For the Top Ten Beautiful Bicycles of 2024 we looked at pageviews, comments, and social media chatter from twelve months of content to determine what bikes best represent a calendar year at The Radavist. Then, to up the ante this year, we’ve included our Handmade Showcase Awards, featuring bikes from the OZ/US MADE Bike Show and UK/DE Bespoked. Let’s get to it!
10: Tom Ritchey’s 1990 Eisentraut Mountain Bike
We’re in a seemingly new era of bicycle framebuilding with the proliferation of 3D-printed components. While this movement might feel “unprecedented,” a similar thing happened with framebuilders in the mid-1980s and into the 1990s with technology borrowed from the Beretta gun manufacturer in Italy. In what has to be one of our most intriguing Vintage Bicycles articles to date, John hopped on a phone call with Tom Ritchey to discuss a rare 1990 Eisentraut mountain bike that Tom had recently acquired and the technology that made it possible.
09: Mitchell’s Fine Bikes Enamel Road Bike
Most of our Top Ten Beautiful Bicycles lists have at least one rim brake road bike, and this year’s bike comes from the Southeast. Over the past few years, Mitchell Connell has fallen in love with road riding with his friends – but he never felt at home on his Scott Addict road bike. He turned to Charles Thompson of Fine Bikes to design a dedicated road bike from the perspective of a fellow commuter, bike mechanic, and racer. Read more about their design process, visit Charles’ shop, and learn how his bike turned out.
08: Wende Cragg’s Custom 1983 Breezer Series III
Wende Cragg’s contributions to cycling and her documentation of the sport over the years are unquantifiable. We’ve highlighted them in our wildly successful Camera Corner Documentary. She’s also shared stories ranging from the origins of mountain biking, to her return to Crested Butte last year for the Pearl Pass Tour after a forty-two-year hiatus.
Wende penned an ode to her custom 1983 Breezer Series III, built for her after multiple ill-fitting predecessors (including one of the ten original Breezer Series I). To top it off, she enlisted Joe Breeze to share a few insights about her one-of-a-kind bike and the general evolution of early Breezers…
07: John’s Geekhouse Woodville Redux
This bike has now been on two Top Ten Beautiful Bicycles lists. Longtime readers of The Radavist might recall John’s Geekhouse Woodville touring bike from 2013. Its history is sordid and includes theft, a recovery, some damage, and a brief hiatus. Well, thanks to a group of friends, John got it back, and the redux might be better than the original. Painted by Jordan Low and updated to disc brakes by Royal H Cycles, this Woodville got a complete makeover.
06: Veronica’s Custom Painted Specialized Aethos
It doesn’t have to be a one-off steel frame to make it on the Top Ten Beautiful Bicycles list… Down in Tucson, AZ, Spencer met up with local artist and mechanic John “Cookie” Sands to photograph the bike he custom-painted for his partner Veronica. It started as a Specialized Aethos but after it got a few paint chips, Cookie decided to give the bike a truly one-of-a-kind custom paint job. Make sure to check out the gallery of all the hand-painted details…
05: Casey’s Gravel Fixed Gear
Coinciding with the new Campandgoslow Trout Bar Tape, this mini Shop Visit article featured a very unique gravel fixed gear. Often called Scorches, these bikes aren’t beholden to the “brakeless” ideologies found with many track bike purists. Instead, they’re bikes designed to ride on gravely terrain at a controlled cadence. Casey’s build skills put this one over the top!
04: Stridsland Beachcomber
Who doesn’t love a good origin story? Come along as we take a leisurely dive into the origin story of the 26+ Stridsland Beachcomber frame. Matias Stridsland has built a following around reviving old 26″ bikes and not taking things too seriously, but now he’s here to present his own 90s-inspired 26″ MTB.
03: Steve from Hardtail Party’s Stanton Sedona 29er
The Stanton Sedona 29er really moved our audience. It was designed by Steve from the Hardtail Party YouTube and Instagram account. We love a good hardtail, and much like Steve, we’ve been lauding its merits for a long time! So we know a good bike when we see one. Apparently, you do, too!
02: Hailey’s Crust Bombora
Part shape-shifter, part time capsule, Hailey‘s Crust Bikes Bombora has taken many forms. It’s the bike she got when she first started really getting into bikes and bike touring, and since then, it’s the one she’s altered the most, always finding a way to keep it relevant as her preferences and bike collection evolve. In this somewhat unconventional review, she veers into the sentimental as she highlights some of the setups her Bombora has seen over the past five years.
01: Gideon’s Rivendell Atlantis
Every Top Ten Beautiful Bicycles lists needs to have at least one Rivendell in it! Gideon Tsang has spent the better part of his life admiring and collecting bicycles designed by Grant Petersen. From early Bridgestones to current Rivendells, the bicycles designed around Grant’s ethos of moving mindfully and enjoying the ride have always resonated with Gideon. Enjoy this firsthand account about a bicycle collection that came and went and the story behind Gideon’s dream bike: a rare 26″ Rivendell Atlantis 2.
Handmade Showcase Awards
The Radavist is regarded as the premiere website for framebuilder showcases. Each year, we travel the globe documenting the work of framebuilders with deep, rich galleries that showcase each of these Beautiful Bicycles and the people who create them by hand. For this year’s Showcase Awards, our editorial team picked a drop bar and flat bar bicycle that would represent each showcase. Let’s check them out.
2024 BESPOKED UK
Drop Bar: Sturdy Cycles Fiadh All-Road
The Fiadh model is a ‘do it all’ road bike, and Sturdy Cycles truly “does it all” when they make one. First and foremost, it has been designed to be as versatile as possible without compromising its performance as a road bike. Most importantly, for a framebuilder showcase award, most of the components that make up the bike are included as the kit of parts designed and manufactured by Sturdy Cycles. This offers us unrivaled control over the bike as a whole to make sure that the result is coherent and better than the sum of its parts.
Flat Bar: Clandestine Carrier with Pinion Gearbox
The Carrier is one of Clandestine’s most popular offerings. Like all of Pi’s bikes, the Carrier is equipped with a dual-crown fork and custom racks. But, unlike other Carriers, this one, Pi’s personal bike, incorporates a Pinion gearbox belt drive system. To tension the belt drive, Pi made his own housing with a machined alloy plate that slides in place and tensions the belt. This method is in place of using sliding dropouts, which Pi believes creates extra faffing when installing fenders. Designed with an upright fit for touring and/or commuting, the Carrier features a tall stack and comfortable positioning. Racks are custom and compatible with the Wizard Works Shazam Saddle Bag and, in the front, a custom Carrier Bag made just for Clandestine.
2024 BESPOKED Dresden
Drop Bar: Fern Bicycles Chuck Gravel Touring Bike
The Gravel Chuck is a touring model built by Berlin-based Fern Bicycles. This particular Gravel Chuck is equipped with Allygn racks and custom bags from Gramm Tourpacking. With design language referencing a late-1980s Toyota Pickup and mountain bikes of the same vintage, the build features both old and new elements with components from a long list of artisan fabricators like Cyber Cycles, Garbaruk, Tune, Velocity, SON, Gevenalle, Btchn’, and many more. We think this bike might be peak Fern.
Flat Bar: Drust Folding Bike
Josh intercepted Konstantin Drust of Drust Cycles on his way to Dresden for this year’s Bespoked framebuilder and maker showcase. Konstantin was picking up the luggage for his show bike from Kristin Heil’s Gramm Tourpacking workshop in Berlin. Josh was so enamored with the bike that he couldn’t wait to see it again at the show, and he documented it on the spot. The resulting package is one that demanded a deeper dive than most showcase bikes…
2024 MADE OZ
Drop Bar: Prova Cycles Mostro Drop Bar MTB
Featuring the Pinion Smart.Shift system, this Prova Cycles Mostro dirt drop MTB stole the show. It utilizes TRP’s all-new drop bar Hywire shifters and a Gates belt drive. The beautifully designed sliding dropouts allow for 25 mm of adjustment for dialing in the perfect belt tension. These dropouts, along with the Pinion cradle/yoke, are 3D-printed in New Zealand and are industrial design projects on their own. Perhaps the most striking thing about the bike is the raw finish, which is atypical for Prova, who is known for its meticulous and perfect paint jobs. But as the great grandfather of modernism, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, would say, “Less is more.”
Flat Bar: Devlin Jester 140/150 mm Trail 29er
Brisbane’s Devlin Cycles brought two banger brutes to MADE with the Jester sporting a trail travel package and a four-bar Horst link design. Devlin uses 3D sintered stainless steel clevices and linkage components to ensure a precision fitment and this particular bike sports a stunning Wallis Paints paint job with mountainous layers within a turquoise to dark blue ombré fade. As the name implies, the Jester is meant to inspire giddy laughter all the way down the trails…
2024 MADE US
Drop Bar: Tonic Fabrication LD Stem Drop-Bar 29er
If you want to catch our attention, make a modern, steel, 29er WTB Phoenix homage with a Scot Nicol “LD” stem. Oh, and make it a quasi-loop tail and put a Switchblade fork, dubbed the Gurnblade fork, while you’re at it. The LD stem attaches through the headtube via an inverted star nut. This is an homage to all the famous vintage bikes Tony loves but with modern sensibilities like boost spacing, ample tire clearance, and modern geometry. Then, yeah, why not run the generator wiring through the freaking head tube!??!! You can call Tony from Tonic a madman, and we’ll call him a saint. This is the church we’ll worship at.
Flat Bar: Tomii Cycles Throwback Gravel Bikes
Perhaps the most show-stopping bikes of the MADE Bike Show US were Nao Tomii from Tomii Cycles’ gravel bikes. This pair of flat bar gravel bikes was inspired by vintage mountain bikes. Built for the same customer, Nao Tomii hardly left any part of these bikes untouched. Each was inspired by a different vintage mountain bike – a late ‘80s Mantis Valkyrie X-frame and ’90s GT triple triangle. You can truly get lost in the details here…
Well, that’s it for our Top Ten Beautiful Bicycles of 2024 and Handmade Showcase Awards. Let us know in the comments if your pick made the list!