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I am fortunate and, at the moment, own four bikes: a Surly Straggler, a Niner SIR 9 (circa 2016), a Niner RLT 9 RDO, and a Wabi Classic. Of my four bikes, I am consistently the most excited to reach for my Wabi. The Straggler has a stuff-of-dreams paint job but its rear end noodles around when I mash the pedals. The SIR 9 is a smooth XC hardtail with ample frame space for bikepacking but can be timid on descents. The RLT RDO is great at what it’s built for—going fast and straight on gravel—but front-end handling can feel dead on the road which, unfortunately, has been its most common surface. I learned about Wabi Cycles a few years ago while wading through bike forums and blogs about single-speed steel frames. At the time, I was hoping to spend less than $500 on a single speed to kick around on. The consensus from the bike-forum community was that it'd be worthwhile to spend a few extra hundred in exchange for a Reynolds-725-tubing bike thoughtfully designed by a then one-man operation from Los Angeles. The bikeforumsphere was right. I’ve owned my Wabi Classic for three years and, after spinning over 2,000 miles on it, I can confidently say it’s my favorite bike.  Wabi visits the shores of Lake Michigan. Why? For five somewhat overlapping reasons: fast acceleration, nimble steering, eager climbing, smooth bump absorption, and, well, look at it. Five reasons why my Wabi Classic is my favorite bike Quick acceleration Prior to riding the Wabi, my main frame of reference was my Surly Straggler. Compared with the Straggler, the Wabi is a rocket. Part of the speed disparity is due to weight. My size 61 Wabi weighs 21.6 pounds with a saddle bag, while the Straggler (size 58) tipped the scales at 28 lbs, even as a single speed (but including its rack, its dynamo front hub, and aluminium fenders). Apart from the weight, I attribute its brisk acceleration to its wheelset and its stiff rear triangle. Somehow, the wheels, which came stock on a sub-$1,000 complete bike, are a glaring exception to Keith Bontrager's aphorism: "strong, light, cheap: pick two." The acceleration also comes from the frame stiffness. When I pedal hard on the Wabi, I sense that most of the energy goes towards spinning the rear wheel. Not true with the Straggler; some gets used to bend the tubes like macaroni. Admittedly, the Straggler has no pretense about racing, as its name implies, so the Wabi-Straggler acceleration comparison is perhaps unfair. Still, after having been introduced to steel by Surly, as many are, I was pleased to learn from the Wabi that steel does not have to mean slow acceleration.  Nimble steering The Wabi’s handling is on the nimble side of the agility-stability spectrum, but nonetheless feels well balanced. On the old webpage—before the company was sold from LA to Tulsa—the geometry was described as somewhere between track and classic road. I’ve never owned either type of bike, but I assume that description is apt. The Wabi is one of those bikes where I can tell it to turn simply by thinking. It requires very little body English to initiate a turn and, in the turn, it holds my chosen trajectory well, neither urging me to turn more sharply nor to straighten out.  Turning the Niner RLT 9 RDO, by comparison, feels like making a right turn with a semi truck. Somewhat ironically, this slower handling can make the RLT feel less stable, even skittish, as a result. Per Clint Gibbs, this handling characteristic may be due to the rather short fork offset on the RLT (45 mm) resulting in a higher trail number. For what it’s worth, the Straggler splits this handling difference nicely—a bit more relaxed than the Wabi but more predictable and lively (at least upfront) than the RLT. Despite being nimble, the Wabi feels composed going downhill at high speed. Because the handling is so intuitive, I am not bothered by its quickness because it’s predictable. Its agility simply makes the descent more fun. It has no problem dodging a pothole without notice at 25 mph. The RLT RDO, by contrast, would have no choice but to go up and over. Eager climbing When the bike is pointed uphill, the stiff rear triangle and one-with-the-bike feel of single speed makes climbing a lot of fun. I find it refreshing, even exciting, to forget about which gear I should shift into and focus entirely on putting power to the pedals. It also has a fairly high bottom bracket (62 mm drop on Wabi compared with 72 on Straggler). (I recently learned that a higher bottom bracket can make a bike climb better because it has less room to swing between pedal strokes. Interesting.) Because it's so fun to climb with, the Wabi is a great training bike. Out-of-the-saddle climbing on a single speed is my favorite way to try hard on a bike. I like that it's more of a full-body anaerobic workout than spin-to-win cycling. When the hill grades approach double digits, single-speed climbing can feel like upper-body pull day in the weightroom. Smooth bump absorption Finally, it wouldn’t be a discussion about a steel-frame bike without a word on its bump-absorbing abilities. It has good vibration dampening on pavement and even feels fairly supple on light gravel. I enjoyed riding it on 28s through the gravel roads of Dupont State Park, for example. If I had choices, it wouldn’t be my steed of choice for a long, bumpy, gravel ride, but it would do the job.  Wabi before descending Ridgeline in Dupont State Park It’s not quite as supple as my other steel dropbar bike, the Straggler, especially out back. The rear end is comfortably firm and absorbs chatter but is not flexy. The strikingly short 400 mm chainstays on the Wabi don’t have much wiggle room, but as mentioned, do transfer power. Compared with the rear, I find the front end to be more compliant, which, at this writing, is aided by a 32 mm tire under the fork (details below). In the rear, I use a 28. The rear will reluctantly clear a 32 (I did it for a while), but a 28 provides more breathing room. Aesthetics The ride characteristics alone would make this bike my favorite, but it also helps that it’s so easy on the eyes. It is important to me that my bikes not only spark joy while I ride them but also while I look at them in my living room. My only qualms with the bike: the stock build As much as I love the bike, I wasn’t always this smitten. I knew I liked the frame at first pedal stroke, but it took a while to dial in the touch points. The bike arrived stock with swoopy handlebars with a gigantic drop (Lead Tec LCH-609), a seatpost that wouldn’t hold, and a knife-like saddle. I tried to keep an open mind with the big-drop handlebars, but they were gone after a few rides. I can appreciate that Wabi was going for the namesake classic look, but the shape wasn’t for me. The brake-hood position never felt right (as you can see, I tried moving them around), and I prefer a shallower drop. In hopes of keeping the all-silver-everything aesthetic, I tried a Soma HWY One, which fit into the stock 26 mm stem clamp and certainly looked the part. Comfort was an improvement over the stock bar, but I still didn’t love it. Function eventually won out over aesthetics, and I found my way to the venerable Salsa Cowbell, which despite being clamped to a black 31.8 stem (an extra I had in a parts bin), doesn’t look bad wrapped in desert tan. The stock seatpost was also a P.I.T.A. It had one job--to hold the saddle--and it did not deliver. Fortunately, I was left with a spare seatpost after installing a dropper post on my SIR 9. Like the handlebars and stem, it’s also not silver, but it does hold the seat, which is nice. Almost no stock bike can hope to satisfy its rider’s saddle preferences. Fortunately, Wabi appears to now offer several options on their site. In any case, I now find myself atop a Chromag Trailmaster, a favorite of mine, which, if I dare say, pairs nicely with the gumwalls and bartape.  In a way, I am relieved that the touch-point spec wasn't spot on. Something had to give considering the quality of the frame, wheelset, and $900 price point. I tend to swap around the touch points anyway, so they might as well be cheap in the stock delivery.
The rest of my build is the stock Wabi Classic build circa 2016, except:
My Wabi has proven itself to be a Classic. Of my four bikes, it’s the only one I don't foresee getting old.
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