The Radavist

With clearance for a 26″ x 3″ tire and a bright, rambunctious color combination, this Beardman Bicycles was a real attention grabber at the Philly Bike Expo. The bright colors normally could distract from the details of a bike but it’s impossible to glance over some of the unique features. For example, it has a front and rear rack, with removable rails, in case you’ve gotta bring a big ol’ pizza pie back home.

The theme of this year’s Beardman was spooky, with a skeleton losing its hand to the King Cage Many Things cargo cage and a RIP grave marker on the front rack, precisely cut by Derek at Kannaly Metal Works. Beardman makes custom racks, which pair nicely with their segmented forks and precision welded frames.

Did we mention this beaut’s for sale? Holler at Beardman for the scoop! It’d look so good covered in your home dirt.

I love a sunburnt hardtail.

Influences come from many a place. A flicker, chirp or whiff that conveys a feeling and experience. Singlespeed’s have influenced my riding since the turn of the millennium. I knew I’d be forever broke as a bike messenger if it involved maintaining a geared drivetrain year-round through London’s woefully wet winters.

Chris Bishop. Chrisssss Bishop. Seeing his creations year after year at the Philly Bike Expo brings all the warm feels. This year he brought an Item 4 Velo Classique road bike to display clean and elegant detailing Bishop Bikes is known for…

The Nature Boy first launched in 2010 as a singlespeed ‘cross machine. Its popularity grew quickly due to it being All-City’s first off-road bike. This was pre-Macho King, pre-Spacehorse, and way before the Electric Queen. Back then, in 2010, All-City was primarily in the game of making urban bikes.

This year marked a big change for the Nature Boy, launching the A.C.E. model with a few updates.

The Marauder from 44 Bikes is one hell of a versatile bike, available in steel and titanium, it blurs the line between shreddy MTB and bikepacking bike, sub out to a suspension fork and rip your local trails, or ride it rigid and pack on a few extra pounds of fun.  Kris actually made all of the bags in-house, including the panniers, frame bag, and the stem sacks.  It’s pretty rad to see a frame builder tackle some sewing in addition to wielding a torch. Running a Lupine Lights Pika in lieu of a dynamo allows Kris to run the same wheelset in shred mode as a full touring mode. He even made the rack and fork in house.

Kris built the bike with a mix of Shimano XTR 9100 and XT 8100 brakes, Industry Nine Wheels, a Fox Transfer dropper post and a Wolf Tooth Remote. This bikepacking bike swears to shred, that for sure!

Brian from Chapman Cycles brought two bikes to the Philly Bike Expo this year with 99% matching parts and paint save for a saddle, this is the smaller of the two. A mixte with a monumental amount of flair, all the way down to the Campagnolo shifter turned chain-keeper and the double Rene Herse crank turned single with a bash.  The build is a mix of Campagnolo Veloce setup 1×10 with a wide range SRAM cassette, SON dynamo hub that powers both a front lamp and a tail-light the tail wiring run internally to the saddle, a handmade rack designed around the bike. Paul Touring Cantis provide the stopping power.

Behold. A steel bicycle that lasts a lifetime and pushes through the trends, accepting new builds and uses with ease, with finesse, and most importantly, with style. Do you remember Erik’s Di2 Alfine 11 Peacock Nuke AWOL? That photoset was fire back in 2014 when we originally posted it. While propped up on a hillside in Bernal Heights, an incredibly scenic neighborhood in the US’ most scenic city, Erik and I lamented how this whole “adventure” stuff was going to take off, big time. The AWOL was the first bike Erik designed for Specialized, which is raced the Transcontinental Race on and little did he know that just five years later, the brand would put a bullet in this peacock project.

Part of the job of a framebuilder is to address their client’s concerns and for shorter riders, having a bike that rides like it should can be a challenge. At the Philly Bike Expo this year, Bilenky took hold of one such challenge, managing to build a bike with ample standover while not sacrificing geometry or, most importantly, the ride quality.

Philly Bike Expo isn’t just about high-end custom, builds, it’s also home to some pretty fine production steel bikes as well, albeit this one is made by Crust bikes out of a Reynolds 831 Tubeset.  It has some special parts, special paint, and some one-off parts that haven’t existed ’til this moment.  Matt built this romantic Romanceür with a Campagnolo shifter setup friction 11speed that make it through the whole 11speed SRAM X-Dome cassette. The only René Herse cranks set-up with a Made in Maine narrow-wide ring by Derrick Girard and it even has an old Shimano Sharkfin, a new 0deg Nitto X Crust stem, and a set of carbon clinchers.  This steel bike is real…light even loaded. If you’re in the market for a new Crust hit them up, you may even be able to beg for that ring, but probably not.

For the tenth anniversary of the Philadelphia Bike Expo, PBE introduced a diversity and inclusivity scholarship to support women, trans, POC frame builders who have been underrepresented at bike shows and the industry at large. SRAM is stepping up to sponsor the PBE Inclusivity Scholarship inaugural class consists of Moth Attack, Pedalino Bikes, Schon Studio, and Untitled Cycles.

For the tenth anniversary of the Philadelphia Bike Expo, PBE introduced a diversity and inclusivity scholarship to support women, trans, POC frame builders who have been underrepresented at bike shows and the industry at large. SRAM is stepping up to sponsor the PBE Inclusivity Scholarship inaugural class consists of Moth Attack, Pedalino Bikes, Schon Studio, and Untitled Cycles.

For the tenth anniversary of the Philadelphia Bike Expo, PBE introduced a diversity and inclusivity scholarship to support women, trans, and POC frame builders who have been underrepresented at bike shows and the industry at large. SRAM is stepping up to sponsor the PBE Inclusivity Scholarship whose inaugural class consists of Moth Attack, Pedalino Bikes, Schon Studio, and Untitled Cycles.

For the tenth anniversary of the Philadelphia Bike Expo, PBE introduced a diversity and inclusivity scholarship to support women, trans, and POC frame builders who have been underrepresented at bike shows and the industry at large. SRAM is stepping up to sponsor the PBE Inclusivity Scholarship whose inaugural class consists of Moth Attack, Pedalino Bikes, Schön Studio, and Untitled Cycles.