The Radavist

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!

Coming off of the REEB SST and having ridden the piss out of my Starling Murmur 29er over the past three years, when Chromag announced its new full-suspension bike, the Darco 29er, my interest was piqued. It’s no secret to readers here that I love how steel full-suspension bikes ride, and it’s been great seeing small brands put in the PR&D on these niche bikes. After some pleading, the fine folks at Chromag shipped me out a stock build of the Darco in size XL, for me to womp around on down in Phoenix while I escaped the ice-capades of Northern New Mexico for a week. Was it love at first flight? Find out below…

Tyler’s Electric Mexican Blanket Sunday Driver Chromag Road Bike
Photos by Ross Measures, Words by Tyler Morland

The idea was simple: Create a “Sunday Driver” of sorts. I took inspiration from a bike I was currently riding and blended it with that taste I have for old Ritcheys. My dad has this old Ritchey Timberline comp and I always loved the Fillet brazing look and feel. So Ian Ritz at Chromag Bikes and I started the conversation and we talked about every detail. We used raw material that Chromag had in stock and used something that they have refined for a couple of years, like the drop outs and generally put it through the process that all Chromag frames go through. The head tube was machined in shop and follows the taper of the fork. A real pain in the ass to make. Then, we chose curved seat stays to give it that plush steel ride.

He had no idea it would be this long of a process and neither did I. We roped in Chris Dekerf for the internal routing and brazing. North Shore Billet for the machined parts and sent the completed frame in for a crazy paint job at Troy Lee Designs. I visit TLD once a year for various reasons and those guys are just a bunch of beauties. I’ve been part of the family over at TLD FOREVER and this was a great conversation with a legendary painter… Why not electric Mexican blanket?

The build kit was a no-brainer. That just goes with the territory – All SRAM everything. I still can’t decide if I go ZIPP 303 or 202.

Basically, its special and part of my weird collection… Forever.

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Follow Ross on Instagram and follow Tyler on Instagram and special thanks to Morgan Taylor for coordinating this post!