The Radavist

Today we’re elated to present to you a most unique bicycle; Otis Guy’s 1978 Breezer Series I, in all its period-correct glory. This one is a very special installment of our Vintage Bicycles series, so let’s get to it!

Todd, from Black Cat Bicycles, has long been a favorite framebuilder of mine. A while back I did an Inside/Out Shop Visit with him in his home shop out of Aptos, California, and showcased a few of his bikes. I’ve also reviewed one of his Thunder Monkey hardtails. Something about his fillet-brazed and hand-carved lugged creations always resonated with me, even though I am usually attracted to tig-welded, more utilitarian “off-road” bikes. Truth be told: I’ve long wanted a Black Cat but wasn’t sure what to ask Todd to build for me.

Then it happened. As I was catching up with him at the 2022 Chris King Guest House event, I couldn’t stop drooling over the Swami 29er he had on display, so much so that I put a deposit down for one shortly after. So why buy a rigid mountain bike? I actually love riding rigid bikes on the same trails I ride my hardtails and full suspension bikes on. While I don’t take the same lines on my rigid bikes, I’m still relatively fast, or plenty fast enough, when descending a bike sans suspension.

For me, it’s all about being connected and honing skills. At this point, both reasons are tropes in bike reviews like this, right? Yet there’s something addicting to riding rigid bikes, and the Swami 29er has proven to be an incredible ally on our trails here in the Southern Rockies. Let’s check it out in detail below.

Will Bender is a bicycle frame builder based in Fort Collins, CO. His custom frames run the gamut from all-road to gravel, touring, and modern hardtails. Last summer, Josh paid Will a visit to document his shop and learn about his background and approach to building bikes. While he was there, he enlisted Will to build the touring MTB of his dreams — a comfortable 29+ rig capable of carrying heavy loads and designed to harmonize with the Oddity Squid Fork made concurrently by another Fort Collins frame builder, Sean Burns. Continue reading below for the full rundown on this build…

Up at the crack of dawn, we start our ride through the bustling streets of Bangkok. As the sun struggles to break through the dense smog that engulfs the city, we wrestle and weave through the maddening metropolis. People flood the streets. Market stalls pop up around us, and woks roar as they fire up and perfume the air with an explosion of rich Thai aromas. For once we won’t stop. We’re on a mission, we tell ourselves as we ignore the pull of the pad thai, and arrive at our destination: Bicycle Boys Clubhouse (BBCH).

Tucked away on Charoen Krung – the first road ever built in Thailand – Bicycle Boys Clubhouse is a breath of fresh air. A bike and coffee shop specializing in fixed/track bikes, high-end components, and kick-ass food. Surrounded by an array of artisans, specialty coffee hideouts, and a lowkey vinyl record store, the space exudes a sense of style. But BBCH is more than just a trendy bike shop: it’s a statement and a community.

Although I’ve struggled with a lifelong tendency to overcommit, I’m not a total megalomaniac. A few months ahead of this year’s Bespoked, I asked Josh to make the trip over from Arizona to London to cover the event while I (along with my business partner, another Josh, and an amazing team of volunteers) administered it. Running the show was already a massive feat, and I’d have done a disservice to both the show and the builders by trying to document it at the same time. Josh flew over and covered a huge number of bikes and builders with the diligence and dedication that they deserve (for a refresher, you can view those pieces here and here). It was cool to finally meet the guy on the other side of the emails, as we’d been working together for the better part of a year. During the show we were both focused on very separate tasks, but we made some time for a little road trip to visit the factory where Brooks England manufactures leather saddles, which is just outside of Birmingham in the little industrial town of Smethwick.

The artist Russ Pope is a west coaster-turned-New England émigré. Growing up as a skateboarder and an artist, he brought his two passions together at a young age. Creativity has been intertwined with all his outdoor pursuits since, with a portfolio that boasts many skating and cycling collaborations. Hailey Moore recently had the opportunity to sit down with Russ to talk about it all—Read on for a rundown about his life of skating, arting and bikes and to learn more about a Russ Pope drawing giveaway! Thanks Russ!

Picking up where yesterday’s post left off, we’ve got our second and final gallery from the Philly Bike Expo, featuring track bikes, gravel bikes, commuters, and a high-pivot full suspension. Read on for John’s closing thoughts on the offerings from this year’s Expo and a reflective outro on the future of custom bike showcases…

In modern society, it seems that many of our connections are made in a world of algorithms, a superficial sphere where swipes and likes have replaced the more tactile world I grew up in. This seems intrinsically wrong; we need to be connected physically but we are increasingly isolated from one another, caught up in a world where our eyes and hands are fixed to our screens.

Summoning Fixed Gear Gallery, circa 2006, here with this one! Eric works at Revel Bikes in Carbondale, Colorado. He’s their product design engineer and loves CNC components and old, vintage frames. His latest build is this wild Klein Quantum Race built to 2006 standards, with a few nods to current trends, so let’s check it out!

In 2018 I was invited to take part in the third edition of Concours de Machines as Dear Susan, in the medieval town of Bruniquel in the south of France. The Concours is a recent(ish) revival of a frame-building contest first organized in 1903 that ran up to the late 1940s. It was traditionally hosted in different locations around France, the goal of which was to demonstrate the superiority of artisanal “constructeurs” and their machines, over production bikes.

Before accepting the invitation, there were some red flags for me. For instance the idea of “better;” how you can numerically score one bike against another, especially if they’re designed and made around a particular rider for a particular course? There’s so much that just comes down to preference! Reading further into the scoring system, the seemingly arbitrary categories actually became quite liberating, in that scores were given based on abstract criteria rather than what constituted a good or appropriate bike. Limitations included things like: “the bicycle must have wheels with tyres, and a system with which to steer,” as well as point scoring sections like: “the bicycle must be able to power its own lights and it must have bags to carry everything you need for an overnight trip.”

This is the first of two reports from the 2022 Concours de Machines. Be sure to check back tomorrow for the second installment!

We’ve all heard the term “Klunker” before, but as a modern misnomer in cycling, it’s been used to refer to coaster-brake actuated cruiser bikes. This, my friends, is a true-to-form klunker, using gears and brakes, but it was built upon a cruiser chassis. For today’s Vintage Bicycles tory, we have Tasshi from Vintage MTB Workshop sharing the story of Steve Cook’s personal Cook Brothers Racing Cruiser, so read on for all the nitty-gritty on what makes this wild bike so unique and how it would shape the future of mountain biking…

Platano Cycle Works of San Diego, CA was a highly regarded custom bicycle company that, over the years, has been steeped in lore and virtually unknown to those outside of the city’s rich hand-built bicycle scene of the 1970s and early 80s. When Josh was in Nashville earlier this year picking up the Bug Out frame he purchased from Amigo Frameworks and visiting builder Zach Small’s shop space (more on that coming soon), he couldn’t resist documenting Zach’s original Platano. Zach, who hails from San Diego, has collected, bought, and sold many vintage bikes over the years, but he insists he will never let go of the Platano.

Grab a banana snack and continue reading for Zach’s history of Platano Cycle Works and what makes his bike so remarkable…