The Radavist

You can tell a lot about a cycling brand based on what the owner or proprietor rides. In this case, we take a look at Mosaic Cycles‘ owner and builder, Aaron Barcheck’s own RT1 disc road built with ENVE, Zipp, and SRAM. This weekend, the brand is coming to Los Angeles, to kick-off the Cub House as being a new dealer for Mosaic and with it, Aaron himself, along with his bike will be here to ride in the endless summer heat.

Speaking of heat, will you just look at that thing! Propped up against the backdrop that is the San Gabriel mountains, surrounded by Chaparral, with its Spectrum powder coat glistening in the sun, and raw titanium “braggers triangle” showing off its frame material. Bikes like this need very little description since they stand on their own.

Stay tuned for details of the Cub House party this weekend!

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Follow Mosaic on Instagram and follow the Cub House on Instagram.

Bicycles are often the by-product of their environment, their peer group, and their community. Sure, that might be extending a lot of credit to an inanimate object, but over the years, it’s easy to see that people often kit out their bikes based on these conditions. For people like Annalisa, from Endurance PDX and the We Got to Hang Out podcast, her road bike is a by-product of her community in Portland.

Next door to Endurance PDX is a little company called Breadwinner Cycles. Perhaps you’ve heard of them? Tony and Ira, along with a very talented team, build beautiful bikes, designed to be ridden hard on various terrain. The Lolo is their classic, rim brake road bike with room for chubby road tires and a beautiful paint job. Annalisa built her bike up with Chris King parts, another Portland, Oregon-based company and wheels built by none other than Sugar Wheel Works, you guessed it, yet another company that calls Portland home.

While Annalisa was in town doing bike fits at Golden Saddle Cyclery and interviewing Jen Whalen for their latest podcast, I took this Red 22 eTap-equipped roadie to the photo wall for some up close and personal photos.

Thanks to Annalisa for being such a positive and supportive voice in the cycling industry. I can’t wait to come hang with y’all later this summer.

“Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.” – Jack Kerouac, On the Road

We all have our favorite authors, our favorite books, and our favorite quotes. Many of these anecdotes for travel or life’s great lessons can be applied to cycling. For Mason, he was drawn to the writing of Jack Kerouac. Particularly, On the Road. This quote became his mantra for his new Stinner Gibraltar road bike. Mason selected one of Stinner’s “Vault” paint options, Paradise, and requested the Team Dream Team Chubby Bobcat to be added to the wild paint scheme. This little detail, along with his Kerouac quote really brought the whole build together. Not to mention the SRAM Red eTap, Boyd Wheels and Quarq power meter cranks. The whole package was assembled by Simon at the Cub House.

Straight up road bikes still do it for me, especially when they’re this clean, this light and this local. I love seeing all the Stinners on the roads of Los Angeles, both paved and unpaved.

Enjoy this bike, Mason!

We Built a Stinner Romero to Raise Money for Our Friend Edie Perkins
Photos by John Watson, words by Jonathan Neve

In April of 2017, while on a morning bike ride, our friend Edie Perkins was hit head-on by an SUV. She survived but is now paralyzed from the chest down. The day before the accident, Edie had taken delivery of a 50cm Stinner Frameworks Romero, custom built and painted in Santa Barbara, CA.

The frame ended up at Golden Saddle Cyclery in Los Angeles, and we had an idea: Build the bike up and auction it off, with 100% of the sale going to Edie’s recovery fund. We originally envisioned a “parts bin” build to help keep the costs low, but within a few hours of sharing the idea, a handful of companies stepped up and offered their help.

SRAM, Zipp, Industry Nine and Chris King donated everything needed to build the bike, and to top it off, Stinner Frameworks offered to paint the cockpit to match their frame and fork. None of these companies hesitated in offering their help; there were no questions, and nothing asked in return – just a genuine desire to help a fellow cyclist in need. A friend at SRAM said it best in an email: “When things like this happen, it really hits close to home for each and every one of us, regardless of direct association or not.”

While Golden Saddle may have a world-class parts bin, the generosity of these companies helped this build massively exceed our initial plans and expectations.

The crew at Golden Saddle built the bike, and we think it turned out pretty darn beautiful…

Zipp bars, stem, and seatpost have been custom painted by Stinner Frameworks to match the Romero’s frame and fork. Shifting and braking are handled by SRAM Force Hydro, and the Industry Nine AR25 wheels are wrapped with WTB Nano 40 TCS tires. A Chris King headset and bottom bracket in Mango are a perfect match for the Stinner’s custom paint, and will likely survive decades of abuse.

The bike is up for auction at eBay, with 100% of the proceeds going to our friend Edie. This is a great opportunity to purchase a beautiful, custom built cyclocross/gravel/touring bike while contributing to a worthy cause.

Detailed specs:
Crank: Force 1 GXP 170mm
Chainring: 40t
Cassette: XG-1195 10-42
Chain: PC-1170
Bottom bracket: Chris King Threaded
Rear derailleur: Force 1 long cage
Shifters/brakes: Force 1 HRD
Brake rotors: 160mm Shimano Centerlock
Handlebar: Service Course SL-70 40cm
Stem: Zipp SL Speed 100mm
Seatpost: Zipp SL Speed 27.2 0 offset
Third bottle cage under downtube
Wheels: Industry Nine AR25 Tubeless Road/Cross wheels
Tires: WTB Nano gumwall tubeless 700 x 40mm tires
Headset: Chris King InSet 7 headset

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You can also check out Edie’s GoFundMe page, or bid on this bike at eBay and see the full geometry here.

Yes, those astute readers of this website will recognize this bike. Kyle photographed it at Grinduro Scotland already, along with the bikes of other builders. It was the only mountain bike in the bunch and it coincidentally won the People’s Choice award at Grinduro Scotland, which is why it’s here in California right now. Adeline makes Mercredi Bikes in the UK. Her torch time is usually spent on road and ‘cross bikes, but this mountain bike was her first, in terms of building and the first MTB she’s owned. A serious cyclocross racer, it didn’t take much for Adeline to adjust to racing this mountain bike at Grinduro, where she won. I’ve always been of the opinion that riding mountain bikes will enhance your ‘cross skills and she’s quickly finding that to be true.

I’m a huge fan of Desert Tan, especially when it comes to bikes. Yesterday at Saddle Drive, I got to go on a ride with Duncan Riffle from SRAM MTB on his brand spankin’ new Santa Cruz Nomad. I’ll tell ya something, these framesets look amazing in person and everywhere we went, this bike turned heads and sparked conversation. For me, chasing down Duncan on my new bike, was almost as fun as watching him shredding his bike for the first time.

Built with the Troy Lee Designs custom bars and matching RockShox decals, XO Eagle and yes, that’s a Garmin mount… If you’re going to the Downieville Classic this year, be sure to watch for Duncan racing on this thing! Good luck, homie! Maybe he’ll even shotgun a beer!

Upon arriving at Saddle Drive in Tahoe, I was surprised to see that many, if not all of the bikes here are under embargo, meaning, I can shoot them now, but can’t post them until the embargo is lifted. I’ve spent my morning scouring the booths for bikes that are free to share, hence this beaut…

Minneapolis’ Northern Frameworks is the in-house brand of Angry Catfish. Each frame is made in house, per the customer’s measurements and desires. This disc road bike was designed to take on long days in the saddle, with clearance for up to a 32mm road tire and SRAM’s Red22 eTap. Laced with Zipp components and a beautiful Chris King Mango headset, this bike has plenty of visual pop where it matters.

If the Necronomicog would ever come out of retirement, this would be its bike of choice. This year at NAHBS, SRAM had a four bikes on display, including this Shamrock road with eTap. The paint job is one of my favorites at the show. It’s not overly complicated, or bright and that’s why I like it.

Like tree branches reaching for the ground against a deep blue sky, this bike is reminiscent of those long rides where you’re trying to get home before the pitch black hits.

It’s a damn shame. Yeah, it really is. It’s a shame that this bike sat in my storage room, with no drivetrain or brake parts for so long. After reviewing this Retrotec Funduro 27.5+ hardtail a few months back, I couldn’t send the frame back to Curtis. I just loved it so much. After some emailing, he agreed I could buy the frame, but I had to send the Shimano parts back to Retrotec HQ in Napa and buy him a new Chris King 40th group.

Months later, Chris King asked to have the bike for their 40th Anniversary show, so I cobbled together a partially working build with a new SRAM Eagle group and sent it to Portland for display purposes only. Partially working? Huh? You see, SRAM and Shimano do chainring offset very differently and SRAM’s Eagle ring isn’t available in 0mm offset, like their other drivetrain systems are and like Shimano’s XTR cranks are designed, so even though it looked damn fine with all that glistening gold on it, the chainring wouldn’t clear the stay…