The Radavist

John spent last weekend in Santa Cruz catching up with friends, riding some tacky dirt and checking out the History of Mountain Bike Evolution Show at Santa Cruz Bicycles, put on by Doug Hatfield, Velo Cosmos with Team Old Soil. The show spanned the evolution of the mountain bike from the 1940s through the Syndicate Racing Team’s World Cup DH machines.

Below, John hones in on the evolution of cruiser bikes to klunkers and the genesis of the Marin County “Mountain Bike” and shares a jam-packed gallery of bikes and hangs…

As cyclists, we love bikes that can do more than one thing. A Swiss Army knife rather than a scalpel, if you will. So when a bike like the Hudski Doggler passes through my possession, I want to find its limits and then push through them. I’ve spent a few months riding the Doggler around Santa Fe, in and around our beloved Santa Fe National Forest, and I’m ready to spill the beans on what makes this bike so appropriate for gravel and mountain riding…

Cjell here with a quick report from the field on my latest prototype bike model, the Monē Hachita. I’m still dialing in the details but have released a few protos into the wild. The new/forthcoming frame featured here was just built up by my friend Bailey Newbrey. For those unfamiliar, Bailey is the owner/operator/janitor/DJ of Sincere Cycles in Santa Fe.

The new bike is one we’re working on over here at Monē. The current Monē line-up has a slack/playful hardtail with very big tire clearance, a drop bar with very big tire clearance, and a gravel bike with just big tire clearance. In many ways, these thru-axle, disc-braked bikes are superior to this new bike. In all ways, really, save one: ultimate retro compatibility.

The last time we reported from the Sedona Mountain Bike Festival was in November of 2021 and conditions were perfect with sunny skies, warm days, and cool nights. Bike demos and clinics were abundant; everything went according to plan. This year, however, with the festival back on its spring schedule during the first week of March, the weather wasn’t so cooperative. After a sizeable snowstorm caused the first day of the festival to be canceled, Josh and Spencer ventured up to the land of red dirt and vortexes to see how the subsequent days would be salvaged. Thankfully the event organizers, vendors, and festival-goers made the best of things and there were still plenty of bikes and products to show off along with abundant festivities to partake in. Let’s take a look below at what we found!

Every bike has a story, but some intrinsically harbor more nuanced lore. As you might have noticed, over the past few years, I’ve acquired a few Ritchey frames from the 1980s. We’ve previously covered my Everest and the story of Tom’s early Bullmoose designs; I also have a 1985 Annapurna, and this no serial number 1980 Ritchey, which might be the best build yet.

This era of mountain bike design and development is my favorite. In the late 70s, guys like Joe Breeze built beautiful bikes inspired by balloon cruisers and klunkers. Tom Ritchey, inspired by the frenetic energy of the mountain bike genesis, began making fat tire frames in the late 70s. From 1980 through 1981, several bikes left Tom’s shop, including the fabled ‘chicken coop’ bikes, and a few were built void of any serial number.

This bike is the latter, and boy, does it have a story…

Vintage mountain bikes have a special place in our hearts over here at The Radavist. From vintage klunkers to fillet-brazed beauts, it just seems like bikes from the early years of mountain biking were ahead of their time in a lot of ways. When the pandemic hit, I found myself browsing forums, eBay, and emailing collectors to build up some vintage rides. I was inundated with all the tech that was coming out, yet wasn’t available to consumers, and just felt like revisiting my passion for old bikes would reinvigorate my love of 26″ wheels and friction shifting. This Ritchey is the most recent of three bikes that I built up over the past few years in the pandemic and was by far the biggest undertaking for me. The process included painting some Tom Ritchey fillet Bullmoose bars to match and fixing some shoddy paint on the frame itself.

This bike needed a complete build kit, as I bought it as a frameset, so I spent a lot of time speccing the build while utilizing some of the NOS components I’ve been sitting on for a few years. The end product is something I’m truly proud of and Cari and I had a lot of fun with the photos here, so enjoy!

Back in 2018, I reviewed the Santa Cruz Chameleon in the 27.5+ platform with a tricked-out build spec thanks to Hope Tech. Much like its namesake, the Chameleon really stood out from the crowd of other production hardtails on the market, making it a proper icon in the world of hardtail mountain bikes. Fast forward three years and I’ve had the new and improved 2022 Chameleon model under my butt for a few weeks now, have taken it on similar terrain as I did in Los Angeles with its predecessor, and have a few thoughts about the two models. Which one is worth your money? Read on below to find out…

Rigid bikes. The roots of riding off-road, yet now the arena of weirdos, quacks, and masochists. Mountain biking started out long before telescoping forks and complex linkage designs, but the bikes of those early days are now a far cry from the activity most consider “mountain biking”.

Of course, those weirdos, quacks, and masochists still have a place in this world, and it turns out I’m one of them. It wasn’t always this way. I used to ride and write about my experience with suspension mountain bikes as a full time job. I could go on all day about spring curves and axle paths, dampers and volume spacers, sag and suspension setup.

But, in the past five or so years, my focus has shifted. I’d rather spend a weekend riding to small places and sleeping out under the stars than shuttling the local loamers and crushing parking lot beers. And in that time I’ve come to value a mountain bike that requires less maintenance.

Having ridden a lot of high end suspension bikes, I know what it takes to keep them running tip top – and I just don’t have the facilities to do that at home, nor the money to pay someone else to do it. A rigid bike makes sense for my sometimes bi-weekly, sometimes monthly mountain bike hobby.

Disclaimer: This happened before the Covid-19 outbreak

I am a team manager/photographer for Deluxe, a skateboard company out of SF. It’s always a trip to say it out loud or write it down on paper but I have my dream job. The posters and stickers that adorned my childhood bedroom walls came from the very place that I commute to every morning.

Santa Cruz has no shortage of bike shops. This sleepy little beach town might be known for its surfing and pesky vampires, but the road and mountain riding is exceptional. With a myriad of dirt and paved roads snaking their way through coastal redwoods, and dusty, steep mountain bike trails, any cyclist can spend days upon days exploring the terrain. Spokesman Bicycles is one of the powerhouse shops in Santa Cruz and just recently opened up what they’re calling Outpost on the West Side of town, right next to their friends Sawyer and Co, a surfing lifestyle shop.