The Radavist

Our buddy Alexandera Houchin is now riding for Esker Cycles. Read on for the full announcement and a quote from Alexandera!

If you follow ultra racing, then you have most likely heard of Alexandera Houchin. Today we’re sharing a few hacks she’s tried over the year, from her beginning roots bike touring all the way through bikepacking races. Read on for a bit of self-deprecating humble pie and innovation, rolled in one!

Our good friend Alexandera Houchin has parted ways with Austin, TX framebuilders Chumba Cycles after five years of being a sponsored athlete, as announced on the brand’s Instagram. We’re not at liberty to talk about her new sponsor quite yet but wanted to alert the readership and direct them to Chumba Cycles’ Instagram for a heartfelt photo collage and official statement.

You can also read Alexandera’s extended thoughts by subscribing to her Substack. 

Check out John and Alexandera’s Chumba Beautiful Bicycles gallery in our archives:

Waaseyaa: It is Bright; Alexandera Houchin, Her Life, and Her Chumba Cycles Stella MTB

Our Radar Roundup compiles products and videos from the ‘net in an easy-to-digest format. Read on below for today’s findings…

It’s Monday. While you’re sitting at your computer, hit play on this video from Chumba Cycles on Alexandera Houchin‘s 2023 record-setting run!

It has taken time for Alexandera Houchin to weave layers of her identity together. First and foremost, Alexandera is an Ojibwe woman. She’s also an artist, a farmer, a mechanic, a cyclist and a person who cares deeply about her community on the Fond Du Lac reservation near Cloquet, Minnesota. “Stronger Together” takes an intimate look into Alexandera’s life while examining concepts of identity, forgiveness and what it means to merge seemingly different aspects of your soul in order to continue moving forward, one pedal stroke at a time.

See more at Freehub!

Our friend Alexandera Houchin sent us over an exciting email yesterday, celebrating her making the cover of Freehub Magazine’s latest issue. Here’s Freehub’s description of this issue:

“An unprecedented number of people are riding mountain bikes as an outlet for exercise and exploration and, as a result, discovering a truth we all eventually come to know: Every ride is an adventure. Freehub’s 12.4 edition is a celebration of this truth and a meditation on how adventure leads to discovery, both of the outside world and within oneself. In our cover story, ultra-endurance racer Alexandera Houchin writes about how her relationship with the bike has instilled a deeper understanding of her identity as a Native woman—and how she’s come to realize the act of racing is a ceremonial expression of her Ojibwe spirit. Transformative adventure pervades this book, with feature stories on a life-changing family bikepacking journey in the Alaskan wilderness and the existential reckonings of a rider attempting to clear a long-neglected trail in central Nevada’s remote Toiyabe Range. Welcome to Issue 12.4—a tribute to self-discovery and embracing the unknown.”

Read on below for Alexandera’s thoughts on this experience…

“When I cross the line, people seem stunned”.

“The sun is beating down from a relentlessly blue sky on an 80-degree late-May afternoon in Emporia, Kansas. Alexandera Houchin is joking with her friends and supporters at the starting line of the Dirty Kanza XL, despite the fact that she’s just ridden her bike a few hundred miles through rain and mud from Iowa, napping under a highway overpass to get here on time. The laughter masks her misgivings about this race. It’s not because the DKXL is a notoriously difficult 542km ride through the steep and sharp Flint Hills of Kansas. It’s the race’s name, “Dirty Kanza,” that gets her. Kanza is a nickname for the Kaw Nation, the “People of the South Wind,” who lived in this region long before white settlers arrived. To preface that with “Dirty” shows a disconnect of the history of place that is ironic to Houchin, whose mother is Ojibwe.”

Check out more at Bicycling Magazine!

The University of Minnesota – Duluth has pulled together an exceptional profile video on Alexandera Houchin, the SS TDR record holder. Check it out!

“After living thousands of miles away and spending time zig-zagging down the Continental Divide on bike, Alexandera Houchin’s homecoming is extra meaningful. Growing up, she never saw a Native American dentist or doctor, and decided to counter that with plans to practice dentistry on her reservation. Through her example, Alexandera envisions empowering the next generation to take care of its citizens. “If you can’t see it, how can you believe it?””

Ogichidaakwe

I was always insecure about the fact that I was “uneducated” before I entered academia. Growing up in a trailer park and as the first person in my family to have ever attended a university, I was certain that I was something less than my entire life. The apple never falls far from the tree. And in attending University, I’ve learned that everything I was taught whilst growing up was lessons in obedience. I, an Anishinaabe woman, celebrated the Pilgrims at Thanksgiving time and Columbus on Columbus day. I always thought that I wasn’t Indian enough because I didn’t grow up on my reservation, I didn’t know my tribal language, and I didn’t look Indian. Tell me, what does an Indian look like? How could I trust a system that denied the lived history of my ancestors?

Chumba Bikes just announced the launch of its new wheel-building service under the name Stoke Custom Wheels. The service is owned and operated by Chumba Bikes and will operate out of the Chumba HQ in Austin, TX. Read on to find out more.

Remember a few weeks ago when we linked to the Tracker story on the Stooge Cycles website? Well, that should have been a hint or at least a wink wink, nod that Andy from Stooge was working on a Tracker-inspired bike! Yesterday he announced just that, the Dirt Tracker, so let’s check it out…

Welcome to the second installment of The Dust-Up. This will be a semi-regular platform for Radavist editors and contributors to make bold, sometimes controversial claims about cycling. A way to challenge long-held assumptions that deserve a second look. Sometimes they will be global issues with important far-reaching consequences; other times, they will shed light on little nerdy corners of our world that don’t get enough attention. This week, John looks at a divisive topic through a historical lens to lay it all out in a column called: “Bike Touring is Not Bikepacking No Matter the Bags Used or Terrain Traversed.”

Read our latest edition of The Dust Up below…