Behind the Scenes at Wheels MFG: The Radavist Shop Visit

By James Flanagan on November 26, 2025

Earlier this year, we had the chance to welcome Boulder-based writer and photographer Hailey Moore from The Radavist into our Louisville, Colorado headquarters. She spent the day walking the shop floor, talking with our team, and pointing her lens at the machines, raw materials, and small details that usually live behind the “Employees Only” door.

The result is a super fun Radavist Shop Visit that peeks behind the curtain at how we do things here at Wheels Manufacturing.

What Hailey Saw Inside Wheels Manufacturing

If you’ve ever picked up one of our derailleur hangers, bottom brackets, axles, or chainrings and wondered “How do they make this?” Hailey’s piece is your answer. In her write-up and photo set, she highlights:

Made-in-Colorado manufacturing: How we start with raw bar stock and plate, then turn, mill, and finish components entirely in-house.
The machines that never sleep: CNCs, lathes, and finishing equipment that are constantly chewing through aluminum and steel to keep shops and riders rolling.
People behind the parts: The crew that programs tools, checks tolerances, deburrs edges, and obsesses over the details most riders will never see but definitely feel on the bike.
From service parts to new products: How we’ve grown from “the derailleur hanger brand” into a full ecosystem of service parts, tools, bottom brackets, single-speed kits, and now US-made chainrings.

It’s a nice mix of shop-nerd content and storytelling, exactly what you’d expect from The Radavist.

Why This Visit Matters to Us

We’ve been quietly machining bicycle components in Colorado for decades. A lot of what we do is intentionally low-drama:

Make parts that fit
Make parts that last
Keep bikes out of the stand and on the trail

Hailey’s visit put a spotlight on that everyday work—showing how much intention goes into the parts that don’t always get top billing in a build list or bike check.

If you’re a:

Shop mechanic: You’ll recognize plenty of parts you’ve grabbed out of a bin a thousand times.
Framebuilder or OEM: You’ll get a sense of the manufacturing backbone behind the hangers, BBs, and axles you spec.
Rider who likes to know the story: You’ll see where your components come from and why we care so much about keeping production local.

Go Read the Full Story on The Radavist

We’re incredibly grateful to Hailey and The Radavist crew for taking the time to come by, ask good questions, and tell our story in their own way.

👉 Check out the full shop visit and photo gallery here:
Wheels Manufacturing Shop Visit on The Radavist

Give it a read, scroll through the photos, and if you like seeing behind-the-scenes manufacturing content, let them know in the comments.

Thanks for supporting what we do, whether that’s wrenching with our parts in the shop, speccing us on builds, or bolting our components onto your own bike at home.