The Radavist

Last year marked a sea change for the cycling industry. On one hand, cycling saw a boom with many companies shifting to a work from home model, and employees looking for a new outdoor hobby to spend their free time. On the other, supply chain shortages ran rampant throughout the industry and suddenly the supply couldn’t meet the demand. Depending on who you talk to, parts shortages happened for a number of reasons but the bottom line is if you have the ability to sell bikes, or even frames in 2021, consider yourself lucky.

Before the pandemic, Sabrina and Max Clauson wanted a change of pace from their normal day-to-day lives so they purchased VYNL Bikes. Now they’re running it as a passion project from their home in Boulder, Colorado. While I was in town earlier this year, I swung by their house to take a look at the new VYNL brand and to shoot Max’s /rd Rim brake bike along with Sabrina’s /gr Disc Gravel bike. These no-nonsense machines come in stock geometry, have the option for custom paint, are made in the USA, and are perfect for a rider looking for a straight-up utilitarian bike for pavement or gravel.

Let’s take a look at these two builds below…

On Saturday, I received a DM on Instagram from a kid named Zach who had just built up a new VYNL road bike. It was the first VYNL to use masked decals, not stickers and from what I could see, looked to be a slick build. I told Zach to come by GSC and I’d love to shoot photos of it. Little did I know Zach would roll through at mile 70 during his ride, in the complete opposite direction he needed to be going. That’s what “new bike day” does to you though…

As mentioned earlier, VYNL is now offering masked decals, straight from the paint booth. Zach’s is built up with Ultegra and Ritchey components and is very no-nonsensical. After riding various carbon bikes over the years, he missed the way aluminum road bikes felt and started looking. VYNL was at the top of his list, so he placed an order and waited.

The end result is what many would consider a damn beautiful bicycle and clearly, Zach is loving it!

Way back before Instagram, there was a cycling team in Austin called Team Wooly Mammoth. Known for their completely ridiculous web videos and loud cycling kits, this rag tag group of racers were rumored to even go to tanning beds in their kits to get the crispiest lines. They even donned an all-white kit, which upon placing the order, the apparel company warned of the finished product being “see-through.” To which the two founding members of Wooly Mammoth, Patrick @UltraTradition and Benedict @UltraRomance responded with “… annnnnd?”

Their sense of humor intact, Wooly Mammoth continued to race and look good, while making more videos. Six years ago, “I Am Romancer” struck the internet like lightening on a windmill in West Texas. While future Wooly videos would embrace black metal and nonsensical battle scenes, “I Am Romancer” spoke about the soul of a bicycle and the machismo surrounding the romanticism of the bicycle. Warning: some of those videos might be NSFW, depending on your work environment.

Fast forward to 2016. Ultra Romance is a cult-hero of bicycle nomads and Ultra Tradition has moved to Portland, Oregon, where he’s working with Jeremy and Julie Dunn of the Athletic to help grow Wooly Mammoth into not only a race team, but a brand. When the Athletic contacted VYNL Bikes to make a modern day Romancer ‘cross bike, painted to match the newest Wooly Mammoth designs, they jumped right on it. The completed bike, as shown here, brand spankin’ new, would be Jeremy’s Grinduro bike…

While it looks good all clean with its Zipp and SRAM parts, the bike looked much, much better, dusty and dirty on course. Oh and that North Street Bar Bag ain’t too shabby either!