The Radavist

Up until the beginning of this year, I had barely stepped foot on a proper mountain biking trail. Not because my hometown lacks options to do so, it’s just that my approach to riding bikes as a commuter and tourer is to get places, and trail riding seemed much like riding in circles. This summer, as my long term traveling plans got postponed, a mountain biking trail 15 minutes away from home suddenly seemed interesting and I started to get the hang of riding single track as a temporary substitute for long, open dirt roads; after all, this 5 km trail did a lot for keeping me sane over the summer.

After spending a long, confusing summer mostly indoors because of you-know-what, my partner Karla and I were itching to ride somewhere and sleep outside. We decided to use the Swift Campout global call as an excuse for setting up a date and we made an open invitation for the local community to join as some of our friends had expressed interest in camping by bike. I had never organized a group ride, I’m not very fond of them myself, but I thought that minimal organization could make for a memorable experience while still keeping it self-supported.

Security in México is a topic I don’t usually talk about; in order to keep myself from falling into hopelessness, I try to focus and highlight the good actions of people. Nevertheless, it’s like a pebble that you always carry in your pocket: you know it’s there, you touch it when you reach for other stuff, and although you are mostly used to it, some days it just decides to poke your leg. Adventure cyclists in the country generally have this factor in consideration at different levels depending on region and other circumstances, so here we’ll go a little over the topic but hey, there are some happy parts in this story too, for good balance.

First off, let’s acknowledge the Chippewa land this article takes place on.  The Chequamegon Bay that is visible from the middle of the ride, “encompasses the spiritual center of Anishinaabe nations.” You can learn more about the local Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa here.

Just a few miles outside of Bayfield, Wisconsin hides a compact but wonderful system of trails that weave their way around Mt Ashwabay. These trails were masterfully crafted by CAMBA (Chequamegon Area Mountain Bike Association). After sampling their handiwork in the Cable/Hayward area as well, I feel like I can say that I found the Mt Ashwabay system to be some of the most fun trails I have ever ridden in the Midwest and some of CAMBA’s best work. 

Years ago, after finishing the slowest-known-time attempt on the Oregon Outback during its 2nd annual ride, I wound up in Seattle.  Just to clarify for those familiar with our rolling squad of rodeo clowns from that year, we didn’t shit in that dudes yard, we were drunk in the woods 40 miles behind because we couldn’t even make it to most peoples 1st night camp on our 2nd day.

I’m not going to lie, when I first saw the post about Ripton & Co I thought it was a joke, and if it wasn’t a joke why have I missed the business opportunity of the decade sitting right in front of my face. At a startling $89 for a pair boutique cut off jorts, I was stunned. I was shortly connected to the Jort Lord, Elliot Wilkinson-Ray, who asked what size I wanted and if I wanted the shorts hemmed or cut off, I chose to go with cut off to go for the full jort experience.

To start, my Review of the Wahoo Roam is definitely going to be a bit narrow in scope, I don’t often ride road bikes, have a bunch of random sensors all over my body and bike, or keep meticulous logs of all my riding, so about 50% of the cool shit this device can do goes untouched by me.  You’re probably asking, what the hell do you ride and why are you talking to me about this? Well, I like to do short mountain bike rides and longer touring routes, both of which are super rad to have a GPS device for.  I also dabble in route creation, Im no Sarah Swallow, but I’ve been dipping my toes in the water and having a Wahoo has made that a more fruitful experience.

Since no one is out riding the Tour Divide this year and I’m locked away in a lake house in Wisconsin, why don’t we take a trip down memory lane? Like, I found a backup of these images on my iPod kinda trip down memory lane, back to 2014 baby. This was my first proper “bikepacking” or off-road touring trip. I borrowed my dad’s 90s hybrid and put a Surly fork and some racks on it and hightailed it to Missoula after finishing my first few weeks working as a tour guide in Oregon. I met Kurt and Sam as they were working their way down the Tour Divide as the inaugural Blackburn Rangers, which I had applied for too, but didn’t get, so why not just crash their party anyway?

I had been holding back on these notes for about a year now because I felt that calling it a “review” sounded like too much. The audience here is used to deep comprehension reviews and it’s very intimidating to put it in the same category when my experience with bicycles is reduced to the five I’ve owned in my adult life, this one included. So instead this is more of a short story about a bicycle, with hints of technical information where it feels required.

For anyone as uninitiated as myself in Minnesotan lore and legend, the Boundary Waters is a immaculate sprawling maze of lakes in Northern Minnesota that share a border with Canada.  I can’t remember who, but someone a few beers deep around a campfire eulogized about the boundary waters for quite some time, since then its hung in the back of my mind to check it out if the chance ever arose.

Last summer I was lucky enough to make my pilgrimage to Nutmeg Country while on a work trip to NYC.  While getting a tour of Benedict’s “childhood home”, he showed me the bike pile in his basement.  He looked at me and said, “Spencer, you need something classy, pick whichever frame you want.”  Of course I picked the rusted Romanceür prototype…

When I went on my first bike tour in the summer of 2009 from Seattle back to California I had a decision to make, take my camera or take a tent. I grabbed my old Hasselblad 501CM and hit the road. I had never gone on a long-distance tour before and I hadn’t much thought about any of it, I had a copy of Bicycling the Pacific Coast and some camping gear, I was gonna be fineeee. I had no plans for what to shoot along the ride, but when I got home I found that about 90% of the images I had shot were of the many people I encountered along the way. That was a moment of clarity for me and one that would define my photographic motivations for almost a decade afterward.

Ya ever wondered if you could keep only one of your bikes, which would it be?  At this point in my life I’d have to say my Fuji Sundance with a Crust Bikes Clydesdale fork up front.  This is my “daily driver” that serves for commuting, errand running, Costco runs, carrying coworkers home, or just taking the dog out for a spin. Vintage 26” rigid bikes are the bikes that just wont die and continue to show themselves as being so damn useful, and nothing compliments that better than the Clydesdale fork.