After spending years swapping the same worn-out parts between vintage steel frames, I was ready to build my ideal “road” bike in 2020. I wanted something that was comfortable, versatile, and beautiful, and after much deliberation, I settled on the Soma Grand Randonneur. Read on to learn why I chose the Grand Randonneur and my thoughts on the bike after two tours, a gravel race, and many long days on country roads. Introduction I have very little in common with Jan Heine, the larger-than-life cyclist who played a significant role in the popularization of the modern Randonneur bike, and the man ..read more

Twin Six has been working on these two framesets for well over a year, with both their team riding them and Kevin Sparrow, a writer here at the Radavist. Alongside the Ti Rando is their new Ti Road disc frameset. Both are now available for pre-order now at Twin Six and pricing starts at $1,700. Read what Kevin had to write about the Ti Rando here and check out the pre-order at Twin Six. The post Twin Six: Ti Rando and Ti Road Framesets appeared first on The Radavist ..read more

Brooklyn’s Johnny Coast knows how to build a classic randonneuring bike. Every year, Johnny brings a classic example of these elegant machines, with so many details from his custom fillet stem, custom fabricated seat cluster lug, bi-lam construction, custom decaluer, an elegant fork, custom front rack, and as always, a paint job to dream about. Coast’s randonneur takes a different approach with a 700c wheel in a world dominated and encouraged by the 650b platform. He built this beaut with NOS Campy 10 speed, vintage Stronglight crank arms with new TA Pro Vis chainrings. The lines are the mos ..read more

What do you get when Bené, aka Ultra Romance, aka Ronnie McFly, aka Glistening Gandolf coerces an XC/roadie racer boi into embracing the long and slow lifestyle? Well, you’re about to find out. While Benedict and Sean from Team Dream were working closely on those nifty merino wool bib shorts, Benedict convinced Sean with his silver tongue to build up a dream bike. A veritable ex-roadie 2.0 cruiser, complete with all the iconic componentry of MTB and randonneuring’s heyday, which pinch me if I’m wrong, is always the present time. What you see here is the result of much toodlin’ and many man hou ..read more

Writing product description takes finesse, yet clearly, Matt from Crust Bikes really enjoyed writing about their newest frameset, the Lightning Bolt: “The Lightning bolt is a dedicated low trail randonneur frame. Unlike the rest of our frames this one is designed with pavement in mind. Max tire clearance is 650b X 48c. Compatible with both 1X, 2X or even triple chainring set up. Main tubes are made from some pretty thin wall Renoylds 853, which I noticed a bunch of people wanted the Romanceur to be, so here it is. Will it plane I hear you ask? It flexes in such a harmonic resonance, you will ..read more

The Super Stoke Weekend Seattle-Austin Exchange Program Photos by Gideon Tsang, Jordan Gomez, Jonathan Kneve and Alex Gui, words by Jordan Gomez Editor’s Note: When I lived in Austin, Texas, I wanted to bring my friends who were accustomed to racing a training on a weekend outing of camping and riding dirt roads. Since this time of year in Texas, the parks are often crowded, I decided that Super Bowl Weekend would be ideal, since everyone in Texas would be glued to their televisions and not driving their RVs to campsites around the state. Over the past few years, the ride has continued, furthe ..read more

Our Radar Roundup compiles products and videos from the ‘net in an easy-to-digest format. Read on below for today’s findings… Ukraine Aide From Cycling Brands Rene Herse is running a promotion to raise funds for Ukraine, while directing its customers to the following: Ukrainian Red Cross CARE Ukraine Crisis Fund “Here is how the fundraiser works: For the next 24 hours, we will donate 50% of all Bicycle Quarterly subscriptions and book purchases to the organizations above. This is your chance to read the magazine, check out our book ‘The All-Road Bike Revolution’ or dive into the fascinatin ..read more

Earlier this year, Lael and Jan set out to FKT on the Oregon Outback. Things didn’t work out for Jan on that run, so he returned before the season ended and it worked out in his favor: Jan set a new FKT (Fastest Known Time) on the epic Oregon Outback course. Riding unsupported and alone, he covered the 585 km (363 miles) of rough gravel (and some pavement) in 26:13 hours, taking more than an hour off the previous best. Jan averaged 13.8 mph (22.3 km/h) – stops included. It was a beautiful ride, traversing some of the country’s most spectacular scenery. It was also a great test ..read more

This week’s Readers’ Rides comes from Ben and features his beautiful Bantam Randonneurring machine. Check it out below with a full build spec and with words by Ben! This is my Bantam Bicycle Works custom 650b randonneur for the Readers Rides column. I’ve had this bike since July 2018 and I’ve ridden it all over the Pacific Northwest on brevets, gravel rides, country road rambles, singletrack under biking misadventures, etc. Our longest ride together was a 600k Seattle Randonneurs brevet the summer I got it. I’m hoping to have the chance to add some more long-distance rides to the docket once t ..read more

This pandemic has us scouring social media for videos to share, in an attempt to transport us back to the time when group rides were the norm and our calendars were filled with fun rides. That’s what brought me to find this recap video from the 2019 Nutmeg Nor’Easter. The post Nutmeg Nor’Easter 2019 appeared first on The Radavist ..read more