The Radavist

For the Top Ten Beautiful Bicycles of 2024 we looked at pageviews, comments, and social media chatter from twelve months of content to determine what bikes best represent a calendar year at The Radavist. Then, to up the ante this year, we’ve included our Handmade Showcase Awards, featuring bikes from the OZ/US MADE Bike Show and UK/DE Bespoked. Let’s get to it!

Amid our ongoing coverage of the Bespoked Dresden framebuilder and maker showcase, today we are featuring a very special bicycle made by Berlin-based Fern Bicycles equipped with Allygn racks and custom bags from Gramm Tourpacking. With design language referencing a late-1980s Toyota Pickup and mountain bikes of the same vintage, the build features both old and new elements with components from a long list of artisan fabricators like Cyber Cycles, Garbaruk, Tune, Velocity, SON, Gevenalle, Btchn’, and many more. We think this bike might be peak Fern. Continue reading below for the complete breakdown of this special Fern Bicycles Chuck gravel touring bike.

If you’re at Bespoked this weekend, make sure to swing by the Fern booth to check this out!

Germany is an epicenter of cycling innovation and production. Home to a lengthy list of big brands including Canyon, Diamant, Focus, Bosch, and so many more, the central European nation is also inhabited by an ever-growing community of smaller bicycle and gear fabricators, builders, and makers.

While we saw many examples of cycling-related German craftsmanship on display in our Bespoked coverage last month, those examples just scratched the surface. On his way to Dresden for the show, Josh stopped over in Berlin and spent his brief amount of free time learning about the city’s special place within the larger German—and global—cycling industry context.

Read on below for a primer on Fern Fahrraeder/Allygn, Gramm Tourpacking, Drust/Akinn Cycles, Velociao Paint, and Velo Saloon!

The two-man team behind Fern Cycles really impressed me. Florian Haeussler and Phillip Zwanzig craft frames in Berlin, designed to handle their specific style of riding. In 2012 they toured throughout Poland, Ukraine, Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia and Turkey on two Chacha prototype frames. Their time on the road enabled them to dial in their preferences as to how a touring bike should handle and allowed them to design a line of bikepacking bags to compliment their custom racks.

This bike was built with Sugino cranks, Shutterworks generator hub, Supernova lights and Shimano Sora derailleurs but the standout products are the bags!

Gramm Bags are made in Fern’s shop and have some clever detailing, as well as minimal branding. Personally, I thought this was the best touring rig at the Berliner Fahrradschau and had a lot of fun documenting this bike.

Nice meeting you guys!