The Radavist

A $1000 bike is a hot commodity these days, especially one with disc brakes, clearances for bigger tires and a geometry tuned for riding dirt roads. Giant has taken their Revolt model and offered up an alloy version for 2020, with a Sora kit and an 11×34 cassette. Head to Giant to see more.

Shop new & used Giant bikes with our partner TPC – The Pro’s Closet.

Building off this year’s launch of the Cache titanium all-road bike, Knolly has just announced a steel version for 2020. The steel Cache maintains the geometry of the titanium Cache, as well as many of the frame details.

ED coating has been added to ensure the lifespan of the bike, as well as a few pricepoint tiers: frame only for $999, frameset for $1399. While there are no details yet of the Cache steel coming as a complete, we can expect it’ll be an option in the future. See more information at Knolly.

It’s a busy week for bike companies to jettison their new and improved models into the consumer market. We reviewed the Trek Checkpoint last year and were amazed at how well this bike checked all the boxes. It really felt like Trek listened to its customers and made the most capable bike they could.

For 2020, the Checkpoint stays relatively the same, solidifying its place in the adventure/gravel/all-road space, yet the paint jobs are much flashier and now with AXS integration, the lines on the bike are even cleaner. Head to Trek to see more details!

With the popularity of the Exploro, 3T looked to make this all-road platform a little bit more affordable with a Rival build kit, bringing the price down to $3,599.00 for a complete, more than half off from the Exploro Ltd AXS build pricepoint of $9,990.00. Keep in mind that the Exploro Team frameset retails for $3,200.00. See all the Exploro models and build kit options at 3T.

To up the ante on their consumer-direct OB1 all road bike, Thesis is now offering two AXS build options. You can now order an OB1 with the “mullet” configuration, an Eagle rear mech and cassette mated with road shifters, or with AXS 2x setup. These bikes ship 90% built and ready to ride, with a variety of build options, direct to your door.

Pricing on the new AXS builds comes in at $4,999 for the AXS 1x or $5,199 for AXS 2x.

See more details at Thesis.

With the launch of AXS, SRAM reached out to specific manufacturers and offered the ability to mix their Eagle rear MTB derailleur and cassette with the Force AXS shifters and brakes. This offers up the best of both worlds with a wide gear range and the ergonomics of road shifting. It took a while for this offering to hit the market for companies to spec complete bikes and 3T was finally able to implement the mixture, so they made an extra special limited edition Exploro. These limited edition completes will come with the 3T Torno crank, a full-carbon design, including the spider and axle, built to be tough and lightweight. Head on over to the 3T Exploro page to see pricing and your local dealer to order.

Nordest might be known for their mountain bikes but their latest model is the Albarda, a rugged all road bike, that comes built complete for $1,808.10 (1.610,74 €). The Albarda utilizes 420mm stays, which allows for either a 27.5 x 2.10″ or 700x50mm compatible wheels. Best of all, the medium/large size weighs just north of 20lbs.

Head to Nordest to see more information.

With either 700×45 or 650×47 compatibility, Pivot’s newly designed Vault all road gains extra tire clearance, extra bottle bosses, fender mounts, a frame weight of 998g, stealth dropper routing, and now, with their ISO Flex technology, the Vault fits 27.2 or 30.9mm diameter posts and isolates the seatpost from the frame for added comfort or frame stiffness. See more details on the new and improved Vault at Pivot.

Last year’s Cannondale Topstone review generated quite the buzz over here, so when Cannondale sent me a Topstone Carbon to review, I was intrigued to see what changed between the lower pricepoint aluminum and this new, fancy carbon model. Turns out, a lot! The biggest being an all-new, BallisTec Carbon, Kingpin suspension system which locks the seat stays together with a thru-axle, allowing for dampening on rough terrain. Read on below for more!

Los Angeles’ Pure Cycles have announced their Adventure line of gravel bikes, including the Adventure model (sold out), the Adventure Pro ($899) and an Adventure Apex build ($1099). These entry-level gravel bikes feature 700c x 650b interchangeability, disc brakes, and a geometry tuned for all-road riding. See more at Pure Cycles.

Versatility and affordability can go hand in hand. With Mission Bicycle’s newest model, the Stinson, they addressed this concern, offering up a disc bike with a slacked out geometry for added comfort on long rides that has sliding dropouts allowing for numerous different drivetrain options – including belt drive – multiple boss locations for bottles and racks, and wheel size interchangeability with 700 x 42mm wheels or 27.5 x 50mm. All these boxes are rarely checked by the bigger brands, so smaller companies like Mission Bicycle are tackling them, via Kickstarter! Head on over to see more details.

With more and more of the bigger brands going to consumer-direct, other smaller brands are growing out of this new model, offering complete bikes with substantial build kits, in modern geometries, straight to the consumer’s door. Ocoee Bikes has adopted this business practice with three platforms currently; all-road with the Baseline, gravel with the Boundary, and MTB with the Seclud model. Each bike comes in a variety of build kit options, colors, and sizing, allowing the consumer to pick the bike that suits their needs best. Now, this business model does come with some downsides. One of which being by cutting out the middleman – aka the LBS – it will put more pressure on existing shops to adapt to the changing market, something that older shops will have a hard time adjusting to. Another issue is being able to ride one of these bikes before you buy one.

Yesterday we posted Colin Strickland’s winning Allied Able and today, we’re giving Amity Rockwell, the female winner of the DK200’s bike some love. For a complete story and parts breakdown, head over to the Allied Cycle Works blog!