The Radavist

Continuing with our editors’ Favorite Products of 2023, we look at Morgan‘s list, which breaks down into the following categories: carrying stuff, community, self-sufficiency, and pieces of flair. Let’s check out what Morgan enjoyed using this year!

It’s Travis Engel’s turn to go through the gear that made his year. Somehow, he managed to resist the urge to fill his list with movie podcasts and carbon full-suspension bikes (though there are a couple movie podcasts down in his Playlist). Instead, he’s got an eclectic collection of on- and off-bike goodies. None of them actually came out in 2023, but each played a uniquely pivotal role for him this year.

As 2023 comes to a close, Hailey Moore shares the gear that she turned to again and again this year. Read on for the products that have become indispensable in her bike-touring setup, a couple of apparel recommendations, an off-the-bike surprise, and her 2023 Ride Playlist. 

Steel may be real but, for Petor Georgallou, that cliché begs the question: is wood good? Ever the curious reviewer, Petor has long wanted to test the ride quality of a wooden frame and the opportunity to ride a Twmpa Cycles GR1 gravel bike finally presented itself a few months back. But before Petor dips into his ride impressions, he shares an exchange with another wooden builder, Mark Kelly, about the characteristics that make wood an especially compelling frame-building material. After checking out Petor’s review of the GR1, drop into the comments and let us know…would you? Wood you!?

Located in a commonly overlooked corner of the United States, there is a place with endless gravel roads and trails. A region with an incredibly vast network that can be linked through systems of singletrack and small towns. A land where flowing water and spring-fed lakes abound. With prime fall color promised, Josh Uhl makes a last-minute trip to the lesser-known ATB paradise that is Wisconsin to ride the 360-mile Tour de Nicolet and reconnect with the place he found bikes to begin with…

With warning signs that sandal season has officially closed in Mongolia, Ryan Wilson high-tails it through a 600-kilometer leg of riding to reach his last stop of the journey. But while much of this trip has found him wondering at the vastness of the steppe, this closing section shows a different side of the country. Read on for Ryan’s final (for now) account of riding in Mongolia…

First held in 1976, the annual Pearl Pass Tour continues to take riders on one of the earliest organized mountain bike challenges: riding (and pushing) bikes to the top of Pearl Pass (12,705′) from Crested Butte, Colorado. Inspired to ride new terrain and get to know the burgeoning mountain biking community in Crested Butte, Wende Cragg and a band of Californians loaded up their klunkers and made the trip out to take part in several early editions of the now-iconic event.

Following a forty-two year hiatus, Wende Cragg returned to Crested Butte for this year’s ride. Read on for her tales from Pearl Pass, past and present…

Some bikes just hit differently. They grow with an audience, transform the paradigm, and go against the grain. The Santa Cruz Stigmata is one of those bikes for me. 

These days, mountain bike brands are all about gravel bikes, but one company started its foray into drop bars way back in 2007. Santa Cruz Bicycles first launched its quirky and fun ‘cross bike, dubbed the Stigmata, back before disc brakes proliferated the drop-bar bike phenotype. It was made from Easton EA6X aluminum in the USA and had cantilever brakes. It was weird. Funky. Cool. 

Then, in 2015, the brand brought back the Stigmata but in carbon with disc brakes. I spent some time in New Zealand on the bike and logged many miles in Los Angeles. I loved it. So much so that I copied its geometry for my custom Firefly in 2016. Later, the Stiggy got another refresh and the 2019 iteration sported 27.5 x 2″ tires and was a carbon monster truck. I posted that review the day we refreshed our web design of The Radavist.

So when Santa Cruz announced its 2023 model, with the full SRAM AXS kit, including the RockShox Rudy suspension fork, I had to try it out, too. I’ve been ripping around on this lightweight and capable bike here in Santa Fe through the remnants of a dry and dusty El Niño year and have some thoughts on what makes the Stigmata so magical. Check it out below!

A little weird, a lot welcoming RodeoCross is cyclocross…but only kind of. At the end of this year’s Sacramento season, Kate Rose pays tributes to this rowdy and irreverent subculture of cycling category. Read on for her entertaining recap and sound bytes from racers who try to explain this “disguise for a party on bikes,” along with photos from Sydney Lewis.

Announced at this year’s Moab Outerbike, the Esker Cycles Hayduke LVS –available as a frame ($2,950) or a complete ($4,950)–is a hardtail mountain bike with 600-millimeter chainstays and touring accouterments aplenty. Esker even developed a specialty rack for this bike, dubbed the Molle Rackwald ($300.) Needless to say, it’s a unique offering from the brand.

John was able to ride one for a bit, including on an overnighter with the Esker Cycles team and Sincere Cycles in Santa Fe, so read on for an in-depth look at this rare and funky bike!

What does it mean to ride the 3,300-mile spine of the Continental Divide, from the Canadian to Mexican border across the United States? Very few people can say, but Kurt Refsnider can now count himself among them. In his fourth installment from the Continental Divide Trail, Kurt writes about the final miles through a geologist’s lens and how New Mexico held just as much resistance as it did enchantment.