The Radavist

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.

A few months back, the guys at Team Dream Team came up with the idea of doing a bicycle show during their next swap meet. The call went out to all of Los Angeles for cyclists to bring in their best bicycle for display. Coinciding with a swap meet, people would be able to haggle for new parts, BBQ, and ogle the many noble steeds that would parade their way to South Pasadena for the show.

On Saturday, the event went down, bringing in some serious beauts. Including, but not limited to Tinker Juarez’s old Klein, a resurrected De Rosa Joe Bell restoration, a 1993 Chris Carmichael Motorola Merckx TT bike from the Tour, road bikes, all-road bikes, vintage road and kooky, one-of-a-kind show stoppers.

Many thanks to the folks at the Cub House for throwing this shindig and to everyone who made it happen!

Over the years, we’ve all really strived to make the content and the characters here on the Radavist unique. It’s been a slow process, but as I’ve just spent a week sifting through the site’s archives from 2016, I can honestly say this has been our best year yet. These year-end recaps are always a joy to collate, as it allows everyone here at the site, as well as the readers to look back and relive some our favorite moments.

2016 was busy. Very busy. In fact, the archives are almost twice as long as the previous year’s, which were almost twice as long as the year’s prior, making editing the site’s content into a digestible post challenging. We’ve omitted bicycle reviews and Beautiful Bicycles for obvious reasons, leaving only ride, travel and shop visit Reportage as the meat of the gallery and storyline. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did and I’d like to thank everyone for making this site, well, rad! That includes you, the readers and the commenters. I couldn’t ask for a better community.

Before things get too sappy, read on below for the Radavist’s 2016 Year in Review.

After a cold and wet previous 48 hours, we were keen to seek the sun in one of Eastern Tasmania’s most beautiful landscapes: the Bay of Fires. While many believe the Bay of Fires is named after the bright red lichen that grows on the rocks surrounding the blue waters of the Tasman sea, it was in fact named in 1773 by Captain Tobias Furneaux, who upon anchoring off the coast of Tasmania, saw the fires of Aboriginal people on the beaches. Out of all the landscapes we have visited thus far on our journey, this region was by far the most beautiful. To boot, we had a wonderful place to lay our heads after a day of riding and exploring the land’s many backcountry fire roads and tracks.

The Bay of Fires Bush Retreat was recently opened by Tom and Anna, a couple who have spent the past few years working in the hospitality and restaurant industry in Eastern Tas. Tom had worked for a local dinner spot for years before making a name for himself and his cooking. Through utilizing his connections and a with the help of a few contractors, he was able to slowly build out this exceptional piece of property, while subsidizing his endeavors through catering private events in the area. His vision was simple: offer a bush camp-inspired getaway with all the luxuries of a resort but with a rustic edge.

Alongside local contractors, Tom spent a few years shaping this retreat into exactly what he envisioned to be the perfect weekend getaway spot with a beauty only rivaled by the majestic coastline, only a few kilometers away.

Romantic Bicycle Touring: A Primer
Words and photos by Ultra Romance

You can witness all the beauty there is to see in this fine world: Yanni live at the Acropolis, the Venice beach boardwalk, or simply the Sistine Chapel, for example.

While encountering these wonders alone is undoubtedly inspiring and majestic, these enchanting destinations and undulating waves of road in between are enhanced roughly 70-80% of the time when the experience is shared. Add in the romantic element, and that analytic bumps up to roughly 86%, yet fluctuates down to 20% at times. That’s still pretty good!

With the popularity of bicycle touring on the rise in recent years, and justifiably so, the amount of “I’d rather be doing that” inspirational social media content has increased exponentially. It doesn’t take a masters degree in internet browsing to stumble across countless photos of glossy eyed 86% happy couples posing for duck face selfies with their laden touring rigs amidst a backdrop of the romantic unknown.

I must admit, I have gazed at these photos before, incurring wide eyed dreams of one day waking up in the dirt beside a real, tangible lover. Instead I continued to keep company with the likes of my ol’ faithful laminated 8×10 of Matthew McConaughey, propped up next to my inflatable pillow at night. Even still, I continued to tell myself “Bené, you’re tall, strikingly handsome, muscular, your hair is #1, and you have two amazing Instagram accounts… don’t get greedy, you can’t have it all!” And so I was settled into my ways. Just me and my McCaughey laminate, rubbing woolen elbows with the world and it’s mysteries.

Tandemonium at Grinduro / Her Version of the Story
Words by Amanda Schaper, photos by John Watson

Editor’s intro: to commemorate both the 2016 Grinduro happening this weekend in Quincy, California and more importantly, Amanda’s birthday (happy birthdayyyyy!!!!), Kyle and I dug up an old Reportage that Amanda had written after last year’s event… Also, we’d all like to thank Salsa for throwing down a Powderkeg. It’s been one of my favorite photo-generators over the past year!

This whole hairbrained idea for tandem Grinduro came about because I royally busted my shoulder at the Downieville Classic in late July. Major dislocation, fractured humeral head, weeks of immobilization, the works. Initially I hoped I’d be good to go in time for Grinduro, but as the reality of my injury set in, I realized that doing such a big ride only a couple months later was going to be a no-go. But for me, not riding was simply not an option.

That’s when the wheels started turning. Riding my own bike might not work, but stoking a tandem would be totally doable since I wouldn’t have to use my shoulder/arm to control the bike. All I needed to do was pedal. And find a captain. And a tandem.

When your bikes are made by Sherwood Gibson of Ventana, who’s been constructing frames since 1988, you can spend all your time on marketing, designing and applying their paint jobs. For Squid Bikes co-owner Emily Kachorek, paint design and implementation happens in a whimsical way. All it takes is some inspiration, a precedent and she’s out in her paint booth with spray cans blazing. For her latest race bike, she chose the childhood game Barrel of Monkeys to be the theme. Then, to up the ante, she gave the monkeys neon pink sunglasses, save for one, who has black shades on.

This bike was at the WD-40 Interbike booth, built up with Zipp components, wheels and a fresh SRAM gruppo with a TRP fork. It’ll be thrashed in various UCI ‘cross races around the US this season and as with any cross bike, it’ll look so much better all muddy.

Thanks to Emily and Squid Bikes for making bicycle paint design look easy and fun! If you’d like a Squid of your own, check out their offerings at SquidBikes.com.

As you might imagine, my life can sometimes reach a tipping point when it comes to cycling. When I’m not on the road for events, I’m at my home, which happens to be above a bike shop. This means most of my spare time, when it exists, is spent fully immersed in bicycles. Come the end of the year, I’m usually ready for a break. Unfortunately, the last bit of wick has yet to burn. September brings about Interbike and suddenly, the cycling industry awakens. Suddenly my days are filled with phone calls, planning advertising and talking about press launches. While the rest of the world slows down towards the holiday season, my life intensifies. This year, I had plans to attend Eurobike, but then my girlfriend mentioned that her friends had won the lottery to hike the Subway in Zion National Park, Utah. For many outdoorsy people, the Subway is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Sure, you can always enter the lottery over and over again, but very few actually get to embark on this memorable hike. For instance, Cari’s friend had entered the lottery for four years before getting a permit.