The Radavist

These days, most mountain bike companies have some sort of drop-bar bike in their lineup and, here at The Radavist, we’ve collectively had the opportunity to ride a lot of them. I feel like the impetus for mountain bike brands to develop a drop-bar bike is in direct response to the increasing customer demand for gravel bikes.

When I first saw the prototype Rover, I was intrigued because Revel doesn’t put out shit bikes; but, not being much of a carbon fiber guy, I wasn’t immediately drawn to it. Large-diameter tubing profiles and beefy forks usually imply a chattery, harsh, and stiff ride quality. After riding the Rover on my local digs, though, I was pleasantly surprised. While it’s not without its flaws, the Rover ended up proving my own stereotypes of carbon wrong. Let’s take a closer look below…

The good ol’ Sea Otter Classic can be an overwhelming experience with its plethora of products and bikes. Here at The Radavist, we try to sift through the dirt to find the chunks of gold, which is what we did this year, profiling a selection of bikes from vintage, to new, including some randoms we found meandering the wind-blown aisles of this lovely event. Check out some beauts below!

Where did all the mermaids go? Emblazoned on the Crust Bombora chainstay, this legendary question can finally be answered: The mermaids went to the Sonoran Desert.

Wow! What a weekend that was. The Mid South returned this year and so I found myself in Stillwater once again, hanging out at District Bicycles, shooting the event as well as a few bike portraits. Tomorrow, we’ll be posting our über gallery but today I wanted to showcase my buddy Jared and his new Crust Bikes Evasion Lite he built up at his shop in North Carolina, Back Alley Bikes, so read on below for more!

Earlier this year, I was thinking about how cool it’s been to see Adam Sklar grow his brand. I met him very early in his framebuilding career and in that time, he’s accomplished a lot. He now has production designs as well as still taking on the occasional custom touring bike or the like.

A few years back, he mentioned that one of the things he doesn’t like about framebuilding is how expensive his bikes are. With that reflection, Adam began looking at getting small batches of Taiwanese bikes made and offering them in addition to his standard, US-made bikes. The Taiwan bikes would be considerably more affordable but still have the Sklar Bikes DNA he’s known so well for.

The Super Something is the first offering that is made in Taiwan and I got to see Adam’s personal build up close and personal at this year’s Ruta Del Jefe. Let’s see what these bikes are all about…

The last cycling event I attended before the pandemic gripped the globe was Ruta Del Jefe in February of 2020. Returning to the event in 2022, after two years of lockdowns, masks, and vaccinations was bittersweet. Granted, the pandemic is not over but it felt like a good reset for the coming months of bike events quickly piling up on my calendar.

Ruta Del Jefe is a bike event like no other that puts various socio and geopolitical issues surrounding the host land at the forefront. This year’s experience was organized into a new format that helped raise awareness and money for a handful of non-profits that navigate a myriad of obstacles in the Southern Arizona grasslands.

Returning to the Audubon Appleton-Whittell Research Ranch for the event, with camera in hand, ears and heart open, I was once again reminded just how special Ruta Del Jefe and its organizer, Sarah Swallow is. Let’s see why below…

While I pull together our Ruta Del Jefe coverage for tomorrow’s post, I wanted to share with you a bike that has eluded me over the years. I’ve long admired Jordan’s Sklar Bikes 29er tourer but never got a chance to document it because before I could, it got stolen! Jordan got it replaced by an identical bike and in some form of celestial serendipity, my path crossed with Jordan this weekend and I got to relish the experience of photographing this lovely machine!

Southern Arizona has become a destination for many cyclists over the years but it’s long been a refuge for snowbirds with the nation’s largest rock and mineral show, the Gem Show, hitting Tucson in February and bringing in over 50,000 registered buyers annually. While Tucson is bursting at the seams with RVs, campers, and retirees in February, Sarah Swallow resides about sixty miles south of the city at the Appleton Whittell Research Ranch  – an Audubon property nestled just outside the quiet little town of Elgin – planning each year’s Ruta del Jefe event…

What will soon be seven summers ago, Crust Bikes CEO Matt pedaled his prototype Evasion to the end of Long Island to catch a ferry across the Sound to where the fishing boat I was working on docked each evening. I readied the lines as the boat backed into the harbor.  Looking up, I could see a backlit figure of a cyclist above the docks in the parking lot— late summer setting sun illuminating orange and golds through course, untamed hair.  Chest hair.  We had been expecting each other…