The Radavist

Sklar Doggy has made some damn beautiful bicycles over the few years he’s been building in Bozeman, Montana. Yet, in recent months, he’s been jonesin’ to work with a new material. Steel is indeed, real, but Adam really wanted to work with titanium. A lot of builders have been making this transition as of late. In short, it offers their clients with a superior frame material and perhaps another draw is more profit for the builders. Or at least that’s what people think is the motivation.

After talking and shredding with Adam in the Angeles National Forest, where he got #ANFAF, Adam wax poetic’d all afternoon about how difficult titanium is to work with, stating it took him almost four times as long per frame. Right now, he’s got two frames under his belt, one for himself, and one for Colin, which is replacing Colin’s steel hardtail – consequently, he’s selling that frameset now. I was surprised to hear titanium was that much more difficult to work with, because I always assumed that the draw of the material was profit margins. Turns out, the experience of working with the material takes time and yeah, time is money…

For Adam, once he made a frame, he needed parts. Unfortunately, that meant scavenging parts from his NAHBS bike this year. You might notice the tight squeeze on the fork – all he had was a 27.5+ fork, not a 29+ fork. Run what you brung, indeed! For what it’s worth, these frames are designed to run a 27.5+ tire, or a 29 x 2.6″ – so it’s not exactly a “+” 29er.

While he’s already taken a few more orders on titanium frames, Adam is eager to master this material, resulting in a faster process and ultimately, making the best frame he can. I can’t wait to see where this new material takes Sklar Bikes and hopefully, I’ll get to ride one at some point. Thanks for hangin’, Adam! If you’d like a ti Sklar, holler at Adam!

2017 Philly Bike Expo: 44 Bikes Titanium Marauder SSMTB
Photos by Jarrod Bunk, words by John Watson

We saw earlier this week the announcement of 44 Bikes offering titanium as a new frame material for their catalog. This extends to their Marauder hardtail mountain bike frames. The Marauder can come in various configurations, including superboosted, plus, slack and rowdy builds such as this. To up the ante even more, Kris from 44 Bikes added some anodized bits from Wolf Tooth Components give the build some pop. Titanium is a great material for a mountain bike frame and this bike is sure to make its new owner very happy.

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Follow Jarrod on Instagram, and 44 Bikes on Instagram

Approaching one of Oakland’s industrial area warehouses I am stoked to take note of the impressive lineup of old Toyota pickups and a VW bus. Smith meets me at the gate and I am unsurprised that he is another very tall frame-builder. I have a sneaking suspicion many tall riders got sick of finding frames that fit them so they just started making their own. Anywho, Smith gives me a tour of the large building that is split into smaller studios for painting, ceramics, and glass work. The main area has many kilns and people working various glass projects. The yard is filled with pups lounging and a family gutting some old camping trailers to make them home.

Smith’s shop, RatKing, is quite humble, just enough room for a few tables to weld on, some shelving, and a mill. He keeps detailed notes of time spent on each frame to track his efficiency and still has many hand-drawn frame layouts up on the walls. Smith started pulling out some of his first frames and laying them next to a current batch of thru axel touring machines. If one thing sticks out on most of his frames it seems to be an affinity for very large head tubes, in diameter and length. Those massive 44mm head tubes lead to some really amazing custom fork work as well. The progression appears to have been quick from the first-built-but-never-ridden track frame to his current small lineup of custom frames. My first trip to his shop I caught a few frames in progress and pre-paint and was stoked to return a few weeks later to see the finished product.

There’s nothing like a California sunset, especially over the San Gabriel Mountains here in Los Angeles. Those faded evenings usually come after an all-time MTB ride and for Nathan, he was craving some trail time. Sure, he’d ridden a lot of the singletrack in our great city on a bike before: his Rock Lobster all-road, but he wanted to finally rip them up – and himself – on a proper MTB. He went to the team at GSC and began talking to them about a Ritchey Timberwolf build. One unlike any the shop had put together before. GSC contacted Ritchey and requested one of their special Heritage paint jobs, then Mike, a mechanic at GSC talked to Nathan about a build kit. A Fox 36 fork would take the hits, while a Shimano drivetrain would offer smooth, worry-free shifting and braking. Wheels, featuring White Industries and durable rubber from Onza paved the way for one slick build. Being Nathan’s first mountain bike, it’s had a number of crashes already, but with each ride, he gets more and more accustomed to speed and cornering on loose and sandy trails.

The Timberwolf is a very popular hardtail option, I reviewed one and loved it. I know a number of you have these bikes, so share them in the comments.

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If you want a custom build like this and live in Los Angeles, hit up Golden Saddle Cyclery.

11am. We had to be in Downieville by 11am for a special ride. A VIP ride if you will. Paul Components bought a morning shuttle to do the classic Downieville Downhill shuttle. There were 12 spots and Kyle and I had to boogie ASAP from Northstar. Luckily, long nights and early mornings were the norm on this trip, so we loaded up the ‘Cruiser and headed to Downieville.

Springtime Siestas on the Black Canyon Trail
Photos and words by Locke Hassett

A month or so ago, a friend and I decided to use a long weekend to explore the treasure that is the Black Canyon Trail (BCT). This flowing ribbon of almost all singletrack brings riders through distinct desert ecosystems bordering the eastern edge of the Bradshaw mountains between Mayer and just north of Phoenix. Being able to flow through prickly pear and ocotillo into the Sonoran desert, packed with Saguaros is an amazing experience, and to be able to do it over fantastic quality singletrack is icing on the spiny cake. We rode this trail in March, but it was still incredibly hot (90+ degrees at noon) especially for my Montana bones. We had the fortune of having plenty of water, while still having safe river crossings. To avoid the heat, we took siestas in shade near water sources and made trailside margaritas.

A love for the desert brought Anton Gorbunov, the owner and builder of Astrakhan, Russia-based Toresvelo to the geologic playland known as Mangistay. While there, he found inspiration for the branding and the modus operandi for his brand. Toresvelo makes machines capable for all forms of riding. Whether it’s a rowdy hardtail or a precision road you’re after, Anton can craft whatever your heart desires. In this case, a Gates-equipped rigid SS MTB, fit for riding in Mangistay, or the USA. My personal favorite detail is the head badge and Toresvelo’s new, ruin-inspired branding.

I can’t find it now, but Anton showed me a photo of a rider blasting down one of the alluvial fans in the desert, along with a big-horned sheep skull. While there is a bit of a language barrier, I could tell he was one Rad Atavist! Follow Toresvelo on Instagram.

Some of the finest bourbons in the world are unobtainable, so it would make sense that Chris King‘s newest limited edition color was so small batch that only a select few builders were able to put it on their bikes at this year’s NAHBS. This was not their intention, however. It seems the brown anodizing was nearly impossible to get consistent, so making headsets, hubs and other bits to match wasn’t gonna happen. Big frowny face. There are two other colors which King has launched at NAHBS this year, which I’ll get to in a bit. Up first is this fire red Cielo dirt drop MTB. Now, this is their standard frame, which can be run as a rigid or a hardtail, with dirt drops, set up for touring with bikepacking bags. These frames no longer use slider dropouts and switched to front and rear thru-axles.

I dunno about you, but I wish that bourbon brown would happen because it’s so damn smooth!

It doesn’t matter where you go in the American West, you’ll always hear the sayings “if you don’t like the weather, wait ten minutes” and “you’ll have four seasons in one ride here!” In Moab that definitely holds true this time of year.

NAHBS is around the corner and a few weeks ago, a text thread circulated from a handful of builders asking if we’d be interested in riding mountain bikes in Moab before the three days of tradeshow engulfed our lives. Of course, I was into that idea, as it never takes too much convincing to ride awesome trails. Rough plans were made and on Sunday morning, we began our journey out to Moab.

After battling 65mph winds on the highway, we were a bit tired from the drive and the following morning, we needed to gather some local reconnaissance on the local trail conditions. I rode Captain Ahab three years ago with SRAM and really wanted to ride it again, but this time on a hardtail. Porcupine was also on our agenda, although a trip to Poison Spider made us change our agenda. The snow and rain had caused a bit of mud to form on that iconic trail, making it off-limits. Coming to Moab and not being able to ride Porcupine is a bummer, but there are plenty of dry trails to ride.

Ahab is named after the rock formation in the background, which looks like a whale.

We grabbed breakfast, kitted up, found a parking spot and took off to ride. Ahab is a blast and the climb up HyMasa is plenty scenic. As per the introduction to this story, we encountered 30mph gusts, snow, hail, sleet and baking hot sunshine, all within the 9-mile loop.

With a good amount of time to kill and our adjacency to some amazing geologic formations, we ended the day soaking in the sunset driving through Arches National Park…

Coming up with names for all these bikes can be daunting at times. I try to ask myself a few questions, ranging from, “what was the owner’s motivation for commissioning the bike?” “is there already a nomenclature established?” and most importantly, “what are people in the comments going to say?” In a few cases, the names are the by-product of a joint “safety meeting” or a string of texts like with Benedict’s 2020 S-Works Fuse Ultra Baja Buggie. Over the past few months, there have been a lot of 27.5+ hardtails, moonlighting as bikepacking rigs on the site and simply labeling David’s Curtlo as another isn’t 100% honest.

You see, it isn’t just a 27.5+ hardtail. David contacted Curtlo while he was living in Seattle to build a bikepacking mountain bike. He wanted extra braze-ons, clearance for 3″ tires and a geometry that can accommodate an extra 30lbs of gear on his bike. It wasn’t until getting down to brass tactics that Curtlo engineered the frame to take a beating while loaded, and keep on ticking. Kinda like how you can be really drunk and fall, only to get up the next morning unscathed.

Curtlo added gussets, used resilient tubing and ensured the geometry would be perfect for David, who as you might have guessed, isn’t the tallest human being. There’s even a hidden internal dropper post sheath in the bottom bracket. Packing all this into a frame, while still having the ability to fit water bottles for normal shred sessions was important for David. Making the bike work for its intended usage and more was mandatory for Curtlo, who used this opportunity to design his first 27.5+ bike.

David’s componentry choices with Hadley Hubs and a NSB chainring were a breath of fresh air with all the King and Wolf Tooth I photograph and the bike’s color and stance showed that Curtlo makes rockin’ mountain bikes.

The prefrontal cortex is relatively well-developed in my brain, meaning self-control and personal safety awareness is high. Honed even. Other riders out there might have a more underdeveloped PFC, meaning they’re willing to huck themselves down massive step-downs and over canyons without more than a few moments of hesitation. In the world of mountain biking, I’d rank myself and my friends as capable riders. Obviously, many of the riders I photograph have skill levels that are a few notches higher than mine. Some of them grew up riding BMX or motocross and a mountain bike just feels natural up in the air, oftentimes one wheel or two at a time. Photographing these rad atavists is just one of the reasons why I love my job, yet all it takes is a change of scenery to feel like you’re in over your head. This sea change was found once we left the common trails in Hurricane, Utah for a neighboring outpost called Virgin. Home to RedBull Rampage and other free-riding spots, Virgin is in many ways, the home base for the sport.