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One of the reasons we love metal bikes is how they can get damaged in a wreck or even get hit by a car and be repaired. That’s what happened to Andrea from Cicli Barco. After a car hit him on a ride, resulting in a folded in the front end of his Piovan gravel bike, he decided to take a KINTSUGI approach to the repair. The final product is stunning, and we thought y’all would enjoy this one!
With warning signs that sandal season has officially closed in Mongolia, Ryan Wilson high-tails it through a 600-kilometer leg of riding to reach his last stop of the journey. But while much of this trip has found him wondering at the vastness of the steppe, this closing section shows a different side of the country. Read on for Ryan’s final (for now) account of riding in Mongolia…
After the bike industry woke up from its fever dream of futuristic mag wheels, Spinergy held on for one more go with their fiber-spoked SPOX lineup. Unfortunately, those first-generation SPOX would join the rest of those early carbon wheels to be remembered as educational, innovative, but ultimately failed experiments. But a lot has changed since then. Fiber technology has made huge leaps, and it’s now possible to weave a spoke that is stronger and lighter than steel. Berd spokes have been twisting our expectations for the past year, but Travis Engel was more curious about what Spinergy has learned in the past decades. Their MXX 30 mountain bike wheels, laced with their unique PBO spokes, make some bold claims. Travis spent a couple months on them to see if they delivered.
Finding affordable bikes that cost under and around $2000 can be challenging, so we compiled a list with a twist… We’re big fans of metal over here. Metal gravel bikes can be superior to their carbon cousins in many ways, especially if you’re planning on strapping bags to them and taking them out on longer rides, overnighters, and tours.
We get requests all day long for more affordable bikes, and following up with our 2024 Under and Around $2000 Hardtails article, we present our Metal Gravel Bikes Under and Around $2000 post, so let’s get to it!
For this week’s Readers’ Rides, Bryan shares his journey from a Specialized road bike to an All-City Space Horse with us. Read along to learn how this bike changed his perspective on riding!
MADE, the multi-day event for the handmade builder community, returns to Portland’s Zidell Yards August 23-25, 2024…
First held in 1976, the annual Pearl Pass Tour continues to take riders on one of the earliest organized mountain bike challenges: riding (and pushing) bikes to the top of Pearl Pass (12,705′) from Crested Butte, Colorado. Inspired to ride new terrain and get to know the burgeoning mountain biking community in Crested Butte, Wende Cragg and a band of Californians loaded up their klunkers and made the trip out to take part in several early editions of the now-iconic event.
Following a forty-two year hiatus, Wende Cragg returned to Crested Butte for this year’s ride. Read on for her tales from Pearl Pass, past and present…
Some bikes just hit differently. They grow with an audience, transform the paradigm, and go against the grain. The Santa Cruz Stigmata is one of those bikes for me.
These days, mountain bike brands are all about gravel bikes, but one company started its foray into drop bars way back in 2007. Santa Cruz Bicycles first launched its quirky and fun ‘cross bike, dubbed the Stigmata, back before disc brakes proliferated the drop-bar bike phenotype. It was made from Easton EA6X aluminum in the USA and had cantilever brakes. It was weird. Funky. Cool.
Then, in 2015, the brand brought back the Stigmata but in carbon with disc brakes. I spent some time in New Zealand on the bike and logged many miles in Los Angeles. I loved it. So much so that I copied its geometry for my custom Firefly in 2016. Later, the Stiggy got another refresh and the 2019 iteration sported 27.5 x 2″ tires and was a carbon monster truck. I posted that review the day we refreshed our web design of The Radavist.
So when Santa Cruz announced its 2023 model, with the full SRAM AXS kit, including the RockShox Rudy suspension fork, I had to try it out, too. I’ve been ripping around on this lightweight and capable bike here in Santa Fe through the remnants of a dry and dusty El Niño year and have some thoughts on what makes the Stigmata so magical. Check it out below!
A little weird, a lot welcoming RodeoCross is cyclocross…but only kind of. At the end of this year’s Sacramento season, Kate Rose pays tributes to this rowdy and irreverent subculture of cycling category. Read on for her entertaining recap and sound bytes from racers who try to explain this “disguise for a party on bikes,” along with photos from Sydney Lewis.
Our Radar Roundup compiles products and videos from the ‘net in an easy-to-digest format. Read on below for today’s findings…
Announced at this year’s Moab Outerbike, the Esker Cycles Hayduke LVS –available as a frame ($2,950) or a complete ($4,950)–is a hardtail mountain bike with 600-millimeter chainstays and touring accouterments aplenty. Esker even developed a specialty rack for this bike, dubbed the Molle Rackwald ($300.) Needless to say, it’s a unique offering from the brand.
John was able to ride one for a bit, including on an overnighter with the Esker Cycles team and Sincere Cycles in Santa Fe, so read on for an in-depth look at this rare and funky bike!
What does it mean to ride the 3,300-mile spine of the Continental Divide, from the Canadian to Mexican border across the United States? Very few people can say, but Kurt Refsnider can now count himself among them. In his fourth installment from the Continental Divide Trail, Kurt writes about the final miles through a geologist’s lens and how New Mexico held just as much resistance as it did enchantment.
November 2nd is International SingleSpeed Day. It’s a celebration of Paul from Paul Component Engineering and his good friend Amanda‘s birthday.
The rules for celebration are simple: everyone, ride your singlespeeds! Gravel, road, or MTB; we’re all in on the one-gear birthday party celebration! John and Parker went out in Santa Fe for a sunset ride in the Dale Ball Trails, and they got some fun photos, so let’s check them out below…
Jay Ritchey of Bags By Bird (BXB) recently started offering custom bags not only for fabric choice and all the usual options but also specifically tailored to the height of your bars and your desired width. For riders with a lot of front-end real estate or those with a minimal amount, this can be an amazing way to maximize your gear space. In true BXB fashion, the bag looks incredible and functions equally beautifully.
Back in 2015, I bought one of the first Silca SuperPista Ultimate Hiro pumps. These pumps are a modern take on the vintage classic SuperPista floor pump Silca made back when it was an Italian brand in the 70s and 80s. Now, Silca is a US brand and when it re-launched, they debuted a stunning Made in the USA version of the SuperPista pump.
When I bought it, the pump was dubbed the Impero Ultimate Frame Pump and with a $400 price tag, I was hoping it’d last for decades, much like Silca’s legendary frame pumps that I use on my bikes. Well, eight years later my pump finally needed a rebuild, so I thought it’d be nice to walk through the rebuild process…
Is it a drop-bar mountain bike? A gravel rig on ‘roids? Or a bike from another dimension? When it comes to codifying bikes these days, it’s really easy to get really lost (real quick). However, once in a while, a bike comes along that challenges the norm, flips the bird to conventional geo numbers, and stands alone: not as an outlier, but as an original. Sam Rice has been test riding Curve Cycling‘s long-awaited GMX+ and shares his thoughts on why it isn’t “just another touring bike” below, along with a look at their updated Seek 430 FM carbon fork.
Our Radar Roundup compiles products and videos from the ‘net in an easy-to-digest format. Read on below for today’s findings…
Spencer Harding and Chris”Dirty” Reichel went down the southern border of Mexico and Arizona for the start of the 2023 Arizona Trail Race. The race taverse the whole of Arizona for racers who elect the 800 mile route or the abbreviated and nonetheless daunting 300-mile option. Summer hasn’t relinquished its grasp on Southern Arizona with temperatures in the 100s for the early days of the race…
