The Radavist

Last year, ENVE opened its doors to the public for an Open House event. Once inside, visitors took a tour of its Ogden, Utah facilities and were greeted by two-dozen custom bikes from builders across the globe. This year the pandemic forced ENVE to pivot a bit, holding a virtual tour and framebuilder showcase they’re calling the Builder Round-Up. We’re pleased to once again host this showcase, with two-part coverage, so read on below for a full breakdown on these Beautiful Bicycles along with a few teasers of new ENVE product…

With the pandemic putting a halt to NAHBS and our post-NAHBS framebuilder ride/showcase in Sedona this year, we decided to pull something together with our friends at ENVE to commemorate their new Foundation MTB wheel launch. When ENVE moved into its new carbon manufacturing and testing facility, they worked hard to push the progression of carbon wheel design and manufacturing. Over three years later and thousands of hours developing, today they launched their Foundation Collection, a completely new wheel line that marks a new milestone in wheel design. In short, for those of us who aren’t interested in graphs or projections, ENVE launched a $1600 made in the USA wheelset and to help showcase these new wheels, we pinged three frame builders to showcase these wheels. The first is the Falconer Cycles NFS, Normal Full Suspension and/or Not For Sale. Below are words, penned by Cameron Falconer describing the project.

A month after the autumnal equinox I found myself on a 15-hour drive up the backbone of California to attend the 2019 Chris King Open House. After last year’s event, I wondered if the event would be as splendid as the year prior. I must admit, I was surprised.

This year’s Chris King Open House chose 18 builders from all over the world to display their new colors for 2020: Bourbon and Violet. Thanks to ENVE, Santa Cruz Reserve, SRAM, Brooks, and Spurcycle. these bikes were built out appropriately for such a showcase. Below is a gallery of half the bunch, in alphabetical order for your enjoyment, with each builder’s description of the bikes. Make sure you comment on your favorite because there is some gold in these galleries!

This year’s Chris King Open House chose 18 builders from all over the world to display their new colors for 2020: Bourbon and Violet. Thanks to ENVE, Santa Cruz Reserve, SRAM, Brooks, and Spurcycle. these bikes were built out appropriately for such a showcase. Below is a gallery of half the bunch, in alphabetical order for your enjoyment, with each builder’s description of the bikes. Make sure you comment on your favorite because there is some gold in these galleries!

Most cyclists, and even non-cyclists, who enjoy the type of bike racing that involves going up and down hills know the name Eddy Merckx and of course The Tour de France. Road racing, and the companies associated with it, do a great job of embracing its European heritage and consistently reminding us of how the sport evolved into what it is today. This makes it easy easy to get pulled into the romanticized parts of road racing when companies like Campagnolo, Colnago, and Bianchi do such a great job of celebrating their places in what makes the sport special.

NAHBS is back in Sacramento this year and having only walked around the hall during setup yesterday, I can already tell the convention center is jam-packed with builders and brands from all over the US, yet it’s hard to deny the strong California presence. While Stinner Frameworks is not showing this year, Team Dream and Mavic Cycling are.

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.

Truth be told, I put a deposit down for a 2012 Geekhouse Team Mudville cross bike before my Woodville touring bike was stolen. While I’m planning on racing here in Austin when there are local events, I’m also just stoked to finally have a cross bike to travel with. Over this past year, I’ve come to determine that a cross bike is an ideal travel bike.

You can do just about everything on them: singletrack, off-roading, gravel, road rides and even light touring. Because this bike will be 60% all that and 40% racing, I built it up initially to respond to riding in Northern California and a brevet I’ll be riding later on this month. Hence the double cages, clinchers and Ramblin’ Roll. In fact, I’m heading to Cali right now to partake in some dirt rides.

Enough of the intent, how about the bike? A few things are new on the 2012 Team Mudville models. For one, the ENVE tapered fork and headtube. It’s so big and yes, it really offers a noticeable difference in handling. The tubing selection is a little different on mine than the other bikes. Columbus Life stays ensure my big ass won’t tweak the rear end riding like an asshole or casing barriers.

I honestly don’t have tubular race wheels, so I’ll be using my trusty Profile Elite road hubs to HED Belgiums. The SRAM Force group, ENVE stem, Thomson Elite post, 3T bars all compliment the brightly anodized Chris King InSet Mango headset and matching bottom bracket. A Paul Components Funky Monkey drops the front cable a bit lower and stopping power is provided by Paul touring cantis. After getting everything dialed in, I can say that I’m really enjoying the ride.

Many thanks to Geekhouse bikes for the stellar frame and Ben’s Cycle for the parts!

Enough copy, check out the photos!

During the ENVE Open House framebuilder exhibit, one builder traveled further than the others: Mark from Prova Cycles in Melbourne, Australia. I’d never seen a Prova in person. Instead, I’ve had to check out his work via the lens of FYXO and the Prova Instagram. Mark learned at the Bicycle Academy in the UK and has been really putting in work on his brand. Let me tell you. It shows.

You’ll find mostly women’s apparel hanging on the racks at Boulder’s newest cycling shop, Cassiopeia. Opened in late September, the “female-forward” store features boutique brands like Ostroy, Jelenew, and Fingerscrossed, and doubles as a cycling café and Velospa. Hailey Moore takes a shop visit to Cassiopeia to chat with owner Diana Freeman about the store’s unique business concept, find out what exactly is a Velospa, the membership model, and more!