The Radavist

As we begin 2024, let’s kick it off with a reflection of 2023’s photographic achievements with The Radavist’s Photographic Year in Review…

Our favorite posts each week come from you, the readers of this website! Back in 2011 we launched our Readers’ Rides feature and every year, we like to look back at twelve months of submissions and see what resonated with people the most. Well, this year we saw a huge uptick in vintage restomods being submitted and it says something that the number one entry on this list was just posted a few weeks ago! Let’s get to it…

If our Top Ten Beautiful Bicycles list serves as an indicator of your interests, our Top Ten Review Bikes speak to the readership’s curiosities and potential next bike buys. This year’s Top Ten Review Bikes ran the gamut from carbon gravel bikes with proprietary passive suspension to actual full suspension bikes and everything in between.

Let’s check out what review bikes pushed the needle for you this year!

We’ve got over 17 years of Beautiful Bicycles in our archives and each year we like to look back at the previous twelve months of coverage and decipher what you, the audience, liked the most. To do this, we look at the page views for each and every Beautiful Bicycles gallery. Then we look at comments and internet chatter. Once we cull all this data, we’re left with a solid list of bikes. We love compiling this data as it helps us determine what bikes you like to see the most and thus, informs what bikes we document in the future.

Without further ado, let’s get to it!

While our favorite stories are always ride and event coverage, people love flocking to The Radavist for our opinion on products. We view ourselves as the bike industry’s press corps, offering nuanced takes on hot items each year, while pushing back ever so slightly on the long arm of the industry’s marketing. This year, we cracked a lot of hard nuts but walked away with some compelling products—some of which deserve extra recognition—all while deciphering the world of bikes we know and love, and penning opinion pieces that garnered lots of eyes throughout the past twelve months.

Let’s check out The Radavist Product Awards and our Top 10 Articles of 2023 below!

Over the years I’ve slowly tinkered with my touring setup to really nail down which pieces of kit work best for the type of riding I do and where I’m heading next.  I’m always looking for new products that are versatile in terms of the climate and terrain they can be used on, and most importantly I want them to last, as this stuff can be difficult to replace while on the road.  Most of the items on this list are things I’ve started to use over the last year or two, but there are also a couple of items that have been a staple of my setup for the last 7 years.

Longtime contributor, product tester, and Bespoked co-owner Petor Georgallou shares his list of Favourite Products of 2023. With an eye for aesthetics, function, and alternative uses, Petor’s top picks run the gamut of what you might expect to find on this site, from boutique bikes to a lowly notebook. Read on to learn how he hacked a Wizard Works bag, made use of a “smiling butt kit,” a look at a couple products he’ll be reviewing next year, and two playlists he recently assembled for Bespoked…

Spencer Harding is up next and below, joins our team of contributors and editors in sharing a list of favorite products and albums of 2023. A few of his picks are things he’s had for a while and have withstood the test of time and extended use. Others include some new gadgets as well as one non-bike-related product for good measure. He also put together a list of album and podcast recommendations. Let’s get right into it below!

It’s been a wild year around these parts. In addition to the organizational changes we experienced with this website, I feel fortunate to have met and collaborated with many amazing people in addition to traveling to some truly remarkable places. My list of favorite products ended up being rather eclectic, but I think it reflects the wide range of material we get to cover here. Of course, music was an integral backdrop to my work – on rides, traveling abroad, and with my family at home – so I have joined some of our other contributors in offering a selection of favorite tunes, alongside a handful of products, below.

Continuing with our editors’ Favorite Products of 2023, we look at Morgan‘s list, which breaks down into the following categories: carrying stuff, community, self-sufficiency, and pieces of flair. Let’s check out what Morgan enjoyed using this year!

It’s Travis Engel’s turn to go through the gear that made his year. Somehow, he managed to resist the urge to fill his list with movie podcasts and carbon full-suspension bikes (though there are a couple movie podcasts down in his Playlist). Instead, he’s got an eclectic collection of on- and off-bike goodies. None of them actually came out in 2023, but each played a uniquely pivotal role for him this year.

As 2023 comes to a close, Hailey Moore shares the gear that she turned to again and again this year. Read on for the products that have become indispensable in her bike-touring setup, a couple of apparel recommendations, an off-the-bike surprise, and her 2023 Ride Playlist. 

We’ve had a busy year over here at The Radavist. From the return to being 100% independent, launching our Group Ride subscription service, our Rad Bazaar marketplace, and adjusting to being a small business owner again, my free time has been limited. Yet, I can thank a few products for making my job and life easier this year, along with the albums that became the backdrop for my rides, so let’s check out my Favorite Products of 2023!

After three years in the making, Cycling UK and Natural Resources Wales launched Traws Eryri this summer, a new 200-kilometer bikepacking route that crosses Eryri National Park in North Wales. Among the first to ride it, Katherine Moore gives her verdict on the Welsh rough stuff.

Smith Levi, of RatKing Frames, has been dedicated to making frames and bicycle cargo accessories that merge fun and function for a decade. After getting started in Oakland, California in 2013, RatKing has since migrated north to Seattle, Washington and is a founding member of the creative collective Stunt Doubles. Andrew Johns recently had a chance to stop in the space for a chat with Smith and, below, shares a conversation that spans from the idea behind Stunt Doubles, to RatKing’s design inspiration and obsession with process, and Smith’s current offerings.

Wabi-sabi is an ancient and deeply-held Japanese philosophy that sees the beauty in imperfection, appreciates simplicity, and accepts that change is inevitable. This concept, if applicable to any bicycle, feels most appropriate for a custom, handmade, rigid singlespeed 29er mountain bike. Especially a Monē Bikes. That’s not a dig at all on Cjell’s abilities as a framebuilder but as he spelled it out in a text to Matt Mason, this bike’s owner and the co-founder of the Monumental Loop, “Gotta fuck it up… just a tiny bit.”

Travel is routinely romanticized. And it is romantic—how could having the privilege of “checking out” of the daily drum of work, family, bills, etc., and the attendant stress in favor of experiencing a new place not be? The word vacation is, of course, derived from the verb “to vacate,” and while going on vacation is about the act of leaving, it’s also about finding. Finding new culture, new landscapes, new experiences, but maybe just as importantly it’s about finding new perspective on what it is you’ve placed on hold.

After two weeks spent bike touring in Italy in October, Hailey Moore reflects on what she found while away and the paradox of trying to experience more than the Trip Advisor-version of a place without missing the five-star sights. Read on for part one of her Italy Divide reflections while riding from Trento to Florence.

Steel may be real but, for Petor Georgallou, that cliché begs the question: is wood good? Ever the curious reviewer, Petor has long wanted to test the ride quality of a wooden frame and the opportunity to ride a Twmpa Cycles GR1 gravel bike finally presented itself a few months back. But before Petor dips into his ride impressions, he shares an exchange with another wooden builder, Mark Kelly, about the characteristics that make wood an especially compelling frame-building material. After checking out Petor’s review of the GR1, drop into the comments and let us know…would you? Wood you!?