The Radavist

While fatbikes might be at home in wintery environments and locales where it snows more than the sun shines each year, over time these strange bicycles began to migrate to sandy regions. From the Mojave to the Oregon coastal dunes, fatbikes have spent a fair amount of their short-lived existence on Earth shredding sand. With their high volume, low pressure tires, suddenly you can pedal for great distances through thick sand. Something not really possible on a bicycle prior. Visit any beach town, especially one with a high influx of tourists and you’ll find some janky fatbike sitting next to a beach cruiser and soft top surfboards in the rental fleet.

That’s not what’s going on here, I can assure you.

The Breadwinner Goodwater in Big Country
Photos and words by Gabe Tiller

Some friends and I had been scheming and dreaming up our Oregon Big Country route for an entire year, and this spring right as we were finalizing details Breadwinner Cycles launched their new Goodwater 27.5+ trail bike. I’ve known Tony since he moved to Portland from Salt Lake and watch him build bike after bike, each more lustworthy than the last. And they’ve pulled home award after award from NAHBS and the Oregon Manifest too. His meticulous craft building bicycles has become impeccably tuned, and the few times I’ve had the opportunity to ride bikes with him he’s whooped me soundly on the trail as well.

A few years ago when Surly launched their plus platform I took my first ride on the Krampus and instantly knew mountain bikes would be forever changed. Wider rims, more volume, and less pressure allowed me to clean technical lines I’d never come close to before. Rim, tire, and tubeless technology had brought high volume and large contact patches to the table without the weighing anywhere near as much as the motocross wheels they looked like. I was sold and thrashed my Krampus for a year before upgrading to a Ti Gnarvester. And now I really wanted to steal away on Tony’s fat-tired trail bike for our eight-day overland adventure through Oregon’s Big Country. Surprisingly when I asked, he agreed: “Sure, and ride it like I would—hard.”

He and Ira are often heard saying “We build the bikes we ride” and it shows in the Goodwater. Tony spends a fair amount of our rainy winter sessioning The Lumberyard and while the Goodwater is designed for an entirely different riding environment, he has maintained that nimble playfulness that make park bikes so fun. Giddily riding it home I could feel it begging to be flicked up curb banks and manualed through puddles. It’s got the shortest rear end (440mm) of any plus bikes I’ve ridden, and paired with the Fox Float 34 it cruises over rough terrain and still easily wheelies through desert stream crossings. At least the ones not filled with axle deep mud.

With internal routing, Shimano’s XTR Di2 1×11 drivetrain, Enve HV hoops, and a Thompson dropper it’s an incredibly clean build. It loaded up super well with my Porcelain Rocket Mr Fusion dropper hack, a Revelate framebag, and Limberlost’s DIY Handlebar Roll. It tackled the steep climbs and rocky descents over the Steens with ease, and the 2.8″ Schwalbe Nobby Nics held up well being pushed hard in loose corners or slogging through the Big Sand Gap on our way to Willow Hot Springs.

My only regret is that I didn’t get the chance to drop all the bags and really let this shreddy trail bike shine on some local singletrack before wearily giving Tony back his baby. I’m excited to see so many mountain bike builders embracing fatter tires, and Breadwinner is pushing the momentum of this movement with their Goodwater.

Follow along with the rest of our adventures at Limberlost.co.

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Follow Gabe and the Limberlost crew on Instagram and check out Breadwinner’s Instagram!

Visiting countries like Japan, you’re always drawn to hyper-modern cities like Tokyo, or classic, traditional places like Kyoto. While I’ve spent a lot of time here, I’d never spent much time in the countryside, much less the wilderness. I’ve always used a bicycle to explore an urban area. When Circles brought handful of US framebuilders and myself over to Nagoya for the Gourmet Century Asuke, they asked us to bring our own bikes. Not just to display at the Personal Bike Show, but to embark on a week-long bicycle tour with. This influenced what everyone brought greatly and ultimately, was a true test of each builder’s philosophy on touring.

Eroica Rolls to South African Soil
Words by Stan Engelbrecht and photos by Tyrone Bradey

When Giancarlo Brocci imagined what would become the now world famous L’Eroica vintage bicycle homage in 1997, he surely never thought that rubber would crunch on gravel all the way at the Southern tip of Africa, in honour of his humble concept. Giancarlo saw the first L’Eroica rides as a way to bring attention to, and thus encourage the preservation of, the beautiful ‘strade bianche’, or white marble gravel roads of the area around Gaiole in Tuscany. At the same time it was a way for him to honour and remind others of the perfect peak of the sport he loves so dearly – the heady, fiery days of Anquetil, Poulidor, Coppi, Bartali, Merckx…

Words by Morgan Taylor, photos by Scott Haraldson.

No matter how you slice it, our little corner of the world is out of the way to get to. We are surrounded by wilderness in all directions, which presents both opportunities and challenges. The two major east-west highways in BC diverge around us in order to traverse the four chains of glacially carved mountains toward the continental divide, and relatively few people find reason to come through this neck of the woods.

Emilio Santoyo-Illustrated Team Dream All City Macho King Disc
Words and process photos by Sean Talkington, bike photos by John Watson

Custom bikes are one of the coolest traditions continued within modern cycling (IMO).  The idea of having a bicycle custom tailored to your specific needs is pretty amazing and being able to (sometimes) participate in the finished aesthetic is the big fat cherry on top.  I have always been drawn to the idea of having a bike that looks nothing like the ones my friends are riding.  Its the reason why people like all of us visit sites like The Radavist. We come here to see cool bikes (generally speaking of course).

Four Seasons with the Salsa Blackborow
Photos and words by Jarrod Bunk

It started over a 2 years ago, when I was riding my current fatbike – a Surly Moonlander – for much more than just winter riding. It was slowly becoming my everything bike, and eventually that Moonlander replaced my carbon Cannondale Scalpel. Looking back, that piqued my interest in a more aggressive geometry bike, that could handle some sort of suspension fork.

There were a handful of manufacturers with tapered head tubes to allow for a Rock Shox Bluto or other fork. Simply put my next bike had to have the ability to run suspension, fat 5” tires, and through axles. Of the handful of bikes out at the time this wasn’t possible. Along comes a Blackborow. It has checked all of my boxes, and even some that I didn’t know I needed checking. THAT FOREST SERVICE GREEN, I had to have it. Things fell into place and a few months after waiting my dinglespeed build showed up. I have a tendency to build my bikes custom, so I stripped the bike down and rebuilt it with some stuff that I prefer to use. Industry 9 Hubs, dropper post, RaceFace NEXT SL cranks and the cockpit from Chromag.

As fate, or at least the press circuit would have it, I’m back in Santa Cruz for the Blackburn Ranger Camp. I drove up from Los Angeles a night early and crashed with my friend Garrett, from Strawfoot Handmade.

The last time I was in town, I got to spend a lot of time with him, photographing his shop, his bikes and even he and his daughter Olive’s daily routine.

This round, time was precious, but I managed to get a few photos of his new bikes, the first being this Team Fresh Air Hunter Cycles ‘cross with a carbon seat tube. Garrett built this bike up as a strictly race machine. SRAM Force CX1 and PAUL Mini Motos with a DT / Pacenti wheelset will deliver all the reliability needed for racing in Santa Cruz, while a Sim Works’ cockpit and WTB saddle on a Sim Works post top the build off.

Balance is key for a ‘cross bike and this bike has it, both aesthetically and in terms of weight. Oh and I love the Fresh Air Cycles blue!

Trade shows aren’t the easiest to digest, especially coming off of NAHBS, where I got to photograph the literal cream of the crop in terms of custom framebuilders. So when I was invited to attend the Berliner Fahrradschau, I had no idea what to expect. Well, that’s not entirely true. I knew a few things about the European market. First off, professional cycling pedigree. Racing made its roots in Europe. Infrastructure’s another huge plus. Cities were laid out, in the most part anyway, for the bicycle. A lot of the European brands reflect that in their offerings.

Back to that first point: pro cycling pedigree. While the US has a lot of builders who have supplied Olympic and professional athletes frames for various occasions, it’s hard to come close to Europe. Case in point: Jaegher.

Barcelona, at least as far as I’m concerned, is Los Angeles’ European sister city. Not so much in terms of its urbanism, or gracious public plazas, or the seemingly lack of vehicular congestion, but in terms of the riding. Mediterranean climates make for photogenic trails and even in the winter months, this city is a joy to ride in. When we arrived in Barcelona, I had no idea what to expect. Mattia from Legor Cicli and Ken from ENVE told us (meaning myself and photographer Jeff Curtis, who came along to document the trip for ENVE) we’d be riding dirt roads and trails all within the city limits.

No matter what you spend your money on, be it a ‘cross bike, a mountain bike or a road bike, chances are you’ll put more miles on your touring bike but not on the open road. Most likely it’ll be running errands around town, or going to meet friends for coffee and yes, even a bar bike. My touring bike has seen more miles than all of my bikes combined, without a doubt, and so I really gravitate towards these utilitarian machines while at NAHBS. Now, whether or not I chose one to photograph, over say a MTB or a cross bike is totally up to fate but this Sycip tourer was just screaming for attention!

Adam Sklar brought some heat with him from Montana. Having just turned 16, he’s the youngest builder at the show (just kidding, he’s 22) but that didn’t stop him from turning out some beautiful machines. As I sat in his booth looking at the mountain and fatbikes on display, I couldn’t help but pick out the curved, swoopy-tubed ‘cross or “all road” bike in the corner. Complete with Sycip-inspired quarter fork blade toppers and some slick Reynolds wheels, this puppy is ready to take on some Montana fire road action!

For those of you who read the CommUTAH story late last summer here on the Radavist, this is the bike that photographer James Adamson was riding, with a little bit of an update. James’ bike utilized a chainstay yoke to ensure the big, fat 27.5+ tires would fit without rub. After a bit of PR&D at the Breadwinner Cycles shop, they determined they could keep the cost down by using stock stays and still get ample clearances. After a few other geometry tweaks, and the Goodwater was ready for release at the 2016 NAHBS…

Continuing with the domination of the 27.5+ wheel platform, this Retrotec hardtail brings everything in we’re accustomed to from Curtis Inglis, and then some. This year, Curtis has switched that new White Industries Narrow Wide 1x crankset on most of his mountain bikes at the show. There’s something special coming (for me) to the site later on, but for now let’s drool over this big, fat and beautiful hardtail.

Minneapolis is a veritable playground for a healthy mix of urban and trail riding. With the River Bottoms just a short ride from downtown, as well as a plethora of other trails surrounding the city, you can easily ride from your house, to the woods and back on one gear. Part of that ideology is what’s inspired many of All-City‘s bicycles and was without a doubt the motivating force behind their newest bike, the Log Lady, a singlespeed mountain bike with 27.5 wheels and a rigid, segmented fork.

I’ve had the pleasure of riding a custom built Log Lady here in Los Angeles over the past few weeks. This is by no means a complete review, since I’ve yet to spend enough time on the Log Lady to thoroughly vet it but I will say, so far, it’s been a lot of fun. Painful fun, but fun nonetheless.