The Radavist

After the apocalypse, I’m pretty sure society could learn to rebuild if we just get the Youtube servers back online. When I needed to install a new starter in my Tacoma, Youtube was there. When I needed to safely remove some stitches after knee surgery, Youtube was there. And when I couldn’t wait the six weeks or spend the $200 to have a custom frame bag made, Youtube was there.

Midlife crises come in all shapes and sizes. For some, a bright red Mustang relieves the itch. For others, some Eat Pray Lovin’ on a beach in Bali is just the ticket. But for Joe McEwan, Founder of Starling Cycles, chucking in his job as a successful aerospace engineer to build steel mountain bikes in a garden shed was just what the doctor ordered.

In this shop visit, we dig into the brand’s origin story, go behind the scenes at their Bristol workshop and learn why their signature single-pivots and retro rear shocks prove that simplicity never goes out of fashion.

Sometimes, adventure comes calling.

For Chris McNally that call came from Ritchey when we asked him to tackle the Nutmeg Nor’Easter with nothing more than a rough outline of must-dos and our adventure-ready Ascent.

Taylor Doyle (she/her) is an ultra racer and founder of the Ultra Distance Scholarship, an initiative increasing diversity and representation within ultra distance cycling and racing. She is a self-proclaimed ‘make-things-happen’ person at the socially conscious bike-builder Stayer Cycles, and always riding her beloved UG. Taylor is passionate about sharing the joys of ultra distance cycling with as many folks as humanly possible and is particularly invested in encouraging and supporting more women/non-binary folks and people of colour to try the sport. Taylor is a Canadian writer and photographer currently loose in the UK, living nomadically and turning up at most UK-based bikepacking events and happenings. After getting frustrated by the amount of single-use plastic she was generating during her first ultra race, she decided to come back the following year and try things differently…

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.

Earlier this year Amy Danger blew us away with the story of her intricately restored and documented dumpster find Cinelli Laser Rivoluzione Prototype. Today she’s back with another stunning historic track bike from her personal collection, a Custom Gianni Motta Personal 2001r low-pro track bike with Mondrian-inspired color scheme and Columbus Air tubing. Let’s check it out in detail below!

Cairo to Cape Town. The words tumbled together in poetic cadence. Africa’s malleable cycling route from the Pyramids of Giza to Table Mountain was my dream of a decade. Soured by the rigid nature of sponsors’ expectations, I chose a bare-bones expedition. Plans and timelines aside. To travel for travel’s sake. To sink my teeth into the truth and toss the rest by the wayside. I started from the Egyptian pyramids with just my kiwi partner, the most efficient machines ever created, and the entire African continent ahead. Southbound and on edge, we began our trans-continental cycling journey dissecting Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa.

Hello dear readers. Are you ready?

Buckle your seatbelts, put on your out-of-office. Be sure to prepare a too-carefully-constructed pour-over coffee, or maybe a glass of tap water, and settle in. We are about to embark on a journey together, an unbiased, at times fanciful, long-term review of the GMX+ adventure bike from Curve Cycling.

Tom Ritchey is not what you would call an open book. Rather, he’s a whole library; a labyrinth with many alleys, chockfull of stories, where everything splits and branches like the best network of singletrack, and there are no cul de sacs. Every door leads you to another room. Every answer opens up another question. There are no shortcuts.

The following is just a casual conversation. In it, you might not find all the details of the next frame that he is working on but you may find a better understanding into what it took for Tom Ritchey to become Tom Ritchey.

“I have a public self and I have a personal self. I could answer that question on a public side and tell you I just love riding my bike and being by myself and all (…) That would be an authentic answer but it’s not the whole answer of course. So I’ll give you the personal one too.” – Tom Ritchey

Back in July, Josh Caffrey wrote an initial article about Erick Cedeño’s (aka Bicycle Nomad) journey from Missoula, MT to St. Louis, MO. That article covered Josh’s time with Erick in Montana, at just the beginning of his epic 1,900-mile bicycle expedition, a project where Erick had set out to retrace the historic route the 25th Infantry Buffalo Soldiers took in 1897. The continuation of that story is below and picks up in Missouri about a month after Josh leaves Erick in Montana…

Following the review of his MASH SF Steel All-Road from earlier this year, Chris Corona is back with yet another MASH bike review. This time, he’s built himself a steel “Rockbanger” 27.5 hardtail mountain bike and documents it in his stunning photographic style. Let’s check it out in detail below!

It’s early morning in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. As the sun crests over the ridge, the clouds in the valley slide up and over the surrounding mountains. Like lost spirits of past floods clocking out from their shifts haunting the city, the morning rush hour of weather is a wondrous sight to behold. It’s like watching a timelapse video in real-time. I told myself I wouldn’t talk about floods, or THE flood, when mentioning Johnstown, PA, but here we are. Here we are for Higher Ground.