The Radavist

Is it a drop-bar mountain bike? A gravel rig on ‘roids? Or a bike from another dimension? When it comes to codifying bikes these days, it’s really easy to get really lost (real quick). However, once in a while, a bike comes along that challenges the norm, flips the bird to conventional geo numbers, and stands alone: not as an outlier, but as an original. Sam Rice has been test riding Curve Cycling‘s long-awaited GMX+ and shares his thoughts on why it isn’t “just another touring bike” below, along with a look at their updated Seek 430 FM carbon fork.

Spencer Harding and Chris”Dirty” Reichel went down the southern border of Mexico and Arizona for the start of the 2023 Arizona Trail Race. The race taverse the whole of Arizona for racers who elect the 800 mile route or the abbreviated and nonetheless daunting 300-mile option. Summer hasn’t relinquished its grasp on Southern Arizona with temperatures in the 100s for the early days of the race…

The door is freshly painted on the corner of Downing Street and 30th in the northeast Denver, Colorado neighborhood of Five Points. Behind the new blue facade, light washes in to reveal high ceilings and smooth wooden floors—heavily polished over time by both varnish and foot traffic. The rest of the space has that just-righted tidiness of a host’s house before a dinner party: intentional, inviting and immaculate. It’s an old building with a new idea, but Treehouse Cyclery isn’t its first bike shop.

Read on for Hailey Moore‘s shop visit to Denver’s newest, community-focused, bike shop: Treehouse Cyclery.

Our friends at Ornot are celebrating their ten-year anniversary as an independent cycling apparel and accessory brand. As part of this milestone, founder Matt Quann penned a retrospective about his experience starting an apparel brand in a San Francisco garage, tracing a path through custom frames, hurdles with domestic manufacturing, and a ride where waffles were promised but not delivered. Continue reading below for more from Matt and keep your eyes peeled for some special giveaways along with this exciting occasion!

The 2023 Bespoked Handmade Bicycle Show just wrapped after three action-packed days of talks, parties, and drooling over the heaps of amazing craftsmanship on display. Josh was on the ground at the Dresden, Germany airport where this year’s event took place, and, below, shares his final gallery of bikes and a couple of interesting components. Let’s get right into it!

The 2023 Bespoked Handmade Bicycle Show just wrapped after three action-packed days of talks, parties, and drooling over heaps of amazing craftsmanship on display. Josh was on the ground at the Dresden, Germany airport where this year’s event took place, and, below, shares his second gallery of bikes and a couple of interesting components. Let’s get right into it!

The 2023 Bespoked Handmade Bicycle Show just wrapped after three action-packed days of talks, parties, and drooling over heaps of amazing craftsmanship on display. Josh was on the ground at the Dresden, Germany airport where this year’s event took place, and, below, shares his first gallery of bikes and a couple of very interesting components that will be launching soon. Let’s get right into it!

I’m in Germany for the 2023 Bespoked Handmade Bicycle Show, which is taking place this weekend, October 13-15 in Dresden. Prior to traveling to Dresden, I was in Berlin with Flo and Tine of Fern/Allygn Bicycles and Gramm Tourpacking where we had an action-packed day visiting various makers around their workshop in the east side of the city. One of our visits was to meet Dan Pleikies of Wheeldan Custom Bicycles. Dan isn’t able to make it to Bespoked, BUT I was able to pull aside a client’s stunning randonneur bike he had on hand to document. Let’s check it out below!

I’m a sucker for movies like Love Actually and novels like Let the Great World Spin that seek to capture how, taken as a whole, the paths of individual lives become interwoven to create a meaningful story. During my time riding in Slovenia at a recent Komoot Women’s Rally and hearing snippets of different rider’s journeys to the start, it felt like I was living in one of these tapestry-like narratives in real time. The thing is though, we’re all doing this all the time but we just can’t always see it. Having the common thread of the bicycle and a shared destination to ride brought our collective overlap into sharp focus but this is a story that runs off the page in both directions—each woman in attendance has a rich history that predates these words and one that will surely continue long after. But, I felt grateful to experience a shared, if brief, chapter during our time in the saddle in Slovenia.

If it isn’t clear that I’m a fan of e-bikes for UTE-ility purposes, then check here or here or just Google ‘FYXO Tonka’. Carrying cargo, kids, running errands, dinking your partner on date night, commuting—forget the financial benefit. One benefit that cannot be easily quantified is how much fun and hassle-free they are.

Many years ago my friend Tyler and I traded my Soma Sandworm for his Alpacka packraft. Both of us were ready for an upgrade in our respective realms, so we traded. Years later we now have these two items, which are so storied and niche, that we can’t let them go and even if we could, we’re not sure anyone would want them. Stuck as we are, let’s have story time and walk down memory lane.

“It’s just a bike.” The late Bruce Gordon built bicycle frames to enhance his customers’ lives. Through all my interactions over the years, up until his passing in June of 2019, he would take praise for his work, but would always end the conversation with: “It’s just a bike.”

To talk about this bike in particular, you first have to know Bruce. Who he was, his ethos, the mythos, and what he brought to the “g” word: gravel. Bruce was making fat-tire road bikes for a long time. Long before many. He developed tires, toe clips, and helped foster an entire movement of makers in the Petaluma, California area and beyond.

But just like that, he was gone, and he left behind a legacy…

In the world of cross-country bikes, there’s a trend of pivots disappearing. Not the brand “Pivot,” but the actual pivots. Specialized heaved the Horst Link, Trek axed its ABP, and Santa Cruz vetoed the VPP. The idea is, at around 100-millimeters or so of travel, weight savings and stiffness take precedence over kinematics. But Pivot (the brand) stuck to their guns for the recently revamped Mach 4 SL cross-country bike. They tweaked their DW Link and refined their carbon layup, claiming better ride quality and a half-pound lighter frame. They sent their flagship build to Ryan LaBar in northern Michigan, and it seems he’s putting this bike on a pedestal, without even needing to put it on a podium.

The Durango Derby brought racers from all over to experience the mountain bike pedigree of Durango and its surrounding mountains. We sent Reportage affiliate Kyle von Hoetzendorff out for the weekend to report back on its vibe and he delivered a stellar piece, including an interview with the event’s co-founder, Dylan Stucki, and exceptional photos by Alex Roszko, so read on to check it out!

Petor Georgallou recently built up a Brother Cycles Mr. Wooden alongside his buddy Neil. Below, Petor delves into piles of parts and decides on some unusual choices as the cornerstone of his build. Follow along for his musings on old bike parts, laughing with friends, and maybe even getting two whole bikes running for the price of one. 

For McKenzie Barney, cycling the world was never about chasing a record, or even adhering to all of the Guinness Book of Records parameters to qualify for an “official” time. But after an introduction to bike touring in Vietnam and learning about the 18,000-mile goal post for a “Cycle the World” completion, she was intrigued. For the next few years she planned, scrimped and saved between trips while pursuing her own Cycling the World project. Earlier this year, she completed the project after having ridden 18,000 miles, in 28 countries, and on five continents. Read on for Part 1 of her journey download, where she writes about moving from thru hiking to bike touring, gaining solo experience in Europe, and then putting it to the test on a ride from Cairo to Cape Town with her partner James. Plus, don’t miss the trailer to her upcoming self-documented, self-edited film!

While he and his wife were on holiday in Santa Fe, John got in a few rides with Steve Rex who brought along his fillet-brazed hardtail. Since Steve wasn’t at the MADE Bike Show, John wanted to give the Sacramento-based builder a spotlight of his own, so read on for the full gallery…

After finishing the route up from Bulgan, I arrived in the largest city I’d come across in the entire trip outside of Ulaanbaatar. Yet, with a shade under 30,000 inhabitants, it’s not exactly a metropolis. Still, after so many days out in the middle of nowhere, it was nice to have a hot shower and a couple of restaurants to choose from. A serious upgrade from settling for boiling instant noodles in a hotel’s electric kettle in some of the smaller villages.

I intended to come here to visit the military guard post, which is responsible for issuing permits to reach the Altai Tavan-Bogd region at the border with China. In the past, one was allowed to simply use their satellite tracker as a means to be allowed entry or higher a guide on a horse right at the park entrance to obtain a permit, but since Covid, they changed the rules up and tourists could no longer go to the region without a local jeep tour guide straight from the city of Ölgii.

Being tailed by a jeep for a week in the countryside isn’t exactly my idea of a great time, so I started looking for alternatives to fill that gap in my route. A quick glance over some satellite maps showed a small cluster of snowy peaks that were only about 50km away as the crow flies, and there was a little white-checkered line crossing them on the map, so this seemed like a nice plan B, no chaperon required.