The Radavist

2018 Philly Bike Expo: Winter Bicycles S&S 27.5 Dirt Tourer
Photos and words by Jarrod Bunk

Versatility, that would be a word that would sum up this bike fairly well.  It’s a Cerakote-coated S&S dirt rando touring machine from Winter Bicycles out of Nittany Pennsylvania. RuthWorks teamed up on the bags to complete a package that is totally integrated so that the Ultralight Randonneur bag is free of a decaleur. Along with beautiful handmade racks to distribute an even load this bike even has bolt-in frame bag compatibility along with three pack bosses on the fork legs to let this dirt rando bike switch between traditional bags as well as a more of a bikepacking setup.  With 27.5 x 2.6″ clearance, this bike can tackle the road less traveled.  Full internal dynamo wiring with quick disconnects, as well a Sinewave Cycles beacon make for a very clean setup that allows for plenty of off-grid touring.

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Follow Jarrod on Instagram, and Winter Bicycles on Instagram

For the past few years, Chris King has opened their doors to the public as part of an entire weekend of events dubbed the Chris King Open House. This event’s intent is to be coordinated with a product launch of their new colors for the year, as well as to showcase what makes their operations tick, and to display a selection of custom bikes, built by some of their best builder customers.

the two new colors for this year: matte turqoise and matte mango.

This year, they sent out an open invite to 30 of their best builder accounts, offering up discounted pricing to them to build a bike for the show, passing on the discount to their customers. Out of those 30 builders, 17 showed up, and they were displayed alongside a Pegoretti bike, which we looked at on Friday. These bikes lined the halls of the Chris King factory, where visitors could look at their features in great detail, chat with the builders about their process, and if they were so inclined, purchase their dream bike.

I was invited up to the Open House to document these bikes for the builders and for Chris King, as well as offering up an ultimate dream bike gallery for you, the readers of this website. Please enjoy! Which bike do you like the best and why? Oh and if you’re interested in one of the bikes showcased here, be sure to reach out to the builders, who are linked in the bike descriptions below.

At the Chris King Swarm event in Bend, the brand compiled a short list of builders who would display various kinds of bikes, built up with components fabricated in their Portland facilities. We’ll start off the showcase with this beautiful Doppo All Road.

Nagoya, Japan’s Sim Works has been making moves to open a base in the USA. Located in Portland – actually in the Chris King factory – Rie Sawada has been working on increasing the stock and inventory for this brand that sells products exclusively made in Japan by Nitto, Panaracer, and Honjo, the powerhouses of Japanese component manufacturing. When it came to bikes, however, Sim Works has been sampling builders to make their Doppo model. Initially, we saw a Made in Japan Doppo touring bike a few years back, so I was surprised to see a Doppo at the event this weekend. Especially one made from aluminum and in the USA!

Oscar from Simple Bicycle Co has been building frames for over a decade and in that time, he’s moonlighted as a behind the scenes fabricator for many brands featured on this site. His talents lie in anything metallic, ranging from titanium to aluminum, and dirt jumpers to all-roads. When Cielo closed their doors last year – where he built full-time for the brand – Oscar pursued more of his own projects, including two bikes we’ll be looking at in detail here at the site.

The resulting bike features clearance for a massive tire, while maintaining a road q-factor and chain line, allowing for the rider to choose a 700c or 650b wheel. For the Swarm, Sim Works built this bike to spec with many of their own parts, resulting in a largely made in Japan kit, on a MUSA frame.

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Follow Chris King on Instagram, follow Sim Works USA on Insgram, follow Simple Bicycle Co on Instagram, and follow Crow’s Feet Commons on Instagram.

For many, a New Year means time for reflection, and time for prospectives. For cyclists, this often includes planning out a build for a planned ride or perhaps updating your favorite bike with new gear. Perhaps that’s the motivation for many of you to visit this site. For us at the Radavist, we look at all the data from the past year’s content and begin to understand more what you, the readers, love to see here on the site.

Every bicycle on this list should come as no surprise. It was one of the most difficult selections in the history of this site, as almost all of these Beautiful Bicycles delivered similar metrics. We pulled these from the archives based on traffic, social media chatter and commentary. They’re displayed in no particular order. Omitted are bicycle reviews and completely bone stock production models – like the Jim Merz Sequoia and All-City Cosmic Stallion.

Thrown in, making it a baker’s dozen, is our top 2017 NAHBS pick as well. Without further adieu, here’ the Lucky 13 Beautiful Bicycles of 2017!

Raymond wanted a bike. One that wasn’t available from any of the touring brands. He wanted a 29+ tourer with rack mounts and provisions for extra water carrying capacity. Sure, there were the Salsa and Surly offerings but they weren’t quite what he wanted. That prompted Raymond to contact Rich at Moustache Cycles, his local builder in Flagstaff, Arizona to build his dream tourer.

Moustache Cycles is located at the base of Mt. Elden in Flagstaff and is capable of designing and fabricating some truly unique bicycles. What Rich built Raymond is a very interesting rig. Complete with a custom bullmoose bar, a truss-supported rack and a plate chainstay yoke. For bags, he contacted local maker Rogue Panda. Raymond and this bike are heading to Australia today to tour with the boys from Crust Bikes and as you can tell, he’s stoked!

You boys be safe down there. Watch out for the drop bears and hoop snakes.

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!

Touring the Rocky Mountain Front
Photos and words by Locke Hassett

“Mel’s Diner, 9ish?” is the text I received from Cameron. The night before, he left in a frazzled state to go to the Rocky Mountain Front, and I followed the next morning. This vast expanse of abrupt cliffs where the Rockies meet the Great Plains spans much of North America, so I was glad that he specified a diner as a meeting place. We fueled up on strong coffee, plenty of biscuits and gravy, bought a map, two slingshots, whiskey, lemonade and a few cookies from the Augusta general store. A fine establishment that acts as the local liquor store, gun shop, grocery, outfitter and purveyor of homemade baked goods.

Daniel is the head designer and brains behind Tumbleweed Bicycle Company. Yet he didn’t get to this point on his own. Through working with Cameron Falconer and Anna Schwinn, Daniel was able to successfully jettison Tumbleweed onto the internet and into the real world.

“The ROMANCEÜR is a swashbuckling tender heart of a fantasy warrior, who not only seduces its rider, but acts as a psychedelic aphrodisiac on the psyche. Together you become thee Romanceür, a sacred, lustful partnership rendering all riding surfaces swooned out and speechless, pining for an intimate evening including a tray of rosé Jell-O shots.” – Ultra Romance from his Crust Bikes Diary

Recently, Los Angeles was invaded by some of cycling’s biggest celebrities and no, not Wiggo, Sagan, Vos, or Bryceland. The cyclists that found themselves hanging out at Golden Saddle Cyclery are from a different walk, er, roll of life all-together. These nomadic raconteurs favor dirt to pavement and fully-loaded bikes to ultralight carbon. Not to mention, they’re always on the hunt for the latest cycling expedition, which brings me to Los Angeles…

Call it what you will, but 2016 was an interesting year and I’m not just talking politics! There were a lot of incredible bicycles featured here on the site, many with even more interesting stories and some were even affected by the events of 2016. We’ll get into that a bit later. Grading these beautiful machines is anything but easy and usually requires a few days of data compiling, including but not limited to social media chatter, visits, comments and time spent on that particular page. Since all bikes can be beautiful, this list includes both custom and production bicycles. Some of these will be a no-brainer, others even surprised me. Without further adieu, here are the Radavist’s Top 10 and Then Some Beautiful Bicycles of 2016, in no particular order.

No bicycle is ever a completed work. At least in my opinion anyway, but sometimes a bike is at a place where you step back, look at it and smile. The other day I caught Cari doing just that. Smiling as she looked at her bike. She then said she’d like to photograph it in the forest. We were in Santa Cruz at the time and had just finished up a killer loop through the redwoods and down to the coast.

Let’s back track a bit. Around NAHBS last year, she mentioned that she’d like an upgrade from her current bike, an old Nishiki road bike that was a couple sizes too big for her. We looked at the market’s offerings and discussed what ideally she’d like in a bicycle.

Once she had a budget, it was easier to nail down exactly what her options were. I knew NAHBS was coming up, so I emailed a few builders, including Elephant to see if there would be any deals rolling around. Throughout this whole process, I couldn’t stop thinking about how the National Forest Explorer was a perfect “all-rounder” bike when I reviewed it. You could tour on it, ride trails and use it as a grocery getter. Since we have endless dirt, right from our front door, the idea of having a nice, plump tire for Cari was a plus. Anyway, John at Elephant told me he’d have a size small, complete, at NAHBS for sale after a customer backed out at the last minute.

NAHBS came and went, we picked up the bike and began riding all over Los Angeles. Fast forward a few months, a few part swaps and here it is.

These days, with bicycles being so specified in their usage and design, it’s easy to forget that literally any bike can become a touring bike. Now bear with me, I’m not insinuating that your carbon race bike will suddenly sprout rack or fender braze-ons and grow in its tire clearance, or your 6″ enduro mtb will grow calcium deposits, rendering its suspension moot, but every bike has capabilities for multiple day, long distance riding. It’s just a matter of what you’re willing to compromise or cope with.

Aaron wanted a Rosko ‘cross bike. He was living in Brooklyn at the time and was enamored with the idea of a dude making bikes in his garage. Much like the surfing world he grew up in, Aaron liked makers and the idea that a person can make a vehicle for fun, by hand, really resonated with him. So he placed an order for a ‘cross bike from Seth Rosko and waited for the frame.

The Adventure Cycling Association Bikecentennial Salsa Marrakesh Touring Bike – Kyle Kelley
Photos by Kyle Kelley, words by John Watson

When June and Greg Siple teamed up with Dan and Lys Burden to found the Adventure Cycling Association, I doubt they anticipated their impact on the bicycle touring world. Now, 40 years later and the ACA helps cyclists from all over the world navigate the trails, roads and dirt tracks all over North America with their route maps and magazine.

The ACA exists solely to grow the spirit of cycle tourism and a large portion of its funding comes from memberships and the sales of their maps, along with donations. Some of those come in the form of projects like this: the ACA Bikecentennial Edition Salsa Marrakesh. Between now and December 31st, 2016, each cyclist that you refer to ACA will land you a chance to win this bike.

While in Montana at the Bikecentennial celebration, Kyle got access to one to photograph it in an attempt to stoke the fire for the ACA and bicycle tourism! Head over to ACA’s Share the Joy website to find out more information and to enter for your chance to win this bike.

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Follow Kyle on Instagram and Adventure Cycling on Instagram.

Ok, maybe this isn’t exactly a Mad Max-level bicycle but it looks like it’d take on a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles.

Bruce Gordon‘s bikes are mythical beasts and finding one used isn’t exactly easy, seeing as how many of Bruce’s customers bought a bike from him for life. Max picked up this bike off Craigslist, in fairly decent condition, yet built with a bunch of random parts and so for the past several months has been tracking down all the parts to make it complete again. That meant locating a Bruce Gordon “Chicken Neck” stem and getting it painted to match, ordering several PAUL component bits, getting a pair of the Bruce Gordon canti brakes and last of all: ordering those Compass Rat Trap Pass 26″ x 2.3″ tires.

The result is one rusty-looking touring bike, with big, plump tires and a riding position that’ll be comfortable for days, yet highly shreddable when need be. Jealousy besets me right now…

2015 was an amazing year for the Radavist. Not only in terms of traffic, or stats, but in terms of content. We take pride in the site, the rides we record, products we feature and yes, the bicycles we document. This year was huge in terms of the places we traveled to and the people we met along the way. With people and places come Beautiful Bicycles and a lot of work!

Without rambling on too much, here’s a list of the Top 10 of 2015 ranked by traffic and social media chatter, from highest down…