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Damn! English Cycles, Fairwheel and Geoff McFetridge got together to create one slick bike. I’m stoked to own a bike with Geoff’s work on it, just like I was stoked when I got a pair of his Nike Vandals back in the day.
See more at Fairwheel Bikes and thanks for the heads up Tracko.
The do-it-all cross or all road bike has taken hold of the industry. Everyone wants a rig that is capable of racing ‘cross and maybe hitting a bit of 1-track or take a few bags for a sub 24 hour camping trip.
Open Cycle addresses a lot of those demands with their U.P. (unbeaten path) frameset. A ‘cross bike that can fit 700 x 42mm or 27.5 x 2.1″ wheel. If you play your cards right and select the appropriate tire sizes, you’ll experience the same geometry on the same frame, but the opportunities will widen along with your tires.
The U.P. features a top-tube bottle cage mount for a small bag, thru-axles, internal routing, road or mountain crank compatibility and some very elegant lines. You can see the geometry and read some FAQ’s at Open Cycle’s site. See some more photos, shot by Open Cycle’s photographer Marc Gasch below.
In Los Angeles, if you don’t have a cross bike, you’re fuckin’ up. Seriously. There are so many dirt roads and tracks to explore, all within the city limits that you’ll quickly realize your road bike or mountain bike’s limitations.
For Yanco, he wanted a frame from a California pedigree. He had put a deposit down with Hunter Cycles a while back, way before the second year of Mudfoot Stinners popped up. So when his spot in the Hunter queue finally came up, he contacted Geoff McFetridge and Aaron about setting him up with a Mudfoot-painted ENVE fork for his Hunter.
At first, no one was sure how it’d look, but after Rick posted a photo of the grey frame with blue logos, we all knew it’d look incredible. Matched with mango Chris King, some Paul skewers and a little sumpin’ sumpin’ locked into the downtube bottle bosses, this bike has some real style…
Then it fell over and I felt horrible! Sorry Yanco! Hopefully it’s not the last time this bike goes #RubberSideUp…
It’s not everyday that you see a cyclocross bike with Campagnolo Chorus 11 speed. I suppose it’s not too common to see a Geoff McFetridge-designed bike either, unless you’re in Los Angeles, which is Mudfoot territory.
Jason, like a lot of us, likes to use his cyclocross bike for road rides, dirt rides, trail rides and even a bit of ‘cross racing. These days, he’s got road wheels on his bike for heading into the hills and mountains surrounding LA. Yesterday, he took a leisurely spin up Griffith Park en route to getting a bite to eat.
I’ve seen countless Stinner Frameworks x Mudfoot bikes, but his was set up differently than others. Things I like about this bike: the white housing, GSC Steal Your Shop stem cap, the Prologo saddle, juxtaposed by the white bar tape. Things I don’t like about this bike: that it’s not dirty enough! Get out and ride that damn thing more Jason…
You can never have too many tools for the same job. In Paul Price’s case, a cyclocross bike. Over the years he’s collected quite the stable, from various frame builders throughout California. We already looked at his Black Cat monster cross and now we get to check out some details of his Rock Lobster SSCX. As with the Black Cat, you can see just how sated this steed is based on the component and frame wear alone.
With technology changing, PAUL making disc brakes and everything going oversized or tapered, there’s something elegant about a rim brake ‘cross bike with a steel fork. Especially from a man like Paul Sadoff.
Shred on man, shred on…
For over 25 years Chico, California has been the home base for Paul Component Engineering. During the Speedvagen Fit Tour we swung by to check in on their operations and to get a sense of what the team, the city of Chico and Paul Price himself are all about…
When Paul Component owner Paul Price started to “make it big” he told himself that he wanted to order a bike each year from a NorCal frame builder. Retrotec, Rock Lobster, Sycip, etc, etc. At the time there were a handful of builders and for a few years he kept to his yearly deposit.
Then he got busy, the framebuilding industry grew and technology changed. For a few years he focused on the company and put his frame builder promise on hold. He then came back around to his promise and at the Sacramento NAHBS, picked up this Black Cat monster cross from Todd. Soon it became his staple bike. Like many custom frames, Paul had an idea for this bike that surrounded a specific component or part.
Those Panaracer Fire Cross tires are awesome, but they won’t fit on most production bikes, or even most custom bikes. 45mm is a lot of rubber for a cyclocross bike, and Paul knew that so he asked Todd to build him a bike around those tires. The end result is really incredible.
The beausage on the cranks alone are worth a photo. Luckily, I shot the whole bike too…
When you’re on the road, you get brief vignettes into people’s or company’s day to day routine, without fully immersing yourself in their operations. Or at least that’s usually the case. Yesterday, however, my preconceptions were shifted and I came to the realization that you can indeed, peer into a company’s soul in the right environment.
What Paul Component is doing in Chico, California is rad. Hands down. We all knew that but yesterday, I got to hang around their shop for an afternoon, not minutes and then, here’s the best part: I got to ride bikes with a few of their teammates, including Paul Price, the owner.
There’s a story to come, but I just wanted to thank the team at Paul Comp for opening their shop doors to us.
Super shredder Yoann Barelli helps us to understand the reality of what it takes to be a pro by taking what amounts to be a beefed up road bike on some heavy duty late 90’s/early 00’s tech trails. Gnar.
Foundry Cycles‘ cyclocross lineup has expanded to offer two refined iterations of their popular Harrow model. These two bikes, the Valmont and Camrock, along with their Overland titanium bike complete Foundry’s catalog for 2016.
Each of these frames share PF30 bbs, disc brakes, internal routing, but the Valmont features DT Swiss thru-axles with a Whiskey Parts Co. No9 fork and the Camrock utilizes QR with the Whiskey Parts Co. No7 fork. Both frames look exceptionally detailed and come in a variety of build kit pricepoints.
The Valmont will be offered as a frameset with an MSRP of $1,895 or as a complete with two different SRAM builds—Force 1 HRD for $3,895 or Rival 1 HRD hydraulic for $3,395. The Camrock will be available as a frameset or as a SRAM Rival 22 build for $1,795 and $2,795 respectively.
The Valmont and the Camrock are scheduled to begin shipping to dealers on August 1.
See more photos below.
For one of this year’s new paint designs, Sacha White of Vanilla / Speedvagen worked with Japanese customer and brand buddy, Masashi Ichifuru, or Ichico as he’s called by friends. Ichigo initially helped Sacha design their Speedvagen National Kit for Japan.
When asked to describe the end result, Sacha White relayed the following:
“What he designed was quintessentially Japanese insofar as it had aspects that were refined and represented high craft, but it also had all of this killer, super cute Japanese pop culture vibe.”
The resulting kit that Ichico designed was a pattern of text alternating between Katakana and English, spelling out Speedvagen in the two alphabets. Mix in Speedvagen’s signature colors and it was so good it had to make its way on a bike frame, resulting in a visual representation of where Speedvagen is right now.
This Surprise Me paint scheme will make an appearance during this year’s CX season and it won’t be alone. Speedvagen will be releasing the desesign in new colors, that will be accompanied by some very special, traditional Japanese goods.
On to the build itself, we’re looking at a Rugged Road model, which is essentially a road bike with larger clearances and disc brakes. This particular bike was built using ENVE, Chris King bits and Campagnolo EPS 11 speed. Some notes of interest are the battery charging port at the bottom bracket cluster, the newly-designed Speedvagen disc dropout and that elegant seatpost topper.
On a personal note, this was one of my all-time favorite bikes from Vanilla…
October will be here before you know it and with it, comes Grinduro, a different kind of bike race. After my pre-ride photoshoot, one thing became evident: the best rig for this race is a cross bike. Don’t even try to ride a road bike, because you’ll be walking and if you ride a MTB, you might clock in a better time on the descents, but there’s a 25 mile climb.
When Giro announced the Grinduro, Santa Cruz framebuilder John Caletti of Caletti Cycles began working on a cyclocross bike for the event. With bent seat stays, clearances for a 40mm tire, disc brakes and no-rattle housing, this bike is the ideal weapon for a day filled with Sierra Nevada gravel and crag.
My favorite detail on this frame in particular however is the Geoff McFetridge artwork. The evil mountain awaits and Grinduro is coming… Best get your rig ready.
Cyclocross bikes may be designed to race for 45 minutes to an hour in various conditions, but their beauty lies in their versatility. I’ve put in a lot of time on my cross bike over the years, and only a fraction of those hours were spent racing. Instead, my bike’s been on road, trail, dirt, gravel and frontage road rides. With the right gear range, which is now as simple as a cassette or a chainring swap, a cyclocross bike could very well be the only drop bar bike you’ll need.
Companies like Niner are banking on that and while they offer a few ‘cross bikes, the RLT9 Steel is their flagship steel rig. Made from oversized Reynolds 853, with a pressfit 30 bottom bracket and a sweet carbon fork, the RLT9 Steel is being marketed to the “adventure” crowd.
What better way to test a bike’s capabilities than to pull one right from the box, strap three day’s worth of camping gear on it and chase 20 people around the mountains, roads and singletrack in central California?
That’s exactly where my relationship with the RLT9 Steel began… In the San Jose airport.
For the Love of Mud, the artistic glimpse into cyclocross racing is now available on a limited edition Blu Ray disc. Stock is dwindling though, so head over to For the Love of Mud quick to pick up a disc. Benedict is in town, here in Austin for a few weeks, so I’ll be trying to pull together an impromptu screening at the Radavist HQ. Stay tuned!
The guys over at Franco had two new bicycles with them at the 2015 Sea Otter Classic. One was a flashy cyclocross racing frame with a carbon fork and carbon wheels. The other, however was a little more unique. It was the same frame, yet built with a steel fork, Di2, disc brakes, fenders and painted a forest green. While the fork they had with them was a painted All-City fork, Franco Bicycles will be making their own, in the same facilities that make their frames here in the USA.
These frames are multi-use, semi-customizable, and are made in the USA for under $1,500. Available in Summer of 2015, you can reach out to them and get put on the waiting list. Head over to the Franco Grimes site for more information.
To commemorate their new ultralight Addict cyclocross bike, Scott Sports had Marcel Wildhaber’s special edition bike on display at their Sea Otter Classic booth. While the production Addict touts the same frame details, the paint job on this one was too good to pass up on… more. camo.
The Addict CX is being marketed as one of the lightest framesets on the market. Weighing in at a cool 1300g (frame and fork), it’s a claim that’s easily backed up. With internal routing for everything, including a dropper post, thru-axles and a removable front derailleur clamp, the Addict CX’s minimal profile is both appealing to those obsessive mechanics, as it is to racers.
While the production Addict comes with clinchers, Marcel’s bike had some juicy FMB tubies glued up, providing that last little bit of flair to an already sick race machine. There’s more information to come on the Addict CX at Scott Sports and more photos in the Gallery!
Since the beginning, Rick at D&D Cycles has painted the Ritchey frames that found their way to him, including the popular Commando mountain bikes. This irregular pattern was something that the Ritchey factory overseas couldn’t emulate, so the team brought this new Swiss Cross straight to D&D Cycles for the appropriate treatment.
For 2015, Ritchey will now offer up any steel frameset with this paint option. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got an older Swiss Cross or a new Break-away, any of their steel frames can be painted like the old Commandos. Simply contact them for more information.
See more photos of this beaut in the Gallery.
Over the next few weeks, Speedvagen will be rolling out a few new bike models, the first of which being the Rugged Road. Like a cross bike, but with some geometry tweaks, the Rugged Road is closer to a road bike than a cross bike, as the name implies. It’s meant for gravel descents with rutted corners and long days in the saddle, rather than an hour of being raced in a cyclocross course.
This frame in particular utilizes the Speedvagen new HollaText scheme with a cream base color; a color we’re the brand will be working with for 2016. It’s built with Di2 and hydraulic discs with room for 40mm tires. As for the geometry tweaks, the most notable is the lower bottom bracket, making it super agile while cornering and keeping the rider’s center of gravity low, despite the larger tires.
To lighted the bike up a bit, customers can opt for a carbon seat tube, which sleeves into the bottom bracket and seat tube cluster. When painted, you can hardly tell, yet it shed substantial weight off the frame. The paint work on the DT Swiss hubs is an accent that Speedvagen has been doing since 2008.
There’s more information on the Rugged Road to come, so stay tuned at Speedvagen.
