The Radavist

I’m sure it’s maddening as a viewer of this site being constantly bombarded with high-end, custom bikes on a daily basis. Meanwhile, your apprehension and financial situation has you riding something from [insert big brand here]. Not that there is anything wrong with that. The best bike for you is the one you are able to ride.

In the time I’ve been covering frame building, builders and custom bicycles, I’ve dealt with this internal debate: am I being exclusive here? Custom and production frame building is anything but exclusive, it is however something that requires financial planning. I’m here to break it down for you in what I’m so nonchalantly calling “A Guide to Buying Your First Custom Bicycle”.

Check out more below.

In the spirit of the Rapha Continental, the guys at Firefly have added their ‘glow’ to the list of builders who’ve contributed black bikes with a pink letter. Personally, I love that the guys use SRAM Force on most of the Continental machines. It’s like they’re meant to be ridden hard, on gravel and whatever else might be thrown in the rider’s path. Check out more photos at the Firefly Flickr!

I love seeing brands working with their local frame builders. Ten Speed Hero and Method Bikes worked on a pulling together a small batch of fillet brazed road frames. Once built up with Campy Super Record 11, it comes in around 15lbs. Head over to Ten Speed Hero for more.

The 2013 Oregon Handmade Bicycle show is coming up right around the corner. This years event will be Saturday & Sunday, September 28-29, 2013 at Sandbox Studio, Portland, Oregon. It’s on my agenda this year, if my schedule allows. I’ve always wanted to check it out…

If you are a builder and are interested in attending, you can sign up here

The Bike Cult Show is coming to Brooklyn at the end of August. Featuring bicycles from some of the northeast’s top frame builders.

Check out all the information below!

If you need scientific data to support tire purchasing, you need not continue reading. Just look at the pretty photos and move on. This is not a controlled test on rolling resistance, aerodynamics or puncture protection. I don’t do that kind of product review. What I do is actually use something until I feel like I can sign off on its quality, before I choose to write anything.

Let’s look at this tire’s history before we go any further. Bruce Gordon was arguably one of the first builders in the USA to support “gravel grinding”. His bikes were straight-forward, utilitarian beasts that sometimes were painted like an 80’s hotrod, or even adorned with animal print. They are wild. In fact, one of the first BG bikes I ever saw was a flat bar cross bike, with these tires and tiger stripes that was well before any 29’r hit the market. A lot of bikes back in the 80’s couldn’t even fit these tires. There weren’t exactly stock framesets that fit a 700c x 43c wheel, so these stood out from other offerings of the time.

Bruce’s Rock N Road tires are iconic, much like his bikes. Originally designed by Joe Murray, a well-known figure in the MTB community. These 43mm (1.72″) tires were designed to be high-volume, fast rolling and rip through gravel like I rip through a Frito Pie. Are they slow on the road? Of course. They have decent tread. Are they good for loose and sandy conditions? Mostly, yes. They move as fast as you pedal them.

The Rock N Road tire is one that’s at home on chip seal, paved, gravel, rock, sand and just about everything else you can throw at it on a ride. It’ll handle great at 60psi on asphalt and excel at 40psi in gravel. I had a great time ripping through the cedar-topped trails here in Austin, as well as a few gravel roads and even rocky terrain. All save for one flat (snake bite in a rock garden), I’ve yet to have any issues. Let me add however that if all you do is ride sealed roads on your rig, I would go for something else, mostly because you’ll probably wear through the tread too fast.

Puncture protection? It’s not thorn season here in Austin, so I’ve yet to tackle anything like that but I’d say they’re pretty resilient to the normal road and trail debris. Some tire liners would help and I read somewhere that people have been successful at running these on a tubeless wheel. If anyone has insight to that, share in the comments!

If you want a big, fat tire for your cross, touring or even MTB with 700c or 29’r wheels, look no further. $50 a piece is a great deal for anything coming out of the Panaracer facilities in Japan I might add! For the weight-conscious, they’re 540g each. One major note. They’re BIG and wouldn’t come close to fitting on my cross bike, so MAKE SURE YOU HAVE CLEARANCE!

Pick up a pair at Bruce Gordon’s online shop in skinwall or blackwall.

There are few builders out there who have mastered the art of documenting their process. Need examples? Click on the Frame Builders tag… Cycles d’Autremont is one of those builders and while there isn’t a whole lot from this Burlington, Vermont craftsman on the site, I hope to swing by their shop when I’m in Burlington for the JDRF ride in July.

It doesn’t take much to sell a client on your product. A few photos of your work environment, some macro shots of your in-process lugs, or even a full-blown phototorial on why you prefer to make and modify your own lugs can do wonders for your client base.

If you flip through Cycles d’Autremont’s Flickr, you’ll find everything from a clean cross bike, to a rigid MTB fresh from paint, to a porteur to a dirty cross bike. With all this eye candy, it’s still hard for me to not fixate on their killer headbadge.

Hell, I don’t even think my shop visit photos would come close to Hubert’s own! We’ll see I suppose…

Photos by Ezra Caldwell

I love Peter Weigle. He’s one of the nicest frame builders you’ll ever meet and even though I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting Ezra before, I’d say he’s a pretty nice guy as well. Both Fastboy and Peter’s bicycles have provided me with tons of inspiration and seeing them come together via Ezra’s lens is not to be missed… and even Jamie Swan was there! Check out more photos at the Fast Boy Flickr.

So my post earlier today touched on this news, but here’s the official word from Tokyo Fixed, or now, Kinoko Custom Cycles:

“Our shop in Peter Street in Soho has been the heart of our operation for years now. Fast becoming known as the ideal place in central London to find high quality parts, talk to experienced and enthusiastic staff and generally be surrounded by the best frames, clothing and art that modern cycling has to offer, we’ve enjoyed our tenure there.

However, we’re extremely proud and extremely excited to announce our imminent move to Golden Square in Soho, and the launch of our new shop, Kinoko Custom Cycles. Our aim is to move from being the best place for incredible steel and rare parts to a singular destination for London’s cyclists. That means we’ve got a full fitting center with 2 top-level qualified fitters, a huge workshop, a massive space for bikes, parts, clothing and art and even our own in-house baristas in Daily Goods.

Our increase in space also means an increase in the things we can offer. We mean to be the best place in England to get a custom bike, and our work with artisanal and boutique bike builders like Tonic Fabrications, Cherubim, Donhou and Independent Fabrications affirms this aim; but we’re also stocking some of the top names in performance road bikes. Cannondale, Trek and Focus will all be gracing our showroom, alongside custom frames and our own Tokyo Fixed models. The same goes for our clothing and components – we’re still going to be championing small brands like Vulpine and Paul Components, but they’re going to be sharing pride of place with Castelli team kit and Shimano groupsets.

Now that you know what we plan to do, how does this affect you? Tokyo Fixed at 4 Peter Street will close its doors on Saturday 11th of May. Kinoko Custom Cycles will open its doors to customers the following week, with a grand launch party to be announced soon. The web-shop will remain open, and no order will go unfulfilled. Our website will change to represent its place as the online store of Kinoko Custom Cycles, and the URL’s will redirect accordingly. For the meantime, our huge moving sale continues in-store and online. We’d recommend you check it out, as we’re place huge discounts on a significant amount of our stock.”

Sounds like Kinoko Custom Cycles us going to be pretty legit.

Above is an photo of a one-off, custom brass plated Shinola Runwell that has been created for the Baselworld watch show in Switzerland next month.

“Based out of a factory in Detroit, Shinola is the first brand to make watches at scale in the United States in over 40 years and Basel will be the brand’s global premiere.

The bike was conceived by Shinola’s Creative Director Daniel Caudill and executed by Sky Yaeger (formerly of Bianchi and Swobo) as well as a team of builders at Shinola. The bike is based on a Shinola Runwell chassis that was built at Waterford Precision Cycles in Wisconsin and then brass plated in Detroit. Plated fenders, chain guard and a vintage lamp round out the package. After plating the frame, fork and components were given a patina that gives the bike a rustic sensibility.”

This is the only one that was made and it is not for sale. Coincidentally though, Shinola has launched their ecom site and kicking off their pre-sale campaign for watches right now. Anyone can order a Shinola Runwell watch or bike by going to Shinola. I am jonesin’ for one of their watches!

See my Initial Reaction to the Shinola Runwell here and feel free to contact Shinola to carry them in your shop. Also, check out the Places We Work section of their site. It’s pretty rad.

Photo by Kyle Kelley

Most builders will tell you that a bike has the best proportions around 54-56cm in size. Yamaguchi will tell you that a 49cm bike will bring all frame design problems to the forefront. Modern cycling tells you that the tighter, more compact the frame is, the stiffer, lighter and most importantly, pro it is. All that applies here. Is Arik short? Or just going for that über pro look? Check out more at Tracko’s Flickr.