The Radavist

During the fabrication of a Pursuit Cycles, Carl Strong’s custom carbon brand, each of the six sections of the MUSA carbon frame come out of the mold and then are printed with some stats. This includes mold number, frame size, layup version, and a number of parts made from that mold, then finally weight is handwritten on. Eventually, when the frame is complete and getting prep for paint these notes are removed. As this bike was one of the firsts Lead Out ARs to be produced this idea hooked me, I loved the process and tracking, I wanted to play into that. Taking some inspiration from recent sneaker trends as well. I decided on a Helvetica style to the point design.

What do you call a stainless Italian disc road bike, built with Cinelli and Campagnolo, right here in Santa Fe? Spaghetti Western? Sure, why not?

Mellow Velo, purveyors of modern bikes, with a long history of building up classic Italian road racing machines, recently completed this build for a customer back on the East Coast. Adam, the owner of the bike, refinishes mouthpieces for saxophones, so as you can imagine, he has a particular penchant for procuring pristine pedal machines like this one. Luckily for him, David from Mellow Velo has a soft spot for modern Italian-made frames.

When I say Cervelo, chances are your mind doesn’t jump right to off-road bikes. It’s probably something aero like a time trial bike or an aero road bike. Big graphics, thiccccc downtube, lots of spandex, and other images pop into my mind. I’m sure I’m not alone. While it wasn’t exactly a surprise when the brand launched the Áspero – heck, everyone is putting out gravel bikes – I was taken back by how good the bike looked. The Áspero has a lot going on visually but delivers one hell of a ride. I’ve been putting in miles on one for a few weeks now and am finally ready to discuss what I like and what I don’t like about it so if you’re curious about the dirtiest bike in Cervelo’s catalog, read on…

Yesterday we took a deep dive into the shop of Tomii Cycles. Typically, builders use their own bikes to experiment and explore ideas, concepts, and construction techniques they’ll later use on their client’s bikes. This reasoning is why I always gravitate towards a builder’s own bike when I’m visiting a shop.

Speedvagen’s Ready-Made OG series offers up the styling of a custom Speedvagen, at a much lower pricepoint. We looked at the OG road bike a few years back, including that beautiful lilac frame, and my OD OG-1. New to the OG lineup this season is the Disc OG, which has a few new details, other than the addition of disc brakes. So does this bike ride as good as it looks?

Remember this one? From NAHBS? It was one of my favorites in the show. Everything about it just looked right. First impressions are everything you see and these days, with the whole bigger is better mentality about tire clearances, it was nice to see something embrace a modest tire so elegantly.

Mosaic‘s GS1 disc all-road bike is a custom steel or titanium frameset, offered by the Colorado-based frame builders.

Let me reiterate that: this is not a production model with stock sizing. It’s made with 100% custom geometry. A custom geometry ensures this bike will fit you like a tailored suit.

The GS1 is a road bike with disc brakes and room for around a 38mm tire. It has a road bottom-bracket drop (72.5mm) and a slightly slacker head tube than your average road frame (72.5º). Side note: I like how those two numbers match up so perfectly. The 420mm stays and 1033.5mm wheelbase can be best interpreted as smooth sailin’ down your favorite road, be it dirt or sealed.

Blue Collar Bicycles‘ Robert Ives knows a thing or two about metal. Both the tig-welded and guitar-wielded variety. For Grinduro, Giro’s Eric Richter commissioned both Robert and Paul Price of Paul Component Engineering to assemble a sparkle blue disc all road.

This bike stole the attention span of Grinduro Expo attendees with its intense finish and array of orange anodized Paul components, topped off with SRAM’s 1x technology… All hail the trail Eric and Robert. All hail. Take that puppy to dirt church already!

Cycling is an experience that should continue to mature overtime. I’m weary of people who stand firm in their ideologies, rest on laurels and refuse to embrace the “new,” especially when it comes to riding bikes. Look, it’s not that hard to have fun. Opinions can change with experience, its normal. Embrace it.

For the past two years, I’ve been planning both financially and functionally for this bike. Something I’d encourage everyone to do with a custom machine. Don’t just jump in head first without doing research and saving your money. The last thing you want to do is to take a financial hit once the final invoice comes in.

You see, I knew I wanted a Firefly. I kind of felt like that brand and my own brand have grown together over the years. When Jamie, Tyler and Kevin started the company, it had a breath of energy, creativity and their final products all expressed experimentation. Those guys can make anyone a dream bike but deciding what kind of bike is a challenge. Part of my apprehension was not only where I felt like cycling’s technology was heading, but where my own riding would be taking me over the next few years.