The Radavist

It’s been a hot, hot summer here in Los Angeles and after two weeks of over 90º weather, we had to get out of town. Let’s be honest, though, that’s what everyone in this county of 10 million people was thinking too! So where would we go? As I was contemplating this very question, I bumped into my friend Nathan, who told me he had an amazing touring route from San Francisco out to Point Reyes National Seashore planned for the long weekend. I immediately asked if there was room for Cari and me to come along… I owed her a better touring experience after getting us lost in the Sequoias!

Bicycle Touring the Tick Jungles of New England
Words and photos by Ultra Romance

The east coast is like a frumpy ex-lover. She wears the same green maple tree moo moo every day in the summer and wears nothing but a cold distant gray gaze all winter. Her breath smells like a yawning swamp, her clammy visage infected with ticks, mosquitos, and horseflies. Yet still, she’s comfortable and familiar, drawing me back time and time again with that ruddy olde face.

The Appalachian mountains of the northeast are among the oldest mountains in the world. 480 million years olde according to Siri; 483 million if you ask Alexa. By contrast, the sensuously photogenic Rockies are a supple 55 million years young. That’s another 428 million years of HARD livin’ for that olde bag of a spinster, Mrs. Appalachian East Coast. The glacially mowed over Appalachians sit plain and internet forgotten, cloaked in a canopy of hardwoods with nothing but a flip phone for company. This all sounds great in theory, and it really is, butttt they sure don’t photograph all that well… and if you can’t get that ‘gram, then why do it, amiright????!

Romantic Bicycle Touring: A Primer
Words and photos by Ultra Romance

You can witness all the beauty there is to see in this fine world: Yanni live at the Acropolis, the Venice beach boardwalk, or simply the Sistine Chapel, for example.

While encountering these wonders alone is undoubtedly inspiring and majestic, these enchanting destinations and undulating waves of road in between are enhanced roughly 70-80% of the time when the experience is shared. Add in the romantic element, and that analytic bumps up to roughly 86%, yet fluctuates down to 20% at times. That’s still pretty good!

With the popularity of bicycle touring on the rise in recent years, and justifiably so, the amount of “I’d rather be doing that” inspirational social media content has increased exponentially. It doesn’t take a masters degree in internet browsing to stumble across countless photos of glossy eyed 86% happy couples posing for duck face selfies with their laden touring rigs amidst a backdrop of the romantic unknown.

I must admit, I have gazed at these photos before, incurring wide eyed dreams of one day waking up in the dirt beside a real, tangible lover. Instead I continued to keep company with the likes of my ol’ faithful laminated 8×10 of Matthew McConaughey, propped up next to my inflatable pillow at night. Even still, I continued to tell myself “Bené, you’re tall, strikingly handsome, muscular, your hair is #1, and you have two amazing Instagram accounts… don’t get greedy, you can’t have it all!” And so I was settled into my ways. Just me and my McCaughey laminate, rubbing woolen elbows with the world and it’s mysteries.

After looking back through all 800 photos I shot while on bicycle tour through China with Mission Workshop and Factory 5, I had a hard time breaking it down to a cohesive gallery show.

What I began to notice were themes in the photos, not apparent as I flipped through the files, but when I printed out a selection of photos, they began to tie in together. These themes represent not only my eye for cycling in urban environments, but also my background education and professional career as an architect.

China really changed my perspective on the world as a whole. I saw beautiful landscapes destroyed in the name of progress and capitalism. I witnessed a precious and old culture wiped out to assimilate with a preconceived notion of luxury. Everywhere I looked, I saw western civilization to blame.

Globalization, our desire to own and consume had changed China. Granted I had no benchmark for the status quo, I could only gather enough information through examining the landscapes.

The Chinese build for the sake of building. Supply and demand is a skewed balance, tilted in the former’s favor. This growth is unwarranted and most importantly, uncontrolled.

So where did this bike tour fall into place? It was, after all, Mission Workshop’s idea. While I was given no direction, no instructions, I did have really, complete freedom to do what I wanted.

We had an agenda: test out the new US-manufactured Acre clothing while riding a bicycle through some of the most polluted areas of China and document the trip for a gallery show. Was it successful? I’d say so…

Which brings me to this post: a selection of 50 photos, all shot with my Mamiya 7ii and Kodak Portra 400. These photos break down into illustrative observations, all of which are noted in the photo’s title. Some are obvious, others are not.

You’ll see the themes fairly easily and I’d like to hear what you have to say about them. Feel free to critique / comment, just be polite and constructive.

Many thanks to Mission Workshop / Acre, the Factory 5 crew and anyone that helped us on this journey.

Amid our ongoing coverage of the Bespoked Dresden framebuilder and maker showcase, today we are featuring a very special bicycle made by Berlin-based Fern Bicycles equipped with Allygn racks and custom bags from Gramm Tourpacking. With design language referencing a late-1980s Toyota Pickup and mountain bikes of the same vintage, the build features both old and new elements with components from a long list of artisan fabricators like Cyber Cycles, Garbaruk, Tune, Velocity, SON, Gevenalle, Btchn’, and many more. We think this bike might be peak Fern. Continue reading below for the complete breakdown of this special Fern Bicycles Chuck gravel touring bike.

If you’re at Bespoked this weekend, make sure to swing by the Fern booth to check this out!

When Karla and I arrived at Básica Studio’s workshop in México City, one of the first things I noticed was a yellow bicycle parked on its kickstand standing a little apart from the other ones on the rack. A complete set of fenders and heavy-duty racks made it clear this bike was intended for fully loaded touring, and the letters on the down tube, F. Duarte, spelled a brand I hadn’t seen before. We soon found out this bike belonged to Juanito, one of the mechanics at the shop, and I knew I had to see this bike and this guy in action.

The two-man team behind Fern Cycles really impressed me. Florian Haeussler and Phillip Zwanzig craft frames in Berlin, designed to handle their specific style of riding. In 2012 they toured throughout Poland, Ukraine, Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia and Turkey on two Chacha prototype frames. Their time on the road enabled them to dial in their preferences as to how a touring bike should handle and allowed them to design a line of bikepacking bags to compliment their custom racks.

This bike was built with Sugino cranks, Shutterworks generator hub, Supernova lights and Shimano Sora derailleurs but the standout products are the bags!

Gramm Bags are made in Fern’s shop and have some clever detailing, as well as minimal branding. Personally, I thought this was the best touring rig at the Berliner Fahrradschau and had a lot of fun documenting this bike.

Nice meeting you guys!

For the Top Ten Beautiful Bicycles of 2024 we looked at pageviews, comments, and social media chatter from twelve months of content to determine what bikes best represent a calendar year at The Radavist. Then, to up the ante this year, we’ve included our Handmade Showcase Awards, featuring bikes from the OZ/US MADE Bike Show and UK/DE Bespoked. Let’s get to it!