The Radavist

Miguel Indurain was the king of the Tour de France in the ’90s, winning five times consecutively. He was one of my teenage cycling idols, and coincidentally he and I share almost the same bike measurements; however, the similarities end there! I always thought it would be a fun project to build an everyday rider that was an Indurain Pinarello Banesto replica. Here’s how I got my “Big Mig” bike up and running.

Classic road geometry has always had a nice visual appeal to me. The straight lines and minimalistic look are sleek and pure. When MASH launched their steel All Road frameset, I just had to try one.

Beach Club. What is it? Are they serious? Rim brakes in 2022? Hot pink and white? Wut in tarnation are those Los Angeles city slickers at The Cub House doing? They’re doing what they want, and to be honest, we dig it. Beach Club began as the side project hustle of Danny Heeley and Sean Talkington from Team Dream and The Cub House. They wanted to make production bikes in the USA for people who still care about rim brakes, steel tubing, and lookin’ good. We already looked at the flagship livery a little while ago, and at the LA Invitational this weekend, John photographed Sean’s build. We think you’ll all agree deserves a full-n-fat gallery on this lovely Monday. Check out more below!

I’ve owned and sold a lot of very nice bikes, but my custom Condor Cycles Super Acciaio was my all-time favorite. My ride or die. Literally, and it did. It died when a car did an illegal left turn in front of me. The top tube and down tube folded like a paper solo cup.

Whenever I stop riding for a while because of work, or life, or hurting myself (usually while sleeping, etc, etc), I obsess over these big rides that I am going to do once back on the bike. Like many of you, I can easily spend hours looking at maps trying to piece together the “perfect” route. But cycling, like most fitness-based activities, can be fickle. It doesn’t care that you used to do it a lot.

That certainly doesn’t stop a brain like mine from dreaming. So when I saw my 43rd birthday on the calendar, a group text started with some friends. In the past, we’d done some really ambitious rides for my special day, like the ‘Clouds to Cacti’ ride, for example, featured here a few years back.

The good ol’ Sea Otter Classic can be an overwhelming experience with its plethora of products and bikes. Here at The Radavist, we try to sift through the dirt to find the chunks of gold, which is what we did this year, profiling a selection of bikes from vintage, to new, including some randoms we found meandering the wind-blown aisles of this lovely event. Check out some beauts below!

When I was a kid, there was a poster of a white Lamborghini Countach SL5000 on my bedroom wall. An object of unobtainable desire. Thirty laps of the sun later, the poster now hangs in my Dad’s garage, and I’m no closer to owning one.

This year’s retrospective includes a look at our highest traffic pieces. These articles really blew up, bringing in a lot of comments, backlinks, social media posts, and traffic. While it should come as no surprise, most are bike reviews but a few of these galleries are seminal bits of Reportage. In this list are nine Reportage articles and one Radar, so let’s jump right in!

I hope your winter break was refreshing and that you got some miles in over the Holidaze. We’re back in 2022 with the first of our 2021 year-end recaps, beginning with everyone’s favorite: the Top 10 Beautiful Bicycles of 2021. Like years prior, I compiled this list by traffic, comments, and social media/backlink chatter, also omitting bikes from Open House/Expo style showcases. There are some real gems in here, so let’s get to it!

Stephen Wood, of Swood Cycles, has been making custom steel frames and racks in Richmond, VA for a couple of years now. At this year’s Philly Bike Expo, Jarrod Bunk linked up with Stephen to photograph his eleventh Swood frame, the “Irie” Road+. Below, Stephen offers a few insights into his trajectory of becoming a framebuilder and, paired with Jarrod’s photos, walks us through this stunningly detailed machine.