The Radavist

This is the story of a perpetually unfinished project, but also of a really cool bike that’s taken me a lot of great places – and how it came to me is its own unlikely story. The fact that a custom Rock Lobster built for someone else has been the best fitting bike I’ve ever owned is pure coincidence, particularly as I would learn that it didn’t quite fit the original owner as they had hoped. Settle in for the Tale of the Humongous Rock Lobster.

The late 80s and well into the 90s marked a sea change in mountain bike design. Suddenly bikes that were designed to ride fire roads and trails with no real intention were being hurdled down mountains at breakneck speeds. Competition between the brands within the burgeoning sport was fierce, and the race to produce lightweight racing bikes had begun. Perhaps the most infamous of these experimentations is the Yeti C-26, and today, we have some juicy photos of Juli Furtado’s C-26 WC race machine with an entertaining account of this bike’s genesis by Mike Wilk…

With a group of fifty women, we’ll begin the Komoot Women’s Torino-Nice Rally at 8 am on September 24th. It’s not a race, but a challenge to finish the route in a week with a finishers’ party at the Service Course in Nice on October 1st. While the ride is self-supported, women are encouraged to ride together, help each other, share stories and positivity and build a rolling community. It’ll definitely be hard, but it’s meant to be fun. Adventure arrives when we push our limits into the unknown with the confidence to see how it’ll unfold. I’m deeply encouraged to see fifty women take on this ride, make it personal and do their best.

Designed by James Olsen, the Torino Nice Rally is a 700km mixed surface route traversing the Alps between Turin, Italy, and Nice, France. With ten significant mountain passes, it climbs famous cols and old gravel military roads, passing small towns and refuges along the way. The highest point is over 2,700 meters with 17,500 meters of climbing. James has been hosting an event on the route for years— it’s not a race, but a challenge to finish in a week. Riders begin together and leapfrog along the way, sharing kilometers and stories. At different junctions, there are options for routing— to take the smoother longer course or the rougher more direct track. There’s always a debate about equipment choice— whether to ride a gravel bike or a hardtail, both have their benefits. Camping and staying in shelters along the way are recommended.

Rigid bikes. The roots of riding off-road, yet now the arena of weirdos, quacks, and masochists. Mountain biking started out long before telescoping forks and complex linkage designs, but the bikes of those early days are now a far cry from the activity most consider “mountain biking”.

Of course, those weirdos, quacks, and masochists still have a place in this world, and it turns out I’m one of them. It wasn’t always this way. I used to ride and write about my experience with suspension mountain bikes as a full time job. I could go on all day about spring curves and axle paths, dampers and volume spacers, sag and suspension setup.

But, in the past five or so years, my focus has shifted. I’d rather spend a weekend riding to small places and sleeping out under the stars than shuttling the local loamers and crushing parking lot beers. And in that time I’ve come to value a mountain bike that requires less maintenance.

Having ridden a lot of high end suspension bikes, I know what it takes to keep them running tip top – and I just don’t have the facilities to do that at home, nor the money to pay someone else to do it. A rigid bike makes sense for my sometimes bi-weekly, sometimes monthly mountain bike hobby.

Please see Part 01 here: Top 11 finalist for the 2021 “Lael Rides Alaska” Femme-Trans-Women’s Scholarship: Part 01
and Part 02 here: Top 11 finalist for the 2021 “Lael Rides Alaska” Femme-Trans-Women’s Scholarship: Part 02

Please see Part 01 here: Top 11 finalist for the 2021 “Lael Rides Alaska” Femme-Trans-Women’s Scholarship: Part 01

Top 11 finalists for the “Lael Rides Alaska” 2021 Femme-Trans-Women’s Scholarship

Design a 1,000 mile Alaska bike adventure, tell me about your plan and yourself and how you’ll make it happen this summer.

With the help of Cari Carmean, Natsuko Hirose, Kailey Kornhauser, and Abigale Wilson, we’ve selected 11 finalists from the 126 applicants. It has been extremely encouraging to read about women from around the world that want to take on this challenge and have so many unique approaches. I am honored to share a few of their stories. This has been a hard year for everyone. While highlighting positivity, there’s always an undercurrent of endurance and reflection. These are bold stories of perseverance, of finding connection, learning about ourselves and what truly matters.

I’m thrilled to share that we have the capacity to give out two full scholarships this year to outfit two different adventures this summer. Thank you so much to our generous and thoughtful sponsors.

The winners will receive either a complete Specialized Diverge with Easton carbon wheels or an adventure bike built up by SRAM, Revelate Designs bikepacking bags, Big Agnes camping equipment, PEARL iZUMi apparel, a premium subscription to Komoot, a Wahoo ELEMNT ROAM GPS, a $300 gift card for Competitive Cyclist, Rene Herse tires, an Ergon saddle, a year subscription to Bicycle Quarterly, Trail Butter, Hydro Flask hydration, and a $1,500 travel stipend provided by Easton, and the Radavist will also kick in a $500 travel stipend for one of the finalists.

Now’s the really hard part– we have to choose two winners. Announcements to come later this week.

Read on below for the first of three posts showcasing the 11 finalists…

For today’s Reportage, we linked up with Bay Area artist Ariel Wickham Earnhardt to discuss her artwork, her riding, and her role in the Full Circle Cycling Project video we posted earlier this month, which supports the Coast Miwok’s work to share and preserve their culture, by selling artwork inspired by the land, cycling, and community. Read on below for an interview and a look at Ariel’s local rides…

Alaskan summer energy, at its height, seems endless. You don’t need lights because the sun never sets. Schedules are mostly irrelevant— ride late, sleep in, take breaks, or never stop. It’s all possible.

Then the dark starts eating into the day. In late August, we start losing minutes that cumulate into hours over weeks. It’s hard to adjust. Night returns. And maybe that’s part of what makes it so special. That fleeting feeling of freedom that leaves, but not forever.

Dalton Highway

We land in Deadhorse on the North Slope of Alaska in the evening under sunny skies and drag our cardboard bike boxes out of the single gate terminal. We’re the only passengers on the flight not starting a two-week work shift on the oil fields. The wind is ripping so fast, it’s hard to put the bikes together. We help each other. We velcro bags to our bikes and load up our camping gear. It’s cold enough that we put on all of our clothing layers. We cram days’ worth of food into every pack. The workers at the airport are kind and helpful. A woman gives us directions to the shop where we can buy a camping stove canister and a can of bear spray that we couldn’t bring on the plane. She asks us to leave our bike boxes in storage. They always save the big ones for hunters.

My dream was to ride all of the major roads in Alaska and I did in 2017. I’m fourth-generation Alaskan. It’s where I got into endurance riding on my mom’s Specialized Ruby in between bartending shifts in 2014. Examining the map and fitting in the biggest rides I could on my two days off led me to the goal of riding them all, imagining what the 2D map could look like in real life and why the roads existed in the first place. Three years later, I had a wide open summer and I was ready for an open-ended adventure. Four thousand five hundred miles took me past Wiseman to the north slope at Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Ocean, through Chicken to Eagle on the Yukon River, to the three hot springs north of Fairbanks, into Denali National Park and across the Denali Highway to Paxson. I used The Milepost, the local guidebook that chronicles every mile of Alaskan road with conditions and services. If the road is listed in The Milepost, I had to ride it. About two-thirds were paved and a third, high-quality dirt.

Speedvagen’s Ready-Made OG series offers up the styling of a custom Speedvagen, at a much lower pricepoint. We looked at the OG road bike a few years back, including that beautiful lilac frame, and my OD OG-1. New to the OG lineup this season is the Disc OG, which has a few new details, other than the addition of disc brakes. So does this bike ride as good as it looks?

Stephanie’s Blacked Out 650B Straggler
Photos and words by Morgan Taylor

For what is admittedly a bit of a mish-mash build, Stephanie’s Straggler has come together with a lot of character. The parts kit borrows heavily from other bikes, so you may very well recognize some pieces from other builds. It’s the collection of parts, and the stories behind all of them, that makes this bike something special.

Jeff Traugott is an artist and his palette is wood. He makes absolutely stunning handmade acoustic guitars in Santa Cruz. These pieces sell for tens of thousands of dollars and are a hot commodity.

It just so happens that Jeff’s shop is right next door to Rock Lobster. Both he and Paul are inspirational individuals who have made a living doing what they love. The word entrepreneur gets thrown around a lot these days, but these two are fuckin’ living the dream.

When Jeff isn’t building geetars, he’s out on one of three Rock Lobsters, this being one of them, an “all road” bike with long-reach calipers and Campy 11 speed. My favorite detail, aside from the frame, is the Calfee-wrapped carbon Easton stem to ENVE bar combo. Perfect solution for the inevitable slipped bars when blasting down rutted, gnarly descents.

I spent two days riding alongside this machine, which happens to be my size. After the first day’s ride from Santa Cruz out to the coast, I snatched up this bike and took it for a quick photo shoot as the marine layer rolled in over the redwoods… #NatureIsMetal

I don’t know if you know this but camouflage is “in” right now and so is cyclocross. A few months ago, Kyle from Tracko got his ENVE fork painted by Death Spray Custom, for a new bike coming in time for cross season. When Ty didn’t have a fork for Cross Vegas, Kyle let him borrow it. Enough of a backstory? The fork looks great on the black Nature Boy Zona, especially with the Easton camo tape. Let’s just say Ty is living the dream…