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Wow. We’ve featured the work of the cycling industry’s crystal ball-gazing, doodle extraordinaire before but oddly enough, none of his other cycle-inventions felt as practical as this project does… Read on below for the full scoop on this creation from the mind of Bicycle Pubes with words by Dr. Pubey himself.
That suntanned, SUNTOURist, king of the grandiose, the beausage factory himself, Mr. Ronnie Romance, aka Ultra Romance, really knows how to put a bicycle together, even a simple one such as a fixed gear. Yet we’re not talking a Kierin bike, those NJS-stamped sparkle machines, or even a British Path Racer. This is a bike designed specifically for a plump, rough and tumble tire, with a relaxed fit, eons past the aggressive saddle-to-bar drop bikes of yesteryear, yet somewhere in-between the monster-truck abilities of a tracklocross bike. This Madrean Fabrications ‘country fixed’ is unlike anything I’ve seen in recent memory… or maybe it’s just my old age.
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…
How’s this for a Throwback Thursday post? Japan’s WBASE and Brooklyn Machine Works have teamed up to resurrect the OG Gangsta Track for one last round. The V4 Gangsta Track features many of the OG’s design nods including the bi-plane fork, seat tube cluster, yet widens the seat stays to allow for removable brake bosses. These rough and tough frames would be a bombproof urban fixed gear or even a tracklocross bike with their 35mm ‘cross tire clearance. The V4 will be available in transparent black, black, and blaze orange. The pre-order is live now at King Kog Brooklyn, the official US-distributor for this collaboration, and the frames are due to land from Taiwan and ship from Brooklyn in early September. Head to King Kog to place your order and see more details including sizing information below.
Patrick gets dusty with is unicorn ice cream cone and unveils the new PAUL WORD fixed hub, or Wacky One-speed Rear Device. These are hubs for fixed gears like a tracklocross bike. Like his tie-dye shirt? Well, PAUL has some new threads too!
As with all Crust Bikes models, they arise from necessity. The Lightning Bolt is no different. Matt from was on a mission to be able to fly and travel like he used to, but instead of the BMX bike, he wanted to roll with something a little bit faster. Something with bigger wheels that could get him from point A to point B with ease. He wanted to be able to pack it on a plane and roll from the airport to his destination.
A few weeks back, the third and final Resistance Racing Tracklocross Race Series started off from Swell Bicycles Shop and out to Golden Gate Park. Looking back at the first race in Albany (discarded concrete block, choppy singletrack, and an 80 ft climb), we didn’t know what would be in store for us. The final race consisted of smooth single track, short descends, off-camber turns and my personal favorite, a log pile ramp. These bay area shredders were nuts!
Words by Coach Ronaldo Romance Jr. and photos by Team Brooks
(Gallery Photos are 95% disposable film cams that I handed out to the team. Felt like it captured the inner “race” pretty authentically; and the medium was pretty fun in a “trip to the water park” “safe grad night” sorta way)
Booming Billowing Blooping Blurping Gravel.
Even with DK getting as much coverage as the TDF, I trust the pace of the news these days has left your mind blank of such cognizance once again. That’s good, as my memory of competing in the event 2 years ago has also been selectively erased, perhaps that’s why I reluctantly agreed to participate in this particular edition.
Want to go to the Surf City CX Halloween race? Check out the details below, including registration links!
A Weekend at SoCal Cross
Photos and words by Julio Boostamante
Julio Boostamante, You know… the local Socal photo dude from Compton that shows up at the Wolfpack Hustle races, local Fixie Crits and snaps a bazzilion pics of all the action. Yeah, well now you can also find me Fredding it up at the Socal Cross Races. Why? Well, because I decided it was a good idea to suffer for 40 mins on a bike.
I’m way more comfortable and less sweaty behind the lens but you know what? Something about racing cross and finishing is well, rewarding. The beauty of it is that anyone can do it. Yes, even me as an out of shape photographer. You should try it sometime! Lots of suffering will be had at these events on any giving weekend but also, lots of good times with awesome people can be had. For me it doesn’t get any better than that! Did I mention you get to drink beer in the park? Yeah, just don’t let the Park Ranger find out.
If you’re crazy enough, you can also do the course fixed in the annual Tracklocross race like some of the local fixed gear homies did. Sounds insane I know but I promise you, it’s more fun than scary. Well for us to watch anyway.
Check out the photos to see what all the weekend fuss was about and keep the heckling loud and the beers cold at the next Cross event!
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Follow Julio on Instagram.
Photo by Kyle Kelley
The Brooklyn Machine Works Gangsta track was one of the first cross over track bikes that really could adapted for just about any terrain. I remember a few messengers in NYC racing cross on these bikes at Staten Island a few years back. One of those messengers was Austin Horse. Well, he’s still on it. In fact, he raced the Westside Invite in LA a few weeks back before heading over to Japan to race cross and another Red Bull event.
Before Austin embarked for Japan, Kyle at Tracko took some nice photos of this unique machine. Check out more photos here.
Well, I hope you all had a great New Year. I’m assuming most of you are back to work now and probably have some time to kill today during your lunch break so I invite you to check out a year in review. 2011 brought about a lot of traveling for me and like the increase in frequent flier miles, the site’s content continues to rack up. International, cross-continental and bi-coastal travels brought me to shops, events and in front of Beautiful Bicycles.
Check out Prolly is Not Probably’s Year in Review below!
When Hern showed up to the SoCalTracklocross on his Fairdale Parser frame, I had to send Taj some photos of the bike in action. Yesterday, he posted up some of the photos and applied his highly entertaining copy. You’ve gotta check it out. See the post on the Fairdale Blog here.
This guy (I wish I knew his name) was living by the tortoise’s motto, “slow and steady” and while he didn’t win the race, I can only hope that I’ll be riding at his age. During the SoCalCross Tracklocross race, he was in the drops on this classic track bike. So sick!
And yes, the SoCal Cross will have multiple posts but I’ll do my best to mix them all in. There are just too many rad photos to dump them into one.
Saturday in Los Angeles brought forth the SoCalCross race and the first ever southern california Tracklocross race. While I spend this afternoon going through all the photos, I figured I’d share this one with you. Yes, it’s way out of focus but I really love how it came out. That’s Hern whipping up a pile of sand on his way through the pit on the course. Watching Austin Horse crush the shit out of the field was entertaining. It was a great way to conclude the afternoon for me.
More to come shortly!
Doug has some great pics from Tracklocross up on his Flickr. Make sure to head over and check them all out.
Looks like a muddy good time. Next year, don’t throw it on Easter weekend guys! Had to go spend time with family. Sucks I missed out. Was really looking forward to it!
Thanks to Dom for this video too!
Beastly! Seriously. I wanna ride that thing at Tracklocross!
11 Days to prepare!
