Our Radar Roundup compiles products and videos from the ‘net in an easy-to-digest format. Read on below for today’s findings…
“touring”
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Joe’s Mason Cycles RAW Andean Touring Rig and a Colombian Overnighter in El Cocuy
It’s always great to get a chance to cross paths with internet acquaintances on the road and there are very few places like the Boyacá region of Colombia that enable that, thanks to Dean and Dang’s classic “Oh Boyacá!” route. I was heading north along the track while most are aimed southbound, which found me crossing with long and short-distance tourers on a daily basis while grinding up these infamous Colombian mountain passes. I spent some miles with two UK riders and, of course, we talked gear. Read on for a recap of our overnighter around the El Cocuy National Park and a closer look at Joe’s Mason Cycles RAW Andean Tourer.
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Kumis and Glaciers: Stories From Bicycle Touring Kyrgyzstan’s Tian Shan Mountains
Wild horses, high mountains, glaciers, and nomads—Ana Zamorano first heard stories of adventure and misadventure from bike touring in Kyrgyzstan while riding in The Andes. The allure of adventure was too enticing and she made a pact to experience the vast valleys and high passes of the Tian Shan Mountains herself. Read on for her retelling of a trip that included loaded high-altitude touring, a glimpse into the region’s nomadic culture, and endless mountains in the distance.
Radar
The Dust-Up: Bikepacking is Not Bike Touring No Matter the Bags Used or Terrain Traversed
Welcome to the second installment of The Dust-Up. This will be a semi-regular platform for Radavist editors and contributors to make bold, sometimes controversial claims about cycling. A way to challenge long-held assumptions that deserve a second look. Sometimes they will be global issues with important far-reaching consequences; other times, they will shed light on little nerdy corners of our world that don’t get enough attention. This week, John looks at a divisive topic through a historical lens to lay it all out in a column called: “Bike Touring is Not Bikepacking No Matter the Bags Used or Terrain Traversed.”
Read our latest edition of The Dust Up below…
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Zach’s Custom Roberson 650b “Dopesmoker” Touring Bike
Today, we’re continuing our coverage of bicycle frame builder Rob Roberson with a detailed look at Zach Small‘s touring bike inspired, in part, by stoner doom band Sleep’s album “Dopesmoker.”With hand-carved lugs, custom racks, and perfect paint courtesy of Jon Pucci, there’s a lot to take in so let’s get right to it!
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Top Fives Along the Great Divide Route: Bike Touring Distilled
As riders prepare for the 2023 Tour Divide Grand Depart, Mitchell Connell reflects on his time riding a section of the Divide with Baker Donahue and Will Reynolds, who were headed north from Antelope Wells, NM to Banff, Alberta. In this clever piece, Mitchell intersperses his retelling of the trip with the riders’ “top five” responses to a variety of prompts and, in doing so, distills down the meaningful aspects of a lengthy bike tour. What top five questions would you ask?
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Broken Bones, Spikey Plants, and Desert Chunk: A Return to Touring in the Kofa Refuge
After a string of injury, Denver Luttrell rediscovers the freedom of bike touring and the mysticism of natural spaces with a multi-sport trip through the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge in southwestern Arizona. Read on for his reflections on lessons learned through injury alongside his thoughts and film photos from the trip!
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Tacos and Touring Tribulations: Halfway to Oaxaca by Bike
Emily Bei Cheng and a group of friends spend the Christmas holiday bike touring in México. With a planned route from México City to Oaxaca, Emily reflects on why bike touring feels like a more genuine way to engage with the people and places they encounter along the way.
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Ryan Wilson’s 8 Favorite Bike Touring Routes Around the World
Looking for a touring route in South America? Ryan Wilson‘s your guy. How about Central Asia? Yep, he’s been there too. If you’re stewing on a trip, or just looking for a little visual inspiration, check out this greatest hits round up from Ryan’s travels featuring his eight favorite bike touring routes around the world.
Radar
Archive Re-Up: Rust Never Sleeps on Sofia’s AWOL Touring Bike
When we lost our 2015 image bucket back in 2018, it was a huge bummer but over the past few months, I’ve been digging out hard drives and re-editing some photos, in the hopes of filling in the bigger holes. With this real winter we’ve been having, I’ve had a bit more free time to take a deep dive into the archives and today, I’m sharing one of the most iconic bike finishes we’ve ever hosted…
Check out the most recent Archive Re-Up: Rust Never Sleeps on Sofia’s AWOL Touring Bike.
I should also note that my intent here is only to upload lost photos, keeping the text and formatting intact.
Radar
Off-Season is for “Season: A Letter to the Future,” the First Bicycle Touring-Themed Video Game
“Season: A Letter to the Future” is Montreal-based Scavengers Studio‘s second major project and maybe the first videogame to feature a bike touring ethos. I was instantly enchanted upon first look at the game which featured a bike-riding, polaroid photo-taking, journal-sketching protagonist. In the game, you are charged with the task of documenting the stories and ephemera of a local valley before the changing of the season, an impending world-altering event.
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A Man of Means, By No Means: Bicycle Touring in the Driftless
When the opportunity to farm sit a friend’s land is presented, Carmen Aiken’s response was a quick affirmative, but the getting there would take a little longer. On a loaded up Omnium Cargo Bike, Carmen enjoys the scenic route through the Driftless while sharing local encounters and reflections from the road.
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A FoCo Collabo: Josh’s Bender 29+ Touring MTB with Oddity Squid Fork
Will Bender is a bicycle frame builder based in Fort Collins, CO. His custom frames run the gamut from all-road to gravel, touring, and modern hardtails. Last summer, Josh paid Will a visit to document his shop and learn about his background and approach to building bikes. While he was there, he enlisted Will to build the touring MTB of his dreams — a comfortable 29+ rig capable of carrying heavy loads and designed to harmonize with the Oddity Squid Fork made concurrently by another Fort Collins frame builder, Sean Burns. Continue reading below for the full rundown on this build…
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Bicycle Touring Spain’s Montañas Vacias Route: A 35mm Photo Essay
Created by Ernesto Pastor, the Montañas Vacias offers interested bike tourists route options ranging from 100 miles to 430 miles through the Spanish Lapland. Photographer Carlos Blanchard Nerin recently made a second voyage to the country’s southeastern region, remote in nature and characterized by countless miles of forest roads on a high plateau. In the photo essay below, he reflects on connecting to a place you thought you knew more deeply and sharing moments of beauty on the bike with friends.
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Golden Tunnels and Shipping Containers: Touring the Grand Staircase on the Aquarius Trail Hut System
While fully loaded touring and sleeping under the stars provide an enticing self-contained experience, there is a unique allure to the quintessential hut trip. Hut-supported routes are rare here in the U.S., but our rag-tag group of cyclotourists has taken advantage of the proximal classics, including the San Juan Hut Durango-to-Moab and Telluride-to-Moab routes. When the Aquarius Hut Trail Network was announced last year, our exploratory interests were piqued. Home to the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument, southern Utah has become one of my favorite destinations from time spent riding and touring in our 4×4 in its rugged backcountry. Even so, the beauty of the riding and surrounding landscapes still bowled me over.
We have a lot of thoughts about both the route and the huts—read on for a full review of this majestic trip…
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Caminos del Sur: Bike Touring from Volcano to Forest In The State of México
As residents of the desert state of Sonora when not touring, Radavist contributors Daniel Zaid and Karla Robles decided to pay a visit to the lush state of México further south. Daniel teams up with Nicolás Legorreta, the physicist, cyclist, and nature enthusiast behind the bike bag company Peregrinus Equipment. The two embark on an overnight tour, starting at the 15,000’+ reaches of the volcano Nevado de Toluca and making their way back to Nicolás’ home of San Simón el Alto. With a route that’s all downhill, what could go wrong?
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Best in Class? John’s Review of the Tumbleweed Stargazer Touring Bike
“Best in Class” is not something I would throw around casually. I often find it polarizing to establish such hierarchies when referring to subjective statements. Yet at times, a bike rolls into my temporary possession that deserves the highest of praises. I’ve been riding the Tumbleweed Stargazer for a while now and having reviewed a number of similar bikes in this space, I feel like that title is fitting, yet no bike is perfect…
Let’s check out my full review below!
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Trail and Path: A Love Letter to Bike Touring the C&O Canal Towpath
When I first started gathering the necessary gear to give bike touring (or “bikepacking” in the parlance of our times) a go, the concept struck me as an opportunity to escape from the predictable, mundane, “rinse-and-repeat” order of everyday life. An opportunity to embrace a new kind of freedom of aimless wandering through paths and tracks out in the near-endless natural landscape. After a couple of trips, though, I found the reality of touring isn’t the carefree meander I had envisioned. It can involve weeks or months of planning, trail markers, GPS tracks, resupply points… Which is not to say that escaping on a multi-day trip isn’t freeing, it is – very much so – but maybe not in the conventional sense of the word. I think author Robert Moor says it best in his written exploration of travel, On Trails:
“But complete freedom, it turned out, is not what the trail offers. Quite the opposite – a trail is a tactful reduction of options. The freedom of the trail is riverine, not oceanic. To put it as simply as possible, a path is a way of making sense of the world. There are infinite ways to cross a landscape; but the options are overwhelming, and pitfalls abound. The function of the path is to reduce this teeming chaos into an intelligible line.”