The Radavist

Sometimes the best bikes for camping are the ones you’ve got or ones that are gifted to you. Although this bike is the latter, many people right now are clamoring to source a bike, partially brought on by the pandemic, a rekindled love for cycling, and scarcity of bikes. There may be a rad bike in your future and you don’t even know it yet.  It might just be the one if your basement, parents garage or a craigslist ad. An 80s MTB seems to make the perfect donor bike to get out, explore more, and connect with nature.

For this week’s Readers’ Rides, our friend RJ Rabe shares his vintage Sequoia townie build in a high res gallery…

I don’t know much about this particular Sequoia before it came into my life. Beyond that, it lived in the rafters of my friend Austin Horse’s New York apartment before I brought it back to California some years ago. You can see the sticker from the shop that originally sold it on the seat tube, with the protective film somewhat intact.

We’d like to add a note sending our love and support to all those affected by the fires in the Santa Cruz region. You’re in our thoughts…

Back in February, before the whole world was turned upside down, Jimmy Rosas and I took a quick trip up to Santa Cruz. We wanted to ride mountain bikes and eat deep fried zucchini burritos, but most importantly we wanted to visit the Whitney Ford-Terry curated show at the MAH, Trailblazers: Uncovering the Roots of Mountain Biking in Santa Cruz. The show had just opened, and originally this piece was going to be all about driving traffic to the show, but now it’s turned into more of a closing statement. A fare thee well to one of the best mountain bike exhibitions that no one will ever see. A true comprehensive look at the history of mountain biking in Santa Cruz, a place that has now become a mountain bike mecca for hundreds of thousands of visitors every year, a place where residents who don’t mountain bike are the weird ones.

Moving to a new town in the middle of a pandemic has been quite the taxing experience both emotionally and logistically. With relocation comes re-establishing connections and expansion of one’s social network, which is near impossible with stay at home orders. Part of the joy of moving to a new city is to get a lay of the land, meet new people, and find those little idiosyncratic niches small towns are known for. Recently I set out a ping to social media, hoping to track down a fabricator to help build a bike rack swingout for our truck. A friend of a friend connected me with Greg, one of the co-fabricators at a small metal shop on Third Street here in Santa Fe. His shop mate Cooper found out I was into bikes and had to share with me his shed found Univega…

“Gravel bikes are just XC bikes from the 1990s.” “What is this, a 90s XC bike?” “Everything old is new again!”

Read any “gravel” bike review here and you’ll see some version of one of these statements in the comments section. People love to say that modern gravel bikes are just mountain bikes from the 1990s. Well, I hate to break it to ya but they’re not. They might be the same in that a 1996 Lemond road bike is like a 2020 Specialized Roubaix. It has two wheels, a crank, bars, seatpost, and a saddle, plus a lot of other parts but let’s be honest, nuanced bike design is a lot of what we cover here at the Radavist.

This is a 1996 Ibis Mojo built up like a “gravel bike” and yeah, it might be similar in spirit but there’s a lot going on here. Let’s take a closer look…

If you’re reading this, there’s a high probability you’re into bikes. Being “into” bikes comes in all sorts of flavors: racers, tourers, shredders, gear heads, collectors, vanilla, chocolate, twist. However you identify, spending time and money building, fixing, riding, and re-building is all part of it. Exposure to the melange of personalization across the cycling continuum is a big part of what the Radavist does, in addition to sharing the passion and creativity of the people behind the bikes. People who are into it. People like Karl.

Ya ever wondered if you could keep only one of your bikes, which would it be?  At this point in my life I’d have to say my Fuji Sundance with a Crust Bikes Clydesdale fork up front.  This is my “daily driver” that serves for commuting, errand running, Costco runs, carrying coworkers home, or just taking the dog out for a spin. Vintage 26” rigid bikes are the bikes that just wont die and continue to show themselves as being so damn useful, and nothing compliments that better than the Clydesdale fork.

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.

Most people know Wilderness Trail Bikes or WTB as an aftermarket component manufacturer. While this has pretty much always been their MO their catalog once included a lot more than seats and tires. In the early days WTB products were further developments of the work done by founding partners Charlie Cunningham and Steve Potts.

Paul de Valera does it all, he’s the mechanic, manager, buyer, PR, HR, ride leader, ride organizer, social media expert, designer, illustrator, coaster brake extraordinaire at Atomic Cycles. Paul doesn’t have a cell phone, still uses a yahoo email address, and hand draws every single one of his flyers. While this may be fine for a shop that puts on a handful of events a year, but Paul’s ride calendar is ridiculous. Atomic Cycles host a weekly BMX Cruiser ride, two Coaster Brake Race Series a year, vintage mountain bike rides, downhill racing on children’s bikes, a few long gravel rides, a winter and summer solstice ride across the Santa Monica Mountains, a SoCal Single Speed Mountain Bike Championship, a ride where everyone dresses like ninjas in the middle of the night and spends most the ride in fear of someone jumping out and attacking them, a BMX Sidehack Race, the S.C.U.M.B.A.G Mountain Bike Weekend, a Turkey Day Ride, and a SanFernando Valley to DTLA ride. Try to say that 10 times fast!