The Radavist

Salsa hasn’t had a true road bike in their lineup for some time now. Sure, they have the Warbird, which is a gravel racing road bike, but with that, comes a more stable geometry with a longer wheelbase. The Warroad is a straight up endurance road bike, with two wheel sizes and multiple build kit options. Warroad is a new platform for Salsa, designed to take on chunky, imperfect asphalt, with what Salsa is calling their “Endurance Road Geometry.”

Snow in the High Desert

Hell, we need snow in the Southwestern United States, especially in what is called the Four Corners. All winter, riding plans have been put on hold for Mother Nature’s cool embrace as our landscapes get covered in a thick blanket of soil-enriching snow. With warmer temps, the crypto soil locks in as much moisture as possible, giving water to our desert flora friends. Needless to say, when it snowed over 14″ in Sedona I was a bit sad. You see, Salsa sent out an invite to ride in Sedona last week – to take on some of the best the area has to offer on their newly-designed trail bikes.

Salsa Cutthroat, Much More Than a Tour Divide Rig
Words By Spencer Harding, bike photos by Spencer Harding, with action shots by Locke Hassett

While I was able to finagle this incredibly snazzy bike solely for the purpose of reviewing a framebag on it, I figured why not squeeze a bike review out of it as well? First things first, I’m not a huge fan of riding drop bars and as I mentioned before I’m no ultra-endurance racer, which is precisely what this bike is designed for. So, I may be a fish out of water in that regard, but I think there is still plenty of potential in this bike for us humans who enjoy riding less than 200 miles a day and more than 2 hours of sleep a night.  At face value, this bike is fast, when you point this thing down a dirt road and put some muscle into the pedals it fucking moves, it doesn’t much care for going slow.  When using a combination of the magtank 2000 and two stem caddy style bags, the bike actually couldn’t turn sharply at low speed, but this bike was designed to haul ass on the Tour Divide, not make low speed technical turns.  Lets delve into the specifications and all that jazz…

There’s something about a classic track bike that makes me get a little trigger happy with my camera. While I was in Tucson for New Years, I swung by Cicli Noe, a small bike shop in South Tucson. I’ve met Noe before over the years at trade shows and the like, so I was stoked to see his shop. As soon as I walked in, we began looking at his collection of vintage frames, including this gorgeous US-made Salsa track bike, with a full Campagnolo Pista group.

Noe exclaimed how he used to have it on display at the front of the shop but later decided to put it in his storage area. This bike is mint. Everything is perfect on this bike. My main question comes down to who made the bike? Ross Shafer built Salsa Cycles frames in the USA, but so did Waterford. Now, Ross was best known for his mountain bikes. I’m sure he built road frames too but track bikes? That’s news to me. Perhaps one of you reading this article will have a better idea.

We’ll look more at Cicli Noe next week, with a recap gallery from Tucson but for now, I wanted to give you this bit of eye candy to feast upon.

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Joe’ DKXL Prototype Salsa Cycles Warbird Carbon
Photos and words by Jarrod Bunk

Joe’s proto Warbird has taken what Salsa has learned from their athletes and staff to refine what was already a fast gravel bike and give it some new features. The fork/frame is all new but with added versatility like dynamo routing in the fork, fender mounts, and a much cleaner Di2 setup.

Joe has already raced the DKXL aboard the new bird, proof that the new bike is ready to rip some gravel. This bike doesn’t just look fast, it is, but stays comfy over the roughest of b-roads thanks to the 2nd generation updated vibration reduction system. Aside from the entire suite of SRAM parts, including Zipp wheels, and SRAM Drivetrain and Brakes, the left lever can operate his dropper mid-race if needed making this, the most capable Warbird yet.

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When you’re dead set on breaking the Tour Divide single speed record this year, ultralight is the way to go. Bailey, who is currently working at District Bicycles, recently built up his 2018 TDR race bike. He chose the Salsa Woodsmoke for the geometry, tire size, and most importantly weight. Even though he’s racing single speed, he still needs to keep the bike as light as possible. As it sits now, the bike weighs 30lbs on the nose, with everything he needs. It’ll weigh 35lbs on the trail, with water. The parts selection is spot-on, with components that will withstand the 2745 mile trek from Canada to Mexico.

An unexpected snag Bailey ran into while building this bike was that the elevated chainstay caused a lot of lateral sways and without a large chainring and large cog, would cause the chain to kick. Problem-solving like that is always best to do before you find out on the trail…

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I’m here in Stillwater, Oklahoma at District Bicycles for the Land Run 100 where Salsa Cycles just launched a new all road bike platform, dubbed the Journeyman, which offers the 27.5 or 700c platform in an affordable package, opening this exceptional wheel size to a lower pricepoint. As someone who has thoroughly enjoyed the 27.5 x 2.1″ wheel platform on my personal bikes, I’m stoked to see a sub $1,100 bike adopting this platform.

The Journeyman comes in a 27.5″ or 700c option with drop bar models, or a geometry-tuned flat bar version. There are two pricing options, beginning at $899 for the Journeyman drop bar Claris, flatbar Claris 700c or 27.5″, and $1,099 for the Sora build kit options, which comes with a carbon fork. These frames come with all the provisions you could want, flat mount brakes and most importantly for events like the Land Run 100, ample mud clearance. The rear spacing is 135mm, with QR front and rear so even “older” wheels will work. The model I photographed is the Journeyman Sora 27.5″.

This bike has so much potential yet at the moment Salsa is not offering it as a frameset, so if you want to deck it out with a balleur build kit, expect to part out the Sora option. Other than that, I have no critiques of these pricepoint, path-finding bicycles. Head to Salsa for more information and your local dealer for test rides and purchasing.