The Radavist

After completing the Westfjords Way Challenge in 2023, Werka Szalas and friend Louise Philipovitch decide they want to see more of Iceland. In the course of a week, they attempt to explore Iceland’s rugged and beautiful countryside, but like any bike tour, they find a few challenges along the way… 

Come along as we take a leisurely dive into the origin story of the 26+ Stridsland Beachcomber frame. Matias Stridsland has built a following around reviving old 26″ bikes and not taking things too seriously, but now he’s here to present his own 90s-inspired 26″ MTB.

Matias is self-admittedly addicted to the details and his chronicling of the process behind the Beachcomber gives real insight into the dedication that goes into these short-run projects. As he writes, this exact bike didn’t exist before and now it does—we think that’s pretty rad and if you’re interested in owning one, read to the bottom for pre-order details!

The 2023 Bespoked Handmade Bicycle Show just wrapped after three action-packed days of talks, parties, and drooling over heaps of amazing craftsmanship on display. Josh was on the ground at the Dresden, Germany airport where this year’s event took place, and, below, shares his first gallery of bikes and a couple of very interesting components that will be launching soon. Let’s get right into it!

Motivated by the renewed interest in American manufacturing following the COVID pandemic, Erik Mathy shares part one in a new series where he will document how American makers of fine bicycle parts make a single part from the very start to the finish. At each stage he will ask the person doing the work two questions and take two portraits: One of the part and one of the worker. In his own words, this is a project to “explore both the processes and the people who make some of the most interesting, purpose-driven and—in their own way beautiful—bicycle parts in the world.” Read on for his first installment with a visit to Paragon Machine Works and an in-depth look at how they are making their new SRAM Universal Derailleur Hangar dropout.

Wrapping up our 2023 Handmade Bicycle Show Australia coverage that kicked off yesterday, Andy White is back with another packed gallery of thoroughly-documented beautiful bicycles. There’s a lot to look at, so let’s jump right in below!

Founded in 2016 by Jon Yazzie and Nadine Johnson, DziłTa’ah Adventures runs bike and packraft tours from their home base in the town of Kayenta inside the Navajo Nation. While we’ve documented multiple experiences with the nascent outfitter – including Hunt’s Mesa, John’s Canyon, Yellow Dirt routes, and others – getting the business off the ground hasn’t been easy for John and Nadine. Last winter, Josh Weinberg reconnected with Jon, along with a group of photographers including Chris Burkard, Jeremy Bishop, and Murray Smith for an unforgettable tour along one of DziłTa’ah Adventures’ most popular routes to learn about what’s next for their guiding operation…

I found this Bridgestone MB-2 as a complete on Marketplace in December of 2021. It’s January of 2023 and I’ve just wrapped up the build. The time in between was spent having some frame modifications made, aging the frame, making custom head badges and acquiring various components. Once I had my parts, the build should have only taken about a day but stretched into a week as I inched along with minor changes. The final outcome, though, is better than I could have hoped!

This is part two of an in depth conversation between Tom Ritchey and Ryan le Garrec where Ryan seeks to identify key periods in Tom’s life alongside key people. Perhaps second only to Tom’s father, it seems that Jobst Brandt had significant influence of the young Tom. Below, Ryan shares excerpts from Tom’s side of their conversation that highlight Jobst’s character, his notorious rides, and his lasting impact. Enjoy!

Of all the things I love most in this life, riding bikes, exploring the world, and writing about both of those things are very near the top of the list. So, you can understand my thrill when the state of North Dakota’s tourism board reached out, asking if I might be interested in riding one of the most difficult singletrack trails in America before coming home to write about it.

After a quick conversation with my wife—whose blessing was required to leave her alone with our kids (the three things steadfastly at the top of my list) for four days while I went off to the Badlands to fuck around on bikes—and a few pitches to some bike-friendly editors (at least one of which commissioned the piece you are, at this very moment, reading), it was confirmed; I would be heading out to southwestern North Dakota to ride a portion of the Maah Daah Hey Trail, which, at 144 miles, is America’s longest contiguous singletrack trail. Thanks to its steep grades, technical terrain full of all sizes of rocks and boulders, thousands of tight switchbacks, endless buttes, and rapid changes in elevation, it’s also widely regarded as one of the most challenging.

When I first started gathering the necessary gear to give bike touring (or “bikepacking” in the parlance of our times) a go, the concept struck me as an opportunity to escape from the predictable, mundane, “rinse-and-repeat” order of everyday life. An opportunity to embrace a new kind of freedom of aimless wandering through paths and tracks out in the near-endless natural landscape. After a couple of trips, though, I found the reality of touring isn’t the carefree meander I had envisioned. It can involve weeks or months of planning, trail markers, GPS tracks, resupply points… Which is not to say that escaping on a multi-day trip isn’t freeing, it is – very much so – but maybe not in the conventional sense of the word. I think author Robert Moor says it best in his written exploration of travel, On Trails:

“But complete freedom, it turned out, is not what the trail offers. Quite the opposite – a trail is a tactful reduction of options. The freedom of the trail is riverine, not oceanic. To put it as simply as possible, a path is a way of making sense of the world. There are infinite ways to cross a landscape; but the options are overwhelming, and pitfalls abound. The function of the path is to reduce this teeming chaos into an intelligible line.”

For the final installment of our coverage documenting the Forgotten Coast Route – a bikerafting trip connecting all of Iceland’s southern coast – expedition photographer Ryan Hill writes a series of short stories recounting some memorable moments from the media team’s point of view. Follow along with Ryan and the rest of the team which includes videographers Bryan “Bobcat” Davis, Jeremy Bishop, and Icelander Sigurdur “Sigi’ Petur.