The Radavist

Last year, Argonaut Cycles, Brian Vernor and myself traveled from our cushy locales to the Deep South for one of the United States’ most unique races. Since 1999, the Rouge Roubaix has been a classic tough man’s race. Coming in around 100 miles, with approximately 3,000′ of elevation and 40 miles of loose, unforgiving dirt, this course challenges even the most experienced of cyclists.

Fast forward a year and we’re back. This time with three framebuilder teams and a women’s team from Boulder, Colorado. The course stayed mostly the same and the stage was set, with a new cast of characters. In the time since the last race, the event itself has grown. Larger sponsors came on board and yet, the roots of the race remain the same. I noticed an increase in internet chatter as everyone’s anticipation grew.

While this is hardly the last you’ll hear of this year’s race, or the builders and their teams, this gallery offers a unique vignette into a truly unique race. You’ll see true back-country roads, lots of dirt and dust, with all the pain and anguish of a truly difficult race. Expect coverage of each of the Rouge Roubaix Builders Challenge teams, as well as galleries of the bikes.

For now, enjoy this selection of photos…

Velocity Dually rims have been helping builders get a little plumper in the realm of rigid mountain bikes. One such builder is Curtis Inglis from Retrotec, who took advantage of the Dually platform with this rather gargantuan 29+ MTB.

Large frames tend to be on the gaudy side, but the Panaracer FatBNimble tires and seemingly-balanced proportions give this bike a rather pleasant stance. You almost don’t notice the gigantic head tube and massive standover.

I’m not even going to tell you what GRD stands for, because I’m sure you can guess. The newest prototype fork from ENVE is not what it appears to be. Cross fork? Nope. Road fork? Not really. The GRD is a new axle-to-crown dimension, offering a little more clearance than a road fork, yet not as much as a cross fork, at a rake more friendly for road bikes.

It’s that nuanced, middle ground that enough frame builders have requested from ENVE and after a good amount of internal discussion, they’ve finally responded to their demands. Thru-Axle compatible and an integrated, yet removable fender to keep your downtube, feet and legs clean while you’re tearing through muddy, wet roads.

This particular Moots has a few nifty prototype items on it, which I’ll be covering later next week. Detail oriented readers will spot that thru-axle, disc, Chris King hub though…

For Alchemy Bicycles developing a new frame takes time. With a busy production schedule, an in-house paint department and juggling the day to day operations, there isn’t much time for R&D. So you can imagine how long this bike has been in the works. As their first carbon MTB frame, the Oros translates to mountain in Greek. Naming it was easy, developing it was not. The Denver based brand had to completely rethink construction.

Because Alchemy is using a unique tube-to-tube technique, they’re able to visualize the frame as a whole, while engineering and developing each section of the frame individually. The stays are shaped and continue to flow with the top tube, ending in a beefy head tube. While I can’t go into to much detail about their technology, I am eager to take it for a spin. Moves like this aren’t easy for small frame builders, but it’s evident this bike has a promising future ahead of it.

Fit with Shimano’s Di2 XTR, Fox suspension, ENVE carbon and Maxxis tires, this bike is a trail ready machine. While I don’t have a scale, the Oros feels well balanced and yeah, pretty damn light. The geometry is still in the prototyping phase, so we’ll omit those details. Once the Oros is ready for production, I’ll post updates. For now, see it in person at NAHBS, booth 501.

Each year, NAHBS presents challenges. Both to frame builders and believe it or not, me. As “media” it’s my job to document these bikes and deliver delicious galleries to you, the readers. Now, don’t interpret that in a negative light, because truthfully, it’s my favorite time of year.

Over the past few years, there have been plenty of spaces to photograph bikes, especially outside. This year however, mother nature dropped a blanket of ice and snow on NAHBS’ host city of Louisville, Kentucky. Which presented me with a problem…

Backtracking a bit… For the past few weeks, I’ve been checking out Google street view and photos of the convention center only to realize, I’d spend a lot of time photographing bikes indoors. Luckily, I’ve come prepared and while I don’t think everything is completely dialed in just yet, I’m a lot more confident with my setup.

Tonight, the kind people at Henry James allowed me to experiment some on their two beautiful Stinner Frameworks Disc Cross Bikes. The first one being Ryan from Henry James’ wife’s bike. Jenny’s an avid mountain biker and this will be her first “drop bar” bike. To give her confidence, Ryan decided to go with disc brakes and SRAM’s CX-1 group, the closest thing to her MTB kit. From there, Boyd‘s disc cross rims and Chris King’s components topped off this bike with ease.

As for the paint, there’s only one man who paints bikes like that: Jordan Low. His paint design and execution really brought Aaron from Stinner Frameworks’ craftsmanship… and those colors!

To quote Tom Petty, “the waiting is the hardest part” and waiting for a custom frame isn’t easy by any means. Plenty of frame builders are so busy that their queue is up to over a year out. For Santa Barbara’s Stinner Frameworks, things have been slammed. New clients and a warm winter has kicked his queue into overdrive. Although, that’s not the only reason Aaron is busy. His bikes ain’t bad either!

David placed an order for a straight forward road bike 9 months ago and just picked it up. Since then, Aaron has hired extra help and reduced wait considerably.

I met David today and talked to him about his new bike a bit. Consensus: nothing but stoke! With Stinner’s Select Tubing, the bike will perform out in the hills surrounding the Pedalers Fork in Calabasas, where these photos were taken. David’s component choice round out the crazy sparkle olive paint: Force 22 and ENVE rims, matched with Thomson bits and Ritchey bars.

Ride safe, David!

Simple, straight forward and built with no nonsense parts, this titanium cross is just one example of Lauren Trout’s frames built by hand in Austin, Texas at Saila Bikes. With so many people building with 44mm head tubes, curved stays and disc brakes, it’s nice to see one with a 1 1/8″ fork, straight as an arrow stays and canti brakes. That’s the beauty of custom thought: you get what you want.

Even with SRAM, ENVE and Chris King, you’re looking at a custom, handmade, titanium bike for under $5k as shown, which is a damn decent pricepoint for a frame that will most likely last you for decades and while others charge near that for a frameset, Lauren Trout learned how to weld and wield titanium at Seven Cycles.

Shooting builders in their workspaces is one thing, but their craftsmanship shines when you can photograph the finished product. Just look at those welds… stacking dimes.

Austin has a certain magnetism when it comes to framebuilders relocating here from Boston. Icarus, Tomii Cycles and now Saila Bikes have all made Texas their new home, bringing with them their successful framebuilding practices.

Lauren Trout began working at Seven Cycles, where she cut, prepped, welded and finished frames over the course of her employment there. If you’re going to learn how to work with titanium, Seven ain’t a bad place to learn. At some point, Lauren decided it was time to work for herself and began Saila Bikes. Specializing in titanium road, track, touring and cross frames.

Saila’s shop is nestled in an industrial complex a few miles from the Radavist HQ on the East Side of Austin. Inside her roughly 600 square foot space, Lauren has set up shop over the past few months and is currently building a queue.

I swung by Saila after all the Cyclocross Nats buzz had simmered and photographed Lauren working in here space, as well as a complete cross frame. More on that to come…

Saila’s frames begin at $2,400 for titanium and $1,300 for steel. Find out more information at Saila Bikes.