This is the story of Jacopo Lahbi and his non-stop challenge to climb Monte Grappa from all of its 10 routes. 455 km and 16,500 m elevation gain, all in one tough sitting. A monumental feat for any cyclist, it’s an almost unthinkable challenge for a world-class track and field athlete.
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Firefly Bicycles: Topography Anodizing
Firefly has really lead the way in terms of anodizing designs on their frames and in the past, we’ve seen many examples of their topography anodizing but never as expansive as this one! If you’d like to see more details of this wild piece of work, head to the Firefly Tumblr.
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The Pursuit Cycles LeadOut AR Prototype and Hand “Painted”
During the fabrication of a Pursuit Cycles, Carl Strong’s custom carbon brand, each of the six sections of the MUSA carbon frame come out of the mold and then are printed with some stats. This includes mold number, frame size, layup version, and a number of parts made from that mold, then finally weight is handwritten on. Eventually, when the frame is complete and getting prep for paint these notes are removed. As this bike was one of the firsts Lead Out ARs to be produced this idea hooked me, I loved the process and tracking, I wanted to play into that. Taking some inspiration from recent sneaker trends as well. I decided on a Helvetica style to the point design.
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Spaghetti Western: A XCR Tommasini X Fire Disc Road Build
What do you call a stainless Italian disc road bike, built with Cinelli and Campagnolo, right here in Santa Fe? Spaghetti Western? Sure, why not?
Mellow Velo, purveyors of modern bikes, with a long history of building up classic Italian road racing machines, recently completed this build for a customer back on the East Coast. Adam, the owner of the bike, refinishes mouthpieces for saxophones, so as you can imagine, he has a particular penchant for procuring pristine pedal machines like this one. Luckily for him, David from Mellow Velo has a soft spot for modern Italian-made frames.
Radar
All City Cycles: Zig Zag 105 and Ultegra Models
All City’s newest road model, the Zig Zag has two new build kits this year, a 105 with blue fade paint and this insane “Sunset Glow” model, laced with Ultegra and Whisky Parts. The geometry remains the same but with an upgrade like that, we’re not complaining. Head to All-City to see more.
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A Reason to Ride: A Big Ride for a Big Cause in the Santa Monica Mountains
Should we join the crazy Everest fad? Zwift for 48 hours straight? What if we ride the entire Santa Monica Mountain Range? The route had to be gnarly enough to catch people’s attention, and then we could steer the gaze to the reason for the ride. To raise funds and awareness for grassroots organizations that fight racial injustices as a part of the Big Rides for a Big Cause platform.
Radar
Velo Orange: Pass Hunter Pre-Order
Velo Orange has put a ton of time in designing their Pass Hunter frame, which we’d call a sportif or endurance road bike but don’t let that limit its possibilities. You could ride a randonneuring event with it, take it on some light touring, or a club ride.
The Pass Hunter is a DIY project, offering up a utilitarian frameset with details galore.
They’re currently running a pre-order for these frames for only $695.00, with an arrival of November 2020, so head to Velo Orange to familiarize yourself with this versatile frameset.
Specs:
-Frameset material: 4130 double butted chromoly steel
-Fork: 1 1/8″ -> 1 1/2″ tapered threadless, 4130 double-butted chromoly steel
-Wheel Size: 650b or 700c
-Tire Clearance: 650Bx47mm or 700x32mm w/ fenders
-Rear Spacing: 12x142mm thru-axle
-Front Spacing: 12x100mm thru-axle
-BB: English threaded 68mm
-Brakes: Flat Mount disc, 140mm rotor compatible
-Seatpost size: 27.2mm, non-integrated seat collar (not included)
-Front Derailleur Size: 28.6mm
-Water bottle mounts: Double on top of downtube, under downtube, and on seattube
-Fender bosses: seat stay bridge, chainstay bridge, under fork crown
-Rear Dropouts: Vertical with aluminium alloy replaceable hanger
-Frame Eyelets: Single eyelets on rear dropouts for fenders, internal eyelets on seat stays
-Fork Eyelets: Double eyelets on fork dropouts for racks and fenders, triple thru-bosses on the blades for cargo cages, hourglass braze-on for Randonneur Rack
-Rear Brake Routing: Easy internal routing for rear brake cable housing/hydraulic tubing
-Paint: Cool Blue or Burgundy Red with metallic VeloORANGE logo
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A Big Ride for an Even Bigger Cause
At a time when every voice counts, it’s important to stand up and use yours to support those in, and outside your community. As an athlete with a platform, professional CX racer Tobin Ortenblad, and his good friend and fellow racer Dillon Hollinger, wanted to use their own voice to bring the cycling community together by raising awareness for social injustice. To do this, Tobin and Dillon developed a fundraising campaign around an Everesting attempt, but with a little twist…
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Creepy Fatigue
Back in November of 2019, an Instagram message popped up from Mark Scott.
“Me, Krunk Shox [Alex McGuinnis] and Santa Cruz are planning a little road bike trip to Belgium in January. We thought it’s something that you’d be interested in being part of.”
The answer was simple: “[Expletive deleted] yes.”
Back in the ‘80s, before Mark, Krunk, and Santa Cruz bikes were even born, a 19-year-old me went to Belgium to become a bike racer.
Back then, if you were an aspiring North American bike racer of any note, you went to Europe to hone your craft. You could absolutely race bikes in places other than Europe, but it was most definitely the world center of cycling.”
Check out this full story at Santa Cruz Bicycles.
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Readers’ Rides: Samuel’s Skinny Slicks and Shaved Faces Spa Cycles Audax Road
While we’ve been working chronologically on these Readers’ Rides submissions, when I saw Samuel’s email, titled “What about shaved faces and skinny slicks?” I had to peek inside. What I found was a truly unique Readers’ Rides submission, so we bumped it to the front of the queue with words and photos by Samuel. Enjoy!
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1×13 Shifting with Rotor on the Merlin Bikes Sandstone Gravel Bike
Hydraulic shifting? 13 speeds? What in tarnation?
That’s what was going through my head when I first saw Rotor’s 13-speed drivetrain kit at Sea Otter last year. The 1×13 kit is a follow up to Rotor’s Uno 2x groupset from four years ago. Like the Uno, the 1×13 uses hydraulically-actuated shifting for a groundbreaking industry first. As you might imagine, this tech is pricey, and probably not for everyone, myself included, but over the past few months, I’ve enjoyed riding it on this beautiful titanium chassis by none other than Merlin Bikes. Check out a full review of Rotor’s 1×13 and the Merlin Sandstone Gravel bike below.
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Tomii Cycles Showcase: Elvin’s Sportif Pass Hunter
This year was to be the first year Nao Tomii of Tomii Cycles was going to attend NAHBS. For a small builder like Nao, spending the kind of money it takes to pull a seat up to the table of the USA’s largest hand made bicycle show takes a lot of financial planning, so when NAHBS was postponed this year, Tomii Cycles wouldn’t be able to attend. Most builders display customer’s bikes at NAHBS and asking his clients to wait four more months for their bikes, especially during a pandemic was out of the question. I reached out to Nao and asked if we could display his bikes here at the Radavist, so we’re doing just that…
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Nothing but Warmth from Everyone We Met: Cycling in Ethiopia
When Ethio Cycling Holidays reached out and asked if I had ever considered cycling in Ethiopia?
my answer was “No, but tell me more !”
Richard (one of the founders) showed me a few photos and told me about the rich culture and history of Ethiopia. “Wow!” I replied I’d love to make this happen.
It’s the 4th of March. My wife and I are making our way to London Heathrow Airport (Terminal 2) to begin our journey to Makelle, Ethiopia. The capital city of the Tigray region which is north of Addis Ababa. Before our flight to Makelle, we take an overnight flight to the Ethiopian Airlines hub in the capital city of Addis Ababa.
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LONGCHAMP
LONGCHAMP follows a cyclist living in Paris, prior to the pandemic, as he navigates the city, its traffic, en route to his favorite riding circuit just outside of the congestion.
Radar
OPEN Cycle: MIN.D Road Bike
OPEN’s latest bike isn’t an all-road or gravel bike with massive clearances. It’s an ultralight road bike with a few clever details. This bike has a lot going on but the most notable design features include a 25mm integrated seat mast, which offers more give and flex in what is normally one of the stiffest components in carbon bikes. This, combined with the ultra-thin stays give the MIN.D some flex where it counts.
Then there’s the MIN.D’s fork:
“The OPEN U-Turn was the first fork truly optimized for flatmount brakes by deleting the standard adaptor to switch between 140mm and 160mm disc rotors. The adaptor is a feature without a benefit at the expense of weight, stiffness and complexity.
The R-Turn uses the same Smartmount direct-mount design with thru-bolts without adaptors, just like the rear brake. Together with new shaping and a new layup optimized for road, the R-Turn is the lightest disc brake road fork available.”
The MIN.D fits a 32mm tire, comes in four sizes, and retails for $3,600 at Open.
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Speedvagen’s 2020 Guidebook: Titanium Frames and Ichico Blossom Paint
Speedvagen is still full-speed ahead with its 2020 Guidebook, offering up a distraction from the current pandemic, with a selection of mouth-watering paint schemes and builds. The biggest news for 2020 is they have brought back the Ichico paint scheme and their titanium bikes are finally fully up to speed and leaving the shop on a regular basis.
Speedvagen are doing free upgrades to Horizon paint on the first 11 deposits on the public release and they’re offering a free Silca upgrade as well. That means you get a painted to match frame pump, 2 Silca Ti Bottle Cages, and a Silca Tourqe.
The Ichico paint scheme is -hands down- my favorite paint job Speedvagen has ever developed. Originally released as the 2015 Surprise Me scheme for one year only, Ichico was then put in the vault and now its back and available as an upgrade for all custom Speedvagens.
Check out the Guidebook at Speedvagen.
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Longing to Escape: Barcelona Awakens After 50 Days of Lockdown
When I was growing up, every night, my father would hang his next day’s clothing over the living room chair. I thought it a peculiar habit at the time.
But over the years, I learned there was wisdom in his actions.
This practice particularly helps on days when my body awakens long before my mind. There’s no precious time wasted starring at the wardrobe trying to make decisions that the mind is not capable of making. How is a brain expected to function when it has yet to leave the bedsheets?
Radar
A Look at the New Affinity Cycles Anthem Stainless Road Bike
Stainless steel is real and the new Affinity Cycles Anthem road bike expands on that. This is the latest platform from the Brooklyn-based brand and it’s full of details. These new frames comes with a 1 1/8th to 1.5 inch tapered head tube, a carbon fork, internal cable routing, T47 bottom bracket, and premium sandblasted finish with polished graphics.
To enhance the buyer experience, 3 levels of complete builds are available via Affinity Cycles with customizable options including a premium weight weenie edition, tricked out the most insane parts in the industry.
The Affinity Anthem is also sold as a stand-alone frame set, headset included.
Other details include:
-Custom drawn 2205 stainless steel butted tubing with ovalized seat stays for strength and comfort.
-Removable set screw cable guides and plates for mechanical, Di2 and Etap builds. The devil’s in the details, this clever design feature ensures a clean and tidy build.
-Race-ready geometry available in 4 sizes, the Affinity Anthem covers a full spectrum of riders from 5’2” to 6’3”.
-Standardized 27.2 seat post diameter, removable der hanger, 100/130 spaced, 68mm bb shell, 43mm carbon fork with built in crown race, fits 28c tires
Check out more photos and pricing information below!