Search Term – Change
Am I the only one here that cringes every time I hear the word gravel? It’s been a common word in my world for a few years now, and believe me, I hear the word a lot… but I just can’t embrace it. The word gravel still brings to mind all-day slogs across flat/windblown prairies on the type of surface that’s devoid of traction yet still slowly and steadily saps your spirit. In other words: somehow, somewhere it firmly lodged in my brain that “gravel” is the antithesis of “fun.”
This weekend brings about Unbound Gravel, in Emporia, Kansas and I managed to catch up with a few friends who are taking on the 200-mile route… on a tandem. It’s not just any tandem though, so let’s check it out in detail below.
It’s pretty common these days to see professional roadies make the transition into gravel. The racing and even the bikes are pretty similar, so it’s not a big stretch to make the leap. But what about coming to gravel from downhill? Now we’re talking about switching from races that are about 2-miles long with zero elevation gain to races that are 200-miles long with 10’000-feet of climbing. Race times go from a few minutes to hours…lots of hours. And that’s not even getting into how different the bikes are. The switch from downhill to gravel is way less common and a lot harder to wrap your head around…but let me introduce you to Kathy Pruitt.
In New Mexico, there’s this iconic bumper sticker that says “my other car is in the arroyo” and for some reason, it’s all I could think about while shooting Adam Sklar’s latest build for himself. Maybe it’s the cerakote color he chose for it, which kind of looks like rusty, raw steel. Or it could be that it was so windy when I shot this bike, that I had to seek refuge in an arroyo because the bike wouldn’t stay put on my prop stick.
At any rate, this bike has so many great details, in a very subtle, sleeper package. It’s not every day you see a completely painted titanium bike with a steel fork! Check out more below…
Drop bars have always had a special place in my heart. Don’t get me wrong, I love mountain bikes. That feeling of flying down swoopy singletrack and rowdy trails on a mountain bike is truly hard to beat. But there is one thing that can beat it… Flying down flowy singletrack and rowdy trails on a drop-bar bike. Now that can get exciting!
The 2021 Easton Overland team is rearin’ up and ready for the 2021 gravel calendar. Here’s their announcement video, check out the athletes below, along with the team’s race calendar.
Our friends at Giro have sponsored a new collective of athletes and brands that stand united in a common goal to introduce new audiences to cycling. Read the full press-release on this group below!
Intro by California Travis:
Every Monday at 11 am, the entire PAUL Component shop staff has an “All-Hands” meeting to catch up on any changes or shop news or projects. For the last few months, this has been in the backyard with masks and everybody yelling across the yard to each other. It’s weird but no weirder than our usual shop vibes. Last Monday, Paul announced that November 2nd is International Singlespeed Day. We all looked at him like “Huh? Says who?” Then he said it was him and his friend Amanda’s birthday that day, and it was Amanda’s idea, and why the hell not?
Having never created an International Holiday before, I wasn’t quite sure what to do, so I got on the phone with a bunch of framebuilders and friends and said “Hey. It’s Paul’s birthday on November 2nd, and he wants everybody to ride singlespeeds. You down?” And of course, everybody said yes, I mean what the hell else are you going to do right now? So how do you join us? It’s pretty simple really, go for a ride on your singlespeed, wherever you live, post a photo on Instagram and hashtag it #InternationalSinglespeedDay, and wish Paul and Amanda a happy birthday if you want. Don’t have a singlespeed bike? Zip tie your shifters, or take the battery off your derailleur, maybe? Get creative, there are no rules!
Post your singlespeed bikes up in the comments too.
We asked Paul what the big deal is and this is what he wrote… Read on below!
In what I hope will be the first of many monthly(ish) articles, of varying lengths, Nikolai and I visited (in)famous bicycle designer Mike Burrows, who has been a constant in terms of support, inspiration and taking me down a peg or two when I need it (always). Nikolai filmed our trip on my Sony A7iii as part of an ongoing project, so I decided it would be especially fitting for Mike to document our trip on celluloid with my Mamiya C330, and a little Olympus rangefinder on Kodak Portra 800 film.
Our friends at Crust Bikes, Rons Bikes, and Ultradynamico have officially sponsored Leo Rodgers to their Factory PRO Recreation TEAM for 2021. Check out the full press-release below!
Through the arid silence, you could hear the past rumble and scream.
The clangs and grunts and dust penetrated time, a ghost of the hurried chaos of carnotite extraction, the very earth from which we amassed the mineral components of uranium to drop the bombs on Japan. Makeshift stone huts, left behind by the miners, could be mistaken for thousand-year-old relics from the relentless winds, sun, and sandblasting of central Utah.
We’ve been working on some site improvements during the pandemic and have rolled out the first major update to the UX of the Radavist. While Disqus has a “related content” feature built-in, Grant worked on a more intelligent version, giving you six related articles. Now when we post about Black Cat’s new gravel bike, you can find our Shop Visit to their workshop below in the Related Articles. Same with our Grinduro post today. Wanna see some coverage from past events? Check out the Related Articles.
We’re still ticking off items on our list and when we implement design improvements, we’ll make an announcement here. Thank you for your patience! :-)
Now, I’m not a religious person, but I did grow up in a Christian church, so I am well aware of the characters, entities, and symbolism that exists in the Bible. Using the word “Antichrist” in the title of this review will ruffle some feathers, but hear me out. If we look at the phrase metaphorically, the Antichrist is opposition to the status quo, said to appear before the end of the world. Now, reading the reactions to this bike online, many would have you believe it is the harbinger of doom for the gravel world and ya know what? If that is the case, burn it down because the Chamois Hagar is exactly what the gravel world needs…
The idea for a WTF Bikexplorers Gravel Program sprouted in 2019 as I spun back into the gravel race scene. I saw the same deficit in diversity that bike-touring had (and still has) when five friends and I decided to organize the first WTF Bikexplorers Summit in 2018. Despite gravel racing as a rapidly growing sport within cycling, it is still very grassroots. It is not controlled by the UCI – yet – or any other sanctioning bodies and therefore it has the opportunity to mold and change to be the way we want it to be.
When I say Cervelo, chances are your mind doesn’t jump right to off-road bike like the Áspero and that’s why we wanted to review it…
We cover a lot of gravel races here at the Radavist and while most of them are in the Western United States, we’ll be returning to the Mid South this year for an in-depth look at Stillwater, District Bicycles, the new race, and a look at the racer’s bikes. As you can imagine, it’s a lot of work to cover races and it costs a lot of money out of our pocket to fly out, document, edit, and post these events. While as a whole, we’re less interested in roadie 2.0 races like the DK and more interested in races with a unique format, which is why we’ve covered Grinduro so much in the past. It’s a really fun environment to be working your ass off in.
So I wanted to ask, what races would you like seen covered here on the site? We’ve already got SSAZ, the Mid South, Grinduro, and a few others on the calendar, but I’m interested in hearing your thoughts. If you could, leave them in the comments, with a link to the race’s website, that would be helpful.
We want to spend our time covering the things you want to see, so these posts are VERY helpful!
xo
Wow! What a year it’s been. In the past twelve months, we’ve shot roughly 300 bikes. From gravel races, to NAHBS, the Philly Bike Expo and our normal travels, we really captured some unique builds and we’ve got a good handle on the bikes the readers of the Radavist enjoy checking out based on some key metrics.
Every year we try to do our best to sort through twelve months of archives to narrow down to this list. The first filter is the comment count, which we start at 50 comments. Then comes page views, with the minimum number being 20,000 views. Finally, we look at the social media chatter; including Instagram comments and how many times was the post shared across various platforms.
What we end up with is a list that is filled with a plethora of interesting, versatile, and quirky bikes. The only editorial decision I myself made was to omit reviews of stock bikes. So no Santa Cruz Stigmata or Cannondale Topstone this round!
Check out the full Top Ten Beautiful Bicycles of 2019 below, in no particular order…
You might get tired of us thanking you for your time, thoughts, support, and comments each and every year but get used to it! We had a great year and from all of us here at the Radavist, we wish you a Happy Holidays! You might have noticed that we didn’t pull together a “Top 10 Products” post because we don’t want to promote consumerism during this time of year.
We spend so much time scouring the internet for cycling products, reviewing products, and talking about products that we feel like for a few weeks, we should focus on our communities, our families, our friends, and those in need. If you’re able to, enjoy some time on your bike, and if you can’t ride over the holidays, check out our Rides category to inspire. Daniel’s got a great post up today that you should check out!
Most importantly, enjoy this time with your loved ones and we’ll see you periodically through the New Year, when we’ll post our Year-In-Review!
