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Last year, while building up a Ritchey frame, I reached out to Martin at Second Spin Cycles, asking if he had any early Ritchey-brazed bullmoose bars. He responded “no,” prompting me to ask if he had any large bikes he was looking to sell. He responded with “actually… yes.”
Featuring five inches of suspension travel courtesy of flexy titanium and a wild, never-before realized linkage fork, the Ibis Bow Ti was an iconic “full suspension” bike of the 90s. Today we feature this bike with a deep dive into what makes it so unique with words by Tasshi Dennis of The Vintage MTB Workshop. Let’s check it out below!
The Yo Eddy is perhaps one of the most iconic mountain bikes. With its Chris Igleheart-designed segmented fork, big tires, and yeah, bright colors, the Yo Eddy left its mark across generations. Today we’ve got a super clean 1990 Fat Chance Grello Yo Eddy for our Vintage Bicycles feature with words by the wonderful Mike Wilk and photos by the ever-talented Joey Schusler…
I still look back at my time in Austin, Texas, with the fondest of memories, thanks to the many people I met while living there. I got to know the most amazing, down-to-Earth, truly unique souls in the five years I called Austin my home. Many of which I’m still quite close with today. A few have since moved on to other cities and are doing big things in their respective new homes.
One of which is Taylor Wallace, a fella I met at Flat Track Coffee years back and have since gotten to see the life he’s made for himself in Bozeman, Montana, where I’ve been visiting for a little over a week now. Taylor owns a coffee company which he operates with his brother, Gavin, called Roly Poly Coffee. We haven’t featured many coffee shops here at The Radavist but Roly Poly, as an extension of Taylor himself is much, much more…
Today’s Readers’ Rides is unlike anything we’ve hosted. Read on below for Todd‘s Morlock, an homage to safety bicycles of the 1890s. This one’s a real treat, so let’s check it out in detail below!
Happy Friday and happy Readers’ Rides! This week’s bike comes from the Philippines where Martin builds up vintage or classic steel bicycle frames with re-used components. Let’s check out Martin’s personal build below!
Jim Merz has designed some really stunning bikes over the years. Most known perhaps for his original Specialized Sequoia touring bike design, Jim has dedicated his life to designing bikes meant to be ridden on all surfaces. A while back, we featured Jim with the Merz edition Sequoia gravel bike, as well as one of Jim’s MTBs and today, we bring you Van from Texas’ 1982 Jim Merz, so check out more below!
Part of the fun in restoring vintage bikes is the process and sometimes that process feels more like a puzzle than a transaction. From finding the correct components, to frame finish repair, and even saving a frame from a metal scrap yard! Nick Martin, shares with us the wild story about how he came to own a truly rare frame, a Breezer Series III, by rescuing it from a scrapyard in Canada! Read on below for this wild tale!
For this week’s Readers’ Rides, the vintage MTBs keep rolling in with Tom’s 1989 Trek Antelope 850 that he’s built up as an all-rounder. Let’s check it out below!
The late 80s and well into the 90s marked a sea change in mountain bike design. Suddenly bikes that were designed to ride fire roads and trails with no real intention were being hurdled down mountains at breakneck speeds. Competition between the brands within the burgeoning sport was fierce, and the race to produce lightweight racing bikes had begun. Perhaps the most infamous of these experimentations is the Yeti C-26, and today, we have some juicy photos of Juli Furtado’s C-26 WC race machine with an entertaining account of this bike’s genesis by Mike Wilk…
Vintage mountain bikes have a special place in our hearts over here at The Radavist. From vintage klunkers to fillet-brazed beauts, it just seems like bikes from the early years of mountain biking were ahead of their time in a lot of ways. When the pandemic hit, I found myself browsing forums, eBay, and emailing collectors to build up some vintage rides. I was inundated with all the tech that was coming out, yet wasn’t available to consumers, and just felt like revisiting my passion for old bikes would reinvigorate my love of 26″ wheels and friction shifting. This Ritchey is the most recent of three bikes that I built up over the past few years in the pandemic and was by far the biggest undertaking for me. The process included painting some Tom Ritchey fillet Bullmoose bars to match and fixing some shoddy paint on the frame itself.
This bike needed a complete build kit, as I bought it as a frameset, so I spent a lot of time speccing the build while utilizing some of the NOS components I’ve been sitting on for a few years. The end product is something I’m truly proud of and Cari and I had a lot of fun with the photos here, so enjoy!
Tom Ritchey is one of the founders of mountain biking and this year commemorates 50 years of Ritchey frames. That’s a huge milestone for any framebuilder and in that time, the brand has produced some lovely models, like the Ascent. Luke built up a beautiful Ascent and sent it in to be featured. If you’re a fan of Ritchey, don’t miss this one!
This week’s Readers’ Rides comes from Sam, who suffers from being too tall for most vintage MTB frames, something many of us can attest to. However, that didn’t stop him from building a beautiful RockHopper, so let’s check it out below!
The hits keep rolling in! This week’s Readers’ Rides comes from Bryan who put together one sweet Bianchi Grizzly commuter/all-rounder, complete with a nice, big basket. Check this one out in detail below!
With the pandemic driving up prices of vintage mountain and road components, many people are turning to modern recreations of these staple parts to finish out their build projects. Whether it’s a Salsa Pro Moto stem or in this case, Suntour’s legendary XC “bear trap” pedals, there are modern components inspired by these classic components but how close are they to the original? In this post, John looks at what makes the XCii so unique and how close the XCiii comes to the original…
Today, we’re continuing our Vintage Bicycles stories with a 1992 Slingshot Team Issue bike, build period correct in all its glory. If you recall, last year we featured a unique Slingshot build complete with a basket and high-rise cruiser bars. While we’re all about repurposing vintage bikes, it’s nice to see one built up to a pro-level spec! Check this out below with words by Mike Wilk and photos by John Watson…
Our Radar Roundup compiles products and videos from the ‘net in an easy-to-digest format. Read on below for today’s findings…
Platano Cycle Works of San Diego, CA was a highly regarded custom bicycle company that, over the years, has been steeped in lore and virtually unknown to those outside of the city’s rich hand-built bicycle scene of the 1970s and early 80s. When Josh was in Nashville earlier this year picking up the Bug Out frame he purchased from Amigo Frameworks and visiting builder Zach Small’s shop space (more on that coming soon), he couldn’t resist documenting Zach’s original Platano. Zach, who hails from San Diego, has collected, bought, and sold many vintage bikes over the years, but he insists he will never let go of the Platano.
Grab a banana snack and continue reading for Zach’s history of Platano Cycle Works and what makes his bike so remarkable…
