The Radavist

On June 11th, 2021, I became the first Tibetan person to race the Tour Divide (if that kind of thing matters, really). Though I didn’t reach my goal of finishing this year, I did bite off a good 1,300-mile chunk of it, offering pieces of myself to the land along the way. Here’s what I experienced.

Many of you are obviously familiar with the brand WTB, or Wilderness Trail Bikes. They make awesome tires, saddles, wheels, and other accessories but for a long time in the decade following the birth of mountain biking, they made all sorts of bicycle components including headsets, handlebars, bottom brackets, frames, and more. We reached out to Mark Slate, one of the founders of WTB for his thoughts on one of the most iconic bikes to leave the WTB and Steve Potts workshops: the Banana Slug, Steve Potts #45. I documented this wonderful dream bike – don’t you want one? – this was a joy to shoot for our Vintage Bicycles feature and I am honored to have Mark’s thoughts on it here at the Radavist. Read on for Mark’s words and Steve’s handiwork below!

The word supple gets thrown around a lot, mostly related to randonneur, road, or gravel bikes with a bi-plane steel fork and typically, rim brakes, yet I’m convinced I’ve built the most supple, modern mountain bike, just in time for our San Juan Hut trip this week. Check it out in detail below…

I like to shoot the first frame on a roll of film no matter how carefully I load the roll I always end up getting something kinda strange and wonderful out of that first exposure – an effect yielded by the film’s interaction with light coming from two separate moments in time and space – the exposure of the film through the camera’s shutter, but also the light leaked onto the frame during the loading of the roll. One of my favorite photos ever is of my 17-year-old beagle/spaniel mix, Bucky, where he looks like he’s peeking out from behind a cascading sheet of liquid sun. The first exposure on this roll is of my friend, podcast co-host, and riding partner, Sarah rifling through overstuffed bikepacking bags outside of a country store in Damascus, Virginia about 15 miles into our 550-mile bikepacking trip through the mountains of Virginia and West Virginia. The image of her trying to squeeze a snack bar into a nonexistent empty space in the top tube bag is itself neatly constrained into the 2/3rds of the frame not devoured by light exposure obtained while the roll was being loaded.

“Expect the Unexpected”

The MGR is a 650 km gravel route, 4 stages, about 8000 meters of elevation,
some like to call it a disguised mountain bike race with a bit of gravel,
some will argue that this is the spirit of gravel, a limitless exploration of where the bike can take you.

It’s that time of year again! ENVE’s Open House, aka the Builder Round-Up and Grodeo event is this weekend in Ogden, Utah, so I packed up my bike portrait kit and drove up through beautiful summer monsoons to document a selection of bikes from this year’s event. Check out a thoroughly documented stable from the Round Up below, beginning with Chumba, Falconer, Firefly, Mariposa, Scarab, Sklar, and Tomii…

Just past the Animas River and tucked into a neighborhood back alley lies a modified garage holding one of the newer secrets of Durango. There is no signage, no storefront, no Google Maps locator. Nope, your only hint at what lies behind these doors is a subtle triskelion logo on the side door. This is the headquarters for Myth Cycles, the most recent continuation of handbuilt bicycles in Durango, Colorado.

On the last Friday of April, four strangers convened at the Bradfield Campground near Cahone, Colorado at dusk. Our two rigged up trucks and one camper van were parked neatly near the start of what would turn out to be a grand adventure: a weekend of sanctity, the fruition of an obsession, training in preparation for a big tour, and then checking off of a box to confirm that yes, all of the time, energy, and research spent assembling this could lead to something quite special.

February 28 – March 8, 2021
February 27th 
Arrival in Yuma, Arizona

The Impossible Route team arrived about as prepared for it as a groom to a shotgun wedding. 

We planned on paper, but this was the Mojave Desert and Death Valley; and they would definitely hold some big surprises.  

Please see Part 01 here: Top 11 finalist for the 2021 “Lael Rides Alaska” Femme-Trans-Women’s Scholarship: Part 01