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Crust Bikes and RonsBikes.com have a fundraising raffle going on to benefit families separated and detained at the Southern Border. All you have to do is donate what you can to ActBlue and email your receipt to RonsBikesRaffle@gmail.com to enter the raffle.
This raffle will end at 7pm EST on December 7th.
Thanks to:
@velocityusa @paulcomponent @whiteind @ultradynamico and @brooksengland
for pitching in parts for the build.
To commemorate the release of their Breakaway Single Speed Lightning Bolt frames, Crust Bikes made this video showcasing the bike and its details.
Our International Singlespeed Day post brought out some real gems, including Brad‘s Curtis S1 singlespeed MTB. This one’s a real beaut and Brad supplied a great rundown on the bike’s inception, so read on below for the full report!
This week is going to be a stressful one and rather than stew indoors, listening to the news, last night I hollered at Bailey to see if he wanted to commemorate International Singlespeed Day on our neighborhood trails…
Intro by California Travis:
Every Monday at 11 am, the entire PAUL Component shop staff has an “All-Hands” meeting to catch up on any changes or shop news or projects. For the last few months, this has been in the backyard with masks and everybody yelling across the yard to each other. It’s weird but no weirder than our usual shop vibes. Last Monday, Paul announced that November 2nd is International Singlespeed Day. We all looked at him like “Huh? Says who?” Then he said it was him and his friend Amanda’s birthday that day, and it was Amanda’s idea, and why the hell not?
Having never created an International Holiday before, I wasn’t quite sure what to do, so I got on the phone with a bunch of framebuilders and friends and said “Hey. It’s Paul’s birthday on November 2nd, and he wants everybody to ride singlespeeds. You down?” And of course, everybody said yes, I mean what the hell else are you going to do right now? So how do you join us? It’s pretty simple really, go for a ride on your singlespeed, wherever you live, post a photo on Instagram and hashtag it #InternationalSinglespeedDay, and wish Paul and Amanda a happy birthday if you want. Don’t have a singlespeed bike? Zip tie your shifters, or take the battery off your derailleur, maybe? Get creative, there are no rules!
Post your singlespeed bikes up in the comments too.
We asked Paul what the big deal is and this is what he wrote… Read on below!
Remember cyclocross racing? Remember its sibling tracklocross and all those excellent galleries from the Bay Area series? Well, Mash SF has something for you to consider if you’re hoping to start racing tracklocross. Their 2021 frames all got a refresh, with new paint designs, and Mash even hinted at their new Phil Wood collaboration on their blog, so head on over to see all the details.
This is the ninth layout of the Radavist 2020 Calendar, entitled “Autumnal Descent” shot with a Leica M10 and 50mm f1.4 Summilux lens in the Santa Fe National Forest.
“There’s no denying it. The days are getting shorter, the weather is changing. The Autumn equinox is right around the corner”
For a high-res JPG, suitable for print and desktop wallpaper*, right-click and save link as – The Radavist 2020 – September. Please, this photo is for personal use only!
(*set background to white and center for optimal coverage)
Tannus Armour put out this video of all-around shredder Keland Hawks giving his local trails a go on his singlespeed commuter bike.
It had been years since I’ve ridden singlespeed and to be honest, I was pretty reluctant to do so here in Santa Fe. We’ve been in town for about two months now and it’s taken a while to get used to the elevation. Our house is at 6,800′ and the local trails start around 7,000′, shooting up to 12,000′. It’s a lot to take in but for the more flowy cross-country trails, I felt like I could get away with one gear and I knew just the bike for it!
My Retrotec is one of those “forever” machines. I could never sell it as it feels like it’s a part of this website. Plus, the maker – Mr. Curtis Inglis – is just such a stand up guy. When you ride a Retrotec, you put a smile on Curtis’ face and if you’ve ever met the guy, you know that’s well worth it!
A few years back in 2018, I shot Bailey’s Salsa Woodsmoke, just before he took off on the Tour Divide. The bike was dialed at the time, with all the kinks worked out and he pedaled it from Canada to Mexico. Now here we are, two years later, Bailey has a shop in Santa Fe called Sincere Cycles and one of the brands he carries is Moné Bikes, based out of Silver City. As soon as he opened his shop, he ordered a custom Moné to once again take on the Tour Divide.
Available in April and launched today at the Mid South, the Stormchaser is Salsa’s new singlespeed gravel bike. This new bike is available at the moment only as an aluminum frame, with a carbon fork, and is inspired by the Warbird’s all-road, all-conditions, no-nonsense geometry.
Because gravel races often take place in inclement conditions, Salsa added abrasion plates on the fork, internal routing, and extra clearance for when the mud really gets caked on.
The all-new Alternator Flat Mount dropouts allow for single speed setups or 1x drivetrains with a geared dropout plate. This geometry is adapted so that wider bars can be run with it as well.
Complete builds are priced at $1,499 with the frameset coming in at $1,099. See more information at Salsa.
My friends at Chumba Cycles have had a truly inspirational story since re-launching the brand in early 2014. While the name Chumba Cycles has been around for some time in the mountain bike world, this is an entirely different company when compared to the brand that launched in California during the early ’90s. Without going into the details too much, Vince and Mark purchased the brand a few years back and began making their tig-welded steel bikes in-house in Austin, TX. Around that same time, they moved shops, and on a recent trip to the Lonestar State, I swung through to check out their new digs and see some of the bikes they were building up for customers.
The newest bike from All-City is dubbed the Super Professional. It’s a flat bar, zippy bike, inspired by All-City’s ‘cross bikes but updated for urban laps. This new platform features the Master Dropout, their first-ever combination geared or single-speed sliding dropout system, the Super Professional can be converted from single-speed to geared at the turn of a few bolts. It’s available as a geared ($1599) or singlespeed ($1299) option and even a frameset ($850). Other details include a fancy fork crown, internal dropper routing, and loud paint options. The Super Professional comes geared or singlespeed. Check out detailed photos below and more information at All-City!
I’ve been a fan of Cjell Moné‘s bikes for some time, from seeing his custom TDR bike on the wall at Adventure Cycling HQ to him writing about brazing alongside masters for his production run of frames. Until recently, I had only thrown my legs over Kirsten’s personal frame at infamous Brush Mountain Lodge waiting out snow on the TDR. Cjell and I have quite a disparity in size thus making his personal bikes out of the question. A few weeks ago, Cjell let me know that Nate from Blue Dog Bikes in Tucson was purchasing his “demo” bike that was my size and that I should take it for a spin. I jumped at the chance, I was always too self-conscious to ask an operation as small as his to put together a bike solely for me to rip and review. But since someone else already had the bike and was nice enough to let me rip it for a few days, shred I will.
Welcome to the beautiful dark twisted world of Paul de Valera and Atomic Cycles‘ Coaster Brake Challenge! A race I have known about for over a decade, a race that my mentor JimC would race religiously, but for some reason, I never made the time to attend. I always made up some kind of excuse, usually, it was about the bike, which is bullshit. Paul and Atomic Cycles have plenty of loaners, and as you can already tell from the title of this story, these bikes are simple, cheap, and easy to build.
Gordon Wadsworth walks us through the simplicity of Pivot’s new LES Singlespeed complete bike. These light SS MTB 29ers are in stock at your local Pivot dealers.
Wow! What a year it’s been. In the past twelve months, we’ve shot roughly 300 bikes. From gravel races, to NAHBS, the Philly Bike Expo and our normal travels, we really captured some unique builds and we’ve got a good handle on the bikes the readers of the Radavist enjoy checking out based on some key metrics.
Every year we try to do our best to sort through twelve months of archives to narrow down to this list. The first filter is the comment count, which we start at 50 comments. Then comes page views, with the minimum number being 20,000 views. Finally, we look at the social media chatter; including Instagram comments and how many times was the post shared across various platforms.
What we end up with is a list that is filled with a plethora of interesting, versatile, and quirky bikes. The only editorial decision I myself made was to omit reviews of stock bikes. So no Santa Cruz Stigmata or Cannondale Topstone this round!
Check out the full Top Ten Beautiful Bicycles of 2019 below, in no particular order…
Nate from Augusta, Georgia’s Zukas Cycles brought this stunning city singlespeed to the Philly Bike Expo this year, with all the bells and whistles you’d expect from a show bike, but with durability for actual wear and tear in mind. Disc brakes, fenders and all the accouterment a gnarly North Eastern all-weather cyclist would demand but with looks and style in mind.