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The Radavist Product Awards and Top Ten Articles of 2023

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The Radavist Product Awards and Top Ten Articles of 2023

While our favorite stories are always ride and event coverage, people love flocking to The Radavist for our opinion on products. We view ourselves as the bike industry’s press corps, offering nuanced takes on hot items each year, while pushing back ever so slightly on the long arm of the industry’s marketing. This year, we cracked a lot of hard nuts but walked away with some compelling products—some of which deserve extra recognition—all while deciphering the world of bikes we know and love, and penning opinion pieces that garnered lots of eyes throughout the past twelve months.

Let’s check out The Radavist Product Awards and our Top 10 Articles of 2023 below!

A Titanium Chariot: Esker Cycles Hayduke LVS Longtail Review

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A Titanium Chariot: Esker Cycles Hayduke LVS Longtail Review

Announced at this year’s Moab Outerbike, the Esker Cycles Hayduke LVS –available as a frame ($2,950) or a complete ($4,950)–is a hardtail mountain bike with 600-millimeter chainstays and touring accouterments aplenty. Esker even developed a specialty rack for this bike, dubbed the Molle Rackwald ($300.) Needless to say, it’s a unique offering from the brand.

John was able to ride one for a bit, including on an overnighter with the Esker Cycles team and Sincere Cycles in Santa Fe, so read on for an in-depth look at this rare and funky bike!

Esker Cycles Announces Ride Scholarship Program

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Esker Cycles Announces Ride Scholarship Program

Esker Cycles is excited to announce a new ride scholarship with the purpose of enabling more people to get outside on mountain bikes.

This summer, Esker Cycles wants to help get you out on the trail. With the Esker Ride Scholarship, we are providing a selected applicant the opportunity to receive a new Esker hardtail mountain bike to help them get out and do anything that they can dream up such as planning their next multi-day adventure or simply enjoying a first-time experience on a mountain bike.

We understand that there are barriers to entry within our sport, one of them being the upfront cost of purchasing a bike to ride. With this ongoing scholarship, we hope to be able to reduce those barriers ever so slightly in the best way that we know-how—by offering a bike to a rider that could use it and providing an opportunity to get out and ride.

Anyone that would like to apply should fill out an application at eskercycles.com by July 31 to tell us why they think they would be a good fit for the ride scholarship, and what they plan to do with a new Esker hardtail mountain bike. Esker is especially encouraging newer riders with a vision for a particular ride or adventure and an interest in telling their story to apply.

It is expected that the selected applicant will carry out their ride or adventure within a year of receiving the bike, and that they will share their mountain biking experience with us through the medium of their choice. The selected rider will receive a Hayduke or Japhy in the size and color of their choice.

Esker started with a mission of getting more people outside on bikes, and this ongoing scholarship is just one small way for us to continue with that mission, and to enable more people to enjoy the sport of mountain biking like we do.

For more information on the program, and to apply, head to eskercycles.com/pages/ride-scholarship

The Esker Japhy Review: One Scrappy 29er Hardtail

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The Esker Japhy Review: One Scrappy 29er Hardtail

When one thinks of Esker Cycles, the Hayduke 27.5+ hardtail (reviewed here by Locke Hassett) quickly comes to mind – and in many ways, the Hayduke served as the launchpad for the design of Esker’s latest model, the Japhy.

While the Japhy looks like considerably “less bike” than the 140mm Hayduke with its 120mm fork and 29″ wheels, don’t count it out yet: the Japhy is scrappy and is willing to claw its way through just about anything!

Over the past few months I’ve been riding the Japhy all over our local trails here in Santa Fe and while at first I was hesitant about taking it out on some of the more technical terrain, I found it to be an exceptional climber and a surprisingly fun descender.

So, let’s get into it!

Locke and His Esker Cycles Hayduke Singlespeed 29er

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Locke and His Esker Cycles Hayduke Singlespeed 29er

George Hayduke. The fictional anti-hero created by the protector of the Western ‘wilderness’, Ed Abbey. While much of Abbey’s political pennings haven’t aged well, he still brought awareness to the American West unsurpassed by any other author of that time. Abbey’s fictional masterpiece, the Monkey Wrench Gang, is a must-read for any lover of the Four Corners and Canyon Country. In it, a ragtag group of desert rats embarks on a journey to dismantle the corporate machines threatening the cherished ecosystems found on the Colorado Plateau. The term “monkeywrenching” and even “eco-terrorist” stemmed from this book as its characters threw a literal wrench in the spokes of the all-consuming corporate machine.

Esker Cycles’ predecessor brand, Advocate Cycles, used the “Earth First” fist on their headtubes and their flagship bike was the Hayduke. When the brand became Esker, they kept the Hayduke model and its signature monkey wrench decals.

Locke reviewed a Hayduke a few years ago. You can read that review in our archives but when he swung through Santa Fe on a recent jaunt, I linked up with him and shot his own personal singlespeed 29er build. Read on for more…