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Photo by Tracy L Chandler
Photographer Tracy Chandler connected with cyclists in LA for stories on how both physical and mental scars have affected their lives, including Edie Perkins, the woman we rallied to help after she was struck by a car on a morning road ride:
“The car came out of nowhere. I knew it was too late and there was nothing I could do. This striking and incredibly powerful sense of calm came over me. And then I was out.”
Continue reading Edie’s and other’s stories at Outside.
This is the second layout of the Radavist 2018 Calendar, entitled “Striped Butte” shot with a Canon 1dx and a 100-400mm lens in Butte Valley, California.
“Striped Butte juts up abruptly from the aptly-named Butte Valley floor to an elevation of 4,773 feet, with a 700′ prominence. Geologists believe the lines of this unique mountain were formed when the crust was forced upward, changing the striations from horizontal to their current form. Made from almost entirely Paleozoic limestone – 541 to 242 million years old – this unique and beautiful formation is in one of the most remote regions of Death Valley National Park. This valley and both of the roads in are riddled with mining, Mojave magic and straight up Mansonian Helter Skelter…”
For a high-res JPG, suitable for print and desktop wallpaper*, right click and save link as – The Radavist 2018 Calendar – February. Please, this photo is for personal use only!
(*set background to white and center for optimal coverage)
The mobile background this month is a fiery sunrise from Butte Valley. Click here to download February’s Mobile Wallpaper.
Themes are very prevalent in a photographer’s work, whether intentional or not. My personal approach could be summed up in a number of ways, although I try to go into each situation with perspective. Whether or not that perspective is something I’m either re-visiting or looking to hone depends on a number of parameters. The moments in which I’m most comfortable experimenting are the ones that are most familiar to me and where the experimentation occurs usually falls into any number of challenging parameters.
Photos by Camille McMillan
Every photograph has a story and for Camille, it centers around the tale of the TCR.
“Camille McMillan has followed the riders of the Transcontinental Race with his camera for the last three editions of the race, capturing their journeys from one corner of Europe to the other.
The Transcontinental is a self-supported bikepacking race, with riders finding their own way for over 4000km. To paraphrase the race’s founder, Mike Hall, “if you get lost, you will need to get un-lost.” Camille’s photographs capture the riders as they navigate unfamiliar and vast landscapes of Europe, showing that in an age of SPOT trackers, GPS and Google Maps, there’s something to be said for being lost and finding your way again.”
Head to Un-Lost to see Camille’s prints for sale, or to an Apidura retailer to see a selection of artist proofs in person.
There have been a few variations of this sort of system floating around, but I like the interface with this one in particular. Also, the included safety strap is a nice detail. See more at Cotton Carrier Systems.
A Ponderosa Cyclery + Tour Capricorn ‘Cross Bike
Photos by Kyle Kelley, words by John Watson
If it’s a Ponderosa Cyclery + Tour bike, from the shop’s archives anyway, then it’s Vince’s. As Kyle mentioned in his Shop Visit galley, Vince is a collector of rarities, including this Capricorn ‘Cross bike. Bradley Wilson builds under the name Capricorn, out of my home state of North Carolina. His bikes have a constructeur feel, with a clean aesthetic, devoid of ostentation. Instead, Bradley’s bikes have a personality that beckons to be used, just not abused. This build is top notch, with the DA7400 shifters, XT rear mech and original Chris King headset.
Vince from Ponderosa Cyclery has clearly used this bike, with lots of beausage present and knowing bike shop owners, he relishes every pedal stroke.
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Follow Kyle on Instagram and Ponderosa Cyclery + Tour on Instagram.
Bailey lives and rides in Chicago, where he’s one of the owners and operators at Comrade Cycles. He and Kyle from GSC are buddies. They met a few years back at QBP’s Frostbike tradeshow. At some point, Kyle left an open invite for him to visit Golden Saddle, so Bailey rolled out to Los Angeles to soak in the sun, ride some mountains and officially break in his new Pachyderm Bikes dirty 650b tourer with his girlfriend Allison. The two of them took on some of the rides in the area, during one of our gnarliest heat waves of the year and even braved our psychedelic camping trip up in Chilao one night. I swear, the spider chicken had eight legs.
This bike was inspired by randonneuring bikes, yet Bailey wanted something he could fit a chunky tire on, namely something like the WTB Byway. For this trip, since they’d be sticking to mostly sealed and dirt roads, he went with the 48mm Compass Switchback Hill. Other details include White Industries cranks to an XTR derailleur and Shimano cassette, a Shutter Precision hub powering a Luxos light, with a USB recharging node, powering his Garmin.
For me, the paint is what really sets this bike off, aside from its owner, obvs. The painter masked mountains wrapping the seat tube and top tube, giving it a subtle contrast before finishing the head tube in a bright orange. Brown and orange bikes remind me of A&W root beer and mountain sunsets, with at least one of which I know for certain Bailey and Allison enjoyed on their recent trip. My only complaint was not being able to shoot the bike at sunset!
… if this harness design from Cotton Carrier would work on the bike?
… we discover new things to do and my heart warms up even more to this region in California. Expect some Reportage later this week.
Team Dream’s new Spring collection is going live on their new website today at 12 PST. To coincided with this launch, I figured I’d share our photoshoot images here on the site!
Home to the Owens River, bounded by the Inyo Mountains on the east, the Coso Range on the southeast, Sierra Nevada on the west and Chalfant Valley on the north, Owens Valley is one of the most geologically diverse areas in California, in my opinion anyway. It’s a veritable playground for the outdoors with Mount Whitney, the highest point in the lower 48 States, attracting hikers from all over the world. If you’re not into climbing a 14,505′ mountain, the Owens river is great for fishing and there are numerous other activities found surrounding the towns of Lone Pine, Big Pine and Independence, California.
Photo by Jim Merithew
I love seeing non-cycling oriented or specific news sites covering an event like NAHBS. Jim from Outside Magazine has a great gallery up, including a behind the scenes look at me in the thick of documenting balleur bikes! Head on over to Outside to see more!
Packing for an open-ended bike tour through remote areas of developing countries can be a bit intimidating. You don’t want to get there and realize you’re missing something crucial that you’re going to have trouble finding locally, but you don’t want to overpack and feel required to haul a bunch of stuff that you don’t really need.
With that in mind, I wanted to start a series of posts discussing my personal gear setup and some of the things I’ve learned in my first 7 months of living on the bike in South America. First up I’ll dive into my electronics setup and touch on the question I get asked most frequently… “what camera are you using?”
I get a lot of emails, messages, and comments about shooting photos while riding bikes and over the next few weeks, I’ll be doing my best to address them using Instagram’s “Stories” format. Yesterday, I took to the Verdugo Mountains in LA County to share the process for shooting landscapes with a 90mm lens and a mirrorless camera. These stories are still live for another few hours on the Radavist Instagram, so check them out. Next up, I’ll be discussing the options for carrying a camera on the bike, which is part of a gallery I’m working on this week so tune in! Unfortunately, “stories” aren’t viewable on your desktop, so you’ll have to look on your mobile device.
Touring the Rocky Mountain Front
Photos and words by Locke Hassett
“Mel’s Diner, 9ish?” is the text I received from Cameron. The night before, he left in a frazzled state to go to the Rocky Mountain Front, and I followed the next morning. This vast expanse of abrupt cliffs where the Rockies meet the Great Plains spans much of North America, so I was glad that he specified a diner as a meeting place. We fueled up on strong coffee, plenty of biscuits and gravy, bought a map, two slingshots, whiskey, lemonade and a few cookies from the Augusta general store. A fine establishment that acts as the local liquor store, gun shop, grocery, outfitter and purveyor of homemade baked goods.
I’m so moved by this studio photo and that doesn’t happen all too often. Check out more at Hypebeast. If you don’t know who Bill Cunningham is, or was, rather, check out the documentary on Hulu. Thanks for sharing, Julian!
A few months back, the boys from Angry Catfish in Minneapolis invited Kyle from Golden Saddle Cyclery in Los Angeles to meet them in Utah for five days of riding mountain bikes in St. George – aka St. Geezy – and Hurricane – aka Herahkun. The only problem is, Kyle doesn’t have a car and he didn’t quite feel like pedaling all the way to Utah from Los Angeles on his singlespeed mountain bike. That’s where I came into the picture. I’ve got a car, with a bike rack and enough room to carry all our shit for a week. Now Kyle had a ride, I got to ride in Utah and everyone would get some sweet-ish photos out of the whole shindig.
This goes without saying, but this website is as much about cycling as it is photography. There are countless times during every workday where I just want to go on a bike ride, but feel obligated to bring a camera along to document any kind of radness that might happen along the way. Thus, my biggest challenge I deal with day to day is problem-solving the balance between cycling and photography. For me, there are two modus operandi present: large and small-scale production. Whereas the large combines the use of a large DSLR and telephoto lenses or off-camera flashes and small relies on my rangefinder with primes, utilizing natural light. What I’ve found is the only deciding factor between the two is whether or not I feel like wearing a photo bag while I pedal around the city of Los Angeles and what kind of shooting I’ll be doing.
A Sudden Shift of Seasons in the Peruvian Andes
Photos and words by Ryan Wilson
Continued from “Taking the Scenic Route to Peru’s Great Divide”
It happens without notice in the Andes. One day it’s mostly clear skies as far back as you can remember, then one good thunderstorm rolls in and with it seems to come the daily barrage of rain, hail, and snow. This marks the true beginning of the “shoulder season”, nestled in the southern hemisphere’s spring. For me, this timed out exactly on the first day of starting this section of the Peruvian Divide, following a quick re-supply detour to Lima*.
*As a side note regarding life in Peru… the majority of people here do not own cars. This is especially true in the quiet areas that are the most interesting for riding. As a result, many of the villages have small vans (called colectivos) coming and going at least once or twice per day toward the larger towns, and they’re typically only the equivalent of a few bucks even for a trip that lasts a few hours. This is quite helpful if you want to check out a bigger city that is a ways off-route and have a chance to pick up a few things that might be tough to come by in small villages. It’s also helpful if you’re running low on dinero and need to find an ATM, which can occasionally be tough to locate in remote areas. With the divide route intersecting the main road toward Lima, it was a perfect opportunity for a trip to the city.
