The Radavist

While steel full-suspension bikes are nothing new, there has been a resurgence in recent years with many small framebuilders making trail-ready, competent bikes that leave their genetic predecessors in the proverbial dust. When I first rode a Starling Murmur in 2019, I wasn’t prepared for how engaged I felt with the trail or the flex and movement the Murmur provided. If you like the feel of steel hardtails or gravel bikes, chances are you’ll vibe more with a steel full-suspension than a carbon model.

These bikes are incredibly niche (though you can find them being made in workshops worldwide), and they still feel like a product from a cottage industry, not an engineered machine. It wasn’t until I spent some time with the REEB Cycles SST that I felt like steel full suspension bikes had finally leaped into the next stage of their evolutionary process. Let’s take a look at the SST below.

Today, we’re elated to announce a project that has been in the works for some time: our own special and limited edition Radavist Mosaic GT-2X complete bikes. There’s a lot going on with these bikes, so let’s jump right in!

In some form of intergalactic serendipity, this review coincides with the 2021 International Singlespeed Day, so hopefully, this article inspires you to dust off the ol’ Cruiser or SSMTB and get out for a sunset shred with your friends.

I’ve had the Sour Bicycles Pasta Party for longer than I’d like to admit for a review period but with supply chain shortages, I decided to scrap my original plans for the build as a geared hardtail and assembled it with various spare parts and some new fancy BERD wheels which ended up resulting in one very unique rigid singlespeed 29er.

The Pasta Party is a strange bird with a few clever details and a few quirks, so read on below for my review of this unique chassis offering from the German brand Sour Bicycles…

We took a look at Baphomet Bicycles earlier this year and in that post, we discussed the ideology surrounding the iconography of this unique framebuilding operation, nestled in the mountain town of Taos, New Mexico. If you haven’t read that piece, you really should check it out first.

Yesterday I caught up with Dillen from Baphomet Bicycles, as he came to town to ride the BFL, an event Sincere Cycles throws each year, offering a classic 55 mile loop with over 10,000′ elevation gain and a “B” loop with 38 miles and 6,400′ elevation. Both take you deep into the Sangre de Cristo mountains at the terminus of the mighty Rocky Mountains. Doing either singlespeed is quite the undertaking!

Dillen finished this build right before the event and drove in from Taos for the day. We pedaled together briefly and then his chain exploded about 10 miles into the ride, sending him back down to town. Later in the day, we caught up to shoot his new 29er hardtail, aptly named the “Left Hand Path”, so let’s check it out in detail below!

Since moving to Santa Fe, I’ve ridden my mountain bikes almost exclusively, which is a stark contrast to how much time I would spend on my drop bar bikes in Los Angeles. It’s not that there isn’t gravel in our area, it’s just that mountain biking is so accessible, so remote, and so sheltered from the wind and the sun, it’s a no-brainer.

Another major difference is whereas I’d drive to the trailhead in LA, I find myself riding to the trails here 99.9% of the time, even on my Starling Cycles Murmur, which is a really big bike to pedal across town, up the foothills, and into the mountains.

These miles spent on my full suspension had me spending a lot of time adjusting the coil system this bike was built on. Some days, I’d pedal with only a hip bag, while others, I’d lug a heavy camera bag around. This 10+ pound differential made it somewhat awkward to adjust the coil shocks as I found myself smack dab in the middle of the two coil weight zones. While the ride quality of the coil system is undeniably noticeable, it felt like I needed something less finicky.

So, when Fox reached out, asking if I wanted to try out their new fork and rear shock, I jumped on the opportunity. Little did I know I’d gravitate back towards air after vibing so hard on the coil shocks’ ride quality…

After reviewing the Starling Murmur Factory early last year, I placed a deposit for one myself, springing for the made in the UK front triangle, made in Taiwan rear swingarm model, in a larger size than the demo large I reviewed. Joe and I discussed the bike, I sent in the money needed and waited. A few months later, Joe alerted me that the bike was done and he shipped it to the United States. Little did I know that I wouldn’t see the bike for almost 8 months later.

Wow! What a year it’s been. In the past twelve months, we’ve shot roughly 300 bikes. From gravel races, to NAHBS, the Philly Bike Expo and our normal travels, we really captured some unique builds and we’ve got a good handle on the bikes the readers of the Radavist enjoy checking out based on some key metrics.

Every year we try to do our best to sort through twelve months of archives to narrow down to this list. The first filter is the comment count, which we start at 50 comments. Then comes page views, with the minimum number being 20,000 views. Finally, we look at the social media chatter; including Instagram comments and how many times was the post shared across various platforms.

What we end up with is a list that is filled with a plethora of interesting, versatile, and quirky bikes. The only editorial decision I myself made was to omit reviews of stock bikes. So no Santa Cruz Stigmata or Cannondale Topstone this round!

Check out the full Top Ten Beautiful Bicycles of 2019 below, in no particular order…

In 1890, the European starling was released into New York’s Central Park by the American Acclimatization Society. They were an organization that believed European flora and fauna should be present in North America for cultural reasons. The head of the AAS was a fella named Eugene Schieffelin, who decided any bird mentioned by William Shakespeare should be in North America and he pushed for 100 of these birds being released into New York City. Thus, the invasive species has taken over. You’ve probably seen them, en masse, as they fly in a tight flock, moving like a black mass across the late afternoon sky. This swarm is called a murmuration.

You see where I’m going here, right?

Unlike the European starling, the Starling Murmur, a full suspension, steel mountain bike was a welcomed species in the San Gabriel Mountains of Los Angeles.

From snow to sand, wildflowers, and close encounters with a rattlesnake, John’s been putting the Cotic FlareMAX Gen5 through the wringer for his in-depth review on this made-in-the-UK short(er) travel, metal full-suspension bike. Read on for his full take on how less is more with the FlareMAX’s design below…

If our Top Ten Beautiful Bicycles list serves as an indicator of your interests, our Top Ten Review Bikes speak to the readership’s curiosities and potential next bike buys. This year’s Top Ten Review Bikes ran the gamut from carbon gravel bikes with proprietary passive suspension to actual full suspension bikes and everything in between.

Let’s check out what review bikes pushed the needle for you this year!

We’ve had a busy year over here at The Radavist. From the return to being 100% independent, launching our Group Ride subscription service, our Rad Bazaar marketplace, and adjusting to being a small business owner again, my free time has been limited. Yet, I can thank a few products for making my job and life easier this year, along with the albums that became the backdrop for my rides, so let’s check out my Favorite Products of 2023!

No matter how innovative or controversial a given mountain bike technology may be, it’s usually just a means to an end. A way to add efficiency or capability. Sure, these technologies can often make for utterly spectacular rides. But bikes themselves—especially full-suspension bikes—rarely add any soul purely for soul’s sake.

That may be why we love to highlight bikes like the REEB SST, Chromag Darco, and, of course, the Starling Murmur. These bikes have esoteric quirks usually found only on hardtail, gravel, and town bikes. And they just happen to also offer utterly spectacular rides.

But when Travis Engel noticed function-first stalwarts, Pivot and Specialized suddenly teasing in-house experiments in lugged carbon fiber, he wondered if there might be a new search for soul afoot…