The Radavist

Jimmy. Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy. How do you have such sick bikes?!

Since he began working at Golden Saddle Cyclery, Jimmy has come up on some pretty sweet bikes, in a kinda serendipitous manner. Take his latest bike for example. Our buddy Carlos has been spending the past few months setting up his shop, since leaving the head fabrication position at Stinner Frameworks. Carlos wanted to make frames for his own brand and after some time, he was ready to get some out and under his friends. Jimmy smelled the opportunity and jumped on it, selling his hardtail to fund a deposit to Carlos.

The result is the first complete Dark Moon Fabrication 27.5+ hardtail. Carlos has made a few mountain bike frames, but mostly to test out details, not to ride. After working out the geometry with Jimmy, he got to work on a bike with a 65º head angle, 150mm fork, and a 75º seat tube angle. After I saw the geo and signed off on it, Carlos got to work. The frame utilizes a symmetrical yoke plate at the bottom bracket cluster, a wishbone seat stay, and clearance for a 3″ tire with a 34t ring. Jimmy’s bike is official and boy did he go with all the right components on this bike, all chosen to accentuate the sparkle paint job on the bike.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Jimmy more stoked to ride a bike. In fact, he rode things he had previously deemed off-limits with such fervent energy and it shows in the riding photos. New bike day stoke is real!

If you’d like a Dark Moon Fab frameset, holler at Carlos on his Instagram. He builds road, track, all-road, touring, and mountain bike frames right here in Los Angeles. A bike like Jimmy’s sells for $1,650 for the frame and paint.

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

Each year at NAHBS, a selection of builders at the show lament on how we should actually ride bikes together more, not just talk about them once a year at the show. I get it. Sitting in a convention center, under that horrible lighting, discussing how a bike rides is worlds apart from actually riding out on the trails. This year, Adam Sklar took the initiative to plan a weekend and then some of fun times in Bozeman and sent out an open invite to numerous builders. His idea was to expose people to the culture here, the town’s local builders, eats, drinks, and shops, in an event playfully dubbed the “Builder’s Camp.” Squid, Breadwinner, Retrotec, Falconer, Horse, Alliance, and Strong, along with a few other locals, all prepared for 5 days of non-stop riding and relaxing in this beautiful mountain town.

Falconer Slacker 150mm Travel 29er Hardtail

The work of Cameron Falconer is for the shredders. The people who put function before fashion, or thrashin’ before fashion. Either way, Cam’s work is thoughtful, exact and to the point. Like a succinct text message, a Falconer gets to the point. The beauty about Cam’s personal bikes is they represent a moment in time, or a perspective on how Cam believes a hardtail steel mountain bike should ride, or rather, could ride. Granted, a lot of this experimentation might be a bit much for the average rider to consume. Take for instance a 150mm travel 29er hardtail. It’d take me some convincing to believe that platform was the right bike for me. Hell, that’s a LOT of bike to be delivered in a hardtail, yet it doesn’t hold Cam back at all.

With an effective top tube of 660mm, a 65º head angle, a bb drop of 70mm, chainstay length of 440mm, a seat tube angle of 72.5º, geometry aficionados might nod their heads in approval. These numbers just make sense. For tubing, Cam uses Vari Wall, Columbus, and a Paragon head tube. To top it off, Cam powder coated it to match his 4Runner in a Canfield blue.

This bike is stout, but secure in its shred-pedigree and watching Cam shred it in Bozeman brought me joy. I’ll be seeing this bike in Downieville this weekend, where it’ll be right at home there as it was in Montana.
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Follow Falconer on Instagram and follow along with the #BuildersCamp hashtag.

Each year at NAHBS, a selection of builders at the show lament on how we should actually ride bikes together more, not just talk about them once a year at the show. I get it. Sitting in a convention center, under that horrible lighting, discussing how a bike rides is worlds apart from actually riding out on the trails. This year, Adam Sklar took the initiative to plan a weekend and then some of fun times in Bozeman and sent out an open invite to numerous builders. His idea was to expose people to the culture here, the town’s local builders, eats, drinks, and shops, in an event playfully dubbed the “Builder’s Camp.” Squid, Breadwinner, Retrotec, Falconer, Horse, Alliance, and Strong, along with a few other locals, all prepared for 5 days of non-stop riding and relaxing in this beautiful mountain town.

Retrotec 25th-Anniversary Funduro XC 29er Hardtail

25 years in the frame building industry will teach you a lot. Not just about building bikes, either. Think about it. That’s 25 years of keeping up with industry change. From fads to standards, and technological advancements that are not a big deal for a large company, but for a dude in a garage in Napa, it can be a lot to keep on top of. Curtis Inglis from Retrotec is a perfectionist, a tinkerer, a lover of bicycles, autos, motos, scooters, and just about anything with two wheels. Curtis’ work is in my opinion, some of the most unique in the industry.

Curtis has two brands, Retrotec and Inglis Cycles. You’re probably most familiar with Retrotec, the ‘cruiser-inspired’ label, with swoopy tubes and a cruiser-inspired aesthetic. Inglis Cycles delivers a more straight up custom bike, with no curves. For his 25th anniversary, Curtis is doing something special with Retrotec.

The Retrotec man is one of my favorite logos and for his 25th, Curtis is building 25 frames, of which will be numbered on these unique head badges. For the Builder’s Camp, Curtis rode this new XC-oriented Retrotec 29er, rendered in grey primer and designed with a more cross country geometry. Technically, this model falls under the Funduro lineup – Retrotec’s trail hardtails – but he’s calling it a Funduro XC.

After Builder’s Camp, this bike went to Curtis’ close friend and Santa Rosa figure, Chris. Curtis and Chris are the same size, so they both swap bikes back and forth, discussing things like geometry, fit and parts kit, resulting in the best Retrotec Curtis can deliver to you, his customers.

If you’re in the market for a new hardtail, holler at Retrotec for one of his 25th-anniversary frames!

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Follow Retrotec on Instagram and follow along with the #BuildersCamp hashtag.

Each year at NAHBS, a selection of builders at the show lament on how we should actually ride bikes together more, not just talk about them once a year at the show. I get it. Sitting in a convention center, under that horrible lighting, discussing how a bike rides is worlds apart from actually riding out on the trails. This year, Adam Sklar took the initiative to plan a weekend and then some of fun times in Bozeman and sent out an open invite to numerous builders. His idea was to expose people to the culture here, the town’s local builders, eats, drinks, and shops, in an event playfully dubbed the “Builder’s Camp.” Squid, Breadwinner, Retrotec, Falconer, Horse, Alliance, and Strong, along with a few other locals, all prepared for 5 days of non-stop riding and relaxing in this beautiful mountain town.

Sklar Titanium XC 29er Hardtail

Before the swoops and curves he’s known for, Adam Sklar began his cycling experience riding XC mountain bikes outside of Denver, Colorado where he was born. That was a while ago – at least when you consider Adam is 25 years old – and since then, he’s moved onto making equally capable as beautiful, curvy mountain and all-road bikes. At some point in the last year, Adam decided he wanted to make an XC frame to ride. As humans often do, we tend to revisit our past experiences.

With a tighter wheelbase, a slightly steeper head angle of 69º, and a 120mm fork, the bike might look like some of Adam’s other trail bikes, but the handling of this bike is significantly different. With the Builder’s Camp approaching, Adam took a few days to whip up this frame, in the middle of organizing the whole event. While there’s no set pricing for a Sklar, his frames start at $3,950 for titanium and $2,650 for steel.

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Follow Sklar Bikes on Instagram and follow along with the #BuildersCamp hashtag.

Each year at NAHBS, a selection of builders at the show lament on how we should actually ride bikes together more, not just talk about them once a year at the show. I get it. Sitting in a convention center, under that horrible lighting, discussing how a bike rides is worlds apart from actually riding out on the trails. This year, Adam Sklar took the initiative to plan a weekend and then some of fun times in Bozeman and sent out an open invite to numerous builders. His idea was to expose people to the culture here, the town’s local builders, eats, drinks, and shops, in an event playfully dubbed the “Builder’s Camp.” Squid, Breadwinner, Retrotec, Falconer, Horse, Alliance, and Strong, along with a few other locals, all prepared for 5 days of non-stop riding and relaxing in this beautiful mountain town.

Horse Cycles Hell Cat Hardtails

I’ve always loved the aesthetic of what Thomas Callahan at Horse Cycles produces in his Brooklyn-based workshop. Over the past few years, he and his team have pulled together some beautiful frames. For the Builder’s Camp, Thomas and his friend Nik came out to Bozeman with these two Hell Cat hardtails. These bikes are 27.5+ “East Coast Rippers.” With a 66.5º head angle, designed for 130-150mm forks, and room for 3” tires. Each there are options for the seatstays, downtube, and paint colors. For the stays, a wishbone with scalloped ends is an option. No matter what the tubing selection or details you end up choosing, the work of Ben Falcon Paint will give your bike a unique look with empeccable detailing.

The Hell Cat hardtails start at $2,100 for a frame, plus a fork of your choosing. Head to Horse for more details.

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Follow Horse Brand on Instagram and follow along with the #BuildersCamp hashtag.

One of the challenges of writing about and riding bicycles is finding your flow. Sometimes both just seem to propel themselves, and other times you hit a dead end. Luckily, my time on the Kingdom Vendetta X2 was not the latter. Rather, upon the first shakedown ride, I knew I was going to love riding this bike because of one reason: specialization.

Now, hardtails, while simple in their form, come designed for many specific uses. Within this realm of mountain bikes there is an endless combination of design and geometric tweaks, resulting in a bike that can either be tuned for a broad spectrum of riding, or a very specific niche. All this goes without saying, but you can design a hardtail that will climb exceedingly well and descend like a three-wheeled skateboard. Or descend like a banshee and climb like a one-legged pig. While most of these experiential data is subjective, a few key features are just straight up objective.

Currently, the cycling industry is at an all-time low, as in, the bikes are longer and lower – which is a good thing, but there’s a tipping point. A bike that rides well going up as well as going down, is going to have to strike a balance to reign supreme on the mountain. Luckily, that’s where the Vendetta rules in the Kingdom of mountain bikes.

For brands like Breadwinner, nothing is ever 100% finalized in terms of bike geometry and design. Particularly when it comes to Tony Pereira’s pursuit of the perfect hardtail. With already three hardtails – the Goodwater, Bad Otis, and JB Racer – in their catalog, Tony is always looking towards the future of hardtail design, oftentimes experimenting with tubing, geometry and other details to set Breadwinner’s bikes apart from others in the market.

Last month, we took to Bend, Oregon for the Chris King Swarm event, and Tony was riding this new Breadwinner Prototype. Built with Veriwall stays, a vintage Zona downtube – hence the bend at the head tube junction; modern mtb forks don’t hit the downtube like vintage ones used to – PAUL Klampers, PAUL Boxcar stem, and SRAM Eagle GX. Tony has always been a Shimano guy, but was interesting in trying out a lot of new parts, as well as some geo tweaks on this 150mm travel hardtail mountain bike. Then, to top it off, the chassis is rolling on Sugar Wheel Works wheels!

Breadwinner, like all small brands, wants to avoid stagnant bikes and one way of keeping the waters moving is experimentation. From the looks of this prototype, they’re moving in the right direction.

Keep an eye on Breadwinner for more updates! Got any comments or critiques? Let’s hear them!

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Follow Breadwinner Cycles on Instagram.

With the rebirth of the Fat Chance brand, the success of the Yo Eddy’s Kickstarter reviving the brand, the team has worked on modernizing the vintage catalog. With the Yo Eddy 2.2, Chris and his team updated the hardtail model with clearances for plus tires, a new dropout design, and boost spacing. But what about people who want a rowdier stance in a bike? Well, for them, Chris and his team designed what they’re calling the Wicked Fat Chance Enduro, a bike that sports an aggressive geometry, designed to go downhill. This prototype sports a longer top tube, a 65º head angle, a boost rear spacing, internal dropper routing, and an even lower top tube, thanks to the braced seat tube cluster. The team at Fat Chance said this bike was designed for a 27.5″ tire, yet another version is on the way that will fit the popular 27.5+/29″ platform.

Head to Fat Chance now to place a pre-order for this frame, which is priced at $1,799 in the Yo Eddy colorways.

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Follow Fat Chance on Instagram.

While in Stillwater, Oklahoma, I got the grand tour of a few of District Bicycles employees’ personal bikes. Included in this mix was Bobby’s own custom Moots Farwell 29’r. Custom in the sense that Bobby didn’t like the swoopy tubes. Luckily, he convinced the crew there to make the straightest Farwell to leave the Steamboat facility. He also didn’t want raw or bead blasted titanium.

For that, he pinged Rudy at Black Magic Paint to coat the frame with an Oklahoma Red Dirt-themed wet coat. Topping the build off with XTR Di2 and a build kit tuned for Oklahoma singletrack, this MTB actually looks damn good clean. Usually, I prefer them good’n’dirty!

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Follow LandRun 100 on Instagram, District Bicycles on Instagram, Moots on Instagram, and Bobby on Instagram.

Nick Was High in LA on His Purple Haze 160mm Sklar Hardtail
Photos by Kyle Kelley, words by Nicholas Haig-Arack

I first met Adam Sklar a few years ago while riding bikes with a bunch of frame builder friends in Santa Cruz. I was impressed by the character of Sklar’s bikes – those flattened swoops are pretty sweet, can’t deny it – but it was Adam’s personality and lighthearted approach to riding that made me really appreciate his brand. Our paths crossed again in Moab for the most fun week ever and I was convinced that I wanted a bike from Adam. Fast-forward a few months and imagine my stoke when he asked me to do drawings for Sklar Bikes! Since then we’ve been cultivating a cross-country creative partnership, one that emphasizes creativity, exploration, and good times.

Sometimes, the simplest bikes at NAHBS are the ones that grab my attention. It doesn’t have to be shiny or flashy to motivate me to document it. In fact, I often like seeing bikes at NAHBS that don’t look like overly precious, especially when it comes to mountain bikes. This year, Indy Fab brought a handful of completes and various frames, but this hardtail really did it for me. Chris, the painter, had fun applying this fade paint job, a throwback to IF’s first bike ever. These paint jobs lived on for a while, even through the serial numbers in the 200s. For example, this “Test Bike” on the MTBR forums, built with XTR. Now, with this bike and its updated, modern components the legacy that is IF lives on.

I say this a lot at NAHBS, but when I saw this big and beautiful Northern Frameworks single speed MTB in their booth, I exclaimed “HOT DAMN!” This bike is for a tall rider and I love seeing how builders balance the proportions of large bikes with modern MTB geometry. The client spec’d all brown anodized PAUL and White Industries, to complement the rich, copper paint.

Chameleons don’t actually change color to “blend” into their surroundings. Contrarily, their colors are used to mark territory, attract mates and display moods, often resulting in these unique lizards “standing out” more than blending in. The Santa Cruz Bicycles Chameleon adheres to this logic, standing out from many of the other production hardtails on the market but before we get ahead of ourselves here, and lizard anecdotes aside, when I first saw the newly-designed Chameleon last year it checked a lot of boxes and left me with a few questions.

Sure, Santa Cruz is saying the chameleon is a master of adaptation, which metaphorically makes a lot of sense. This bike can really do a lot, but isn’t that the nature of hardtails in general? For me, my thoughts on the Chameleon stem from its legacy, its updated design and most importantly, to a lot of people, the cost.

We’ve still got our year-in-review post coming up, but for now, let’s take a break and check out Matt’s Advocate Cycles Hayduke Titan 27.5+ hardtail.

Before we jump into this build let’s look at Advocate Cycles. As their name implies, “Advocate Cycles is a bike company that exists solely to create innovative bicycles and delivers 100% of profits from the company back to cycling advocacy efforts.” That means, as per the IRS’ laws, they’re allowed to donate 50% of their profits to non-profit organizations each year. They then take that remaining 50%, pay required taxes on that amount, and use the remaining money to run their own advocacy programs during the following calendar year. All-in-all, the result is a bike company that’s the main goal is to help organizations like People for Bikes.

Matt was looking for a new hardtail. One that would offer ample tire clearance, a snappy rear end, and a rowdy fork. On top of riding, Matt uses this bike for bikepacking as well. He’s a trail builder with the Mount Wilson Bicycling Association, so carrying a trailer was a must too. However, first and foremost, Matt wanted a bike that would eat up our chunky, rocky and sandy trails with no hesitation.For portage, he pinged Yanco Customs, our local bag maker to outfit his rig with Multicam and Cordura bags, designed to fit Matt’s specific needs. The resulting product is impressive and in the future, I’ll get some shots of it loaded down with camping supplies and toting the trail working tools used by MWBA.

If you’d like your own Advocate, head to their site and check out their frameset and complete bike offerings.

2017 Philly Bike Expo: Engin Cycles Ti Mountain Hardtail
Photos by Jarrod Bunk, words by John Watson

Drew from Engin is a framebuilding prodigy, a master of the chainstay yoke and arguably, the maker of the finest mountain bikes in the USA, perhaps the world. His advances in mountain bike design have spiked the well of the industry, pushing the envelope of geometry and detailing. All of this is ATMO, of course, but having been a longtime dan of Drew’s work, it’s amazing to see how flawlessly he’s adapted to the changing and sometimes harsh ecosystem of the cycling industry.

Drew designs, prototypes and machines his own yokes and dropouts from titanium. He then welds them together for a beautiful frame with a unique bottom bracket cluster that allows for the use of a standard q-factor crank. It’s easy to overlook these details, even on such a simple frame, yet as we’ve all heard before “God is in the details…”

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Follow Jarrod on Instagram, and Engin Cycles on Instagram