The Radavist

A couple of months ago, before we were all staying at home social distancing, our customer, John, pulled up to the shop and walked up to our mechanic Simon and I. He mentioned that he had an old bike that needed restoring. Of course, to a bike shop, that can mean anything! Luckily for us, it turned into something truly awesome. After chatting a bit more, we learned that it was a Colnago that John had bought after he graduated college in Arizona.

We got the keys to The Cub House 2.0 in June of 2017. We’d been at our original little shop in South Pasadena for a couple of years and I was extremely nervous about the move to much more “upscale” San Marino, even though it was only a few short blocks away. San Marino definitely has a reputation for being rigid, so The Cub House stands out here. Like REALLY stands out. Have you seen our spot? There aren’t too many multicolor service station turned Bike & Plant Stores in our area.

Today is Labor Day in the US, so we’re taking the day easy, and catching up on life’s demands but we wanted to share this bike on Monday, because, you know, it’s Merckx Mondays. When I was at the Cub House a few weeks back, I met Jun, who was out on a ride with this bike. As you can imagine, this bike has quite the story…

What do you get when Bené, aka Ultra Romance, aka Ronnie McFly, aka Glistening Gandolf coerces an XC/roadie racer boi into embracing the long and slow lifestyle? Well, you’re about to find out. While Benedict and Sean from Team Dream were working closely on those nifty merino wool bib shorts, Benedict convinced Sean with his silver tongue to build up a dream bike. A veritable ex-roadie 2.0 cruiser, complete with all the iconic componentry of MTB and randonneuring’s heyday, which pinch me if I’m wrong, is always the present time. What you see here is the result of much toodlin’ and many man hours spent scrounging for parts. All aboard a Crust Bikes Lightning Bolt.

Most cyclists, and even non-cyclists, who enjoy the type of bike racing that involves going up and down hills know the name Eddy Merckx and of course The Tour de France. Road racing, and the companies associated with it, do a great job of embracing its European heritage and consistently reminding us of how the sport evolved into what it is today. This makes it easy easy to get pulled into the romanticized parts of road racing when companies like Campagnolo, Colnago, and Bianchi do such a great job of celebrating their places in what makes the sport special.

It all began with an Instagram post: “why do I have to be Mr Pink?” Selling my road frame and fork, 74 head angle, 73 seat, 59cm effective top tube. Fits someone 6′ to 6’3″ or so. Frame is all True Temper S3 and has less than 3k miles on it. Paint has some flaws and cracking in it, nothing too bad. Frame clears a 27mm tire, fork a 25mm, could also substitute an Enve fork for better clearance for an upcharge. 1000$ with a King headset OBO, buyer pays shipping. Email me info@falconercycles.com with questions, no direct messages please.”

NAHBS is back in Sacramento this year and having only walked around the hall during setup yesterday, I can already tell the convention center is jam-packed with builders and brands from all over the US, yet it’s hard to deny the strong California presence. While Stinner Frameworks is not showing this year, Team Dream and Mavic Cycling are.

Continuing our coverage from the third annual Cub House Bike Show and Swap…

Chuck is a lifelong cyclist. He runs and owns Velo-Retro but spent his life as a graphic designer who worked on many classic cycling logos, including the Eddy Merckx logo and others. That’s a whole different story altogether, hopefully, to be told another time. Right now let’s focus on this beautiful example of a pristine 1960’s Cinelli Super Corsa.

When Sean from the Cub House told me his dream of putting on a bike and auto show, I wasn’t exactly sure how it’d pan out. Now, don’t get me wrong, Southern Californians love their cars and in this social circle, people love their bicycles just as much, if not more. I was worried that the cars would take center stage over the bikes, or it would get overrun with the auto show crowd. Boy, was I wrong!

Today was the Cub House’s third annual bike show and swap. While we’ll look at the show itself tomorrow, I couldn’t wait to share the winning bike from the show, this Medici-built Carnevale Road bike. Now, with all bikes like this, there is a backstory. Ralph Carnevale was a major dealer of Medici Bicycles in Southern California in the 70’s and 80’s. His shop sold so many Medici bikes that the Masi-spinoff builder made a whole line of Carnevale Bicycles for Ralph.

While Black Friday follows a holiday meant to celebrate the togetherness of friends and family, we oftentimes get swept up in consumerism. Hey, it happens. Deals here, deals there. Lines, lines, lines! The whole ordeal can really taint an otherwise pleasant weekend. Don’t even get me started on Thanksgiving in itself. (You should read the history behind what this holiday was founded on, written by the Manataka American Indian Council.) Now, I’m not writing this piece to get into the complicated history of Indigenous Lands and religious zealots’ squandering of natural resources. I actually like what this time of year embodies but I approach the subject with great care. No matter how you look at it, we are all on Native Lands.