The Radavist

Four hours into the drive from London to Girona, I began to question my life choices in having decided to drive rather than fly. Eight hours down the road—winding through the mountains with the cruise control set to 140kph with lunatic focus on the pool of tungsten light illuminating a patch of road ahead—I began to see its value. I needed this focus. High beam, dip beam, high beam, dip beam. The solo drive that started off listening to audiobook recommendations from Josh Weinberg had descended into a white knuckle ride against the clock to beat the dawn and shut myself in a dark hotel room to squeeze in a few hours of sleep before my first GiRodeo. It would be, in fact, everyone’s first GiRodeo. The inaugural edition of ENVE and The Service Course’s collaborative framebuilder roundup gravel extravaganza G-Rodeo, but in Girona. The GiRodeo.

Following the review of his MASH SF Steel All-Road from earlier this year, Chris Corona is back with yet another MASH bike review. This time, he’s built himself a steel “Rockbanger” 27.5 hardtail mountain bike and documents it in his stunning photographic style. Let’s check it out in detail below!

We’re back today with Josh’s second installment of coverage from the Bespoked Handmade Bicycle Show! Let’s jump right in below with more recapping and a gallery of beautiful builds from Prova Cycles, Clandestine, Black Sheep Bikes, Etoile Cycles, Dawley Bikes, Avalanche Cycles, Coal Bikes with Black Cat Custom Paint, Fahrradbau Stolz, and Sour Bicycles…

Just over one week ago Josh was in London for the 2022 edition of Bespoked Handmade Bicycle Show. Under new ownership and management, the show moved from its former location in Bristol, England to the Lee Valley Velo Park in Stratford of East London. With three days of track racing, talks, food, hangs, coffee, enviable new products, and—of course—hundreds of eclectic and beautiful bicycles on display, the show was a major success for the new organizers, exhibitors, and attendees.

Let’s dive straight into Part One of our recap below with a look at bikes from a bevy of builders: Sturdy Cycles, Quirk Cycles, Donhou Bicycles, Sideways, Lord Cycles, Stayer Cycles, Ted James Designs, and Auckland Cycle Works…

Overlanding is traditionally a term that describes the forging or following of a route for moving livestock long distances from one location to another. These routes were created to send the livestock to market or to another location for feed or weather events such as floods, drought, or bush fire all common occurrences in the harsh Australian outback. This movement of the livestock along these “overland” routes in the Australian context is known as droving.

In creating this bicycle overlanding route and story I’d like to begin by acknowledging the Traditional Owners of the land on which we meet today. I would also like to pay my respects to Elders past and present.

Arizona is one of the most remarkable states in the lower 48. From saguaro-covered mountains to forests of ponderosa pine, the ecotonal shift across the state’s expansive footprint is only bested by the geologically awesome Grand Canyon. That’s part of the appeal of the mighty Arizona Trail, right? To see the state in its entirety from top to bottom. While the AZT might not be for everyone, there’s another trail system on the rim of the Grand Canyon that is perfect for those looking for a truly unique and characteristically Arizona experience via a quick overnighter or even a day ride.

Once we had samples of our Radavist Edition Mosaic GT-2X bikes, I wanted to put them to the test and do a proper shake-down overnighter somewhere memorable and beautiful. Pulling together this project was quite the undertaking with supply chain issues still running rampant. Our trip kept getting pushed back into the summer months. It was edging on being too hot to tour our original route, so we looked to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and found a true gem of a ride, perfect for a weekend of sleeping out under the monsoon skies…

Over the years I’ve been lucky enough to ride and review a lot of interesting bikes, from hand built one-offs to small batch customs and a whole lot of factory production models. In all that time I’ve only found a few bikes that I really didn’t want to let go of. The Fairlight Secan 2.5 is one of those few.

This bike is perhaps the most adaptable drop bar bike I’ve ridden. To help make that point, Fairlight sent me two dynamo wheelsets to use for the review, and I’ve spent three seasons riding the bike in various configurations. Under myself and my friend Andrew, who helps edit my rambling reviews, the Secan has completed four 200 km brevets, and has been my go-to distance bike for the review period.

“We’re cultivating this weekend, a few weeks earlier than we normally do. It’s getting drier every year, and harder to grow grapes in a dry farm system”. This passing statement tickled somewhere on my brain stem as Steve’s words seeped in and we all gazed up at the Sierra Madres. I wondered if the mountains too might be getting drier every year just like down below at Condors Hope, the 20-acre ranch situated at the opening of Bates Canyon, the gateway into our four-day bikepacking mission.

Two years ago, nearly to the day, my friends Erin, Campbell, Ian, and I all came down to Condors Hope to embark on a similar long weekend trip to explore and experience the landscapes, otherwise referred to as the high steep broken mountains, that had, at the time, just been reopened to oil and gas leasing by the Trump administration. We returned from that trip two weeks before the world shut down from COVID, and well, you pretty much know the rest of that story.

This year brought about the return of the Handmade Bicycle Show Australia, and we had our mate Andy White from FYXO on the ground documenting some of Australia’s finest handmade bikes. Part 03 of our coverage showcases 15 unique builds from the show, so read on for more!

Earlier this year, Locke Hassett had the pleasure of spending a few months riding Breadwinner Cycle’s Bad Otis. This modern 27.5-inch wheel hardtail – with snappy short 415mm chainstays, 66° headtube angle, and 160mm of front suspension – presented him with some interesting considerations about mountain bikes, the sport as a whole, and what it means to him. Continue reading below for Locke’s in-depth review of the Bad Otis, along with some other relevant revelations…

I love being alone all day, deep in remote and wild areas, reliant only on myself to move through the landscape, over difficult terrain, and in bad weather. I enjoy utilizing the various ultralight backcountry travel skills I’ve gleaned since my early twenties. And I feel immense joy when I can be efficient and accomplish goals. I’m also really afraid of the dark. Not so much of wild animals, but rather of wild weirdos who wander the woods and kill innocent middle-aged women. I know. Super unlikely. But I never sleep much at night while on solo adventures.

Mostly I have backpacked alone or solo aid climbed big walls. But I stopped climbing after a gnarly accident where a friend fell 100 feet and nearly died. I also quit backpacking because the annoying arthritic autoimmune disease I suffer from incapacitates me if I hike more than a few miles with weight on my back. Luckily a few years ago I discovered the horizontal world of multi-sport adventure travel.

I have written, deleted, and rewritten this article several times now. There was the version that leaned in hard to trying to be funny, the version that tried too hard to be philosophical and deep, the version that was a cut-and-dry, day-by-day account of the trip, and finally this one: some words written less about the trip itself and more about why I am so thankful we approached it the way that we did.

Read on for Andy Karr‘s full re-telling of a recent bike tour from Santa Fe to Las Cruces, New Mexico…

Unlike the bike expos and builder showcases we are fortunate to document on this site, such as the recent Philly Bike Expo and Bespoked UK, the Sedona Mountain Bike Festival is not typically the event to attend if you’re interested in encountering custom frames or ogling otherwise unique bike builds on display. Instead, group rides, production bike demos, and other community-building shenanigans are the focus.

This year, however, there was much ogling to be done. Thomson featured two bikes from builders they often partner with – Oddity Cycles and MONē Bikes – in addition to a couple of their own Hooches available to demo; Why Cycles had a booth connected their sister brand, Revel Bikes, offering demos in addition to showcasing two head-turning builds; Celilo Cycles had a collection of their handmade wooden bikes on display; and Atherton Cycles sent a custom 3D printed enduro bike with a friend from the UK to show off at the event.

Continue reading below for an in-depth look at these marvelous machines and be sure to scroll all the way through to the last one — it’s a trip!

It’s been just over a month since Bespoked, a bit more since Sea Otter, and a couple of weeks since Philly bike expo. Sadly, due to travel restrictions, I only managed to make it to one of those shows but it’s been fun to watch the others from afar. Seeing what’s going on with a bike show on the internet is one thing but the experience of attending one in real life is very much another, and it’s a thing that until Bespoked, I hadn’t even realised that I missed. Shows like Bespoked really hammer home how far from the main-stream frame building is and how weird and interesting the cycling community can be.

The beauty of bikes is in the people who ride them—and how they all have a story. I have little doubt that everyone—serious riders, aeroed and grimaced, and carefree cruisers alike—have experienced that epiphanous fresh-air feeling of freedom that accompanies spinning your legs astride two wheels. Sometimes we just enjoy it at the moment—letting the short-lived wave of release and clarity wash over us during a weeknight burrito run, or a trip to the coffee shop. Other times we chase that feeling down with the hope that, somehow, it might change our life.

What first intrigued me about Josh Uhl was, however, not his history with bikes but his podcast Here For Now, which he started in February of 2021. Josh uses this platform to have intentional and intimate conversations with his guests about motivation, struggle, and the big whys of life. Listening to an early episode with Peter Hogan, where the recovering addict asserts that “Bikes aren’t God,” and to a later episode where the writer Zoe Röm reflects on the delusion of “authenticity” on social media, I found myself frequently nodding along. Yes, exactly.