The Radavist

2021 brought about the return of the Philly Bike Expo after a year-long hiatus due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. We’ve got a lot of coverage on the way sporadically, thanks to Jarrod Bunk of Hope Cyclery but we really want to share the People’s Choice Winner: Jaqueline Mautner from Untitled Cycles‘ Sophie Taeuber-Arp homage gravel bike with SRAM AXS EXPLR, so read on below for a synopsis of this project by Jacqueline Mautner and plenty of beautiful compositions by Jarrod!

We joke that time is a flat circle in cycling all too often. Gravel bikes are just ’90s mountain bikes, etc. Yet, we have to accept that we’re in an era of electronic shifting and yes, suspension forks on gravel bikes. This tech, however, is nothing new especially not for RockShox, who for the 1994 Paris Roubaix unveiled a suspension fork on team Lemond GAN’s bikes. In that same year, Mavic even had some Zap electronic groups on the exact same bikes.

Now, 27 years later, we have my Sklar gravel bike which is familiar to most of you, with a suspension fork and electronic shifting, under the banner of SRAM and RockShox’s new XPLR lineup (explore, not explorer). While I haven’t taken on the Hell of the North, I have spent a lot of time being a weirdo in the woods on this kit and have a really fun review to share with y’all, so read on below.