The Radavist

It’s been a long two years for Ben from Argonaut Cycles but if he’s learned anything along the way it’s this: hard work and dedication pay off. In a lot of ways, the Argonaut Cycles road bike embodies the height of carbon fiber manufacturing. While this bike in particular might look like others that have been on the site, countless, minute changes have gone into making it unique. The design process and the final product are always improving.

Manufacturing in the USA allows Ben to tweak the layup process and continuously offer his clients the best carbon fiber road frame. Ben’s a good friend and personally, I’m very partial to Argonaut, so I took this bike out of the Eurobike tradeshow to photograph it. See more in the Gallery!

Something I’ve been saying a lot this past year is how the crit track bike has become its own character within the world of “fixed gear”. Now, I don’t want to generalize too much (I’m guilty of that) but unlike track bikes used to actually race at the track, the crit track bike takes on more eccentric personality. Think of them like a racing machine found in F1 or Nascar. Bright colors, patterns, excessive details that jump out and catch your attention in the four or five seconds of each lap.

The most compelling example in recent months being the Stanridge Speed x Death Spray “magnetic” design or the hyper neon Dosnoventa bikes. Call it what you will but I’ll call it exhibitionist extravagance with two wheels. Case in point are the new Division 1 Cinelli Vigorelli frames. These are full blown, over the top, lightweight race machines.

Custom painted ENVE wheels laced to pink Phil Wood hubs, custom anodized PAUL cranks, custom anodized Thomson stem, Thomson post with a matching Thomson collar, Painted ENVE bars, custom Busyman saddle and bar tape. The guys went all out to match the Cinelli Vigorelli “Giro” pink paint scheme.

Would I ride it? No but I’m a little more reserved when it comes to paint. Besides, I’m a purple kinda guy. Do I think it works in the context of one of the most exhibitionist track bike criteriums of all time? Of course. It’s fun, colorful, will look great at night (in the rain nonetheless) and will match the Division 1 team’s Pee Wee Herman skinsuits to a T. Yes, they even have bow ties.

Call them what you will but Colin Strickland, a local racer, or beast have you, is sitting pretty at number 5 in the Red Hook Crit standings and he isn’t even warmed up yet… Now, if the rest of the team can work together, one of these machines might make it to the podium.

At any rate, a race is a race, a bike is a bike and you can check out more of this excessively extravagant track bike crit machine in the Gallery!

If you follow @thevanillaworkshop on Instagram, chances are you’ve already seen this project unfolding. Over the years, Speedvagen has been working with ENVE on their Integrated Cross Stem. This stem’s unique integrated front brake routing replaces the traditional cable hanger and the associated flex, weight, chatter and unsightly lines that come with it. Personally, I kinda liked my Funky Monkey but I’ll go with the Speedvagen mantra on this one: “Take away everything that isn’t essential and refine what’s left”.

I just installed the CX Worlds 2013 Commemorative stem on my already dialed Geekhouse Mudville and it instantly feels more patriotic. Unfortunately, I won’t be attending the CX Worlds but at least I can ride the shit out of this stem. Although, I will be missing the bourbon!

Pick up one of the CX Worlds 2013 Commemorative Speedvagen Integrated Cross stems here and the standard Integrated Cross Stem here.

Check out the technical info below and more shots in the Gallery.

In Kyle’s quest to ride American-made bicycles, he came across the late Santa Cruz Stigmata. The frame was very affordable, so he bought one and rode the shit out of it. A few months later, he ended up breaking it (went off a trail, nose-first), but was lucky enough to have Santa Cruz replace it with a new frame.

This bike is everything a race bike should be, it’s light, great components where they count and looks damn nice. His #Jahblessed Chris King headset and vintage Salsa Skewers are great accents and as always, he’s got a super rare Ramblin Roll carrying the essentials.

Since Kyle only races SSCX this became his travel bike. We both agree that a cross bike is the ideal bike to travel with, for various reasons and the Stigmata was a very affordable, made in the USA option. Unfortunately, these frames were eventually discontinued, as production moved entirely overseas.

On his last day here in Austin, I shot some photos of it at his favorite bar in town, the Yellow Jacket Social Club.

I’ve been trying to type out a few introductory sentences for this bike for the past few minutes and honestly, I have no idea where to begin. So let’s start out by me saying that it is by no means the first carbon fiber bike I have been offered but it was the first that had a compelling story attached with it, something I’m always intrigued by and will ultimately make for a better piece of journalism.

For the past year or so, I’ve been watching Ben at Argonaut Cycles reinvent his modus operandi. He made the shift from building steel bikes to developing a new fabrication system with a local carbon manufacturer. Unlike anything else currently being manufactured domestically, or overseas, the new face of Argonaut is focused on the future of bicycle design. But that’s not to say that Argonaut’s steel past had been cast aside.

Before he even began to sketch out his design, he met with the carbon engineers, who reverse-engineered some of his favorite steel tubesets, and improved upon their weaknesses. Ben wanted his bikes to have the same ride characteristics of his steel bikes, just more technologically advanced. He came to loosely call this “steel 2.0” but you should take that with a grain of salt because let’s face it, carbon fiber is not steel.

This bike is however a by-product of domestic engineering and fabrication. The carbon weave is from the States. It’s cut to shape, moulded by a proprietary process, assembled and finished all within an hour drive from Portland. The process used produces very little waste. There’s no hodgepodge assemblage, no messy resin and it’s 100% custom. Basically, it’s a streamlined process that utilizes technologies that allow each frame to be engineered to a customer’s specific needs.

That’s what had me intrigued in Argonaut and so I agreed to come on board. Soon, I started to hear the echos of “steel is real” in the back of my head, however. I knew my Bishop is as perfect as a steel bike could be. The geometry is dialed and I’ve never ridden anything like it. So I approached Ben with the idea to make the exact same bicycle, just with his new carbon manufacturing process.

Dimensions, trail, geometry, were all the same, just the profile changed a bit to a racier silhouette. Even the tube’s proprietary layup were influenced by the same steel that my Bishop is built from. Bottom line is, I wanted to be able to subjectively compare the two materials.

After I filled out my ride journal, had numerous talks with Ben and designed the paint, the bike was done. Last week, I arrived in Portland and immediately got to check it out. First thing I noticed was how much of a stellar job Keith Anderson did on the paint. The build wasn’t bad either! Rotor cranks, SRAM Red group, ENVE tapered fork, ENVE bars, Thomson stem, Fizik Kurve saddle, Chris King hubs to H+Son Archetype rims (built by none other than Sugar Wheel Works), Chris King PF30 ceramic BB and that special I8 Chris King headset. It was a dream build.

But what about the ride? The first day, we did a nice 25 mile ride up Saltzman, then Saturday, we headed out towards Mt. Hood for 75 miles (then Billy broke a spoke and we had to call it quits). My initial reaction is very optimistic. The ride is what I can only call “light and responsive”. It handles like my Bishop but even better. Descents are faster and it climbs with little or no qualms. There’s no jarring feel when I hit rough terrain. Everything feels dampened and smooth.

My previous experiences with carbon rental bikes like Cervelo, Specialized and other brands were always harsh. The bikes were stiff and I didn’t enjoy the ride. I’m not a racer, I don’t need a bike engineered to race. I need a bike that rides how I want it to, when I want it to and that’s what Argonaut produced for me. It really is like steel 2.0… So what about my Bishop? There’s nothing on this planet that would make me stop riding it. That’s a fact. Steel is still, real but this new experience has been loads of fun. As for the bike itself, it’s very easy on the eyes.

The bike weighs 15.5 lbs as seen here (minus bottles). With middle-grade LOOK pedals, 32h wheels and 28c tires, that’s not bad at all.

See more photos in the gallery!

Where do I even begin with this bike? At the 2011 NAHBS, I spent the afternoon with Chris Bishop, after all the madness of the show had subsided. We rode around Austin, soaked up the sun, got lunch and chatted bikes. That’s when he asked if I would want to have a road bike in the 2012 NAHBS. Of course I wanted a Bishop road bike but I was torn. Since Chris was mostly known for lugged frames, would he want to make a modern, light, fillet frame? Hell, I didn’t even know what I wanted to be honest.

But first thing’s first. I had to get fit by Chris. After the Philly Bike Expo, I headed to Baltimore with him and Tommy, where I stayed the night and got fit in the morning. We began with what I knew, my Merckx road bike and some standard body dimensions. These became our starting point. From there, we tweaked the fit based on what kind of riding I do. Everything was dialed in on the fit bike: head tube angle, fork rake, seat tube angle, etc. Chris asked what I liked and what I didn’t like.

After some back and forth, we had a geometry and finally, a tubing selection: the downtube and chain stays are Columbus Spirit. The head tube is True Temper OX Platinum, Seat tube NOS Columbus MAX, seat stays, top tube are Dedacciai Zero. I wanted the bike as light as possible but not getting into weight weenie status so we went with an ENVE cockpit and a ENVE 1.0 fork, along with an ENVE post, which was made in the States a week before the show! Other tidbits include a Chris King No-Threadset headset and a Fizik Kurve saddle.

Since I love SRAM, a mix of Force and Red was used (not showing the Red Cassette) but I’m most stoked on the wheels. I went with Pewter Chris King R45s laced with Sapim spokes to HED Belgium Rims. Tommy built the wheels with CX Rays up front and Race spokes on the rear. But the frame is what makes the bike. Chris went to town on every single detail here. The cable stops were machined, the replacable, 7075 Paragon drop outs were machined, the pressfit 30 BB shell was hand filed and the fillet construction is pristine. So pristine that it won best fillet construction at the 2012 NAHBS. To top it off, Bryan at Fresh Frame and Tommy concocted one killer paint job, using my logo colors and my love for chevrons as a precedent.

There, enough talking, check out the Gallery by clicking the above photo or click here to open a new tab.

While I was in Geelong, visiting Baum, I took one of Darren’s shop bikes outside for some lens love. This Baum Cubano road bike was built up sparing no expense. Chris King, ENVE, SRAM, you name it. It just oozes cool. Pulling precedents from old race cars, Darren and his in-house painters worked on the livery. The white, black and orange is reminiscent of the old Gulf Porsche cars and knowing that the build could pass for the weight weenies, i’m sure it rides like one too. Check out more in the gallery.

Gallery (FYI, you can also just click on the photo above to launch this)