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The technology is there and a few builders are utilizing it for sure, but you don’t often see a 3D printed frame with elegance like Bastion Cycles‘ titanium and carbon road bike. This thing is a beauty and for me, was a pleasure to photograph. I love the contrast of materials, the 3d-printed NAHBS insignia on the driveside dropout and the mean fuckin’ stance of this road bike. See for yourself in the gallery!
Calfee‘s bikes are truthfully, some of the hardest to photograph. It’s like my lights just liquify them and all I get are bright reflections, rendering these beautiful machines useless to post. This year, I tried something new however and the digital renderings of this Manta Pro road bike truly capture this bike’s beauty. Look, Calfee makes damn usable art and these bikes are the most unique creations at NAHBS. They appear to be some ancient beast, laying dormant in chrysalis…
John Caletti‘s custom titanium machines are always a pleasure to shoot and this road bike is the prize of his booth at NAHBS. He reached out to Jeremiah Kille to hand draw all over the frame, fork, stem, and even commissioned him to design matching bar tape. It didn’t end there. If you check out the Caletti Instagram, you’ll see the matching Giro shoes and helmet too!
At a show where over the top paint jobs reign supreme, it’s nice seeing someone take this approach to frame embellishment…
When Mark DiNucci brings a complete bicycle to NAHBS, you better photograph it. Especially when it features such a bright paint job and SRAM Red eTap!
Aaron Barcheck and his team at Mosaic never cease to amaze and impress at NAHBS. For them, they don’t need to go over the top on show bikes because their work is just that: over the top. It’s the “every bike is a show bike” mentality. This minty green RS-1 road bike, with painted to match Silca frame pump is for Velo Smith in Chicago.
Argonaut has had so many extensive features on this website, so I’ll spare you the introductions. What I will say though is that shooting a white bike with this setup is a godsend. That and the Argonaut-branded t47 BB standard… I still get goosebumps when I shoot these bikes and with good reason. Wow.
Big guys have big headtubes. How big? Bigger than a tallboy? Depends, but if you’re a Texan like Josh Hines, everything’s bigger there, so why stop with a bicycle?
Joking aside. Josh and I are buddies from Austin. He’s in Los Angeles this week to take on some mountains and break in his new Icarus Frames road bike. After being fed up with stock sizing and carbon fiber, he wanted something with more longevity so Josh turned to Ian Sutton to make him a special road bike… and special it is.
Ian’s not one to turn down a challenge. Well, that’s not true, I’m sure everyone has their limits but let’s just say Josh’s request piqued his interest. While Icarus has made carbon and steel bikes before, he hadn’t spent much time working with carbon seat tubes, which is what Josh wanted. Will Ian do it again? Probably not, as it turned into quite the challenge. Does it look rad? Of course!
Josh wanted a road bike for long days in the saddle. His full time job of being a chef doesn’t offer much free time, so when he has a day off, he wants to spend it all on the bike. He wanted the frame to be painted to match his older Beat the Clock Cycling kit, which has geometric patterns all over it and while the frame is about a month old, the parts were all bought used. Even those Bontrager Aeolus wheels! In fact, all he’s waiting on is a new stem, painted to match the Ben Falcon-paint job and he’ll clean up that steerer-area asap.
Til then, Josh has been enjoying Los Angeles’ killer road climbs. Yesterday he rode Mt. Wilson and we’re trying to convince him to take on Cloudburst… We’ll see! Even if he doesn’t, that bike will be happy regardless.
Oh yeah, how’s that new Will Bryant-designed Beat the Clock Cycling kit? So good!
Here’s a soft and bright photo from Firefly that’s sure to liven up your Tuesday afternoon. Jordan Low has been killing it over at Hot Tubes Paint!
It’s never too early to think about your next and hopefully lifelong road bike. Speedvagen’s 2016 Road Guidebook is now live on the Vanilla Workshop site. Inside you’ll find various paint options, build kits and other details on how to make a Speedvagen your next, and possibly only road bike.
The 2016 Speedvagen road framesets begin at $3,450 (frame/fork/ISP) for a stock geometry, with full custom beginning at $4,650 (frame/fork/ISP). That’s including one of the many paint options. Custom upgrades are available including carbon seat tubes, full Di2 battery integration, and color integration on components like hubs, stems, headsets, you know, the works.
Also coming in 2016 is the Speedvagen Asia Fit Tour. Check out all the info you need at the Vanilla Workshop.
I’ve got a few bikes in the review queue coming up, but I had to share these two photos… Don’t worry, there’s more to come soon. Now get out and ride your bike this weekend!
When it comes to custom steel road bikes, It’s safe to say that Speedvagen produces some exceptional machines. Many of these bikes are “Holy Grails” for their owners, who treat these bikes with the utmost care, while riding them every chance they get. In Los Angeles, those rides can take you from Sea Level to 7,903′ at Dawson Saddle and back in one day. There are few places in the USA where you can do that… And you can finish the evening at a museum or sipping on a cocktail.
Jaybe‘s Speedvagen would inspire anyone to get out on the road and push it as hard and as far as they could. With Campagnolo Record 11-speed, Chris King and ENVE wheels, this machine has more than enough performance to take on any ride in LA…
This particular paint scheme was one of my favorites to come from the Vanilla Workshop last year. There’s just something about the Masashi Ichifuru, or “Ichigo”-designed typography, especially with that color palette.
Eric Bones is an artist. One you may know of through his collaborations with Firefly Cycles in Boston. “The Bones Project” bikes featured a high-contrast black and white design which was almost entirely done with a paint brush and a sharpie. As I said, Eric is an artist and artists need creative outlets so Eric began OCEAN, a team of sorts, focusing heavily on expanding from Boston where Eric is based, to the US and beyond. It might not seem like much, but that’s the point. Not every “team” needs to boast about conquests, some just need to look really, really good.
The Ocean Kit is an eye catcher and when you pair it with this Circle-A painted Cervelo S2 road bike, you’re bound to turn heads.
People of Boston fly west for the winter and I found a whole flock of them this week. One evening while we watched the sun set, I grabbed a few photos of this unique bike against an ombré sky…
Here’s an interesting take on the obsession with speed…
“Speed. It has become a passion, an obsession, a religion in the world we live in. We try to do more and more with less and less time. We turn every moment of every day into a race to the finish line — a finish line we never reach. But amid all this, deep inside of us, we know: In between all those goals, there is a thing called life that has to be lived and enjoyed. That less is very often more, that slower is better. But decelerating is hard. And for some of us, the easiest way to slow down is to speed up.”
The Col Collective comes Stateside for a jaunt up Pike’s Peak in Colorado!
… on a steel bike?
Twin Six has been working on these two framesets for well over a year, with both their team riding them and Kevin Sparrow, a writer here at the Radavist. Alongside the Ti Rando is their new Ti Road disc frameset. Both are now available for pre-order now at Twin Six and pricing starts at $1,700.
Read what Kevin had to write about the Ti Rando here and check out the pre-order at Twin Six.
Tenspeed Hero just announced their new Resort Collection, alongside a new Firefly frame offering. These new Columbus Spirit HSS frames come in a TSH-designed paint job and can be purchased as a frame, or complete, exclusively through Firefly.
Head to Tenspeed Hero and Firefly for more!
The Spitfire paint job has been tackled by so many framebuilders over the years and yet, it’s still one design that I can’t get enough of. Like this RT-1D road from Mosaic Cycles. There are enough details in the paint to make anyone envious. Or ENVEous? See more at the Mosaic Flickr!
