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Eurobike is a massive convention that takes place annually in Frankfurt, Germany, and is described as “the central platform for the bike and future mobility world.” Petor Georgallou was on the ground at this year’s event and, below, uncovers the latest and greatest from the longest-travel downhill bikes to the smallest-wheeled folding bikes. But, first, he had to get in…
This is a long story. It is a story of Blue Lug‘s influence on me, an interview with the co-founder, and hopefully it will lend some inspiration to American bike shops.
The photos you are seeing are of Blue Lug employee bikes that I shot one after another as we visited each location. We thought it would be cool to document the personal bikes of the build artists whose handiwork you see each day on the Blue Lug Instagram softcore porn for bike nerds.
We will begin with the story of my 650b leather and canvas activation as a lead in…
For the first time since the pandemic and just the second time ever, World Ride and Old Town Outfitters collaborated to host Guatemala’s only All-Women’s Travesia. The event attracted women from all corners of the country and riders could choose from 25 or 40-kilometer mixed-surface routes that stitched together local villages before ending at ancient Mayan ruins. The goal: creating a safe space for women to try cycling. The result: an unstoppable community of women riders. Continue reading below for Hilary Lex’s moving story and photo gallery of this epic event, along with a beautiful film co-produced with Ashley Hayes!
Founded in 2016 by Jon Yazzie and Nadine Johnson, DziłTa’ah Adventures runs bike and packraft tours from their home base in the town of Kayenta inside the Navajo Nation. While we’ve documented multiple experiences with the nascent outfitter – including Hunt’s Mesa, John’s Canyon, Yellow Dirt routes, and others – getting the business off the ground hasn’t been easy for John and Nadine. Last winter, Josh Weinberg reconnected with Jon, along with a group of photographers including Chris Burkard, Jeremy Bishop, and Murray Smith for an unforgettable tour along one of DziłTa’ah Adventures’ most popular routes to learn about what’s next for their guiding operation…
Back in March, as part of the Kolektif Bike Fair in Berlin, the team behind Rad Race put on the 9th annual Last Wo/Man Standing fixed gear race at the winding indoor Mobikart go-kart circuit track. Additionally, the bike fair featured a handful of stunning custom builds on display from an array of framebuilders including Drust, Omnium, Rossman, Morassi, Trout, ten:07, and Vetra. Petor Georgallou was there for it all and shares a full report and massive image gallery below.
Crossing any foreign country alone is a daunting quest. In shaky moments I turn to my heroes, the women who boil their fears until they evaporate into courage. Legends like Robyn Davidson, who famously walked her camels across the empty Australian outback to the Indian Ocean and wrote about it in her book “Tracks,” whose pages revealed the mayhem and mystique of solo desert expeditions. Upon reading her account, I envisioned my own voyage across the country. Where Davidson chose camels, I chose a bicycle.
Heatwave induced mirages are nothing outside of the norm in one of Earth’s harshest desert environments. Many times while cycling Australia I caught my thoughts drifting back to Africa, on my first monumental bike voyage from Cairo to Cape Town. The similarities of the two lands were palpable: Australia’s outback terrain akin to sand dunes of the Saharan Desert, and Down Under roadhouses seemed close cousins of remote Sudanese cafeterias. In both places the feeling of complete surrender to mother nature’s extreme weather arsenal was nearly identical, and total. Nevertheless, an unmistakable boundary separated how I approached the two journeys: a traditional touring outfit in Africa versus a lighter bikepacking setup in Australia.
In this shop visit with Saffron Frameworks in London, UK, Sam Rice traces a line from Matthew Sowter’s previous life as a chef to his current trade as one of the most awarded frame builders in the world. Matthew’s skill in transforming basic ingredients into magnificent dishes transfers over into his ability to turn a box of tubes into a frame deserving of the word “perfection.” Materialism may be a concept of the past, but it is very much alive in Matthew Sowter’s craft.
The trails we ride often have stories that long pre-date mountain biking. On a road trip from Los Angeles, to Mammoth, and finally Downieville, Eric Arce takes time to understand some of the troubled history behind these popular riding destinations in the Sierra Nevada.
Although I’ve struggled with a lifelong tendency to overcommit, I’m not a total megalomaniac. A few months ahead of this year’s Bespoked, I asked Josh to make the trip over from Arizona to London to cover the event while I (along with my business partner, another Josh, and an amazing team of volunteers) administered it. Running the show was already a massive feat, and I’d have done a disservice to both the show and the builders by trying to document it at the same time. Josh flew over and covered a huge number of bikes and builders with the diligence and dedication that they deserve (for a refresher, you can view those pieces here and here). It was cool to finally meet the guy on the other side of the emails, as we’d been working together for the better part of a year. During the show we were both focused on very separate tasks, but we made some time for a little road trip to visit the factory where Brooks England manufactures leather saddles, which is just outside of Birmingham in the little industrial town of Smethwick.
Aside from pristine days of riding, the GiRodeo was also a semi-nomadic bike show. The Service Course has long-term collaborative relationships with a number of builders, working together to pair builders and customers appropriately. I say “semi-nomadic” because the majority of builders rode their bikes, but also because the bikes that were not being ridden magically popped up in restaurants and breweries or wherever else events were held as part of the show. This is a rundown of my favorite bikes, many of which were part of the GiRodeo, and others were part of The Service Course’s furniture.
The artist Russ Pope is a west coaster-turned-New England émigré. Growing up as a skateboarder and an artist, he brought his two passions together at a young age. Creativity has been intertwined with all his outdoor pursuits since, with a portfolio that boasts many skating and cycling collaborations. Hailey Moore recently had the opportunity to sit down with Russ to talk about it all—Read on for a rundown about his life of skating, arting and bikes and to learn more about a Russ Pope drawing giveaway! Thanks Russ!
I entered gravel biking by way of art – perhaps not the most traditional point of entry. I’m a muralist who lives in Austin, a bike haven and a city fond of its artists. My love of biking started as a commuter in hilly, urban San Francisco, yet it wasn’t until I moved to Austin that I began to merge my creative pursuits with cycling.
For the final installment of our coverage documenting the Forgotten Coast Route – a bikerafting trip connecting all of Iceland’s southern coast – expedition photographer Ryan Hill writes a series of short stories recounting some memorable moments from the media team’s point of view. Follow along with Ryan and the rest of the team which includes videographers Bryan “Bobcat” Davis, Jeremy Bishop, and Icelander Sigurdur “Sigi’ Petur.
My Garmin reads 113 degrees. With smoke blowing into Idaho from the seemingly continuous California fires, the air quality index is almost double the temperature. A brown haze obscures the landscape. Soot mixes with dust and sweat forming a dry crust on my face. In the dirt, on either side of me, lay my two companions—my younger brother and my hardtail mountain bike, fully loaded with camping gear. Forty miles into a four hundred-mile unsupported mountain biking trip through the Idaho backcountry, we take reprieve in a sliver of shade.
“Classic Mike Dillon trip,” my brother mutters, his voice thick with melted trail mix. Mike Dillon is our dad. Mike Dillon died eight months ago.
For almost an entire calendar year, I watched as the business I worked for tracked record profits, month after month, while I toiled away at the kitchen table of my studio apartment amidst the onset of a global pandemic.
Outlook pings governed my daily life; recurring meetings and phone calls structured my weekdays ‘to-the-hour.’ Most interactions were conducted in real-time Brady Bunch video cubes. With a cell phone and 13-inch computer screen acting as bridges to all of humanity, I was overwhelmingly connected, yet incredibly distant at the same time.
I questioned my own existence and sense of purpose. I felt both disposable and in-demand; exhausted, but left with a permeating fear of upsetting an operational chain. My manager had quit without replacement and I floated along an aimless trajectory, making up additional job responsibilities as I went. With so much unpredictability, I struggled to do real, meaningful “work.” Feeling a constant pressure to compose emails and tap away at computer keys, home life seamlessly meshed into work life. I grew tired and weary and craving fulfillment. So I quit.
When I first met Erick Cedeño (aka Bicycle Nomad) I had no inkling that a day we spent together shooting lifestyle photos as part of his new role as an ambassador for the outdoor apparel company swrve would blossom into a deep friendship. Nor did I realize at the time that our friendship would take me halfway across the country to help document his ride to honor the 125th anniversary of the monumental expedition of the volunteer Bicycle Corps of the Buffalo Soldiers who rode from Missoula, MT to St. Louis, MO.
SimWorks is pleased to present our latest offering in the Doppo lineup of framesets: The High Plains Drifter. These framesets are handcrafted in small batches by our friends, and adept framebuilding cohorts, at Simple Bicycle Co. here in Portland, OR. It’s a modern twist on a time-honored favorite, sure to bring back more than a few pleasant reminders of some of our earliest memories on a bike, while opening up a world of possibility for future off-road explorations.
Is it a gravel bike? A drop bar 29er? Or something else entirely? When it comes to the nomenclature surrounding these modern touring bikes, I often scratch my head, pondering an answer to this question. My usual inclination is to envelop these bikes under the umbrella of “adventure bikes” but then this bike landed in my lap. The Otso Cycles Fenrir is aligned with bikes like the Kona Sutra ULTD and the Moots Baxter but Otso did something different – i.e. better – than its competitors. The Fenrir took it up a notch and has utilized boost spacing wheels, which in my mind, put this in the drop bar 29er category.
I’ve had the Fenrir for a while now, have taken it on an overnighter, and have ridden some of my favorite mixed terrain routes here in Santa Fe with it. On washboarded sandy roads to singletrack, doubletrack, and gravel, the Fenrir is a hell of a bike and one that I really resonated with, so let’s check it out in detail below…
