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The Dust-Up: Bikepacking is Not Bike Touring No Matter the Bags Used or Terrain Traversed

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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…

Cooking The Baja Divide: How To Survive On More Than Cold Bean Burritos

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Cooking The Baja Divide: How To Survive On More Than Cold Bean Burritos

A magnet for riders all over the world, the pull of the Baja Divide is strong. The promise of oceanside single-track, larger-than-life cacti and endless fish tacos calls people like a siren’s song to this small desert peninsula. At times, the route is backcountry heaven: a playground to wander and roam. At others, it’s a living hell: full of rutted roads and deep sandy tracks that push the physical and mental limits of even the most seasoned two-wheeled tourists.

With an official Facebook page, umpteen WhatsApp groups and countless trip reports ranging from FKT’s to first dates, there’s a tone of information already online. But amongst the endless tubeless chatter and hydration hysteria, there’s a distinct lack of information about the FOOD—until now. Sam Rice and Bec Norman share some tasty camp cooking tips from their trip down the peninsula…

Connecting Mexico’s Highest Volcanoes: An Adventure in Bikepacking and Alpinism

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Connecting Mexico’s Highest Volcanoes: An Adventure in Bikepacking and Alpinism

Sònia Colomo and Eloi Miquel packed up their bikes and left Catalunya in January 2022. They arrived in Latin American with the plan to pursue some of the best multi-day mountain biking routes around. But, after completing the 2,800km Baja Divide, a friend told them needed to check out some of the highest volcanoes in the country. And that’s where the adventure started—they decided the only thing to do was change course and link a few 4,000m and 5,000m peaks by bicycle. They knew the logistics wouldn’t be easy, but the draw of the mountains was too great to ignore. Read on for Sònia’s recap of their human-powered bikepacking and alpinism efforts to link four volcanoes.

Two Unexpected Years with the Surly Bridge Club in Review

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Two Unexpected Years with the Surly Bridge Club in Review

I don’t get new bikes very often these days. I’m pretty much a one-bike kinda guy. So, when the one complete bike I had in my possession (a Tumbleweed Prospector) got stranded in Nepal for an indefinite amount of time in March of 2020, I hit up Sean over at The Cub House to see what kind of bike I could get my hands on at the very beginning of the pandemic bike boom.  

I was looking for something versatile enough that would be fun for day rides on dirt roads, multi-use paths, and some singe-track. I was leaning toward a steel frame and wanted it to fit a healthy-sized 27.5” tire along with having all of the necessary accoutrements to mount up racks and bags just in case the need would arise. A SRAM 1x setup would be a nice bonus since I had some spare parts lying around. But most importantly, I wanted something that wouldn’t obliterate my bank account. After all, I didn’t know if I’d be back to my trusty T’weed in a matter of months.  

When looking at all of the options, the Surly Bridge Club seemed to tick more of those boxes than any other, and it turned out that I could get my grubby mitts on a size XL, so I went for it. What I didn’t realize at the time was that I’d end up spending more than two years riding and touring on the BC in Michigan, Turkey, Peru, and Colombia. It was never meant to be my full-time touring rig, but it just happened that way.

Top Fives Along the Great Divide Route: Bike Touring Distilled

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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?

DziłTa’ah Adventures is Open for Business and Advocating for Guided Bike Tours in Navajoland

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DziłTa’ah Adventures is Open for Business and Advocating for Guided Bike Tours in Navajoland

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…

So Kitted: A Measured but Meticulous Approach to Every-Ride Essentials

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So Kitted: A Measured but Meticulous Approach to Every-Ride Essentials

We pay a lot of attention to our multi-day-ride packing lists. But what about just, like, a Sunday-ride packing list? Travis Engel has been building his kit over several years, adding and subtracting as necessity and technology shift. This is what we think is a pretty thorough setup, but let us know if we missed anything. What’s in your kit that you never leave home without?.

The Sunburnt Desert: A Solo Bikepacking Journey Across Australia

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The Sunburnt Desert: A Solo Bikepacking Journey Across Australia

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.

FAIL 9 The Dull Bits: Finding Poetry While Cycling from Lisboa to Badajoz

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FAIL 9 The Dull Bits: Finding Poetry While Cycling from Lisboa to Badajoz

You never know when life is going to take a dramatic turn. On the cusp of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, Ryan le Garrec set out to explore a route linking the Portuguese capital, Lisboa, to a border town in Spain, Badajoz. On his way, he found nothing much else than the blissful privilege of getting bored on a bike. In his FAIL 9 film, he reveals the poetry, the emptiness, and the loneliness the road can expose, yet completes the ride with a renewed sense of gratitude for the freedom to roam after learning of the irrevocable events being waged further east.

Ultra Distance Plastic Resistance: An Open Pledge for the Ultra Community

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Ultra Distance Plastic Resistance: An Open Pledge for the Ultra Community

We all know about FKTs and ITTs but there’s a new acronym on the ultra scene: PFT. The brainchild of Taylor Doyle, PFT stands for “plastic free time,” and was an ultra-racing style she undertook last year on the 2,600km Pan Celtic Race. The effort was so eye-opening about the amount of single-use plastics that are thrown out during most ultra distance cycling events that she’s back now with a new kind of challenge for would-be ultra racers: the Ultra Distance Plastic Resistance pledge. Read on for the full deets about this inspiring challenge!

Snowed Out at the 2023 Sedona Mountain Bike Festival

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Snowed Out at the 2023 Sedona Mountain Bike Festival

The last time we reported from the Sedona Mountain Bike Festival was in November of 2021 and conditions were perfect with sunny skies, warm days, and cool nights. Bike demos and clinics were abundant; everything went according to plan. This year, however, with the festival back on its spring schedule during the first week of March, the weather wasn’t so cooperative. After a sizeable snowstorm caused the first day of the festival to be canceled, Josh and Spencer ventured up to the land of red dirt and vortexes to see how the subsequent days would be salvaged. Thankfully the event organizers, vendors, and festival-goers made the best of things and there were still plenty of bikes and products to show off along with abundant festivities to partake in. Let’s take a look below at what we found!