The Radavist

Hydration vests have been used in ultra-endurance running circles for some time now, but only recently have they been introduced into cycling, specifically bikepacking races. Restrap announced its first foray into vest design with the Race Hydration Vest. Let’s check it out below.

ILE just announced the second collaboration featuring Oakland-based artist Shogun Shido. This line of bags features hand-painted X50 XPAC, which started out as one continuous roll of fabric before being laser cut into panels for each product. The panels were placed at random while maintaining the orientation of the original painting, with drips and splatters cascading down the bags. Each piece is one of a kind, and includes a sewn-in artist label signed by Shido.

Check out the full collection at Inside Line Equipment.

Gravel Adventure Field Guide is excited to announce the release of its first New England guidebook. The adventure guide book company partnered with the Appalachian Mountain Club and the Maine Office of Outdoor Recreation to produce the AMC Maine Woods edition…

Lots of websites are speculating about the future or fate of Kona when its struggles were made very public after the company set up its Sea Otter Classic booth and then broke it down the evening before the show. This led to posts from media outlets, who made bold claims about the brand’s demise. Because we couldn’t contact anyone at the company, we thought we’d leave it be, knowing how the VC-backed cycling world works from personal experience, and then this morning, Kona posted on Instagram.

Photo: Jason Fitzgibbon from his Lost Sierra trip years back here on The Radavist

Bikepacking Roots just announced a bike touring route through one of our favorite locales in California: the Lost Sierra. This area is incredibly remote with only a few small towns sprinkled throughout the valleys found between craggy peaks. You’ll encounter steep double track and ripping singletrack, with alpine lakes and plentiful wildflowers.

Check out the full route at Bikepacking Roots.

We’ve seen the concept before, but never at this level of execution. Hydrapak’s new Breakaway+ bottle plus water filter comes in two sizes, 30 oz and 20 oz, and looks to have covered all the issues we had about these sorts of bottle filters. Let’s check it out.

For the fourth installment in our Race Metal Video Series, Miguel Ovalles gives his first impressions of the Beach Club Al Dente gravel bike and sits down with Teebow from Beach Club…

Beach Club Al Dente Geometry:

Australian bag maker Framework Designs just opened a new pre-order for the updated Haul All Wald 139 basket bag ($238). Let’s check it out…

In the second installment of “Bitesized Bikepacking”, Esker Cycles meets up with Transit Cycles in Tucson, AZ for another mid-week bikepacking mini-adventure. The goal of Bitesized Bikepacking is to highlight just how simple a night away can be.

“It’s interesting in theory, but when you hit bumps in the road you go up with the bike, and there aren’t any normal riding instances I can think of where you’d naturally mimic what Antonio is doing to this extent and feel the frame flex. Maybe the Clem is slightly more comfortable over rough stuff, but the tires still make way more of a difference in comfort than the flex of the tubing, so don’t read into this too much. If I were choosing between a flex-less Clem with soft tires and a flexy Clem with hard tires, I’d choose the flex-less, soft-tired Clem every time.”

Rivendell‘s Friday newsletter included this nifty video. What do you think about this experiment?

Our take: frame flex is mostly discernible in cornering through rough stuff or powering up a climb.

“My mom died following a grueling battle with multiple sclerosis when I was barely 18. For years afterward, I distracted myself with college-aged escapism: moving away, making new friends, sneaking into bars, taking road trips and ultimately earning a degree.”

Read this full article at the NY Times.

In 2020 and 2021, Sofiane was racing Bombtrack bikes. After a 2-year hiatus, Sofiane Sehili is back with the brand. After he picked up his new bike in Nevada, he went for a ride in one of our favorite places in the US: the Mojave and into Death Valley…

The Radavist thanks 1-Up USA for sponsoring our Sea Otter Classic 2024 coverage!

Josh and John are scouring the 2024 Sea Otter Classic for interesting products, bikes, and people and we’ve got a lot more on the way but this PNW Components dropper post had us dropping our jaws…