson, AZ Spencer met up with local artist and mechanic John “Cookie” Sands to photograph the bike he custom-painted for his partner Veronica. It started as a Specialized Aethos but after it got a few paint chips, Cookie decided to give the bike a truly one-of-a-kind custom paint job. Make sure to check out the gallery of all the hand-painted details…

Featuring their innovative Suspend the Rider (STR) rear Future Shock system, Specialized’s Diverge STR has achieved a new echelon of comfort and efficiency in the gravel world. Spencer Harding dives into the nuance of the system and all that it entails and offers. Is the juice worth the squeeze? He thinks so, even if that fruit is pretty pricey. 

I entered gravel biking by way of art – perhaps not the most traditional point of entry. I’m a muralist who lives in Austin, a bike haven and a city fond of its artists. My love of biking started as a commuter in hilly, urban San Francisco, yet it wasn’t until I moved to Austin that I began to merge my creative pursuits with cycling.

Southern Arizona has become a destination for many cyclists over the years but it’s long been a refuge for snowbirds with the nation’s largest rock and mineral show, the Gem Show, hitting Tucson in February and bringing in over 50,000 registered buyers annually. While Tucson is bursting at the seams with RVs, campers, and retirees in February, Sarah Swallow resides about sixty miles south of the city at the Appleton Whittell Research Ranch  – an Audubon property nestled just outside the quiet little town of Elgin – planning each year’s Ruta del Jefe event…

I grew up working at a Specialized shop, and learned how to mountain bike by watching Ned Overend’s Performance Mountain Biking technique VHS. While I always appreciated the refreshing ideas of small makers, I thought it advantageous for larger brands to be able to invest more in their materials and construction. This was a time when top-end bikes were made of metal, and made domestically.

Metal Matrix (M2) composite is a prime example of this. The big S sourced a 6061 alloy infused with an aluminum oxide ceramic particulate by Alcan. Say that again, backwards now. Alcan called it Duralcan, and I am proud to display their logo on my top tube—that cool typeface!

Road bikes. We don’t really talk about them so much over here at the Radavist – anymore. There was a time however where we’d post galleries from road adventures and still to this day, one of my favorite rides I did in California was on all pavement. Still, there have been a few defining reasons for the wane of the road bike’s popularity and it wasn’t until I accepted the offer to review the lightweight Aethos road bike that I began to mull over these reasons. A 16lb road bike is both terrifying (am I going to break this thing?!) and a joy (WOW! this is incredible) to ride but what does the state of road cycling look for me, personally, and how did this review shape my perspective of drop bars after a long hiatus from enjoying the pleasures of road riding? Read on to find out.