This year’s Philly Bike Expo coverage over here is going to be a bit different. John was supposed to attend but two freak storms hammered Santa Fe Thursday and Friday, cancelling his flights and his re-booked flights. Luckily, our friend Brad Quartuccio was on hand to document a few bikes for us. The first builder we’re featuring is Kris from 44 Bikes, who displayed his current version of the Snakedriver full-suspension 29er…
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More Than It Seems: A 2024 Revel Rascal Review
After its first top-to-bottom update, the new 2024 Revel Rascal may be the most versatile mid-travel 29er Travis has ever ridden. But does versatility matter when you’re just here to have fun?
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Velouria Cycles Sober Titanium Trail Hardtail
The Sober Titanium is Velouria Cycles hardtail 29er designed for trail riding. Check out the full rundown on the new and improved Sober below.
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Artificial Selection: A Revel Bikes Tirade 29er Hardtail Review
Announced today, the Revel Bikes Tirade is a 29er, 140-millimeter travel titanium hardtail, unlike anything the brand has offered in the past. With generous tire clearance, beautiful cable routing, and more, it’s clear Revel has used merged its own design prowess, learned through making phenomenal full-suspension bikes, and the re-labeling of its titanium brand, Why Cycles, to force an evolution of the almighty hardtail. Read on for John’s nerdy science talk intertwined with commentary on how hardtails are still having a moment in 2024 below!
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UPDATED 2024 Hardtails Under and Around $2000
We’ll continue to update this list for 2024
Hardtails make the world go round. Especially here at The Radavist. We’ve been long-time supporters of these capable yet simple mountain bikes and as people decide on the “next bike” after reaching the limitations on their gravel bikes, we thought it’d be nice to compile a list of current hardtail models we dig, all under or around $2,000 so let’s get to it!
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Sonder Broken Road Hardtail Now in Steel and Under $2000
Sonder’s Broken Road platform originally came in titanium but the brand just announced a steel chassis today, with a number of build kit options all for under or around $2000. Let’s take a look…
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Shredding With the Stone Eaters: Knolly Tyaughton Steel 29er Hardtail Review
On a recent Radavist Retreat, John and Hailey left their wintery homes to ride the various trails and gravelly terrain down in Phoenix with Josh. While there, John rode the Knolly Tyaughton Steel he’d procured from the brand earlier this winter and spent time riding amongst the Stone Eaters of South Mountain Park. Find out what he thought about this wild hardtail 29er with an even wilder price point ($2,449 complete) below!
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Shining Bright Like a Diamond: A 2024 Transition TransAM Hardtail MTB Review
The revived 2024 Transition TransAM is shiny enough to attract local corvids in your area, progressive enough to melt the mind of your uncle still pearl-clutching his Salsa El Mariachi, and balanced enough to set a new standard. Read on below as Spencer Harding runs the numbers and throws the book at Transition’s new hardtail MTB!
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The Pace Cycles RC429 Is a Drop or Flat Bar MTB Made from Reynolds Tubing
The new Pace Cycles RC429 is a North Yorkshire-bred down country steel hardtail using Reynolds 853 steel tubing and offering either drop bar or flat bar MTB builds.
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VIDEO: Oddity Cycles Pinky 29er Snow Day | Beautiful Builds
Burnsey at Oddity Cycles has built some stunning mountain bikes over the years, so when John took note of an Oddity hardtail frame for sale on our Rad Bazaar community marketplace, he had to buy it. It’s big. It’s pink!
Expect a deeper review and full gallery to come once the trails dry out, but for now, enjoy some snow slippin’ and slidin’ riding in the Sangre de Cristo mountains of Santa Fe!
Video: Kyle Klain
Music: Arbor “Return to Forest”
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Haro Saguaro Hardtail 29er
Haro’s newest hardtail piqued our collective interests when we saw the press release. The Saguaro 1 ($3,999.99 for Transmission GX or $1,899.99 for cable-actuated Saguaro 3) is a 6061 aluminum 29er hardtail with a 140mm travel fork, a 64.5º head angle, TRP 4-piston brakes, and GX Transmission. If the color didn’t grab your attention first, the build spec and geometry will.
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Gotta F’ It Up… Just a Tiny Bit: Monumental Loop Matt’s Monē Bikes Rigid Singlespeed 29er
Wabi-sabi is an ancient and deeply-held Japanese philosophy that sees the beauty in imperfection, appreciates simplicity, and accepts that change is inevitable. This concept, if applicable to any bicycle, feels most appropriate for a custom, handmade, rigid singlespeed 29er mountain bike. Especially a Monē Bikes. That’s not a dig at all on Cjell’s abilities as a framebuilder but as he spelled it out in a text to Matt Mason, this bike’s owner and the co-founder of the Monumental Loop, “Gotta fuck it up… just a tiny bit.”
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Charlie Cunningham’s 2012 Personal 29er: So Many Details
The following post is a labor of love. Hours of tedious work went into not only documenting this bike but writing about it. It is by far the most ambitious story Tasshi Dennis from The Vintage MTB Workshop and John Watson have worked on. Charlie Cunningham was more important to the modern mountain and gravel bike movement than many know. His work spanned over four decades, and the bike you see here today was his personal bike.
Read on for a complete dissection of what has to be the most detailed bicycle ever to grace this humble corner of the internet. We hope you feel the love that was poured into this post…
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A Titanium Chariot: Esker Cycles Hayduke LVS Longtail Review
Announced at this year’s Moab Outerbike, the Esker Cycles Hayduke LVS –available as a frame ($2,950) or a complete ($4,950)–is a hardtail mountain bike with 600-millimeter chainstays and touring accouterments aplenty. Esker even developed a specialty rack for this bike, dubbed the Molle Rackwald ($300.) Needless to say, it’s a unique offering from the brand.
John was able to ride one for a bit, including on an overnighter with the Esker Cycles team and Sincere Cycles in Santa Fe, so read on for an in-depth look at this rare and funky bike!
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Curtis Inglis and His Retrotec Twin Top Tube Funduro 140mm Hardtail 29er
While Curtis Inglis from Retrotec Cycles was in Santa Fe, John took along a camera for some of their rides and documented Curtis’ new twin top tube Funduro. This 140mm-travel hardtail 29er is one that Curtis built for himself to display at the 2023 MADE bike show and was the perfect choice for sampling Santa Fe’s side country riding.
Curtis and his bike undertook one of the more technical rides in the Southern Rockies, and John was there to document it all. Check out a stunning gallery of the bike and the singletrack that makes Santa Fe such a great MTB destination below!
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Steve Rex and His Rex Cycles FIllet Brazed Hardtail 29er
While he and his wife were on holiday in Santa Fe, John got in a few rides with Steve Rex who brought along his fillet-brazed hardtail. Since Steve wasn’t at the MADE Bike Show, John wanted to give the Sacramento-based builder a spotlight of his own, so read on for the full gallery…
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Titanium Touring Perfection: Singular Gryphon Drop Bar 29er MTB Review
Over the years, I’ve had the ability and privilege of throwing my leg over a number of fat tire, drop bar touring bikes. From the almighty Tumbleweed Stargazer to the readily available Kona Sutra ULTD, these robust bikes with an off-road and load-bearing geometry make for great interstitial, genre-bending machines for all sorts of riding.
Yet before brands like Salsa were even making high clearance, drop bar, 29er, disc brake, production touring bikes, a brand called Singular Cycles in the UK shifted the paradigm with its Swift in 2007 and, later in 2008, Gryphon models. These frames featured high stack numbers, fit big tires, and most importantly, had rack/fender/cargo bosses aplenty.
This year, Singular debuted its custom Gryphon Titanium, and once again, I’m questioning which bike to crown “best in class.” Check out my full-length review below…
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2023 MADE Bike Show Hype: John Rowley’s Custom Neuhaus Metalworks 29er
Visually speaking there are few bikes as wonderfully simplistic as a rigid singlespeed mountain bike. There’s something both minimal and pure about this permutation of the mountain bike genealogy. Across the rigid singlespeed spectrum, certain phenotypes vary, depending on the terrain and are mostly related to tire and gearing selection but when it comes to a bare bones mountain bike, there’s nothing more pure.
John Rowley owns Rowley Farmhouse Ales here in Santa Fe. He’s a chemist by trade and has several custom bikes, all designed to address a various niche within the cycling spectrum. This bike, a custom Neuhaus Metalworks rigid 29er, has been on my radar since John took delivery of it and I finally got to document it so let’s check it out as a pre-cursor to our 2023 MADE Bike Show coverage below.