The Radavist

Shop Visit: Freeze Thaw Cycles
Photos and words by Jarrod Bunk

Since 05 Freeze Thaw Cycles has been providing great service work and community to State College, from their weekly rides to their mini bicycle museum, they’ve got the best vibe around them for sure.  Justin and some friends started recycling bikes to create alternate transportation, and a lot of their core values hold true today, some 13 years later.  With assembly being of utmost importance every bike built gets stripped to nothing and rebuilt, faced, chased, and ready to roll, which is atypical from most shops today.  Over the years, Justin has procured one of the largest collections of Grove Innovations as well as some other builders.  Those bikes now line the walls above the main floor, just out of reach, but not far enough away that I didn’t stare for hours, no really!  It’s wild to think that this rad of a space is nestled between some of the best MTB trails in Pennsylvania, that’s a good 2 for 1 deal.  If you roll through the area anytime soon, stop by and say hi, you won’t be sorry!

____

Follow Jarrod on Instagram  and Freeze Thaw Cycles on Instagram.

Paddles n’ Puppies: A Visit to Alpacka Raft HQ
Words and photos by Spencer Harding

I’ve been fawning over Alpacka rafts for years but have yet to obtain one. I have used the shitty Klymit one, which resulted in my raft flipping while holding my camera at the end of a rapid. I learned the hard way that there is only one true name in the packrafting game: Alpacka Raft.

Last year my friend Molly (see our last trip for more cute photos of her and Sprocket) got a job working at Alpacka Raft HQ in Mancos, Colorado. Mancos is a quaint town nestled right between the full-on Rocky Mountains and the eastern edge of the Colorado Plateau. Ever since she got the job I had been waiting for an excuse to stop by and check out the factory. Turns out Mancos is not even close to being on the way from Salt Lake City to Denver (to meet up for this year’s DFL the Divide trip) but was well worth the detour.

Snowbirding in Tucson at Tranist Cycles
Photos and words by Spencer Harding

This past March I wound up down in Tucson for some guiding work and planned some extra time to be there a little early to hangout with the nexus of bikey humans that seemed to congregating there. I happened to stop in at Transit Cycles for their monthly shop ride. The ride is co-hosted by Carl from Dragoon Brewing (find him for your first-beer-for-$1 token!) and the ride was a sporting 2 or so miles to the brewery along a bike path from the shop, my kinda ride really. It was an eclectic crowd with mainstays of the Tucson community, plenty of snowbirds from all over the country, and even a very pregnant pannier riding doggo.

Transit Cycles is nestled in the very southwest chic Mercado San Agustine on the west side of downtown Tucson. The shop is the culmination of the owner Duncan’s childhood dream to own a locally run bike shop. After bouncing around the west coast and finally ending up Tucson, Duncan opened Transit early in 2014. He was excited to offer the only place to buy cargo bikes in the city and a focus on adventure/touring bikes.

Today the shop is small but filled with many wonderful vignettes, from Mo’s personal artwork to a collection of more types of chain lube than I thought existed. The shop is currently just two employees, Duncan and Mo. A rarity in the cycling industry with a POC shop owner with a female head mechanic, a conscious decision to make space for gender as well as race. Outside of their monthly shop ride, Transit is a regular host to Swift Industries Stoked Spoke series, WTF rides, and intro bike-packing overnighters.

Next time you pass through Tucson, you know you want to escape winter everywhere else, make sure to swing by Transit Cycles and see what rad stuff is happening!

____

Follow Transitcycles on Instagram and Revolta Art on Instagram

Words and photos by Morgan Taylor.

Last year when we visited Scott at Porcelain Rocket, we were doing the usual: shooting the shit about the industry, and Instagram, and all of the opinionated yammering that goes along with that. The topic of Sklar’s top tubes came up. Yes, those top tubes that curve upward, reducing standover while making for an instantly recognizable silhouette. I was suspicious.

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.

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.