The Radavist

Today we’re pleased to showcase a build from our friend Martin at Second Spin Cycles. Martin works on restoring old mountain, road, and yes, track bikes for his clients by speccing the period-correct components and more.

My friend Seth Levy, an obsessive bicyclist of the most masochistic variety, relentlessly tried to get me to fatbike with him when I lived in Maine in the mid-2010s.

“But I don’t like being cold, and I’m not a cyclist,” I explained. Maine’s long winters were glum, wet, and frigid. I preferred being in front of my wood-burning stove. And improved weather meant rock climbing.

Ignoring me, he enthused that I could ride fat-tire bikes all year round.

“Fatbikes open up so much more terrain for winter AND summer,” he explained. Yes, Maine has long winters, but also long springs “filled with mud, wet rocks and sloppy dirt roads,” perfect for a fatbike, not to mention great terrain to ride in the summer (aka “black fly season”).

“I’m not a skilled mountain biker, but I can do things with a fatbike I didn’t know were possible,” he added. “A steep hillside covered with roots and rocks becomes something you can ride up with a fatbike. Plus it’s such a new sport. Nobody is good at it!”

The Ibis Ripley AF is an aluminum version of the very popular Ripley (carbon) model, with the exception of a slightly slacker head tube. It seems that the Ripley has been a pretty damn popular model for Ibis, so why not adjust for yearly geometry inflation (moar slacker!) and make it more affordable at the same time? Seems like a winning concoction to me.

For those of you here for a quick review: the Ripley AF is really fun and a great deal. Its few drawbacks are minuscule enough to be overlooked. Go have your second cup of coffee and see what part of society is falling apart today. Then, if you’re still here for the long haul, let’s dip our toes into the ever-fleeting world of this “down-country, enduro-lite, extreme gravel, or whatever the industry’s buzzword is this week” bike.

Back in 2020, Cjell Monē and I wrote about our friend Karl Artis‘ eclectic bike collection and his collaborative “Bikes for Buddies” fundraiser with Matt Whitman, which raised enough money to purchase fifty bikes for youngsters in need. Since then, Karl has added even more bikes to his personal cache, including an enviable custom mountain cruiser, and finally found a home for the youth bikes after months of pandemic-induced hiccups. I recently met up with Karl and a crew of other friends – who were fresh off a weekend of building and donating bikes – to check out Karl’s new cruiser and enjoy some metamorphic chunder on the trails of North Phoenix.

“Well, what the hell now?” I thought to myself as I stared down at my carbon fork now resting on the ground in three separate pieces. A curb-sized, unassuming jump on a wooden arch bridge outside Breckenridge had taken me down, imploding my bike with me. The front brake cable was the only thing connecting my front wheel to the rest of my bike. I had never experienced a mechanical problem like this trailside. That’s it, game over. All the planning and anticipation, just to make it halfway through the Tour Divide.

I grew up working at a Specialized shop, and learned how to mountain bike by watching Ned Overend’s Performance Mountain Biking technique VHS. While I always appreciated the refreshing ideas of small makers, I thought it advantageous for larger brands to be able to invest more in their materials and construction. This was a time when top-end bikes were made of metal, and made domestically.

Metal Matrix (M2) composite is a prime example of this. The big S sourced a 6061 alloy infused with an aluminum oxide ceramic particulate by Alcan. Say that again, backwards now. Alcan called it Duralcan, and I am proud to display their logo on my top tube—that cool typeface!

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.”

I must say that I’m damn proud to live in New Mexico and I had no idea that such an awesome network of makers are blossoming here. We’ve looked at Moné’s operations down in Silver City, Baphomet Bicycles, checked in with Farewell Bags, looked at the framebag offerings from Buckhorn Bags, and today we’re featuring two local companies, starting with Evergreen Stitchworks and O’Leary Built Bikes, so let’s get to it.

On the last Friday of April, four strangers convened at the Bradfield Campground near Cahone, Colorado at dusk. Our two rigged up trucks and one camper van were parked neatly near the start of what would turn out to be a grand adventure: a weekend of sanctity, the fruition of an obsession, training in preparation for a big tour, and then checking off of a box to confirm that yes, all of the time, energy, and research spent assembling this could lead to something quite special.