The Radavist

With its mixed-surface riding through four distinct sections of the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument that surrounds Las Cruces, New Mexico, the Monumental Loop has plenty of spice—and not just from the chile you’ll find in Hatch. Every fall, the Loop’s organizers extend an open invitation for cyclo-tourists to come experience the 250-mile desert figure eight as part of the Dangerbird group ride event. This year’s rolling extravaganza was a coupled with the Bikepacking Summit, which Daniel Zaid attended and reports on below… 

What does it mean to ride the 3,300-mile spine of the Continental Divide, from the Canadian to Mexican border across the United States? Very few people can say, but Kurt Refsnider can now count himself among them. In his fourth installment from the Continental Divide Trail, Kurt writes about the final miles through a geologist’s lens and how New Mexico held just as much resistance as it did enchantment.

Now nearly two months and 2,000 miles into this journey, Kurt Refsnider shares more stories from his progress so far riding the entirety of the Continental Divide Trail. 

Way back in 2018, Spencer picked up an Alpacka Caribou Packraft when he went to visit Alpacka Raft HQ and then proceeded to paddle the East River in NYC. During the time since, he’s spent a lot of time in his Caribou and other boats in Alpacka’s lineup, so he figured it was time for a thorough long term review and clear up some other details about this packraft’s position straddling the cycling and water worlds…

Cyclotourists, bikepackers, and other backcountry travelers love shaving down their gear to just the bare essentials, splitting toothbrushes in half, or rationing the squares of toilet paper with every wipe. But, when it comes to personal hygiene, I feel like I owe it to myself to splurge a little, given how much I put my body through day-in and day-out whilst on a long, multi-day journey.

It wasn’t until recently that I became aware of the lack of information around the topic of personal female hygiene and bikepacking. As I’ve been approached by more women with different questions on the subject over the years, I began to realize that there’s a need for this kind of information sharing, and that actually, there’s no distinctive guidance out there to help.

So, I want to share my knowledge and experience with the hope that it will help other riders better understand what female hygiene on a bike looks like. There’s no universal solution for everyone, and I can only speak from the anatomy that I know about, but perhaps you’ll find good tips and advice to integrate into future trips based on your needs.

“A packraft is like a giant key that gets you into places. When the road ends and you can no longer ride your bike, you blow up your boat and continue down that river or lake, seeing things you’d never see if you only stuck to the trails and roads.” –Doom

Bikerafting—the combination of biking and packrafting—makes a lot of sense for the multi-sport enthusiast. But, since the first-documented bikerafting expedition in the late 80s, it has stayed a relatively niche sport. Lizzy Scully dives into the data with an overview of the history of bikerafting, the most avid participants of the sport today, and a breakdown of the April 2023 Bikeraft Guide Survey Results. Read on for inspiration and information about who and where to turn to get your feet wet in this creative genre of exploration. 

Petor Georgallou steals his sister away as a (reluctant) partner in crime to check out the Brother in the Wild Dorset, hosted by Brother Cycles. He’s pleased to find a “field full of weirdos” and a plethora of equally unique and odd bikes and, it turns out, everyone’s nice. Stick around near the end for a lengthy discussion on the merits and cost of silver brazing, and a sampling of the bikes that made an appearance.

Coinciding with the release of REI’s documentary film “The Right To Joy,” Co-Director Jay Melena describes why representation of marginalized groups is important not just in front of, but behind the lens, in cycling and outdoor media. Continue reading below for Jay’s behind-the-scenes look at the new film and its contextualization within the current media landscape…

I’ve always considered The Radavist a resource for inspiring people to get outdoors. While we primarily cover cycling, my interests don’t stop there. Many of my favorite springtime activities surround the Colorado Plateau’s canyons and rivers; two places you cannot take a bike, or rather, including a bike in those activities seems unnecessary. I love bikerafting and incorporating a bicycle in lieu of a car for shuttling, but sometimes nothing beats a bipedal venture into those wild and vast places.

Walking in canyons is my detox from the sometimes stressful job of talking about, photographing, living, breathing, and eating bikes. It’s a tangential experience, but when you do enough, you quickly realize the best places in the American West, particularly Canyon Country, are only accessible by foot.

Last week Cari and I brought along our friends Jay and Carrie on a backpacking trip down the Paria River Canyon. Jay and Carrie had never been to the Colorado Plateau, much less in a canyon, and had never backpacked in the desert. Widening our friends’ perspectives has been a real joy being closer to these places living in Santa Fe, and the trip provided equal parts  beauty, tough terrain, and ideal weather.

We were one day into a three-day trip dubbed the Garibaldi Classic or “The Nch’kay House of Pleasure and Pain.” Pandemics aside, on the long weekend in September, it has become a tradition to embark on some sort of ill-advised multi-day trip involving mountain landscapes, good friends, small backpacks, and quite a bit more foot travel than would be advertised in a long-weekend bike trip brochure. The goal was to leave from our front doors, bikes loaded with everything we would need for a three-day, lightweight excursion in the mountains, curling a horseshoe around Garibaldi Lake within British Columbia’s Garibaldi Provincial Park.

If you stop in at Absolute Bikes, a bike shop in the mountain town of Salida, Colorado, Shawn Gillis, with his welcoming grin under a distinct ginger mustache, will likely be there to greet you. Whether you need a flat fixed on your commuter or the brightest bike light money can buy in order to finish the 2,745-mile Tour Divide, Gillis will lend a hand and have you riding again in no time.

But what he really loves is setting someone up on their first mountain bike, hearing about the adventures they want to tackle, and giving them tips about which local trails to start on.