Spencer adds up the short list of his favorite products of 2024 as the year comes to a close. This year, he adds in his favorite ride(s) of the year, what he’s learned, his favorite albums, new and old, and something new for the year. Check out his list below…

 My Favorite Products of 2024

I usually find it hard to properly flesh out one of these lists – I don’t really enjoy trying to sell people things. Nonetheless, there were a few products I very much enjoyed in 2024, so let’s dive into my short(er) list…

Crust Palm Oil Brakes $280 to $310

I love my Shimano hydraulic brakes, but for travel, I’m always worried about the hoses (even though I’ve never really had one fail). There are various iterations of cable-actuated hydraulic brakes available, but until recently, I’d never had the pleasure of trying any of them.

While building up a Crust Stupid Tourist for a trip to the East Coast, I figured the Palm Oil brakes made the most sense; the simplicity of cable setup and the stopping power of the self-contained hydraulic pistons. I was pleasantly surprised by the ease of setup and the stopping power. These will now be going on Blix’s Cake bike for a trip to Baja in a few weeks for all the aforementioned reasons. I am hooked.

Curious Creatures Ramble Scramble Short $139

I bought a pair of these for Blix at Sedona MTB Fest in the spring after meeting the Curious Creatures folks. Later in the year, Curious Creatures also offered me a pair to try. It’s safe to say we were both smitten with the Ramble Scramble shorts. Check out Blix’s review – I’ll just echo everything they found wonderful about them. I wouldn’t recommend a pair of $140 shorts unless I really liked them.

Pa’lante Side Bag $69

Being a recovering ultralight hiker means I love little bags and gridstop fabric. I wear a fanny pack every day. While convenient, it’s not very cute. For those times when I’m leaving the house for non-riding errands, I reach for the Pa’lante Side Bag to carry my wallet, phone, keys, and sunnies. Is it a purse? Hell yeah, and I love it.

Shimano Deore XT Linkglide $350

Deore XT is the “pinkies out” end of Shimano’s unified 9/10/11 speed CUES/Linkglide groupsets. Over the past year, I have spent a lot of time with the Deore and CUES level parts and I am slowly swapping many of our bikes over to said groupsets. Any bike that uses an HG driver in our house is getting some flavor of Linkglide to keep things consistent. 11 speeds are damn well good enough for almost anything. I’ve got my Crust Scapebot set up with a Microshift (11-speed SRAM) thumb shifter, and the cable pull ratios are close enough for indexing. I don’t foresee myself needing to go all-in for 12 (or even 13) speeds anytime soon. Linkglide is for me.

Specialized Recon ADV Shoes $150-225

I got a solid year out of my first pair of Specialized Recon ADV shoes, and I used them well beyond their intended gravel usage. These were my go-to shoes for everything from road to MTB. With my old pair hanging on by superglue and Shoe Goo, I was able to finagle another pair out of Specialized when I reviewed an Epic 8 Evo. I’ve fallen in love with the flex and roomy toebox of the Recon ADV shoes and I’m having a hard time moving on. Hopefully, I will get another year out of this pair.

Specialized Power Saddle with Mirror $325

When I reviewed Specialized Diverge STR, my sit bones fell in love with Specialized’s snazzy new 3D-printed Mirror technology. Like the shoes above, I was able to finagle a Mirror saddle to try with the Epic 8 Evo and got to keep the saddle for myself. I’ve ridden the 155 for mountain biking but find the 143 a great size for road and gravel. Newfangled technology can be a big pill to swallow, especially exotic 3D-printed saddles, but damn, do my sit bones appreciate whatever the hell goes into them. This saddle ain’t cheap, but sore sit bones or saddle sores can really ruin plans, so if there is a place to splurge, it’s on a saddle. I gotta get a few more of these.

Topo Designs Mountain Hydro Hip Pack $79

This Topo Designs fanny pack is huge. It has a massive capacity between the main pocket, two water bottle holders, and all the exterior storage. I can’t imagine loading it up to its full capacity, but I have found it to be an exceptional way to carry a camera. For almost every article you’ve seen my photos featured in this year, my camera was slung on my waist in this fanny pack.

The padded lumbar area keeps the camera from digging into my back, and there is a handy pocket to keep my keys and phone from rattling around with my camera. It’s a niche use, but the Mountain Hydro Hip pack has made carrying a camera simple and secure for me this year.

Vado Alpha Direct (60) Pullover $93

I know what you’re thinking: another unsurprising pick from the recovering ultralight nerd. You’re not wrong. These days, Alpha Direct fabric is all over the backpacking world. I tried one on at Tourist in Santa Fe and I was enamored. Thayne from Tourist offered to mail me the correct size when he got his next shipment in. I got the lightest weave because lightweight, duh. It has been a trusty companion on every camping trip since I bought it and I don’t foresee that stopping anytime soon.

Favorite Ride(s)

Mount Lemmon continues to be a highlight of living in Tucson. Whether it’s winter or summer, Bugs Springs trail has it all. Even starting with a 20-minute hike-a-bike isn’t enough to deter me from riding this all the time. With a mix of slickrock, flowy creek crossings, chundery drops, and wide-open grassy switchbacks, Bugs Springs is always the right call, and I love riding it every time.

This year, I got to ride to a place I’d dreamed about for almost a decade. It took a lot of planning, logistics, and gumption to finally drop into this very remote and beautiful area. In my forthcoming Surly Moonlander review, you’ll get to see it all. This photo is only a preview of a bucket list ride I won’t forget soon.

Lesson Learned: Moar Stack Height

The bike industry has a stack height problem. Bike after bike after bike kept coming in for review with depressingly short head tubes. Well, except the Esker Smokey. With seat tubes getting steeper, bike geometry no longer needs to lean on saddle-to-bar drop to keep the front wheel weighted.

Hear me, bike industry: get those head tube numbers up! I wanna stop having to put 80 mm risers on every XL bike that comes my way. The XC nerds can get negative-degree stems so the rest of us can have a comfortable riding position without 40 mm of spacers below riser bars.

Favorite Book: A Desolation Called Peace, by Arkady Martine

This book is a follow-up to A Memory Called Empire, a book that I wholly recommend you skip and read a synopsis of so you can get to A Desolation Called Peace. Luckily, this series is only a duology, rather than the played-out trope of a trilogy that so much sci-fi seems to be stuck in.

While the first book did little more than sit around offices and bedrooms in the unique universe Martine crafted, the second book finally lives up to the space opera the books are touted to be. With some of the best worldbuilding and imaginative alien design I’ve read in some time, I quickly read my way through A Desolation Called Peace.

You might find it frustrating that the space-faring empire in the book somehow still relies entirely on snail mail for communication like me, but I still think this one is worth a read. Literary folks might yell at me for skipping the first book, but I’m here for aliens and unique world-building rather than drama and political intrigue.

Favorite New Album: Standards: Fruit Galaxy

Standards popped up on some math rock playlist on Spotify this past summer. Usually, such guitar-heavy bands can feel like ego trips in “band” form. Something stuck out to me in the fray of that playlist and I’ve been hooked on their album ever since. Fruit Galaxy harks back to my love for early Minus the Bear albums laden with finger-style guitar riffs. The two-piece band pulls off an impressively complex and rich sound throughout the album that keeps me coming back on long drives and writing sessions alike.

Favorite “Old” Album: Nick Shoulders: Okay, Crawdad

I got lucky enough to see Nick Shoulders at the Moab Folk Festival this fall. With plenty of personal anecdotes and general awe for the natural beauty around him, the show was endearing, to say the least. Nick’s whistling, yodeling, and heart-felt lyrics feel like a rarity in today’s country music landscape. It was fun to go back and listen to his earlier albums again and I recommend you do the same.

New Thing: Desk Job

This will sound underwhelming, but in a life that has been full of adventure, moving around, and general shitbirdery, my new thing this year was solely working behind the scenes for The Radavist. I spent the last 8 years of my life as a tour guide before realizing I was too grumpy to keep going. This led me to holler at John Watson last fall about getting a real-ass job for the Radavist, which of course was right before he and Cari got the site back from TPC. I didn’t get a whole-ass job, but there has been plenty to keep me busy every day at the Radavist. I left guiding behind to try and see if I could make a living being a cycling journalist, or at least a good opinion-haver and gear reviewer.

It has been an adjustment to working from home rather than running around for random work stints. I still have a ton of freedom and a flexible schedule for which I thank my lucky stars. I’ve very much stumbled my way into contributing to the Radavist for the past 8 years, and I’m so proud to feel even more like a part of the core of the site. Thank you to everyone who reads my articles and comments and is a subscriber to The Radavist Membership!

I love doing this work, and I hope to keep going into 2025.