The Radavist

Photos and words by Morgan Taylor.

Since we moved up into the mountains – nearly two years ago, time flies – we have made our way back down to the coast to visit every few months. One of our regular stops is to see the guys at Mighty Riders for fit work and general bullshitting. On a number of these infrequent visits over the past year, this beautiful Dekerf was in the shop, each time becoming one step closer to perfection.

Before we drove down last month, Mighty put me in touch with Jeff to arrange shooting the Dekerf. Jeff and I spoke on the phone, and he was super excited to lay out all of the details in the build. What began as a conversation around Ed at Mighty’s freshly built Salsa Colossal quickly snowballed. Knowing Jeff had an eye for detail and the desire to be involved in the design process, Ed introduced him to Chris Dekerf.

The bike came together under a number of precedents and design constraints. First, Jeff wanted to accomplish a “zip tie free build”, which meant internal routing for hydraulic brake lines and Di2 cables. Second, he wanted a fit that would require zero spacers. In the rear end, he wanted one of Dekerf’s signature wishbone seat stays, with a silhouette influenced by the truncated Hellenic stays of his previous road bike, a BMC SLR01.

The end result is stunning, and a testament to the value one can find in working directly with a custom builder. Once Dekerf was finished with the frame, the rest of the build was handed off to Ed and Pat at Mighty to bring Jeff’s vision to life. As much as possible, Jeff wanted to avoid black components unless they were carbon. In sticking to the zip-tie-free requirement, they tapped the bottom of the K-Edge Garmin mount to attach the Di2 control box.

Beyond that, the bike has seen incremental changes to bring the build toward the ideal. There really isn’t much more that can be done with this bike, short of upgrading to a Dura-Ace drivetrain, which Jeff isn’t really concerned about. Now he just gets to ride it.

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Words and photos by Morgan Taylor.

Swift Industries has been making bicycle bags by hand in Seattle for eight years now. The first four of those years were spent in Martina and Jason’s basement, laying the foundation for a company that to this day produces each of its products in-house. When orders kept coming in, and they needed to hire help, Swift Industries moved to the space you see here, in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood.

Words and photos by Morgan Taylor.

For the five or so years I’ve known him, Darrel has been obsessed with achieving slam with his bikes. Personally, I’ve never had the flexibility for it, so I live vicariously through those who are willing to cut their steerer tubes within millimetres of being rendered useless. The single 3mm spacer has become Darrel’s hallmark, though he’s given up on 17º stems for commuting.

Darrel’s Foundry Cycles Auger was originally built with Campagnolo Record a few years back. After two seasons racing cross, and a move toward regular year-round commuting in Vancouver, it was time for a refresh. In its current state with Super Record, SON dynamo, and Reynolds carbon rims, Darrel clocks an average of 40 km a day taking the quick way to work and the long way home.

Do you need carbon rims to commute? Is it sensible to run open tubulars and latex tubes on a bike that gets ridden year round in an urban environment? When you’re spending 8 hours a week in the saddle getting to and from work, these questions matter not. You do what you want.

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The touring world is changing, no doubt about it. Steel frames are still the norm for obvious reasons, but disc brakes are now widely accepted and people are venturing far and wide with component choices that only a few years ago may have been considered imprudent.

One group doing this is the young and adventurous among us, arguably oblivious to their equipment’s lack of serviceability. Under these pioneers, bikes go into the wild with sometimes ugly, yet highly functional home-hacked solutions that get the job done. They are out there for the pure experience, pushing the boundaries of equipment that only a few years ago was considered cutting-edge technology.

Another side of this coin is people at bike companies, with access to the newest stuff before it hits the market, building custom bikes to their own specs to push the limits. It’s not uncommon to see mountain drivetrains on road frames, tires that are too big to pass safety standards, and so on. These bikes, however, rarely make it past the engineers’ and product managers’ personal collections.

When product managers spec bikes, they are held to account by bean counters making sure bikes will sell through – and that means sticking to tradition and not taking chances. I love it when companies have the guts to spec a bike in a way that’s pointed at radness rather than tradition. When I see a production bike deviate from industry norms in this way, my eyes light up; the Kona Sutra LTD is one of those bikes.

In recent years, bikes of all kinds have been segregated into smaller and smaller categories, marketed to more and more specific uses. Meanwhile, riders are looking for a performance machine that allows them to enjoy a wide range of riding. Splitting the difference between categories can make for a confusing experience while looking for a bike. The Brodie Wolff is one such bike, with DNA from a variety of places. I’ve spent the past few months ripping the Wolff on roads, trails, and everywhere in between.

Porcelain Rocket’s Moots Fatty with Hunter Fork
Words and photos by Morgan Taylor

Our recent trip through the Rockies to visit Porcelain Rocket’s shop was months in the making. The plan was to start with the shop visit in Calgary and then backtrack for a ride with Kevin Tweed in Banff the following day. I was excited to experience first hand the majestic Canadian Rockies, and to ride with Kevin on his home turf – but we were skunked.

In the days approaching our visit, massive wildfires burning south of the border combined with stagnant weather patterns to send a blanket of smoke over much of southern BC and Alberta. I had imagined shooting Scott’s Moots with a breathtaking Banff backdrop that I knew Kevin could lead us to, but that idea was out the window. Fortunately, Scott’s Moots holds its own. The haze lifted just enough to let an orange sun bring out the depth in the titanium, and we made some magic.

Repeating Patterns at Porcelain Rocket
Words and photos by Morgan Taylor

Spending a few hours at Porcelain Rocket’s Canadian headquarters, I got a sense of just how much Scott Felter has invested in this business – and in the culture surrounding it. Scott began stitching bags for bikes while living in Banff, at the head of the Tour Divide Route. After a few years working out of a basement in Victoria, BC, he’s been in his current shop in Calgary for three years. On this particular day, Tim was working on a production run of frame bags for Rocky Mountain Bicycles, while Scott and I perused the layers of Porcelain Rocket’s history.

Words and photos by Morgan Taylor

Pristine. That’s how every bike starts out. Every build has its moment of perfection before it succumbs to a life of abuse – cross bikes especially so.

When I walked into Kelowna, BC’s The Lions Cyclery, recently opened by former Vancouverites Meshkat Javid and Ryan Lidstone, that moment of perfection was oh-so-apparent. These two are building the shop’s reputation on “a higher standard of fit and function” – and having worked with both of them in the past, I know that means an obsessive attention for detail during the bike building process.

Six months ago, I hung up my modern mountain bike and began riding a fat bike with thumb shifters and cable brakes as my only bike. Accustomed to the niceties of lightweight wheels, four piston brakes, and an 11-speed drivetrain, I’ll admit I didn’t have a lot of faith in this experiment. I had a feeling I would be itching to get back on my other bike long before the snow melted.

You see, not especially long ago, I held some fairly strong opinions about fat bikes. I worked in mountain bike media, had access to all the newest technology, and was convinced that fat bikes were so far outside the realm of acceptable mountain bikes that I chose to write them off. To me, it seemed that fat bikes were being marketed as mountain bikes but were really just inflated touring bikes. That is, until I had the chance to spend six months on the Surly Ice Cream Truck with a RockShox 100-millimeter travel Bluto fork.