The Radavist

Bicycle Touring the Tick Jungles of New England
Words and photos by Ultra Romance

The east coast is like a frumpy ex-lover. She wears the same green maple tree moo moo every day in the summer and wears nothing but a cold distant gray gaze all winter. Her breath smells like a yawning swamp, her clammy visage infected with ticks, mosquitos, and horseflies. Yet still, she’s comfortable and familiar, drawing me back time and time again with that ruddy olde face.

The Appalachian mountains of the northeast are among the oldest mountains in the world. 480 million years olde according to Siri; 483 million if you ask Alexa. By contrast, the sensuously photogenic Rockies are a supple 55 million years young. That’s another 428 million years of HARD livin’ for that olde bag of a spinster, Mrs. Appalachian East Coast. The glacially mowed over Appalachians sit plain and internet forgotten, cloaked in a canopy of hardwoods with nothing but a flip phone for company. This all sounds great in theory, and it really is, butttt they sure don’t photograph all that well… and if you can’t get that ‘gram, then why do it, amiright????!

There’s kind of a joke on Instagram right now. A joke hashtag that is, dubbed #NoBikesNoLikes. From what I can tell, it implies that if you’re a cyclist, and your followers are cyclists, all they want to see are bikes, bike rides and other cyclists. I get it. People can get very myopic about their interests, but there’s more to life, right? Obvious statements aside, we live in the great state of California, where the highest point and the lowest point cohabitate the same 100 square miles. In this magical place, you’ll be hard-pressed to find legit backcountry trails where bikes are allowed, if any. You can thank the Sierra Club for that. Equestrians and hikers greatly outnumber cyclists and a long time ago in a bureaucracy far, far away, someone, somewhere said “No Bikes allowed.”

This was written in stone and rather than get all in a huff about it, in recent months, I’ve kinda embraced the whole thing. Bikes aren’t allowed in Wilderness Areas. Got it. So what is? What offers a similar experience to bikepacking? Duh. Backpacking. Cari has experienced parts of the High Sierra I’ve never even thought to explore. Personally, if I take off four days from work, I want to be bikepacking or cyclo-touring some unknown region – to me anyway – of California. That’s why I moved to this damn fine state to begin with.

International Kook Exchange Part 02 – Velvet and Gold Edition – Previously Part 01: Milk and Honey Edition)
Words and photos by Jorja Creighton

Part two lead us to ride the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, Metal Ray as our spiritual leader (or father as we now call him). The Grand Canyon was a dream come true.

An extra special trip because I was on my very new, gently sparkling Evasion frame from Crust Bikes, which had arrived from Crust HQ all built up ready to shred. The Limp Dick stem and Salsa Cowchippers combo is making me feel like a wizard up on 7/10 difficulty terrain.

Getting High in the San Gabriel Mountains at Mt. Lowe Trail Camp
Photos and words by Kyle Kelley

Each year everyone at Golden Saddle Cyclery gets super excited when Swift Industries announces their annual campout and then every year we become more and more worried about killing everyone because it is always way too hot to ride a fully loaded touring bike up a mountain. Yeah, it’s summer and yeah it’s hot everywhere, but we’re talking Buster Poindexter “HOT HOT HOT!”

Raidō is the r-rune of the Elder Futhark, an old proto-Germanic language, used by northern European civilizations. Its meaning translates to the ride or the journey and has been the icon of this website for years, at least in spirit. For Cari’s birthday this year, we wanted to do something new and challenging. We both had our picks for a vacation. Mine was a bicycle tour in Madagascar and hers was backpacking in Iceland. Luckily for Cari, it was her birthday, so she had the final say in the matter. All she wanted was to be on a trail during the Summer Solstice and her birthday, so we began planning…

A Goodbye to Perú Through the Ausangate
Photos and words by Ryan Wilson

For my final stretch through Perú (for now), I jumped onto the instant-classic route that Cass Gilbert and Michael Dammer founded one year prior (http://www.bikepacking.com/routes/tres-cordilleras-boliva-peru/), with a few tweaks. The highlight of this area is unquestionably the circuit around the 6,384m aka 20,945ft wall of rock and ice known as Apu Ausangate. The majority of which is pure backcountry single track through seemingly endless glacial peaks and pristine lagunas.

Braving the Elements on the Oregon Ramble
Photos and words by Robin Sansom

We all met at the EconoLodge on 3rd and Main Street in Prineville. Good adventures usually start at bad hotels, so it seemed natural to stage there before the Oregon Ramble. The Ramble is a newish event that is something like a 3-day summer camp on bikes. You bring all your camping gear to ride with friends, old and new, and experience places that you might not normally get to in your everyday life.

After a decent night’s sleep and a hearty breakfast, we lazily rolled out of town with the other 50 or so riders. On the climb up to the first camp we saw the entire variety and nearly identical tempo of the weather cycle that would visit us throughout the event: sunshine, rain, hail, cold. Although this first day’s mileage was relatively short, which gave us a little too much time to indulge in the pro bono New Belgium beers at camp, the remaining days would see many more miles and loads more climbing on everything from paved roads to bumpy double track.

International Kook Exchange Program Part O1: Milk and Honey Edition
Words and photos by Jorja Creighton

Founded April 2017, the International Kook Exchange Program (IKEP) provides a safe place for vulnerable kooks in the international biking community, globally, worldwide.The International Kook Exchange Program is for everyone. Chances are… you are a raging kook, embrace it, nurture it, take it into the wild and spread the kook pollen this summer. The exchange aims to provide inspiration to travel and mingle with other bike enthusiasts, it’s a reminder you’re ugly and it’s all goood!

Out of all the places in California, Owens Valley and its surrounding areas are my favorite. You’ve got the High Sierra to the west and Death Valley to the east. Unfortunately, this late in the year, spending time in Death Valley limits you to the air conditioning confines of your car, or Telescope Peak and its extreme elevation and in the High Sierra, this year’s snowfall of epic proportions still has many of the roads and hiking trails closed. With limited options for altitude, Cari and I decided to explore the valley floor after my week in Chico. Once my work “obligations” were finished, I picked her up from the Sacramento airport on Thursday afternoon and made the traverse into Owens Valley.

Team Space Horse and the Luxury Horsepower Route through the Sierra Nevada!
Photos and words by Kyle Kelley

In the Spring of 2016 Jeff from All-City asked me if I’d like to do a party ride in the Lake Tahoe area before Saddle Drive! As you probably already know, anytime the word party and ride are in the same sentence, I say yes. Jeff then asked me if my better half would also like to come along, and of course, I just said yes to that too! In reality, I probably should have asked about the route and the terrain, but I didn’t. Liz and I would be riding 600 miles on the northern portion of the Divide just before, so I figured this would be a walk in the park. Boyyy…was I wrong.

No, this isn’t a troll and yes, I’m aware of the polarizing nature of this particular topic of discussion but I can’t help but say I had a lot of fun making this short gallery.

As the editor, or owner, or whatever you want to call me, I tend to hold a certain sensitivity to topics here on the site. Or at least I am mindful of the Radavist’s impact on riding, even in the smallest of ways. E-bikes, for whatever reason, tend to generate a lot of flack and rightfully so. There’s the issue of trail stewardship, of accessibility, or perhaps it just looks wrong on paper. Or in this case, on screen. There have been tons of op-ed pieces circulated over the internet over the years, of all I have not read. Personally, I’m more of an experiential learner. I like to actually try something before putting my opinion down. Just a few weeks ago, I was finally able to truly use an e-bike. Not just in a cruise around a bike shop’s parking lot kinda way, but actually use one.

Superstoke Weekend Seattle: Island Time
Photos by Gideon Tsang, words by Josh Cates

Washington trip discussions began in February, when the crew associated with Swift Industries swung through central Texas for Beat the Clock Cycling’s yearly anti-Super Bowl rides, Super Stoked Weekend (previously known as SuperBro Weekend started by John Watson). Everybody had a blast, and the obvious next step was to continue the party up north in a kind of cultural exchange program. After returning to Seattle Jason Goodman plotted four days of San Juan Islands riding, and a bunch of us from the club bought plane tickets.

Sequel production is a tricky business. The second chapters often look like vapid, hodge podge rehashes of jokes or action pieces that might still somehow gross more than the original. The viewer is often left with “Revenge of the Clones” rather than “Empire Strikes Back”.

It was with a heavy heart and lots of FOMO when I admitted to my friends at Giro that I wouldn’t be able to attend Grinduro Scotland. That’s when the gears began to really spin…

Let’s backtrack a bit. Grinduro debuted two years ago in Quincy, California as a new race format. Rather than racing a course in its entirety, there would be a handful of timed sections, of which, the leaders would be chosen before ultimately awarding winners in various categories. This allows for plenty of on-course downtime, which leads to camaraderie, substance consumption of various forms, jackassery, playful shit-talking and other social activities often absent from competitive cycling events. For two years, Grinduro California has proven to be a success, leading Giro’s UK partners to begin exploring options for an exotic Grinduro getaway.

Bikepacking Peru’s Valle de los Volcanes
Photos and words by Ryan Wilson

After dealing with a dead Garmin and a bricked iPhone (my only GPS devices) for a while during my last stint in Perú, I decided to put the trip on hold for a few months and head back to the States. It was a nice break to sort a few things out, skip a little bit of Peru’s rainy season, and take it easy for the holidays.

For companies like Blackburn, their environment directly inspires and influences the design of their products. From there, these designs are prototyped, vetted and put to extensive testing. Naturally, there’s only so much that can be done in-house, even in the mountains of Santa Cruz, where the brand is based. So in years past, Blackburn’s used the Ranger program to not only stoke out their chosen bicycle tourists and explorers but to help aid in product research and development. It’s a win / win situation. The Rangers get free gear and Blackburn gets to listen to their feedback and ultimately design better products. As you might imagine, the Ranger role is desirable for anyone who loves riding their bike, so every year, Blackburn holds a call for entries to recruit the next round of Rangers. From over a hundred video applicantion, four are chosen.

This year, Blackburn decided to relocate Ranger Camp from Santa Cruz to Europe. Spain was the logical choice given the time of year, weather, and accessibility for all the European Rangers. In total, two men and two women were picked, one from the US, one from Scotland, one from Germany and one from Spain. Media were present from European outlets, along with other helpers and myself, to photograph the shindig. A large group convened in a hotel conference room, in Madrid to set up bikes, talk gear and prepare for our three-day trek into the Sierra de Guadarrama mountains, just north of Madrid.

The Australian Crust Van Tour
Photo and words by Jorja Creighton

Touring plans can be dismantled on the fly and made better, sure there is glory in the hard yakka, but when you are out for two weeks, just looking for the good times … Chase the rainbow and good trails. Turn off that path if it looks rosier, you’re on holidays! That’s what the #crustvantour did, and boy did we find the rainbow.

We set out to ride half of the east coast of Australia. From Brisbane to Sydney over the month that Kurt and Raymond were in town from America. Half the crew riding on Crust Bikes, it was a Crust Tour after all; a step through extra small hot-pink Evasion, an eXtra cycle converted Evasion, a Crust Romanceür, and a fresh burgundy Scapegoat that Kurt was riding. The other half of the crew riding a Surly, a custom Moustache build, a pub bike and Jones bike. We can’t all be Crust lucky.

Pedaling in Anger: Training Camp Camping Arizona
Photos and words by Ultra Romance

What do you ride a bike for? Is it simply fitness and abs? Primordial warrior expression? JFF (just for fun)? Commuting? Too many DWI’s? Do you just merely believe that personal auto ownership should be banned, and only for commercial use? Or maybe it’s all of the above? Regardless, if you are reading this, you are likely some kind of cyclist, or merely just a fan of my creative spellings and punctuation style. So what kind are you? What does sykling mean to YOU???

As many of you who subscribe to the fan club letter my mom mails out bi-weekly may know, I’ve recently enlisted in a documentary art performance piece directed by Dan and Kyle at Yonder Journal. It’s entitled Project Y, and its purpose is to answer the question Y (why) (get it?) predominately white suburban career professionals train and compete in events that are both nonsensical and detrimental to one’s health and interpersonal relationships for no real reason other than the intrinsic reward of simply finishing. I don’t get it, or maybe I once did, but regardless, it’s a documentary MOVIE, and I wanna be a movie star, always have. The catch is, I have to race the Dirty Kanza 200. I’m a 20-40 mile a day kinda guy, so some training would be necessary, I suppose.