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“Try before you buy.” It’s not a saying you’d normally associate with a bike shop. Sure, most shops will let you take a bike on a test ride around the block or in their parking lot, but to pull a brand new bike off the shelf and “demo” it for a day, or two, or a whole month, if you so wanted to, is unique. That model was very foreign to me until I walked into Santa Fe’s Mellow Velo.
With more and more of the bigger brands going to consumer-direct, other smaller brands are growing out of this new model, offering complete bikes with substantial build kits, in modern geometries, straight to the consumer’s door. Ocoee Bikes has adopted this business practice with three platforms currently; all-road with the Baseline, gravel with the Boundary, and MTB with the Seclud model. Each bike comes in a variety of build kit options, colors, and sizing, allowing the consumer to pick the bike that suits their needs best. Now, this business model does come with some downsides. One of which being by cutting out the middleman – aka the LBS – it will put more pressure on existing shops to adapt to the changing market, something that older shops will have a hard time adjusting to. Another issue is being able to ride one of these bikes before you buy one.
… down Guardsman Pass in Utah while it was closed to cars. If you don’t know who Eric Porter is, check out this story we did with him in the birthplace of freeride MTB riding.
Do you think the Dutch abstract painter Piet Mondrian would have ever expected to see his unique form of Neoplasticism art used so wildly in pop culture? To the point where a bicycle frame – hell, multiple bicycle frames! – would be adorned with his unique form of abstract art? Firefly Bicycles is working on documenting a beauty of a frame. See more at their Tumblr.
Stander’s new Kreissäge comes in a rim or disc brake version and is made from high-end Scandium tubing in Italy. With a race-proven geometry, Di2, AXS or 2x compatible, flat mounts, and a no-nonsense kit, it checks a lot of boxes for those looking for a zippy and capable road bike, that’s a little different from the rest of the options out there. Head to Standert to read more.
Chumba, makers of true to form steel bikes in Texas, just announced their Del Amo steel road bike. The Del Amo comes in 6 sizes, a compact geometry, made from OS Columbus Spirit tubing with Paragon bits. The tubing spec allows for compliance in the seat stays and top tube, making the bike ride smoothly, while offering fast acceleration that Spirit is known for. These bikes are offered with a plethora of options and start at $1,625.00. Head to Chumba for more information and see more photos below.
Fenders, fenders, fenders! They’re important and when people put them at the forefront of their product design, they can look damn good. Case in point is the No22 Drifter X, which comes optionally with these new titanium fenders. The Drifter X is an all-road with slightly shorter stays, a higher stack, and the same construction and detailing that No22 is known for.
Check out some more photos below and all the nitty-gritty details at No22
Mattia from Legor Cicli and Franka from MAAD Cycling were at the Eroica California weekend, at the tail end of their trip to California this past week. In tow were a handful of beautiful Legor Cicli bikes, ranging from a classic Eroica road bike, a rowdy MTB tandem, a true chubby road, and this modern road bike. Each has unique details and a presence that demanded photographic portraits.
Fire is nature’s way of redesigning. A way to rewrite the present landscape and while the process is painful, oftentimes, the landscape is rejuvenated. Coastal California is tricky though due to its chapparal ground cover along the mountainsides. You see, chapparal – a coastal low-lying shrub – is old growth and when it’s burnt, the soil loses its stability, causing horrific mudslides. Once the chapparal is gone, there’s nothing else to hold all that dirt together. There aren’t really trees or forests like in other parts of the country along these hills and mountainsides, rather the trees find refuge in the canyons, where they can be more protected, although, with the past few years in California, there seems to be no refuge from fires.
Like many of the local riding areas in Santa Barbara, Refugio burnt a few years ago in the Serpa Fire, engulfing the fire road and hillsides, charring it to the ground. As with most fires, mudslides followed, wiping out El Capitan Ranch in the process. Local efforts have brought the area back, making this epic dirt climb ridable again. Many people say it’s better than ever. Perhaps it was the rebirth of Santa Barbara’s trails and roads that prompted Stinner Frameworks to update their Refugio all road model. Or maybe that’s just a correlation I came up with, either way, a redesign, and improvement is always good when it comes to a bicycle frame, especially one that stays close to its roots, post-burn.
Salsa hasn’t had a true road bike in their lineup for some time now. Sure, they have the Warbird, which is a gravel racing road bike, but with that, comes a more stable geometry with a longer wheelbase. The Warroad is a straight up endurance road bike, with two wheel sizes and multiple build kit options. Warroad is a new platform for Salsa, designed to take on chunky, imperfect asphalt, with what Salsa is calling their “Endurance Road Geometry.”
The Passo Giau was an unpaved mule track until 1986 when it was finally paved. The Col Collective looks at this daunting, 16km long, 2,236m summit.
Taking the success of their OG-1 road bike completes and bringing it to the next level, Speedvagen has just announced their Disc OG road. These bikes are sold as completes only, with a Shimano group of your choice and are tuned to be a precise ride or race bike with no frills.
Think of it as a workhorse, not a showhorse.
Check out all the info on build kit and options below.
No cable bosses, no frame drillings for wires, nada. Just a Pure Road bike made from titanium. Why Cycles wanted to make a road frame, designed specifically for SRAM’s eTap AXS group, tripping it of bosses and focusing on the frame’s details and construction. With clearance for a 32mm tire, it’s a straight-up road machine. Head to Why Cycles for pricing and availability options.
A little while back, All-City reached out to me to shoot their new Cosmic Stallion, with one request, it does not look like Los Angeles in the backdrop. Being a geological nerd, I have a list of weird zones surrounding LA’s sprawling megacity footprint that I’ve either found or have known about since moving there in 2015, one of which being Vasquez Rocks, a popular backdrop for Hollywood SciFi movies…
Averaging just under 8% and totally 1,715 metres in elevation, the Luz Ardiden is anything but your standard climb.
Up on Mt. Lemmon in Arizona, a rider has an unexpected run-in with a deer.
Remember Nukeproof’s digger? Well, here’s a video of Elliot Heap shredding it!
Holy Gaiole!!!
Photos and words by Kyle Kelley
l’Eroica Gaiole has always been a dream of mine. Since the early days of Tracko I would fantasize about traveling to Italy with only two things: a vintage Cinelli and a 35mm film camera. I hadn’t yet been outside of the United States and was young, dumb, and thought I could get anything done. Looking back, I probably would have forgotten to bring film. I was most definitely a bit naive back then.