Cameron Falconer makes some of the nicest hardtails. What they lack in ostentation, they make up for in construction and thoughtfulness. RJ‘s bike is no exception. His 27.5″ hardtail is straight as an arrow, with a few key details to make life on the trail easier. Take for instance the asymmetrical chainstay yoke. Cam uses a plate yoke on the drive side and a smooth, non-crimped bend on the non-drive. This ensures ample tire and chainring clearance. He also uses stealth routing for a dropper, leaving a lot of interestingness going on at the bottom bracket cluster. The nice weldline at the seat tube cluster is so he can step down the seat tube diameter to fit a standard size dropper, without having to go super oversize or use a shim. Even the thru-axle and disc brake support just looks beautiful. All these details were then coated in a sparkle gold powder and vinyl decals, which as you can tell, show plenty of use!

We all know that the frame is only part of the bicycle. RJ selected some tried and true components to keep his bike rolling with minimal upkeep. Including a Shimano XT drivetrain, Race Face ring, XFusion fork, Giant dropper and a specially-machined dropper remote that began as an XFusion trigger, hacked to work with the post. It’s hard to explain… but it works! For wheels, RJ is testing and providing feedback on some carbon MTB wheels for Ritchey. That’s all I can say about those.

Yeah, this bike rules, it looks great sitting here, propped up in the Los Angeles morning sun, but looked even better during our weekend of trail riding!