The Radavist

Titanium makes for a great off-road material. The tubing diameters are oftentimes larger than steel resulting in a ride quality that’s unprecedented. For Santa Barbara’s Stinner Frameworks, titanium was the next logical material to learn how to tig weld. Their shop now offers titanium road, touring, road and mountain bikes, with Matt’s being one of the recent beasts to be born.

Keeping the Tunnel 29’r frame raw, it’s offset by the razzle-painted Rock Shox Pike fork, Jones wheels, SRAM 1x drivetrain, internally-routed Reverb dropper and a Thomson cockpit.

Matt grew up riding MTBs in Topanga and Calabasas as a kid but hadn’t touched one in over 14 years. This bike will be the catalyst to get him back on the trails in Santa Barbara and hopefully he’ll be shredding with us when he comes home to Los Angeles over the holidays.

For those of you unfamiliar with Matt’s work, he’s the photographer for Stinner Frameworks and goes by the handle @HazardousTaste on Instagram. I highly suggest you give him a follow!

As a Radavist, I swear to shred and recently that word’s been used a lot in terms of bike reviews. Shredding doesn’t imply you’re the fastest, or the best at hucking, it’s subjective, dependent upon your skill level and the trails you ride. Here in Southern California, the landscape is arid, exposed, rocky, rutted and loose. Having a nice and nimble bicycle underneath you aids in that ever-elusive atavistic urge to play.

Hardtails are my favorite form of mountain bike. Sure, there’s a time and a place for a full sus, when the trails are steep and technical, just like there’s a time and a place for a rigid, when you want to hone in your skills like a sharpened battle axe. Having just gotten my Rosko 29r dialed into what I would consider perfection, I was a bit hesitant to take on anymore hardtail reviews.

Then Kris from 44 Bikes up in New Hampshire came knocking at my inbox with a proposal. He’d build me a Marauder 29r to demo, Fox, SRAM, Thomson, WTB, RaceFace, Industry Nine, ENVE would supply the goods and I’d get to try it out for an extended review. Nice! What’s the catch? Well, when you review a bike and you like it so much, you might just end up wanting to buy it. Dowhhh…

Dermy’s got it down. He wanted a mountain bike to cruise around the neighborhood on and hit hobo trails throughout this urban sprawl we call LA. The bike itself is fairly “stock” with new bars and a modern Thomson stem added to keep it nice and wide up front. Other than that, Shimano Deore and a set of decent wheels keep this thing rolling. There’s not much that can be done about the clapped out fork but hey, what can ya do?

See ya on the hobo trail, homie!

I’m here in Portland, Oregon attending the Bike and Beer festival at HopWorks Urban Brewery. While I’ll be documenting many of the frames, I’ll also be capturing the general vibes. For now, let’s just check out some bikes!

During the Bike and Beer Festival, I was looking for a fun, steel hardtail in either 29″ or 27.5″ to photograph. Then I came across the Magic Cycle Werks Cadeyrn. The Cadeyrn looks like it’d be a great XC bike, without being too steep on the front, making it squirrely on technical descents. A 27.5 wheel, 120mm travel, fillet brazed, steel hardtail with a 70º head tube angle, a 73º seat tube angle and glistening powdercoat, executed by Spectrum Powder Works. Built from OX Platinum tubing and running around $2,600 for a frame, these production bikes will be open for pre-order soon….

Contact Magic for more info.

Slack and low, with bigger tire clearances this time. That’s the main difference between this bike and its predecessor. As noted in the previous bike’s gallery, the first version of this bike wasn’t what I wanted. Luckily, Seth Rosko is a good friend of mine and a very capable frame builder. He’s also human and humans make mistakes. What makes a human a great human and a great framebuilder is their ability to rectify those mistakes.

We had a miscommunication, and there was a fabrication error that resulted in a frame with clearance for 2.0 29’r tire in the rear. It’s something that happens from time to time. Framebuilders make mistakes. Chainring clearances, missing or incorrect cable stops, off-square rear triangles. You’re getting a functional piece of art and art has character. Right? Maybe not so much. It needs to function, above all.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s move onto what I’m calling my “Agave Slapper” hardtail. This version clears a 2.4 Ardent on the rear, has a 69º head tube angle, a mid-range BB drop and an option for a 2x or 3x front ring. It’s easy to get it low through corners and in Texas, that means the occasional run in with the blue agave plant, where its color was inspired.

For the 2015 Sea Otter Classic this year, Mavic wanted to showcase a few influential designers as a platform to display their newly-branded and redesigned Crossmax SL Pro wheels. They contacted Sean Talkington of Team Dream Team who led them to Aaron Stinner of Stinner Frameworks and Jordan Low Custom Paint.

For Sean, he wanted a do-it-all 29’r hardtail, setup for minimal bike packing and everyday trail riding. For Chad, his 27.5″ hardtail is a straight-forward XC race machine. Once Aaron Stinner knew the silhouette, Sean began designing the frames. The resulting designs were inspired by 90’s era fluoro paint jobs, using Mavic’s signature yellow color as a starting point.

These two bikes were unveiled tonight at a Mavic event in Monterey, California on the first day of Sea Otter. Swing by their booth at #559 to see these beauts in person.

Long travel, hardtail 27.5 hardtails are by no means new to the world of mountain biking, or NAHBS for that matter. With brands like Chromag, Engin and Breadwinner swearing by this platform, it’s easy to see how their popularity is increasing.

Matter Cycles is a Colorado builder who makes tig welded bikes to get rad on. Collin builds bikes using mostly True Temper tubing, with a few bits of Columbus in the mix. The SlayRide is a 140mm to 150mm travel 27.5 hardtail with internal routing for a dropper, thru-axles and can be built for custom-sizing. I love the yoke, personally.

Head over to Matter Cycles to see their other offerings, if this bike is too rowdy for your taste…

For Alchemy Bicycles developing a new frame takes time. With a busy production schedule, an in-house paint department and juggling the day to day operations, there isn’t much time for R&D. So you can imagine how long this bike has been in the works. As their first carbon MTB frame, the Oros translates to mountain in Greek. Naming it was easy, developing it was not. The Denver based brand had to completely rethink construction.

Because Alchemy is using a unique tube-to-tube technique, they’re able to visualize the frame as a whole, while engineering and developing each section of the frame individually. The stays are shaped and continue to flow with the top tube, ending in a beefy head tube. While I can’t go into to much detail about their technology, I am eager to take it for a spin. Moves like this aren’t easy for small frame builders, but it’s evident this bike has a promising future ahead of it.

Fit with Shimano’s Di2 XTR, Fox suspension, ENVE carbon and Maxxis tires, this bike is a trail ready machine. While I don’t have a scale, the Oros feels well balanced and yeah, pretty damn light. The geometry is still in the prototyping phase, so we’ll omit those details. Once the Oros is ready for production, I’ll post updates. For now, see it in person at NAHBS, booth 501.

He’s back. Eddy’s back. Well, Fat Chance is back and the by-product of a successful Kickstarter launch, Yo Eddy! has returned as well. The spirit and soul of Fat Chance has been resurrected and the modern rendition will leave you all antsy.

A lot has changed since Chris Chance shut down his company. Full suspension, dropper posts, disc brakes, hell, steel has been forgotten by the industry – for the most part. When beginning to understand what the market wanted, Chris kept the modus operandi the same as it’s always been: build bikes that are fun to ride and still highly shreddable.

That’s where we’re at with the Yo Eddy!

Dropper post, 44mm head tube, tight rear end and ample tire clearances. This model in particular is 1x thanks to SRAM and is stiff at the feet with WTB’s first ever carbon, tubeless rim. I’m in heaven! Fluoro, trail illuminating heaven. I don’t know about you, but I’m stoked to see this brand making a comeback.

A few notes: this bike is the first sample. The 433mm chainstays are the same as the 27.5 bike. For production, they will be lengthened. Also, Fat Chance is waiting on custom drawn stays for production, so they’ll change a bit as well.

Hopefully you guys got on that pre-order… I’m kicking myself!

Sometimes, it’s the unexpected that delivers the most fun. Wheel size, when it comes to mountain biking, is a polarizing topic. People will swear allegiance to the 29r platform, without a blink of an eye and admittedly, I’m one that errs on that side. Being tall with long legs, I’ve kind of sworn off 27.5 hardtails.

They’ve either felt too squirrely for me to coerce or not big enough to roll out of hairbrained situations I often find myself in. If my riding ability were to be described in a word, it certainly wouldn’t be “finesse.” I need something that offers a larger diameter to correct little nuances in my riding habits. 29rs seem to deliver that.

Like a bucking bronco, those small wheels ain’t for this limestone cowboy. Or so I thought.

As previously stated in the Highball 29r post, Santa Cruz put a lot of work into developing their new 27.5 wheelsize option. While the general look and feel of the 27.5 version is almost identical to the 29r, all it takes is a few moments on this bike, particularly while descending, to tell that it is indeed, a different beast from its larger-wheeled sibling.

Ok, maybe it’s not all that different, but there are a noticeable points.

For one, the headset. While it’s a small detail, the bottom cup is a standard, press-in on the 29r and integrated on the 27.5. Because of the smaller wheel size, the chainstays could be shortened, thus the wheelbase loses some length, as well as steepening the seat tube angle to a 72.5º. But what I noticed, almost immediately, was the slacker head tube angle.

It seems like 69º is the magic number for hardtails (I should add that the Chameleon is also a very fun bike with a 67.3º head tube). It takes them from the category of XC race-specificity and dangles them over the all-rounder, “stunt” zone.

A 69º head tube angle is just right: not too slack to drop it into the AM range, or to make climbing a battle fought with a wandering wheel, nope. It’s just slack enough to make descents a complete blast. Even with the lower stack height (604mm versus 633mm on the 29r) frame, I never felt like I was going to fly off the bike descending. For reference, I rode the XL model.

Whereas I felt a lot of apprehension to fall in love with the Highball 29r, the 27.5 was love at first flight… It just whipped around so well.

The Highball 27.5 has all the technical advancements as the 29r, it’s just in a different realm in terms of handling on descents but we’ve already discussed that. Let’s look at the frame.

With the new layup, the lines are cleaner than ever and without the external routing, you can really focus in on the body language this bike is throwing around. Even sitting still, posing for a photo, it appears to have a meaner stance than its sibling.

Granted, having ridden the rather stealth-like black and red bike with XX1, this blue frame with XTR looks a bit flashy. Although, with a price. Take note: with the ENVE wheel upgrade, suddenly you’re in the $8,799 water… Thankfully, the XT package without ENVE is only $4,299 with the CC-grade carbon.

Another great detail on the Santa Cruz Highball is the new disc caliper design and placement. This new position eliminates the need for a chainstay / seatstay bridge. Although it does make it a slight pain in the ass to adjust on the trail with a compact tool.

Now onto what seems to be the deal breaker for a lot of people, just based on internet chatter and commentary over the 29r. The 27.2 seat post. Since there are so few options for a 27.2 dropper and no cable guides or internal routing for a stealth post, you’re pretty much stuck with a Thomson dropper post and some zip ties, which is what almost everyone did on the media launch.

Personally, I can ride a 100mm hardtail just fine without a dropper, although it does add a certain amount of versatility to the bike, especially if you throw a 120mm fork on the front end.

Before to write off Santa Cruz’s decision to go with a 27.2, attempt to understand their rationale. Ever ride a standard 30.9 post for hours on end during a marathon on a hard tail? Yea, it ain’t comfy. The 27.2 diameter does allow the seat tube to be elegantly reduced, resulting in a lot more compliance, which is a good thing for your butt.

That’s really the only initial concern I felt the need to address.

With a rowdy, confident stance like that, the new and improved Santa Cruz Highball CC 27.5 drew me right in. After an afternoon descending singletrack, I was sold. Maybe XC-oriented 27.5 hardtails aren’t that bad afterall? Or maybe the Highball is just that good.

Photo by Sven Martin

If I were to chose between the two, based on ride quality alone, I’d lean more towards the 27.5, without discrediting the 29r’s confidence-aspiring ride characteristics. The stability and shredability of the 27.5 platform translates so well to the Highball and all I needed was one, 10-mile descent to change my opinion.

The Santa Cruz Highball CC XX1 starts at $6,299 ($500 cheaper than the previous model)
The Santa Cruz Highball CC XTR starts at $6,799
The Santa Cruz Highball CC XT starts at $4,299
The Santa Cruz Highball C S starts at $3,199
The Santa Cruz Highball C R starts at $2,799

The Santa Cruz Highball CC frameset is available in black or blue for $1,899.

One thing to note is the 27.5 Highball has a size small, while the 29r does not. In return, the 29r has an XXL, while the 27.5 does not.

…and for or those seeking a weight comparison…

Highball 27.5
CC carbon size M matte black w/XX1 kit: 19.61lbs / 8.89 kg
CC carbon size M matte black frame only: 2.58 lbs / 1172 g

Specs and other information can be found at Santa Cruz. You can also compare my notes to the 29r version at Shredding the All New Santa Cruz Highball CC 29r MTB.