The Radavist

Top US World Cup Downhill Pro, Neko Mullaly, is preparing to race the 2022 World Cup season on a self-designed one-off bike hand-built by Frank Wadelton aka the Welder. As a lifelong mountain bike nerd, this blows my hair back.

World Cup DH is a bicycle death sentence. Riders push themselves and their bikes to the limit; smashing through rock gardens with pinpoint abandon while bending gravity in tire ripping corners. The races happen over a scant few minutes creating a competitive pressure cooker where talent rides a razor’s edge.

But you don’t have to like all this “gravity bully” business to get into this story. The undeniable DIY ethos stands out amongst bike industry’s manufactured homogeneity. This is a story about taking chances, going fast, and doing what you love. I’m a fan.

Fish and Chip connoisseurs, Joe Barnes and Fergus Lambs of the venerable Dudes of Hazzard invite you to join them on their whimsical journey along the Hebridean Way. Faffing about through the long days of high summer here’s your chance to take part in a proxy experience of cold swims, impressive echoes, and some extremely pastoral campsites.

You’ve seen the bikes from the 2021 Chris King Open House in today’s Reportage and now, here’s the video!

Broken and Coastal are psyched to announce the release of their 6th print issue.

In 2020, Broken and Coastal set out to further disrupt the norm by turning their small magazine project into a platform to not only support storytellers, photographers, and designers but to give back to their community by donating the proceeds from each issue to charity.

Proceeds of the sixth edition will benefit Ride for Racial Justice, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that exists to ensure access to resources, education, and community for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) cyclists and to dismantle systemic racism so that EVERYONE can feel safe, free, and empowered to ride a bicycle.

“This is not just a publication you will want to read once. It’s a coffee-table worthy product to look back on for years to come, and a movement you can get behind,” said San Agustin.

Broken and Coastal is a studio focused on creating content that enriches the human experience. The Broken and Coastal journal is an independent print magazine for cyclists with courage — the non-traditionalists and the rule-breakers who dare to live life outdoors. A platform for change, we created this magazine to empower storytellers, inspire creativity, give to charity, support our communities and do our part in making the world a better place.

Head to www.brokenandcoastal.com to pick up Issue 06 today!

We don’t usually do video here at the Radavist, usually reserving it for special projects like this one. It’s different and thus, pretty special, so enjoy…

Recorded at the Live Oaks Community Center in January 2020 this presentation was scheduled thanks to the centers call for local participant submissions. Products featured in this presentation include the Roval Terra CLX Evo 650B, The Ultradynamico Rose Race 650B, and the Bistro Graphic Croc. If you like this review and would like to see more please contact @newantarctica to discuss whether or not a in-depth product review is right for you.

Photo by Ryan Vannoy

We’re riding along with the bikes in the bed of a truck eating the fat end of a wedge of dust as it explodes from the back of the vehicle ahead. This is before the Blade Runner light, before that blood rich red captured the sun, and after, no during, the airborne everywhere terror. The most recent one, the one that I’m worried there are not enough of us who believe in it.

Yes, there are five previous episodes.

Yes, we’re sorry not to have posted all of them for you here.

Yes, we expect you to enjoy the humor and the good times captured in this video.  That’s why we’re posting it. Because we believe there is a good chance you like what you see if you watch this video. It is likely that  you and your pals like to have a good time, and if at the moment you and your pals aren’t having a good time; because of work, or distance, or quarantine, etc then I’ll wager you can probably appreciate a vicarious pals-having-a-good-time experience.

If you don’t, thats cool too. No pressure.

Outside, it will be there, we’ll get back to it, its not going anywhere. In the meantime please take a few moments to enjoy watching Radavist favorite Joe Barnes and his sublimely talented cohort Lachlan Blair glissade down a Scottish slurry.

What is it that separates a Pro from a No? Is their genetic makeup a simple roll of the base pair dice? Or perhaps it’s a dogged commitment to training that sets them apart from the rest of us? Clearly the science is still out which but maybe Science isn’t looking in the right place. Could it be that is their dietary habits, specifically what they eat on a ride that cuts the wheat from the chaff, metaphorically speaking, we see you gluten-free fam. Filmmaker and a snack investigator Sim Smith has set out on a journey to expose these pro ride snack secrets. Why and how he gets these Toppest of Tier athletes to share their most coveted secrets we will likely never know but what’s important is that they do!  Take some time to digest this critical information and apply these lessons to your next bike picnic. Trust me you and your G.I. tract will not be disappointed.

More from Sam at Sam Wileys and on Instagram.

If you haven’t already been digitally or physically introduced to Mark and Will of the Free Radicals well now is your chance.

Cut to: You watching the video

Yes cinema, the magic of the motion picture, the simulacra of modern life. Sure this could all be smoke and mirrors but I met these two IRL I can tell you its not* that they give off the same “truly good human” vibe that carry in this video.

I am not the only one who has been bowled over by this good vibe wave,  my local trail boss – a highly esteemed curmudgeon and renowned hater – has also seen into their souls and has welcomed them into our tight knit cohort of riders and this say’s so much.

They’re good people doing good things. Taking action, doing work, paying it forward. So thanks Free Rads and thank you to all those other builders, advocates and riders named or not putting who are putting in the work telling the tale of our trails.

*I suppose I could be part of the simulacrum as well, World on a Wire anyone? But if that’s the case its very likely you are too so then does it really even matter?

Dropping In: Medicare for All, Adventuring, and You
Words by Kyle von Hoetzendorff

If you’re alive then at some point you’ve had a health issue; hangnails to broken bones, common colds to genetic disorders. Being alive means being at the mercy of injury and sickness, precarity is part of the human experience. The degree to which each one of us has to address health in a very large part comes down to luck; genetic, location, etc. It would be one thing we choose to live in a padded room with platinum-level HEPA filters and a well-curated mix of cultural sensory input to prevent the self-inflicted harm that would surely stalk anyone forced to live in a padded cell their entire life. But then that’s the point, most of us don’t want to live in hypo-precarity.

A Dude for Hazzard: Joe Barnes, an Interview
Interview by Kyle von Hoetzendorff, photos supplied by Joe Barnes

We’re going to give this interview thing a try, it’s not a new format, we’re not breaking the mold but in what has become a podcasted world the simple format of a written Q&A still holds some appeal; maybe you can’t wear headphones at work or the speakers in your puter/phone/watch no longer work, or maybe it’s the whine of vocal fry?