The Radavist

Wolfpack Hustle: Austin Finale Crit
Words and photos by Chris Lee

A group of 30 or so men straddled their bikes as they looked around for their teammates in coordinating outfits. All of the sudden a voice rang out over the large amplifiers near the opening of the smoothly paved racing track.

“Men’s track please come to the staging area!”

This was the beginning of the last race that would close out the Unified Title Series, hosted by Wolfpack Hustle, and the season for fixed gear criterium racing around the world.

Austin, Texas hosted the finale race at The Driveway, a paved race track normally used for cars and kart racing, this past weekend. While it’s usually used for motor sports, The Driveway does see it’s fair share of bicycles as Holland Racing, an Austin based business that organizes and facilitates bicycle races, hosts a weekly crit series every Thursday during road season. So with the Unified Title prize on the line, this crit drew racers from all over the US and it’s territories, from New York and California to Puerto Rico.

To wrap up our Year in Review posts, here are the picks for the 2024 Radavist Product Awards.

Radical Atavism is all about telling stories, and we love to tell stories about the people who bring unique color and character to the world of cycling. Reportage is where our passion lies – but sometimes along the way, we get to try out and test a lot of innovative bikes and bike-related products. We pour our creative energy into our reviews and over the years, we’ve established a reputation for publishing thoughtful and well-researched opinions on products.

This year, we found flaws, offered our unvarnished takes, and fell in love with a lot of products, all while deciphering the world of bikes we know and love. Some of these products deserve some extra recognition as we bid adieu to 2024.

Let’s check out ten cool things that made it to The 2024 Radavist Product Awards, marked by our Mauve Sandstone Toad below!

Teased in the Campandgoslow Shop Visit and Trout Tape post, John got to shoot Casey’s delicious rigid 29er klunker Manzanita Cycles mountain bike while visiting Great Basin Pottery in the foothills of the Easter Sierra. This bike is a perfect mix of vintage throwback and modern mixed-terrain sensibilities. Check out a detailed photo gallery below with words from the bar tape/potter Hemmingway, Casey himself, along with a Q&A with Nick from Manzanita…

Over a decade ago, Kona helped spark The Mountain Bike Geometry Revolution. Their Process line of aggressive full-suspension models were some of the first to get the “longer, lower, slacker” treatment that is so ubiquitous today. And although the 2024 Kona Process 134 harbors the same rebellious spirit as its ancestors, Travis found it was uniquely approachable.

While John was in NorCal, working with Whit from Meriwether Cycles on the Ponderosa project and Shop Visit article, he managed to document Jay from Nevada City-based You Bet! Bicycle Sales and Service‘s custom steel 140 mm hardtail 29er. We reached out to Jay to see if he’d be willing to pen the story of how this bike came about and he delivered one great write-up. Let’s check it out, along with some stunning photos below…

It’s spooky season, and while humans can’t return from the dead, bicycles can! Especially steel bikes. Longtime readers of The Radavist might recall John’s Geekhouse Woodville touring bike from 2013. Its history is sordid and includes theft, a recovery, some damage, and a brief hiatus. Well, thanks to a group of friends, John got it back, and the redux might be better than the original. Read on for the resurrection of this beloved and more beautiful than ever bicycle!

When Esker Cycles released their new Smokey hardtail, initially in titanium then shortly after in steel, they proclaimed it a hardtail with “big travel for big days.” With a 160mm travel fork and aggressive geometry, is the Smokey a wildfire or does the spark not catch? Find out in Spencer’s review below…

The field of all-road and gravel bikes may seem crowded, but Otso Cycles always seems to add something new to the conversation with their bikes. In this review, Hailey Moore writes about what sets the Otso Warakin Steel apart among its off-road peers.

Amid our ongoing coverage of the Bespoked Dresden framebuilder and maker showcase, today we are featuring a very special bicycle made by Berlin-based Fern Bicycles equipped with Allygn racks and custom bags from Gramm Tourpacking. With design language referencing a late-1980s Toyota Pickup and mountain bikes of the same vintage, the build features both old and new elements with components from a long list of artisan fabricators like Cyber Cycles, Garbaruk, Tune, Velocity, SON, Gevenalle, Btchn’, and many more. We think this bike might be peak Fern. Continue reading below for the complete breakdown of this special Fern Bicycles Chuck gravel touring bike.

If you’re at Bespoked this weekend, make sure to swing by the Fern booth to check this out!

The Trust Performance Message linkage fork was an expensive, extravagant, and flawed attempt to change how we think about mountain bike design. The brand ceased operations in the early days of the pandemic, but Travis had high hopes for Trust. He also still has the Message fork he reviewed in 2019. A recent bikepacking trip inspired him to give it a second life with some new bolts, washers, and tiny, tiny bearings.

Yesterday we looked Inside and Out of Meriwether Cycles via an in-depth Shop Visit. In that post, we offered a sneak peek at Whit’s production adventure gravel bike, the Ponderosa. John has been riding a prototype all year, providing Whit feedback for the final production model, which we’ll look at it in detail today. Read on for a full review of this tall and sturdy dream bike platform…