The Radavist

Looks like we figured out why the original post wasn’t displaying for you during our initial NAHBS coverage, so without further ado…

Let me give you a background real quick: Oh my oh my. I’ve never had the opportunity to photograph an English before, so when I saw this one sitting in the ENVE booth, I had to snatch it up while I could. Let me tell you, getting this bike to stay put while I was setting it up in my photo studio was nerve-wracking. This bike was so well balanced that I couldn’t get it to sit still.

Anyway, onto the bike. English‘s bikes are some of the most beautiful machines to grace the halls of NAHBS each year and this one is no exception. With a clean ombré paint job, flat mount disc rear end, ENVE wheels, SRAM RED eTap and an elegant internal routing port at the head tube, this bike turned heads and sparked conversations as I wheeled it back to my studio.

Bravo, English on making my absolute favorite road bike of the show so far!

Titanium makes for a great off-road material. The tubing diameters are oftentimes larger than steel resulting in a ride quality that’s unprecedented. For Santa Barbara’s Stinner Frameworks, titanium was the next logical material to learn how to tig weld. Their shop now offers titanium road, touring, road and mountain bikes, with Matt’s being one of the recent beasts to be born.

Keeping the Tunnel 29’r frame raw, it’s offset by the razzle-painted Rock Shox Pike fork, Jones wheels, SRAM 1x drivetrain, internally-routed Reverb dropper and a Thomson cockpit.

Matt grew up riding MTBs in Topanga and Calabasas as a kid but hadn’t touched one in over 14 years. This bike will be the catalyst to get him back on the trails in Santa Barbara and hopefully he’ll be shredding with us when he comes home to Los Angeles over the holidays.

For those of you unfamiliar with Matt’s work, he’s the photographer for Stinner Frameworks and goes by the handle @HazardousTaste on Instagram. I highly suggest you give him a follow!

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!

Cycling is an experience that should continue to mature overtime. I’m weary of people who stand firm in their ideologies, rest on laurels and refuse to embrace the “new,” especially when it comes to riding bikes. Look, it’s not that hard to have fun. Opinions can change with experience, its normal. Embrace it.

For the past two years, I’ve been planning both financially and functionally for this bike. Something I’d encourage everyone to do with a custom machine. Don’t just jump in head first without doing research and saving your money. The last thing you want to do is to take a financial hit once the final invoice comes in.

You see, I knew I wanted a Firefly. I kind of felt like that brand and my own brand have grown together over the years. When Jamie, Tyler and Kevin started the company, it had a breath of energy, creativity and their final products all expressed experimentation. Those guys can make anyone a dream bike but deciding what kind of bike is a challenge. Part of my apprehension was not only where I felt like cycling’s technology was heading, but where my own riding would be taking me over the next few years.

Yeah, you read that right. Schnozola. Two Jewish guys get together to build frames and they use the slang word for a giant nose as their moniker. Brilliant huh? I thought so.

Paul Sadoff from Rock Lobster and Bruce Gordon from Bruce Gordon was a Dude to Me Interbike 2015 pins got together and started making tig-welded frames. There’s not a lot to be known about this brand other than they chose OX Platinum and Columbus Spirit for the tubeset, SRAM Rival 1, Paragon tidbits, the ENVE GRD fork, a Hebrew inspired typeface and yes, one giant Schnoz for the head tube logo…

The Soulcraft Dirtbomb is an incredibly versatile bike and a worthy tool to tackle an event like Grinduro. It’ll eat up dirt roads, singletrack and pavement alike but most importantly, it’s strong enough to withstand the after party. Which at events like last weekend, tend to go on ’til dawn.

Sean from Soulcraft knows a thing or two about handmade bikes. He learned the trade from legends like Bruce Gordon and Salsa Cycles, so it’s fitting to see his framesets carrying on many of these ideologies, just in an updated, modern form.

This bike in particular clears the Bruce Gordon RockNRoad tires, features PAUL Klampers, Chris King and WTB wheels and SRAM’s CX1 group, with a 10-42 cluster.

Like I said, it’ll take on anything you throw at it and still party ’til dawn.