Salsa Cycles’ Grateful Deadwood
Photos by Kyle Kelley and words by John Watson

Leave it to Kyle to bring some hippy shit into the mix for Salsa’s newest drop bar mountain bike, the Deadwood. Sorry, the “Grateful Deadwood.” Personally, I would have gone with some sort of fellen tree or Nature is Metal reference.

Kyle recently went to Saddle Drive, QBP’s open house demo in Ogden, Utah for his bike shop Golden Saddle Cyclery after having spent a great deal of time this year on the Niner Ros9+. Needless to say, Kyle came into Saddledrive with a pretty open mind about the 3″ tire platform. Over the years, he’s also sold a number of Fargos to customers who were planning on tackling the TDR either in the near or far future. How could you make the Fargo better? Throw some bigger tires on it, right?

This bike is in fact the bigger, more mature brother to the Fargo, which is where Salsa first conceived the concept. “Let’s take a Fargo and put a lift kit on it to accept the 29+ wheels…” is what I imagine brand manager Justin Julian would have said. Salsa’s own blog post about the bike hints on that. One of the best design features of the bike (at least on paper since I haven’t ridden it yet) is the Boost 148 x 12mm rear, which allows for a proper Q-Factor needed with a 3″ tire.

Anyway, back to Kyle, who was very excited about this bike. All I got was a shittered (very drunk) text message from him one night with a cell phone shot of the bike and the words “that bike was the best thing I’ve ever ridden” followed by “that bike is a ripper!!!” Yes, he used three exclamation points. I take it he liked it but only having ridden it for the “honeymoon phase,” I’d like to get someone here at the Radavist on it a bit more before we do a full-on review.

I personally commend Salsa for evolving their line, in small, piecemeal ways and even though they may seem nuanced to us consumers, at least the brand is willing to take risks.

So here we are, back at the point where I tell you to holler at your local Salsa dealer and give one a spin. Golden Saddle Cyclery in Los Angeles will have them and you can even ask Kyle what he thought of the bike while he’s sober. Personally, I think it looks like an exceptional option for bikepacking.

The Deadwood has an MSRP of $2,599 and will be available in October.

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