Search Term – Change
Paul has responded to your requests and today announced three new thru axle hubs for your off-road bicycle of choice. New to the Paul hub lineup is a standard FHub disc 10 x 100, Fhub disc 15 x 150 for fatbikes and their WORD thru axle hub in 12 x 142. All three are made in Chico, California and in stock now, ready to roll at Paul.
Eroica translates to the heroic in Italian and perhaps that was the intention when the Eroica California team designed the course for the forthcoming event in April. While the original event was born in the Italian countryside, on pristine strada bianche, the California event takes to the hills and mountains separating wine country from the beautiful coastline…
Built for 45NRTH, the brand behind all that rad footwear and tires, this Indy Fab Chubby D-Lux will be getting broken in at the Polartec Winter Fatbike Series. I really want to see how this frameset builds up. For now, we’ll just have to ogle the frameset photos at the IF Blog.
The latest photo essay from Salsa Cycles takes place in what many Americans consider to be “fly over country.” The midwest is home to some beautiful landscapes, filled with rushing rivers and dense forests. A few guys from Minneapolis went out to Grand Marais and rode the Gunflint Trail on fatbikes, packing in everything they needed for a few day’s outing. The resulting photos and story are inspirational to say the least.
Head over to Salsa to read up!
Have you ever considered whittling your collection down to a single bike? Of course you have – we all have. For the better part of a decade I’ve owned more bikes than there are days in the week, with spare parts for all of them. Getting rid of all but one? Unthinkable. Which one of a carefully curated fleet, each with its own merits and reasons for being, would make the best all-rounder? Which would be your “one bike”?
This idea of downsizing and simplifying has been a theme for me this year. In July, after months of preparation, my girlfriend and I packed our lives and our dog into our two cars and moved to a 227 square foot cabin deep in the Selkirk Mountains of southeastern British Columbia. Like many, we’d been dreaming of living in the wilderness, but this was it. Living the dream, right?
This year was a whirlwind. I think I traveled somewhere around 220 days, jumping the pond a few times and yes, spending lots of time in California. But what was the pinnacle of the year was the rebrand from PiNP to the Radavist. The pinnacle because it meant more contributors, more photos and ultimately, more, good content.
Without the contributors to this site, it wouldn’t have been such a successful year. Those guys really killed it.
Before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s start from Day 01…
Last month, Mike Flanigan made the announcement that he’ll be closing the doors to ANT and accepting a welding position at Seven Cycles. Mike is very much tied to the Boston-area and frame building, originally working for Fat City Cycles and more recently, opening a small frame-building school of his own, all while making his “Alternative Needs Transportation” bikes.
The Northeast is the US’ backbone for framebuilding and it’s sad to see Mike close ANT, but I’m glad to see he’ll still be making frames.
If you’d like to help Mike out with his relocation costs, he’s selling commemorative shirts, hats, chainrings and head badges as a meager fundraiser. Head over to the ANTBikeMike blog for more details.
Last year, when Salsa introduced the Bucksaw full suspension fatbike, it caused quite a stir. It did, in fact, feature the then brand-new Rock Shox Bluto fork, which in itself was a catalyst for heated internet discussion.
Yesterday Salsa poured it on with the announcement of the Bucksaw Carbon. A full-suspension fatbike with a carbon front triangle, seat stay and an aluminum chainstay. This sheds 300 grams off the total frame weight.
If this is your kinda thing, and how can it not be, then head over to Salsa to see more!
Photos by Antton Miettinen
Jon Azkoitia has been a reader of the Radavist since the early blogspot days of PiNP and one of his favorite features is Merckx Mondays. When he began riding track bikes, it was due to his father’s love of track racing and Jon didn’t have just any introduction, he was given a Molteni-team Colnago track. For those who weren’t aware, the first few Molteni Eddy Merckx frames were made by De Rosa and Colnago before Eddy began making his own in Meise, a small town outside of Brussels.
Prior to Jon’s father, this bike was owned by Milano-SanRemo winner Michele Dancelli, who raced it for a number of years in the Molteni livery. The bike was then raced by Jon’s father for nearly 40 years! Needless to say, once Jon was handed down the frame, he felt it was time for a restoration, so Jon looked to the original heritage of the frame and did an amazing job.
See more photos below and follow Jon on his Flickr!
This past weekend, some buddies and I went on a little camping trip. Some of us had to be back in town the following day, while others went on through Monday. The lucky bastards… One of the early returnees, along with me, was Jonathan. It was his first camping trip here in Austin, since recently relocating from Omaha, so we wanted it to be a good one.
There’s more to come on the ride itself (oh and it was a good one), but I thought I’d take a minute to feature his rather unique Surly Disc Trucker…
Look, I don’t buy into the whole gravel grinding marketing behind bigger tires, but I do like a big, fat tire on a cross bike for trail shredability. So far I’ve ridden the Nano, the Knard and now, I’ve got my sights on the Clement X’Plor MSO, a tire that officially launched last year, but this is the first I’m seeing it.
See more at Clement, or at your local shop. Anyone ride these tires yet?
It takes a bit of convincing for most people, but after you go with a fatter tire on your cross bike, you rarely will want to go back. Since riding the Nano for around 6 months, I’ve fallen in love with the extra cushion provided by a 40c tire and while I love the Nano, I really wanted to give the Surly Knard 41c a go. If, for any other reason than the allure of a smidge in additional width.
Trails, sure! But racing? For some reason, people are apprehensive about racing a 40+c tire – USAC allows it, so why not? My guess is, that age old myth that a “bigger tire is slower”… Oh but the contrary, with the right PSI, you’ll have the upper hand on just about any course.
I spent the weekend racing on my new Knards and have some thoughts below…
As you can probably tell, I’ve been really stoked on what Chumba is doing here in Austin, Texas. During MTB season earlier this year, I caught up with Vince, who was riding the first prototype Ursa 29+ MTBs. At the time, Chumba’s production was in Oregon, but in recent months, they’ve moved all production in house, using USA-made tubing…
We are Here to Win Fucking Races
Photos by Dylan VanWeelden, words by Kyle Von Hoetzendorff
Charlie and Alex arrive at a bar. They’re friends, they met through bike racing, they’re both good at it, they’re both tall. Charlie, usually big on words with questionable substance and unquestionable humor is noticeably quiet. Something is troubling him. Wit isn’t lacking in Alex however, he powers the conversation, something he has never had a problem with, throwing out easy jabs, blockable shots, lazy passes, hoping to get his friend into the game.
Alex knows they’re competitors, that, while he leaves himself open for body blows, Charlie, in his current state of discontent, is vulnerable and it would be easy to land a couple of devastating hits, but this isn’t where they compete, and that isn’t how you play the game. In their field time is the perpetrator, the villain.
When Tyler from Pearl Velo emailed me last month, saying he was going to be closing the shop’s doors on September 1st, I was pretty bummed out. Granted, the only time I have been to Pearl Velo was during the Denver NAHBS and the #Outsideisfree party, but I was impressed with the community’s support of the shop, even during a blizzard.
What Pearl Velo stood for is what we need in US bike shops: selling an experience, not just products. The shop was small, but you could see an intent through it all. Tyler really believed in what he was doing, unfortunately, like everyone, his life changed and as a father, he wanted to spend more time with his family.
If you’re in Denver, swing through Pearl Velo and give Tyler a high-five.
In 1976 Chris King manufactured the first Chris King headset. It was built to medical grade tolerances and set the standard for what a quality bicycle component should be. Since that time bicycles have changed significantly, from 6-speed road bikes and 45-pound fully ridged mountain bikes to sub 10-pound road bikes and 35-pound dowhnill bikes, the design of today’s modern bicycles has kept pace with the development and style of riders. As riders we want our bikes to perform with out hassle so we can get the most out of our riding experience and it was with an eye on the changes in capabilities and material of todays most advanced bicycles that we developed GripLock™ the next generation of our legendary headsets.
GripLock™ has been in use on Chris King’s headsets for quite sometime and has been featured on our InSet family of headsets since their introduction. Also all 1-1/8″ NoThreadSets have been equipped with GripLock™ since 2010. Our press introduction comes about after we were awarded a patent for this advanced system prior to receiving the patent we wanted to keep our messaging about GripLock™ light now that we have patent security we are thrilled to share this feature with the world.
Chris King’s GripLock™ headset retention device uses an isolated wedge system to separate headset bearing adjustment from steerer tube location thus eliminating loose headsets on long travel mountain bikes while simultaneously removing any chance of headset inflicted fatigue on the lightweight carbon steerer tubes found on modern road forks.
GripLock comes stock on all InSets and 1-1/8″ NoThreadSets. GripLock upgrades are available for 1-1/8″ NoThreadSets currently with out a GripLock bearing cap.”
Learn more at Chris King
I took some liberties with this illustration…
In 1920, the Czech play “R.U.R.,” or “Rossum’s Universal Robots,” was written by Karel Čapek. The story followed a manufacturer who makes a race of servants that ended up revolting, killing everyone in their wake. Karel wrote about these sentient beings and first coined the phrase “robot,” which derived from an Old Church Slavonic word for “forced labor.”
Now, it may come as a surprise to you, but over the years, robots have in fact killed many factory workers, worldwide. More often than not, it’s by shear chance, but the facts are there and as robotic technology continues to advance in factories, one debate has risen: “are we signing our fate?”
All this may sound silly, but for some reason, a recent New York Times article tied into a piece I’ve wanted to write about how you should buy handbuilt wheels. Not just to support your local bike shop, but because the more our industry relies on “R.U.R.s”, the less people it employs… Also, robots will kill us all, dude.
It’s just a thought. Click on below for a visual representation of these OSHA-documented robot fatalities and head over to the New York Times for an interesting piece on the robot labor force.
I’ve been meaning to post Father Tu’s Ferriveloci track bike for a while. I love the head badge and the fork. Truly unique design work coming from Italy. See more photos at Father Tu’s Flickr and follow Ferriveloci on Facebook.
