The Radavist

In the 20 years since his track-bike touring roots, Matt Churchill has established HMPL as a distinctive made-in-Vancouver bike-bag brand. But before you try to say “HMPL” five times fast, the name predates the disemvoweled brand-name trend and is actually an acronym. On a recent visit to HMPL HQ, Pat Valade gets to the bottom of those four letters and talks with Matt about his cycling background, views on the ‘Industry’ and why a neighborhood is only as thriving as the small makers in it. 

Each year I like to look at our content in its entirety and reflect back on bikes that took you, the readers of this website, by storm. Back in the mid to late 2000’s it was all fixed gears, then came the gravel bikes, the tourers, the MTBs, and the kooky, eccentric builds you’ve come to enjoy checking out in full-res detail. We’ve got some incredibly talented individuals contributing to this site and their hard work is something I cannot express my gratitude for enough. Going back through the 2020 content here at the Radavist, I am amazed at what we were able to accomplish all things considered.

For this year’s Top Beautiful Bicycles of 2020, we have compiled a great list of ten bikes, ranging from rim brakes to fixed gears, basket bikes, and more. This list is based on web traffic, commentary, and social media chatter, and each of these builds really brought something unique to our content. We omitted bike reviews here but included production bikes. Oh and I hope you like baskets!

Let’s jump right in!

Over the years Stephanie and I have visited some out-of-the-way frame builders, but Sam Whittingham’s Naked Bicycles is one of the more out-there. Pedaling our camping bikes on the ups and downs of Quadra Island, an eclectic community of 2,700 people off northern Vancouver Island, we’re reminded that this is a two-speed kind of place – where the only gears you need are your easiest and your hardest.

The road narrows and the hills become even steeper, and we eventually come upon a gate, with a kind note asking us to close it after entering, for there are horses inside. We put Denver on his leash and grind the final few hundred metres to Sam’s shop, a quirky metal-roofed building with lots of windows, reflecting the even-more-whimsical shape of his house on the other side of the driveway.

If people make the effort to get here, Sam makes them feel at home. He arrives on the porch with a smile, and invites us in to his frame building shop in the woods.

Three years ago, at the start of the 2016 ‘cross season, Santa Cruz and MASH SF teamed up to create what is, in my opinion, the most recognizable Stigmata frameset of all time. There have been other team builds, other rad bikes, but this is the one everyone remembers. And yet, there were only 12 of these frames available to the public and less than 20 including the team frames!

Photos and words by Morgan Taylor

From first time bicycle campers to experienced fully loaded singletrack riders, 30 people joined us for Swift Campout here in Vancouver. Swift Industries‘ global call to head out for a bicycle overnight on solstice weekend was a perfect opportunity for us to scope a camp spot and a route and put out an open invite.

After weeks of route planning, helping with camp setups, and hoping for good weather, the sun shone down Saturday morning and we set out en masse with spirits high. For a good number, it was their first time camping by bike, or their first time loading up without racks to ride singletrack to camp.

A quick ferry ride landed us on the Sunshine Coast just outside Vancouver and the group split up, one third to ride a challenging singletrack-heavy overland route and two thirds to ride the backroads, eat ice cream, and swim in the ocean. We converged on the camp spot in the evening and shared stories of our travels.

As expected, we met lots of great people, got to ride bikes and hang out on the roads and trails and beaches, cook and camp together, learn more about ourselves and each other. Thanks so much to the wonderful folks at Swift Industries for facilitating this global event!

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Follow Morgan and Stephanie on Instagram at Found in the Mountains, and if you find yourself in Vancouver, join them for #CoffeeOutsideYVR every Friday!

Photos and words by Morgan Taylor.

I unclipped the far side of Stephanie’s Sugarloaf to get coffee going and something I knew was eventually bound to happen, finally happened. After 15 weeks of #coffeeoutsideyvr, an object of actual (and sentimental) value fell off the pier: Stephanie’s double wall titanium camp mug, that had dangled carefree for 4,000 km of touring last summer and lots more since, was now floating in Burrard Inlet.

That was how our Good Friday began: with Tom stripping down and sending it into the cold, cold ocean to retrieve Stephanie’s prized possession. What we’ve come to know in the past three-and-a-half months of getting together to make coffee every Friday, is that there are a lot of rad people out there you haven’t yet met – people who might one day jump in a frigid body of water on your behalf.