The Radavist

With Mid South approaching, we were browsing our content from last year’s event when we realized we never posted this gallery. D’oh. At any rate, it’s never too late to share the stoke that District Bicycles brings to Stillwater. Let’s check out Jerod and his Muddy Fox Pathfinder below!

Hello dear readers. Are you ready?

Buckle your seatbelts, put on your out-of-office. Be sure to prepare a too-carefully-constructed pour-over coffee, or maybe a glass of tap water, and settle in. We are about to embark on a journey together, an unbiased, at times fanciful, long-term review of the GMX+ adventure bike from Curve Cycling.

Single speed mountain biking. It’s kinda dumb right? How hard is it to shift a derailleur, c’mon.

Let’s not sully the holy sanctity of this article with such petty things as single speed arguments (for or against). What a cliché. If you’re new here, suffice it to say there are all sorts of reasons—from cost to curmudgeonliness to cache—to ride single speed mountain bikes. Those reasons don’t necessarily make sense. If you’re a regular reader, you already know how 1-speed bikes fit into today’s bike culture…enjoy your unsullied reading.

This article is about the bond shared by single speeders and how events like Single Speed USA (SSUSA) carry and strengthen them. I also want it to be about bikes as well, as I know more than a couple of people here might be into them.

In the deep sand, the bikes don’t seem to operate in accordance with the normal laws of bicycle physics. Turning right might send you left. Turning left may hold your line. And doing either, at any moment, can send you flying. And while falling off your bike on soft beach sand hardly hurts, you still feel like an idiot as you remount your bike while the kite flyers, frolickers, and shore fishermen lining the beach look on.

A bike’s stance dictates how you’ll ride it. When you see bikes like this, you don’t think of speed and efficiency. Coming off of a lightweight carbon gravel bike review and jumping back onto this Bombtrack Beyond 2 made me think about my headspace while riding a bike. For me, bikes like the Beyond 2, AWOL, Sutra ULTD, and Otso Fenrir instill a feeling of unintentionality when riding. They’re machines for meandering. While they are all touring bikes, designed for front and rear racks, they are so much more. I’ve put in many meandering miles on this bike and am ready to break it down for you, so read on below.

The intersection of cycling with other outdoor activities is where my mind has been for the past few years. Bikefishing, bikerafting, bicycle touring, and the like all bring together cycling with outdoor recreation. A few retail environments come to mind that encourages not only cycling but these adjacent activities. Most prominently in my mid-term memory is Circles in Nagoya Japan, and recently, I found myself at Campfire Cycling in Tucson with camera in hand. While there, I documented a few of the shop employee’s personal bikes, as well as the space itself. Let’s take a look below!

Where did all the mermaids go? Emblazoned on the Crust Bombora chainstay, this legendary question can finally be answered: The mermaids went to the Sonoran Desert.

A lot. A little. Eb. Flow. Ping. Pong. Southwest. Midsouth.

My brain is lost in a myriad of memories from the past two weeks as my schedule jettisoned itself from over two years of stagnation to two weeks of back-to-back events and Radavist Reportage. Last weekend was the Mid South, a gravel race/ride/experience located in Stillwater, Oklahoma, hosted by District Bicycles. While people travel from all over to cut their chops on some Oklahoma red clay dirt, gravel, and mud, I am so fond of this event for the ultradian rhythms found in its hosts, attendees, and volunteers. That’s why I told Bobby from District to expect me to park and sleep in his driveway for a few nights because I was coming to get a heavy dose of rhythmic balance…