The Radavist

Joe Wignall and Ken Bloomer, from Crema Cycles attended the Berliner Fahrrad Schau last week where they showed their new Static rigid 29’r shred sled in this limited edition configuration.

It features ENVE’s new MTB fork and a custom made carbon seat tube. The frame was built by Alchemy in Denver, especially for Crema Cycles and they will be offering 10 of these framesets (frame, fork, headset and seatpost). Each frame comes in a nice coat of custom paint and the Static is slated to be released later this summer.

Price is to be determined.

Props to the boys at e r t z u i ° film for the photos! See more in the Gallery!

“Step right up, come see the latest from Cielo / Chris King – this bike has it all: tapered head tube, ENVE wheels, Chris King e’rywhere, PF30 BB, Ultegra Di2, grippy, fast tires and even the latest in chartreuse technology.”

Kyle from Chris King is always peddling the latest from Cielo and Chris King. With good reason too. Made in the same facilities as their brightly-colored, or murdered out Sotte Voce headsets, these bikes bear the same precision as the rest of the Chris King line.

The newest model in their road line, the Ultegra Di2 Road Racer is a full-on production model – meaning from the time you place your order, till it arrives at your front door, you’re looking at 60 days. Maybe 61. But still.

One reason I’m so stoked on these bikes is that any Chris King dealer can carry the frames. That means – nudge, nudge – any shop employee with a Chris King account can order one. Retail price is $2,495 for the frame, fork, I8 headset and add $300 for the matching stem. Cielo’s Road Racer frameset is also available as a standard “cabled” option. Remember, there are always Stem options too…

This bike in particular came in around 16 lbs. It might be less than that, but I don’t want Kyle wacking my knuckles with a straight edge if I’m wrong… See more of this chartreuse beauty in the Gallery! I took extra time with this one…

When Ben from Argonaut Cycles designed and developed his first road frame, he was content, but that didn’t mean his desire to create the best made in the USA carbon fiber road frame was sated. Ben knew the market was changing and wanted to have even more options for his customers to select when purchasing a custom bike.

With the popularity of gravel / dirt rides and races, he knew that his current racing geometry would need some finessing and with the increasing demand for disc brakes, the opportunity arose to adapt.

A bike suited for off-road riding has a few tweaks to the geometry. The rear end will be slightly longer, the bottom bracket, just slightly lower and the head tube loses around half a degree. This enables the bike to still handle fast on sealed roads, but really be at home on dirt. Tire clearances are important as well. These bikes fit a 28mm tubeless road tire with ease, which is all you need for gravel. Remember, this isn’t a cross bike.

The Argonaut Disc Road bikes that the Rapha / River City Bicycles team rode during the Rouge Roubaix were developed for off-road conditions, while staying true to their race machine pedigree.

For those familiar with the Di2 hydro system, you’ll note the front plate of the shifters were painted black. Other than that, it’s pretty straight forward. 140mm disc rotors, Argonaut Made in the USA frameset, ENVE bars, ENVE stem, ENVE wheels with custom decals and dripping with Chris King’s precision components.

Tim from the team has the first production model. After an afternoon of shooting photos and video of the bike in action, I took it out for some portrait photos.

This bike ripped apart the dirt and stood out from the pack at the Rouge Roubaix. See more in the Gallery!

Hubert from Cycles d’Autremont has been in town for a few days now, en route back to Burlington, Vermont. He brought two bikes with him on his trip, one of which being this deep red road bike. The color is what really caught my eye, which coincidentally came from a reference in Rem Koolhaas’ book Colors – Hubert’s an ex-architect as well…

Some details, which will probably catch the eye of builders off the bat: To keep the proportions balanced on this 52cm road bike, Hubert machined in-house a 1.25″ taper head tube and ran a Chris King Devolution headset for proper stack.

He then used a tapered top tube from Deda so he could run a 27.2 post, 25mm Deda Chainstays and thinner seat stays.

Dura Ace, ENVE and Chris King, Challenge Strada tires… Yep. This thing is stylish! As described by Hubert “this thing for me was an exercise in doing a new-school bike”. Believe it or not, bikes like this are much cheaper for a builder like Hubert to make. The whole thing goes together much faster than a randonneur frame or a traditional lugged road.

See more in the Gallery!

Over the past year, I’ve had the pleasure of sampling the MTB industry’s best 29r’s on the market. All of which, I might add, are exceptional machines and with the right parts and group, can easily be tailored to your riding style and home terrain. While my Indy Fab rigid has proven to be more than fun on my local trails here in Austin, it’s still a rigid bike, limiting not only the lines you can take, but the speed at which you can take them. The latter being one thing I’ve found out the hard way: the faster you thrash, the harder you crash.

One might argue that riding a new bike on unfamiliar trails is a true test of the bike’s performance and the rider’s ability. While I’ll surely agree with that, seeing as how my experiences with many 29r’s have been on new trails, I will say that ripping your local trails on a new bike is the true test. Especially a more than capable ride like Santa Cruz’s Tallboy LTC. Add a Sram XX1 group and ENVE‘s tubeless-ready wheels and you’ve got more than enough reason to thrash fast.

At this point, I’ve spent enough time on a Tallboy to back my bold claims and even with this bike’s accumulated accolades since its inception, I don’t think anyone will disagree with me.

Check out more of my Trail Tested review of the Santa Cruz Tallboy LTC below!

You know a steel bike is utilizing the most in technology when an accomplished raconteur like FYXO assumes it’s made from carbon fiber. No kidding. When Gomi rolled into Golden Saddle Cyclery on his 2011 Speedvagen road bike, everyone was drawn to it immediately. What’s not to love about the fabled “surprise me” paint jobs? Or that build. EDGE / ENVE, Tune, EE Cycleworks and Super Record 11 really bring this build in under 16 lbs.

And it’s steel!

See more in the Gallery!

It’s been a long two years for Ben from Argonaut Cycles but if he’s learned anything along the way it’s this: hard work and dedication pay off. In a lot of ways, the Argonaut Cycles road bike embodies the height of carbon fiber manufacturing. While this bike in particular might look like others that have been on the site, countless, minute changes have gone into making it unique. The design process and the final product are always improving.

Manufacturing in the USA allows Ben to tweak the layup process and continuously offer his clients the best carbon fiber road frame. Ben’s a good friend and personally, I’m very partial to Argonaut, so I took this bike out of the Eurobike tradeshow to photograph it. See more in the Gallery!

Something I’ve been saying a lot this past year is how the crit track bike has become its own character within the world of “fixed gear”. Now, I don’t want to generalize too much (I’m guilty of that) but unlike track bikes used to actually race at the track, the crit track bike takes on more eccentric personality. Think of them like a racing machine found in F1 or Nascar. Bright colors, patterns, excessive details that jump out and catch your attention in the four or five seconds of each lap.

The most compelling example in recent months being the Stanridge Speed x Death Spray “magnetic” design or the hyper neon Dosnoventa bikes. Call it what you will but I’ll call it exhibitionist extravagance with two wheels. Case in point are the new Division 1 Cinelli Vigorelli frames. These are full blown, over the top, lightweight race machines.

Custom painted ENVE wheels laced to pink Phil Wood hubs, custom anodized PAUL cranks, custom anodized Thomson stem, Thomson post with a matching Thomson collar, Painted ENVE bars, custom Busyman saddle and bar tape. The guys went all out to match the Cinelli Vigorelli “Giro” pink paint scheme.

Would I ride it? No but I’m a little more reserved when it comes to paint. Besides, I’m a purple kinda guy. Do I think it works in the context of one of the most exhibitionist track bike criteriums of all time? Of course. It’s fun, colorful, will look great at night (in the rain nonetheless) and will match the Division 1 team’s Pee Wee Herman skinsuits to a T. Yes, they even have bow ties.

Call them what you will but Colin Strickland, a local racer, or beast have you, is sitting pretty at number 5 in the Red Hook Crit standings and he isn’t even warmed up yet… Now, if the rest of the team can work together, one of these machines might make it to the podium.

At any rate, a race is a race, a bike is a bike and you can check out more of this excessively extravagant track bike crit machine in the Gallery!