The Radavist

A lot of people are qualified to talk about long-travel enduro bikes. You can find me dangling by a thread at the bottom of that list, hanging there with a confusing mix of unfounded self-confidence and extreme midwestern imposter syndrome. I’ve lived near mountains extremely briefly and before that, the closest hill was a highway overpass. At the very least, I can offer you a unique perspective on a big bike. There’s a review in here somewhere, embedded in a long-winded story.

Going into the 5th year of Grinduro California coverage on this website, I really wanted to do something different and boy, did I get just that. In addition to covering Team Brooks‘ debut at Grinduro, a series of events made this otherwise familiar race a little more unpredictable. Things weren’t looking so great the week leading up to this incredible event…

Nevada City is located in the western Sierra foothills in California. If you were to drive from San Francisco to the sleepy little mountain bike destination town of Downieville, chances are you’d roll right through Nevada City. It’s this gateway location that prompted Jay Barre to open a new bike shop, named You Bet.

A few towns over from Downieville, California, where John works at Yuba Expeditions during the summer months, is Quincy, California where Cameron Falconer‘s workshop is. John and Cam knew each other back when they both lived in the Bay Area and since relocating to what is called the “Lost Sierra,” John really wanted a road bike that could handle the area’s veritable Sierra chunk.

Downieville is a sleepy little town in the Lost Sierra. It was first known as “the Forks” due to its geographical location at the confluence of the Yuba and Downie rivers. Like many towns in the area, Downieville was founded in 1849 during the Gold Rush. Later, it was named after the town’s founder, Major William Downie. As you might imagine, this place has a sordid history during the lawless heyday of gold mining, including being the location for the only hanging of a woman in California history. Josefa Segovia was a pregnant Californio resident of the town and was lynched by an angry mob, accusing her of killing a miner in July 1851.

Nearby, in the Sierra Buttes, the largest gold nugget in California history was found in 1869. It weighed a whopping 109.2 pounds. Gold has always been on the lips of those who flocked to Downieville. Still, to this day, don’t be surprised to see active mining claims and people panning for gold at the confluence of the Yuba and Downie rivers.

Since 1995, the Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship has thrown a special little event in this town. The Downieville Classic features an XC race on Saturday and a Downhill on Sunday. The terrain is rocky, steep, and silty, making for a tough day on the bike no matter what you’re riding. While they’re by no means rare, seeing people riding and racing hardtails always causes a stir. So this year, I set out to photograph some of these bikes, including Curtis Inglis from Retrotec‘s own Funduro, a shining, gold nugget of a bike.

BTCHN’ Bikes, the latest chapter in Chico Framebuilding
Photos and words by California Travis

The small college town of Chico, California has been home to a few very notable framebuilders over the years. Jeff Lindsay starting out building road bikes is 1972, and was one of the first pioneers to create mountain bikes under the name Mountain Goat in 1981. Bob Seals (inventor of the Klean Kanteen and Cool Tool amongst other things) took modern geometry and quality materials, combined them with classic curvy steel cruiser aesthetics and founded Retrotec Bicycles in 1992. Mitch Pryor of MAP Bicycles took custom randonneuring frames to the next level of meticulous perfection in Chico and then Paradise.

We’ve had a busy year at the Radavist and it wasn’t until I combed through each month individually that I could finally realize all the hard work everyone put in over here for the past twelve months. While much of the site is focused on gear in the form of products and bike portraits, my favorite pieces are always photojournals from rides, tours, and trips. There’s something wonderful about peering through the lens of a cyclist and hitching a ride along with them while they pedal along their route.

Compiled in this gallery is a photographic sample from 12 months of content, in somewhat chronological order. It’s trippy to flip through the gallery and see all the unique perspectives. In many cases, a photo is worth a thousand words!

There’s also a list below of the top posts from the site this year, running the gamut from riding in the desert to the WTF Bikexplorers Summit, exploring Crete, mixing snakes and divas in Puerto Rico and much more. They’re in chronological order, so if you haven’t read these articles, you really should!

Grinduro is my favorite cycling event of the year and when you include it in the Sierra Buttes Triple Crown, alongside Lost and Found, as well as Downieville, you’re in for a hell of a weekend. In its fourth year, you could tell the event is dialed but that’s mostly due to the amazing venue that is the Quincy Fairgrounds, Giro, the volunteers, the sponsors, and the Sierra Buttes’ impeccable ability to show everyone a great time!

When I was an architect, a few clients came to us with project proposals, revolving around a key object like a doorknob, a bookcase, or some other heirloom piece. In essence, they wanted us to design a house around this object. Believe it or not, this happens a lot with bikes as well in what I call “Genesis components.” Someone has a stem like a Ti Grammo Art or a crank like a Kooka and wants to build a complete around that part. More often than not, it’s that heritage piece that really ties a build together. These unifying pieces don’t have to be vintage and they don’t have to be the Genesis piece. Take Spencer’s 1956 Schwinn cruiser build for example.

Spence is an employee at Yuba Expeditions, the shop and shuttle company in Downieville that’s an extension of the Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship. Everything sold at Yuba and every shuttle run purchased goes right back to the Buttes. It’s a solid system and gives dudes like Spencer and the rest of the team at Yuba, a great job in an even greater town.

Downieville isn’t a hilly town. It’s pretty flat along the main drag, so Spencer wanted a beater bike to kick around on. That’s when he pieced together this 1956 Schwinn cruiser, which fit a nice knobby tire, a modern unicrown fork, a Brooks Saddle, and yeah, the Genesis piece – the bar that really tied the build together.

A few years back, S&M introduced a new handlebar to their MUSA lineup. The Husky High MX bars are replicas of 1972 – 1977 Husqvarna Motorcycles High Crossbar. Once Spencer saw them, he knew where they needed to go.

Genesis components aren’t always the beginning of a bike build, but they do make a build unique to the owner. The context of this bike made it so unique to me, as it sat next to multiple $10k+ carbon full sus builds. Thanks to Spencer and Yuba for making my last trip to Downieville so much fun!

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Follow Spencer on Instagram and follow Yuba Expeditions on Instagram.

If you look for information on Blue Collar Bikes on the internet, ya won’t find much. Robert Ives likes it that way. He builds bikes, enough to pay his mortgage, and lives a fine life in Sacramento, where he’s been building Blue Collars since 1998. Robert came from Ventana before branching out on his own, where he builds steel bikes, made to take a beating, with the flashiest thing on them being that fancy head badge. I look forward to the Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship events because I know someone will have a Blue Collar.

This trip, it was Darren, a good friend of Robert and Paul from Paul Components. Darren began building this frame in Robert’s shop one day and left it incomplete. As he got busy with life, little did he know, Robert was slowly completing this frame. At last year’s Grinduro, Robert handed it over to Darren, who’s been riding it ever since.

After we took on the Classic Downhill shuttle, I grabbed this bike, a Nigel XL, to shoot it behind the Downieville Hardware store. Ya don’t get more Blue Collar than that! If you’d like to read more about Robert Ives’ career and life for that matter, head to Dirt Rag, for a damn interesting read! Check out Blue Collar on Facebook too.

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Follow Blue Collar on Instagram and follow Darren on Instagram.

Each year at NAHBS, a selection of builders at the show lament on how we should actually ride bikes together more, not just talk about them once a year at the show. I get it. Sitting in a convention center, under that horrible lighting, discussing how a bike rides is worlds apart from actually riding out on the trails. This year, Adam Sklar took the initiative to plan a weekend and then some of fun times in Bozeman and sent out an open invite to numerous builders. His idea was to expose people to the culture here, the town’s local builders, eats, drinks, and shops, in an event playfully dubbed the “Builder’s Camp.” Squid, Breadwinner, Retrotec, Falconer, Horse, Alliance, and Strong, along with a few other locals, all prepared for 5 days of non-stop riding and relaxing in this beautiful mountain town.

Falconer Slacker 150mm Travel 29er Hardtail

The work of Cameron Falconer is for the shredders. The people who put function before fashion, or thrashin’ before fashion. Either way, Cam’s work is thoughtful, exact and to the point. Like a succinct text message, a Falconer gets to the point. The beauty about Cam’s personal bikes is they represent a moment in time, or a perspective on how Cam believes a hardtail steel mountain bike should ride, or rather, could ride. Granted, a lot of this experimentation might be a bit much for the average rider to consume. Take for instance a 150mm travel 29er hardtail. It’d take me some convincing to believe that platform was the right bike for me. Hell, that’s a LOT of bike to be delivered in a hardtail, yet it doesn’t hold Cam back at all.

With an effective top tube of 660mm, a 65º head angle, a bb drop of 70mm, chainstay length of 440mm, a seat tube angle of 72.5º, geometry aficionados might nod their heads in approval. These numbers just make sense. For tubing, Cam uses Vari Wall, Columbus, and a Paragon head tube. To top it off, Cam powder coated it to match his 4Runner in a Canfield blue.

This bike is stout, but secure in its shred-pedigree and watching Cam shred it in Bozeman brought me joy. I’ll be seeing this bike in Downieville this weekend, where it’ll be right at home there as it was in Montana.
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Follow Falconer on Instagram and follow along with the #BuildersCamp hashtag.

Team Scrapin’s Rock Lobster Relationship Accelerator
Words by Amanda Schaper, photos by John Watson

Some people might call tandems divorcycles, but I like to call them relationship accelerators. Wherever your relationship is headed, a tandem bicycle will get you there faster.

The Lost and Found Bike Ride is always one of my favorite weekends of the year. The camping, the riding, the lake, the people, the beer…it all just makes for one heck of a good time. But this year was extra special. My fiancé Scott and I toed the line for the 100-mile gravel race on our amazing Rock Lobster tandem in the first of the Triple Crown events. We’re planning to race the full Lost Sierra Triple Crown on the tandem as our form of premarital counseling. What could go wrong, right? There was some competition in the tandem category at Lost and Found, with two other teams giving us a run for our money. After about 6.5 hours of racing and getting both wheels off the ground more than once, we crossed the line in victory! It wasn’t easy, but it was a heck of a lot of fun. Our relationship and the bike survived 100 miles of gravel grinding, and now we start prepping for the gnarly technical trails of the Downieville Classic.