Photos by John Watson
John is the owner and founder of The Radavist, the first and longest-running “alt-cycling” website.
It’s all about beautiful bikes, and the experiences, people, brands and the craft that go alongside them. All served with a side of rejection of mainstream cycling culture, and plenty of independence, art and adventure.
John has been a huge supporter of Starling for many years now, and one of our biggest advocates. He’s visited the workshop, fan-faired our work, reviewed our bikes and done similar for many other small brands like us.
He’s even gone as far as choosing a Murmur as one of his personal bikes, which he uses to explore his home trails in New Mexico, create content, and review components for the site.
John started out on a V2 Pumpkin Orange Murmur, before moving over to a V3 in Landy Green and later onto our longer, Mega swingarm. During his time, he’s hopped back and forth between coil and air rear shocks and between travel setups. As you know, you can use our adjustable shock mount to swap the travel on our frames, something John has taken full advantage of.
The build you see here is, in his words, his “favourite build of the Murmur yet” 120mm rear with a coil shock and a 140mm fork. Think of it as a hardcore Mini Murmur, built to be forgiving, fun and shreddy but still easily pedalable all day and very lively with none of that long-travel sanitisation of the rough stuff.
Other highlights of John’s build include a colour-matched Starling Clutch stem, eeWing Ti cranks, burly Schwalbe tyres (cos no need to run lightweight tyres just because you have short travel) and BIG Doom bars.
You can read John’s original Murmur review here on the Radavist and learn more about the Mini Murmur here.
