The Radavist

The Road to Delcie’s Cup Cake
Words and Photos by Spencer Harding

This past summer I was lucky enough to meet to some truly amazing people in Minneapolis.  I noticed a common thread connecting these wonderful humans. It all culminated in getting to ride with Delcie on her über custom Cup Cake…

Peacock Groove

Erik Noren is a bit of mythical beast in the world of framebuilding. His bikes are outlandish, sparkly, and painstakingly detailed. With his newer venture, Cake Bikes, he seeks to build proportionally-sized, high-performance bikes for shorter riders. Cake partnered with Minneapolis Wheel masters HED cycling to offer fat-bikes built around a 24 x 4” platform and has since moved into building cross and gravel/adventure bikes built around a 650b platform, and some yet smaller wheeled bikes which we will get to at the end.  While the bikes’ geometries are focused on smaller humans regardless of gender, the cake race and adventure team is compromised entirely of women/trans/femme/non-binary riders.

Plante Cycles is a small framebuilding operation in Rancho Cucamonga. Stephen Plante builds each frame in his home garage, at the base of the San Gabriel mountains, where he tests out the designs for each model. At the Cub House’s Bike Show and Swap this year, Stephen brought two bikes, one of which I’ve been meaning to shoot photos of.

Inside / Out at Horse Cycles

Photos by Ian Matteson, words by Kevin McClelland from ENVE

The Idea for this bike and trip transpired from a casual conversation at NAHBS in Hartford.  I approached Thomas from Horse Cycles at his stunning booth filled with some of my favorite bikes at the the show and we began talking about the yet to be released ENVE Gravel Fork and Gravel Bar. Thomas quickly started to show me photos of his freshly built cabin in Upstate New York surrounded by a beautiful landscape littered with some amazing gravel roads. That was the moment I knew I wanted to get out to New York for some riding with him and I knew I wanted it to be on a Horse Frame.

Philly Bike Expo 2018: Coast Cycles Randonneur
Photos and words by Jarrod Bunk

Brooklyn’s Johnny Coast knows a thing or two about traditional randonneuring frames, as evident in this year’s Philly Bike Expo bike. Thin lugs, light tubing, custom stem, and all the appropriate accouterment. Built from Tange lightweight tubing, Johnny designed this bike to be light and responsive, offering a lively feel.

Coast Cycles offers bikes like this, as well as touring bikes, city bikes, mixte, road bikes, and even track bikes.

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2018 Philly Bike Expo: Chapman Cycles Bi-laminate Light Road Bike
Photos and words by Jarrod Bunk

The marriage of working with metal and crafting bicycles has kept Brian Chapman on their quest to create the best integrated-bicycle that they can. I feel like Brian’s love for their craft really shines through with this light, bi-laminate road bike.  Clever details such as the Velogical rim dynamo and the integration of the Campagnolo downtube shifter to apply or remove it from the rim really stood out to me.  

With the construction of the frame, fork, rack, and stem all in-house Chapman can create a bicycle with details that carry over throughout the entire build, such as the quill-stem that flows into the headtube.  A build of mostly Campagnolo Athena with Grand Bois Chouette center pull brakes to clear the 32c tires and fenders ensures that this bike can roll in all weather. The culmination of materials, labor, and talent are apparent, and they really pop under natural light.

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2018 Philly Bike Expo: Engin Cycles All Road Rocket
Photos and words by Jarrod Bunk

Drew over at Engin is a bit of a problem solver, he also happens to be a machinist as well as a frame builder creating solutions such as a 5bolt CNC Spider allows for easy access to ring swaps that the stock configuration didn’t allow, a CNC two-piece yoke that is welded together to add clearance for both 700x47c tires and a 34/50 double crank, even though this bike is built as a 1x.  

The left shifter is converted to actuate the dropper post, something that Engin thinks is going to be the next big thing to bridge the gap between an all-road bike and the MTB.  With a build of Whisky Parts Co No9 rims and fork, White Industries hubs, and a full SRAM Force 1x kit, this bike surely blurs the lines of a fast road bike that still rips off road.

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2018 Philly Bike Expo: Winter Bicycles S&S 27.5 Dirt Tourer
Photos and words by Jarrod Bunk

Versatility, that would be a word that would sum up this bike fairly well.  It’s a Cerakote-coated S&S dirt rando touring machine from Winter Bicycles out of Nittany Pennsylvania. RuthWorks teamed up on the bags to complete a package that is totally integrated so that the Ultralight Randonneur bag is free of a decaleur. Along with beautiful handmade racks to distribute an even load this bike even has bolt-in frame bag compatibility along with three pack bosses on the fork legs to let this dirt rando bike switch between traditional bags as well as a more of a bikepacking setup.  With 27.5 x 2.6″ clearance, this bike can tackle the road less traveled.  Full internal dynamo wiring with quick disconnects, as well a Sinewave Cycles beacon make for a very clean setup that allows for plenty of off-grid touring.

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Bryan Hollingsworth started Royal H Cycles in 2008. It’s now his 10-year anniversary of the company and at the Philly Bike Expo, he brought just the bike to celebrate, a deep purple sparkle-painted disc all road with elegant lines and modern functionality.

While the SRAM Red eTap, Easton Wheels, Zipp components, a Columbus fork, and Cane Creek Headset make for a completely balleur build, the detail in the wishbone seat stay steals the show. What a way to celebrate 10 years of framebuilding!

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Grove Gathering: Grove Innovations Prototype Hardcore
Photos and words by Jarrod Bunk

Earlier this year, Martin from Second Spin and Justin from Freeze Thaw Cycles schemed about an event that would let them share their mutual love for Grove Innovations and get together some Grove owners for a ride and party or shred-n-show if you will, that event was the first Grove Innovations Gathering.

Grove Innovations might not be a household name if you live outside of Pennsylvania, but Bill Grove and his team were innovators that tried some new things that many others wouldn’t dare for the sake of creating a bombproof bike. The oversized  2″ 4130 downtube and straight blade fork made for an extremely precise steering bike with a stiff bottom bracket junction that allowed the pilot to put power into the ground and control it over all types of terrain.  The hardcore, at its inception, was an east coast bike if there ever were one, playful, rugged and capable of hucking off a loading dock as well as ripping over log-laden single track.  With a 13.5″ bottom bracket, and integrated bash guard that even protected all 44 teeth on the big ring, the hardcore could make short work of the rugged rocky terrain of which this bike was born. Most of the builds done on groves of this vintage ran durable parts in favor of early 90s anodized bling. Each frameset came with a set of Hammerhead bars as well, and bottle cages painted to match, albeit this proto isn’t running the latter.  Proof of the concept in durability is that this prototype is still being ridden nearly 30 years later.

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When I began working with the team at Firefly on my first disc brake road bike back in 2014, I wanted it to be perfect. The problem was at the time, the industry was very imperfect when it came to disc brakes on road bikes and all the accompanying standards. That was three or four years ago. Flat mount wasn’t on the table, many road forks used a 15mm thru-axle, and SRAM’s 1x XD driver had just switched to the road market after a successful introduction into the MTB market years prior. Trying to figure out the specs on this bike took a lot of back and forth for both me and Firefly. I wanted this bike to be perfect… this is, after all, a dream bike!

Since getting the Rad Rod in 2015, I’ve had this bike built up a number of different ways, traveled the globe with it, toured on it, and came to the conclusion that I truly do love it. So when Tyler emailed me, asking what I’d think about sending it back for a retrofit, I was intrigued.

His proposal was a rear-end retrofit, with a new Firefly thru-axle dropout but most importantly, a new 3D-printed titanium yoke that would allow for a large tire and the use of a 2x drivetrain. By this point, I’d ridden a number of other drop bar “all road” bikes, but really wanted a straight up “chubby road,” or a disc brake, 650b, 2x road bike.

Named after a trail. Well, THE trail that dances along the Little Grand Canyon in the San Rafael Swell, Utah, the Goodwater is a completely capable and versatile hardtail from the team at Breadwinner Cycles in Portland, Oregon. We’ve seen a review on this bike from Gabe Tiller and now here’s Ethan from Breadwinner’s own bike. A massive XL frame with a saddle height so high that I had to use the dropper to get a leg over it, I was impressed with how damn good it looks at a particularly large scale. As a big dude myself, it’s not often I shoot a bike this large!

Spending time at the Breadwinner Cafe was a real highlight of my trip to Portland and maybe next time I can pull Ethan out on a ride. The last ride I had with Tony and Ira resulted in some of my favorite Portland MTB photos…

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