We can see our breath. It’s just getting light. I know I’ll be riding hard, but I still start in a down jacket, pants, and full-fingered gloves because it’s truly that cold.
4:59, 5:00, 5:01
“Are you ready to go?” “Yep!”
tag
We can see our breath. It’s just getting light. I know I’ll be riding hard, but I still start in a down jacket, pants, and full-fingered gloves because it’s truly that cold.
4:59, 5:00, 5:01
“Are you ready to go?” “Yep!”
Trails don’t just build and maintain themselves. It takes time, personnel, and money! The Oregon Timber Trail is in the middle of a fundraiser, where you can donate money and get some of their limited edition swag. Head on over to the Oregon Timber Trail to see more!
The Sight Unseen series captures Pivot Cycles‘ athlete Brice Shirbach’s passion for riding blind, with stunning “one take” edits from the PNW and the Colorado Front Range.
700 miles in 5 days? Sounds crazy to us but some folks think it’s possible. Since we launched the Oregon Timber Trail (OTT) in 2016 one of the most common questions is “How long does it take?” Most folks spend 2-3 weeks riding the almost 700 miles, but we’ve heard there’s been a few in the 11 day range.
This year our curiosity has gotten the best of us—we’ve partnered with Laird Superfood and Rapha to track Fastest Known Times (FKTs) on the whole OTT route and each of the four tiers. Similar to the Colorado Trail Race, The Arizona Trail Race, and the Tour Divide; the Timber Trail 700 is a free, unsupported endurance challenge. Anyone can attempt a record at any time, though we have a suggested Grand Depart date of July 10th if you like company.
This film dives into Stratton Matteson‘s personal journey of shifting away from fossil fuel-powered transportation and opting for a pedal-powered pursuit of his passion for split-boarding. It’s a story of adventure and a call to action: How can we shift our lives *now* to preserve a livable planet for ourselves and future generations? Through biking to board he finds a way to continue doing what he loves while feeling integral in his actions.
Banking on the idea that the pandemic numbers will continue to drop, organizers have announced a 50-person capped Grand Depart for this self-supported ~350 mile Odyssey of the VOG bikepacking event in the Oregon Coast mountain range. All the details can be found here:
-Event Website: https://odysseyvog.
-Instagram: @odysseyvog
-Facebook: https://www.
Head on over to odysseyvog.com and register for the first annual Odyssey of the VOG on May 29th, 2021. While you’re there, consider purchasing an apparel item at registration – all proceeds from apparel purchases benefit the Oregon Timber Trail Alliance.
You ever cross someone’s path and roll away feeling like they changed something in you forever, simply by existing as they are? I am Katie Sox, a freelance visual media maker, a professional massage therapist, and proponent of platonic love. I ride bikes, see people beyond their costumes, own my awkwardness and giggle a whole bunch, too. I grew up racing BMX and doing ballet then got into mountain biking in my early 20’s. For me, the privilege to ride is of the utmost value.
Over the past few years, I’ve noticed a lot of negative internet chatter when bike brands release hardtail trail bikes that are not overly slack, steep, or otherwise geometrically boundary-pushing in some way. My suspicion is that many of these comments come from riders that prefer lifts over pedaling uphill but nonetheless cast a shadow on mid-travel hardtails that are intended for folks that aren’t spending their days in terrain parks.
Cody Townsend and Michelle Parker took on a very unique challenge with The FIFTY:
“The goal was simple, ride bikes, loaded down with 100 pounds of climbing, skiing and camping equipment, over 1000 miles to ski three of The Fifty Classic Ski Descents of North America. A tiring adventure and a sufferfest of course, but in the context of an ongoing global pandemic, a nation divided by chaos and a populace on the brink, a simple adventure throws the simple act of adventure into question. Why purposely suffer? Why selfishly pursue adventure? Why go into the mountains at all? All questions that a month long adventure begins to throw into your mind. Starring Cody Townsend and Michelle Parker, “The Mountain Why” is a ski adventure unlike any normal escape to the wild.”
Each year I like to look at our content in its entirety and reflect back on bikes that took you, the readers of this website, by storm. Back in the mid to late 2000’s it was all fixed gears, then came the gravel bikes, the tourers, the MTBs, and the kooky, eccentric builds you’ve come to enjoy checking out in full-res detail. We’ve got some incredibly talented individuals contributing to this site and their hard work is something I cannot express my gratitude for enough. Going back through the 2020 content here at the Radavist, I am amazed at what we were able to accomplish all things considered.
For this year’s Top Beautiful Bicycles of 2020, we have compiled a great list of ten bikes, ranging from rim brakes to fixed gears, basket bikes, and more. This list is based on web traffic, commentary, and social media chatter, and each of these builds really brought something unique to our content. We omitted bike reviews here but included production bikes. Oh and I hope you like baskets!
Let’s jump right in!
Photo by Ryan Vannoy
We’re riding along with the bikes in the bed of a truck eating the fat end of a wedge of dust as it explodes from the back of the vehicle ahead. This is before the Blade Runner light, before that blood rich red captured the sun, and after, no during, the airborne everywhere terror. The most recent one, the one that I’m worried there are not enough of us who believe in it.
I’m a diehard fan of tough and playful hardtails. My affinity probably started with an invincible brick of a Schwinn BMX back when I was 13. It eventually evolved—I ditched my full suspension bike for the first generation of Surly’s infamous Krampus, morphed into the slacker front and tighter rear of a Carver Gnarvester, eloped with Tony’s personal Breadwinner Goodwater for a week, and then fell in love with Cjell Monē’s La Roca.
Last Autumn, I found myself wondering, “How do I pack for a bike ride through Narnia?”. I had just been asked to sample a small section of the wonderful Oregon Timber Trail by my friend Gabriel. I packed a grocery bag full of Voile straps, my foul weather gear, a laminated local mushroom-foraging pamphlet, and prepared to step through the magic wardrobe.
BINGO Components is a new company that is looking to make problem-solving products for your bike, beginning with the B1 headset spacer. These 5mm thick 6061 aluminum alloy spacers are anodized black and feature two loops to attach stem caddy-style bags.
You can run them above or below the stem and it even works with shorty MTB stems. These are made in Oregon and retail for $20 at BINGO Components.
Where do we even begin here? Boone is what I would consider a friend. Someone I met years ago in Portland who is now in Bend and still doing what he loves: making rad shit. Right now, however, he’s making rad shit for himself. When he and I first met, he was working for Argonaut Cycles but that wasn’t his first framebuilding job. As with everyone making bike frames, there’s a story to tell, and that’s what we’re doing here today, so sit back, turn on some metal, and check out the wild shit inside Boone Metal Fab.
“Gravel bikes are just XC bikes from the 1990s.” “What is this, a 90s XC bike?” “Everything old is new again!”
Read any “gravel” bike review here and you’ll see some version of one of these statements in the comments section. People love to say that modern gravel bikes are just mountain bikes from the 1990s. Well, I hate to break it to ya but they’re not. They might be the same in that a 1996 Lemond road bike is like a 2020 Specialized Roubaix. It has two wheels, a crank, bars, seatpost, and a saddle, plus a lot of other parts but let’s be honest, nuanced bike design is a lot of what we cover here at the Radavist.
This is a 1996 Ibis Mojo built up like a “gravel bike” and yeah, it might be similar in spirit but there’s a lot going on here. Let’s take a closer look…
Well, it had been since March since I left our quaint little town of Santa Fe due to the pandemic. All of my photoshoots, rides, and trips were either postponed or just canceled for the year up to this point. Which, as you all know quite well, can be quite the shock when you spend much of the year on the road! One of the postponed jobs that didn’t roll off the face into the abyss was shooting the new Argonaut Cycles frame and assemblage process. So that found me in Bend, Oregon for a few days and I had a hankering to ride something new…
Right about now, people are dreaming about dry trails and end-of-season conditions. Well, the team at Freehub just posted a video from late 2019, featuring the Free Radicals and three friends, who spent a week in the backwoods of Oregon.