The Radavist

When two brands like this get together, you know it’s gonna be good. Head on over to Ten Speed Hero to see their new Chris King Spring Collection!

Chris King’s wine n dine ride, the Gourmet Century, is making it to four cities this year. On the calendar is: Sonoma, Portland, Asheville and Japan. Registration for each opens on April 1st, so head over to the Gourmet Century site to sign up!

To commemorate their 40th anniversary, Chris King is launching an extremely limited collection of olive drab anodized hubs, headsets and bottom brackets. Then to add a special topping on this already tempting cake, they did a collaboration with Spurcycle, anodizing the bell’s hammer to match. These are in stock now at Chris King, so get on it!

Chris King Precision Components wanted to make sweatshirts for the winter season but they didn’t just want to outsource them. So what did they do? They cut their own patches, in house and then bought machines and hired people to sew them. Pretty cool, huh? They cost $52 and you’ll have to tell people what “CKPC” is, but they have an interesting story.

Perhaps some of your questions will be answered in this video…

Do we really need another bottom bracket standard? Maybe. It depends on what your experience has been with pressfit 30. Personally, my Argonaut has been fairly maintenance free but any steel frame I’ve ridden with one has been a hassle. Noisy, creaky and kind of a pain to maintain.

Ben from Argonaut Cycles and I had a conversation a year ago about how much BB86 and PF30 makes sense in terms of frame design and performance, yet as the crux for a bike’s drivetrain, it’s riddled with failure. In short: a larger bb cluster allows you to shape a bike’s tubes and not have to worry about the cluster where they all intersect. That’s why it’s kinda hard to use a threaded, English BB in a frame with OS diameters.

Enter the T47 BB standard. It uses a standard PF30 shell, that’s just threaded with 47x1mm pitch to take these new nifty Chris King BBs – either 30mm or 24mm axle compatible. You thread them in like an English BB and walk away. The frame builder can work with OS tubing diameters and achieve the same “stiffness” without dealing with the hassle of a PF30/BB30 bearing.

I’ll step aside with the tech jargon and leave Argonaut Cycles and Chris King to explain the rest below.

Fall is here in California (it happened overnight apparently) and I’ve found myself in Sonoma County with Argonaut Cycles alongside Chris King Precision Components. There’s something new coming along and I’ll just leave that pretty big, glaring clue for you all until the official launch tomorrow morning.

I gotta say, the road riding here is incredible. I’ll share more with you tomorrow!

Chris King’s got the right idea and Matt Cardinal‘s got the skills to illustrate it for a t-shirt. Printed in Portland, on avocado or ocean colored shirts and in stock now at Chris King.

Yesterday people got in a little debate about hub label orientation on Chris King hubs. So which way is it?

A few years ago, I asked Chris King and Jay Sycip which “way” the hub label should be facing on a King front hub. I had always heard the rider should be able to read the label and while most manufacturers agree, Chris King wanted the viewer of the bike to see his name.

One way to tell it was intentional: the cone adjustment is on the same side as the rear hub when you place the name facing out. So, technically, yes the hub is in the wrong orientation with the Stinner. Does it matter? No. Especially since the traditional way is facing in.

This year Chris King’s Gourmet Century took to the wonderful backroads of Japan, landing in Asuke, a town in the Higashikamo District. Here’s a ride report from Terasu.

The influx of Eurobike product launches has begun and while I couldn’t make it over there this year, some friends at Chris King sent over some new product launches, some slated for spring 2016 and some now available. There’s a lot of information, so I’ll just list it below. In short: thru-axle, singlespeed, centerlock, boost and the return of turquoise!

Chris King and company were recently in Japan for their Gourmet Century. While there, they met up with Ryota Kemmochi who made this video showcasing their travels.

Photos by Dan Sharp

The Chris King Gourmet Century brings the wonderful world of food together with bikes, in a whole new way. Recently, the event landed itself in Bend for a day of MTB riding and gorging on delicious food, as prepared by Chris King chef, Chris Diminno. Having been on the receiving end of Chris’ cooking many times before, I’d say the attendees got their share of gourmet snacks as well as plenty of Bend dirt.

Check out a few more photos below and see the full report at Chris King’s Blog.

Celebrate this weekend, get rowdy on the trails, rip apart the roads, throw some skids and even some #RubberSideUp. Happy birthday, America. See you guys on Monday!