The Radavist

Last year marked a sea change for the cycling industry. On one hand, cycling saw a boom with many companies shifting to a work from home model, and employees looking for a new outdoor hobby to spend their free time. On the other, supply chain shortages ran rampant throughout the industry and suddenly the supply couldn’t meet the demand. Depending on who you talk to, parts shortages happened for a number of reasons but the bottom line is if you have the ability to sell bikes, or even frames in 2021, consider yourself lucky.

Before the pandemic, Sabrina and Max Clauson wanted a change of pace from their normal day-to-day lives so they purchased VYNL Bikes. Now they’re running it as a passion project from their home in Boulder, Colorado. While I was in town earlier this year, I swung by their house to take a look at the new VYNL brand and to shoot Max’s /rd Rim brake bike along with Sabrina’s /gr Disc Gravel bike. These no-nonsense machines come in stock geometry, have the option for custom paint, are made in the USA, and are perfect for a rider looking for a straight-up utilitarian bike for pavement or gravel.

Let’s take a look at these two builds below…

You know, sometimes a great bike is just a bike, and that’s enough. It could be your favorite bike of all the bikes you own or have owned. It could also just be the only bike you own. Either way, if you love it, then that’s enough for it to be good or even great. Derek loves this bike. For him, it’s a great bike, great enough to bring back from the dead and give it another life.

Santa Fe has long been a hub for travelers and this year, we’ve seen a good amount of cyclists roll through town while on their vacations and holidays. Most people just want to go out for a pedal and some bring a special bike. Simon is the latter, bringing along with him a really beautiful titanium 29+ rigid MTB, built by a company with a small internet presence called Haley Cycles. Let’s take a look at this beaut below.

On June 11th, 2021, I became the first Tibetan person to race the Tour Divide (if that kind of thing matters, really). Though I didn’t reach my goal of finishing this year, I did bite off a good 1,300-mile chunk of it, offering pieces of myself to the land along the way. Here’s what I experienced.

The word supple gets thrown around a lot, mostly related to randonneur, road, or gravel bikes with a bi-plane steel fork and typically, rim brakes, yet I’m convinced I’ve built the most supple, modern mountain bike, just in time for our San Juan Hut trip this week. Check it out in detail below…

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!

I have been internet friends with Irlanda for so long that I don’t even remember how we started communicating. What I do remember is that she told me she had the dream of making bicycle bags and accessories but at the moment, sewing fancy dresses are what paid her bills. Settled in the México-USA border city of Tijuana, she has been dressing brides and quinceañeras for over twenty years and it was around fourteen years ago that she started riding a bike to get around. As she took part in organizing group rides, she sewed hip bags and gave them away as an incentive to attract more people to ride, and that’s how sewing bike bags became a hobby. Along those two decades, she started growing tired of the high fashion world while at the same time she made more bicycle accessories, but still, the money flowed mainly from the people who came to her from either side of the border to get their dresses made.

I was born in Anchorage, Alaska, as was my mother. My grandfather was born in Fairbanks, Alaska, as was his father.

Alaska became a state in 1959. It’s a complicated and very beautiful place. It’s home.

In 2017, I rode all of the major roads in the state— about 4,500 miles, a mix of gravel and pavement. By land, Alaska is huge— twice the size of Texas. The road system is very limited, many places are isolated. I wanted to ride my bike to connect as much as I could. I set out in a series of trips— riding for a week or two at a time and hitching back to town to work at The Bicycle Shop to fund the next leg. For the most part, I rode alone. It was a lot of freedom and I had the time of my life.

Reflecting on my rides later, I wanted to go back to share my experience. Both with Rue, the love of my life, and with the public through photos and videos. This is something I have thought about since the fall of 2017.

I must say that I’m damn proud to live in New Mexico and I had no idea that such an awesome network of makers are blossoming here. We’ve looked at Moné’s operations down in Silver City, Baphomet Bicycles, checked in with Farewell Bags, looked at the framebag offerings from Buckhorn Bags, and today we’re featuring two local companies, starting with Evergreen Stitchworks and O’Leary Built Bikes, so let’s get to it.

It’s that time of year again! ENVE’s Open House, aka the Builder Round-Up and Grodeo event is this weekend in Ogden, Utah, so I packed up my bike portrait kit and drove up through beautiful summer monsoons to document a selection of bikes from this year’s event. Check out a thoroughly documented stable from the Round Up below, beginning with Chumba, Falconer, Firefly, Mariposa, Scarab, Sklar, and Tomii…

In the lead up to the Handmade Bicycle Show Australia (more on that later), I dropped by 412 – the collective home of bicycle excellence in Fairfield, to chat with Steve (Velocraft) about the logistics of getting my bike to the show. Even though the paint was close to 2 years old, Steve was enamored enough with it for a host of reasons that it was his choice to represent his work.