The Radavist

In our previous story, we showed you Atom Cycles’ workshop in Ojo de Agua, in the State of México, but here we’ll take a look at two of their finished bicycles. What better example to look at in-depth than the personal bikes of Dulce and Wladimir, the couple behind the name.

Classic road geometry has always had a nice visual appeal to me. The straight lines and minimalistic look are sleek and pure. When MASH launched their steel All Road frameset, I just had to try one.

It’s been over a decade since I’d been to Emporia to help establish Unbound Gravel’s Crew For Hire program. The world is a great deal different now. Having spoken at length with Kristi Mohn about things like generational change I was curious to see what, if any, of those changes had taken place in not just Emporia but also in the Unbound Gravel event itself. There was also the tragic passing of Moriah Wilson, the induction of the first class of the Gravel Hall of Fame, and a variety of other things going on that really made this year’s Unbound Gravel more significant than most.

Every day that I spent in Emporia had its own moments that showed me something new and unexpected. There were signs of the massive changes the cycling community, industry, and Emporia itself are going through. I witnessed grief, loss, love, and more. Throughout everything, there was one common theme: People who were doing the best they could.

The weather was the hot goss around Emporia during the week of UNBOUND Gravel 2022. “Will it rain?” “How hot will it be?” “What tires are you running?” “Oh look, the forecast changed!”

This year’s edition of Grinduro California had been delayed twice. Once in 2020 because of increasing COVID infection rates, and again last year due to the Northern California fire conditions. After this many-year delay, Giro’s Grinduro event emerged into a new, and very different, world.

A year ago, I was sitting in a cubicle, drawing lines and shapes that would ultimately become bridges. A tedious job that encouraged daydreaming, so I spent a lot of my time distracting myself with podcasts, audiobooks and YouTube videos. I remember watching a series of videos called The Impossible Route and feeling like, “They’re out there living, I’m in here… not”. Now, don’t get me wrong, working a desk job in an industry that betters society can be incredibly rewarding, but I wasn’t having fun. I wasn’t living the life that was right for me, which in my mind was filled with cycling, adventure, and photography.

Fast forward a year and some change, and I find myself on a three-hour Zoom call with Jeremiah Bishop discussing routes and logistics for Season 2, Episode 1 of The Impossible Route. The journey of how I got here can be saved for another time, but here I was, on the cusp of living. This is The Impossible Route from my perspective.

On April 12, 2022, Lael Wilcox set out to ride the 827-mile Arizona Trail faster than anyone had before. She completed her ride in 9 days, 8 hours, and 23 minutes on April 21. This is her story.

Note: Lael’s time is not recognized by the AZT Race administration which prohibits media coverage. The current official records: Men’s – Nate Ginzton – 9:10:44; Women’s – Chase Edwards – 10:18:59

The following is a love letter to Cyclocross and in particular photographing cyclocross. During the 2018-2019 season, I was blessed to attend a few races and got a chance to shoot freely and candidly with no one expecting anything from me but everyone letting me in and close. I had no idea what was about to happen to me, under the lashing rain of Overijse, a small cold flemish town, I fell in love with cycling once again, a way I never expected, cold, easy, mind-blowing and everlasting.

“We get to play like kids in the mud but as adults, what else could be better?” – Rebecca Gross

Still reeling from the loss of my father in February of 2020, I was in the depths of grief and drowning in the weight of his absence when I decided to accept my friend Jalen’s offer to go bikepacking for the first time. In his youth, my father loved spending time moving across mountains, and since I loved being outside too, I felt like going on this bikepacking trip was less of a pure adventure (although adventure would ensue) and more of a way to honor him by doing something that he enjoyed when he was young. I felt like doing something productive with my grief, to move my body forward and look back on all our memories together while observing how much he shaped who I am. In his youth he rode through Mexico on horseback transporting cattle between ranches and, while I was pedaling my bike on this trip across the land, I often thought about similar experiences we might have shared. As I rode through the Kokopelli trail on my first bikepacking trip, I took in the scenery and imagined what my dad felt when he was in the Sierras of Mexico every time I stared off into mountains or observed the star-filled night sky. I envisioned him looking at similar things as if we were sharing a moment.

Borgarfjörður eystri is unrecognizable from the Iceland I know. I have this mental image of Iceland: a black canvas of volcanic rock with broad strokes of green Icelandic moss. Yet, as we pedal into Borgarfjörður eystri, these expansive black and green landscapes yield to something entirely different. The color gold reigns king.

When I first saw the Scott Spark 910 previewed I had to do a double-take. A full-suspension bike with the suspension INSIDE the frame?! I’m sure some vintage mountain bike enthusiast will point out that someone did this in 1994, but this was my first time seeing a rear suspension integrated into a bike frame. I was doubly intrigued as I had been eagerly looking to try out the latest crop of short travel 29ers (read “downcountry”) that are so en vogue right now.

If you’ve been following along with my previous reviews, you’ll know that I’m not a huge internal cable/hose routing fan, and that still rings true. I feel that most internal routing is half-assed and enters and exits the frame multiple times unnecessarily. Now, what Scott has cooked up here is well done and I’m impressed by them going all-in on internal routing. I had many plans to tinker endlessly with this bike but, as I soon found out, this bike feels like it is meant to be a holistic package. Being ever-tempted by such a striking frame design, travel range, and the possibility to mount a frame bag easily on a full-suspension frame I had to take it for a spin.

I had a lot of reservations about going to Mid South 2022. COVID. Money. Time. Don’t get me wrong. I wanted to go. Bobby is one of my best friends, and I love his entire crew over in Stillwater. But, still…COVID, money, time. Then I saw that something spectacular was happening.

Is bikepacking in Iceland fun on a gravel bike? That’s the one question on my mind as the plane touches down for my 5th visit to the country. With “make do with what you have” as our mantra, my two friends, Daylen, Quinton and I wanted to see if the gravel bikes we already own would be up for the challenge. I found several fat bike trip reports but very few gravel bike trip reports online, so I pour over maps, make some educated guesses, and trust I’ll figure it out as the rubber hits the road.

In escaping the concrete canyons of New York City, the idea of new horizons, and the promise of unfamiliar faces drew me into what became a 4,112-mile bicycle tour across the deep south and southwestern United States.

A strange sensation grips the mind when a long drive begins in the darkness of predawn. The city remains still, holding onto its final few hours of sleep, and the highway remains virtually empty. There is a promise in the loneliness of the opening hours of long highway travel. Exits flutter by in the darkness; distant lights of tractor-trailers and roadside oasis’ are the only possible signs of life beyond the confines of my car. The falling snow has narrowed my concentration to the reflecting lines on the asphalt as I navigate south and west on my way to Fayetteville, Arkansas, for this year’s Cyclocross World Championships.

Photographers can be a stubborn bunch when it comes to their affinities for particular camera brands, formats, processing methods, etc. For me, camera straps are no different; once I find one I like, I stick with it. Admittedly, I have a lot of cameras and, for the most part, favorite straps for each.

I recently swapped out the straps on my most heavily-used analog cameras for two new rope straps from San Fransisco-based Outer Shell. I also started using their stabilizing wide strap for my primary digital camera setup, which I often cross-body carry while riding. Continue reading below for my thoughts on how these straps stack up in comparison to what I was previously using.

The Ibis Ripley AF is an aluminum version of the very popular Ripley (carbon) model, with the exception of a slightly slacker head tube. It seems that the Ripley has been a pretty damn popular model for Ibis, so why not adjust for yearly geometry inflation (moar slacker!) and make it more affordable at the same time? Seems like a winning concoction to me.

For those of you here for a quick review: the Ripley AF is really fun and a great deal. Its few drawbacks are minuscule enough to be overlooked. Go have your second cup of coffee and see what part of society is falling apart today. Then, if you’re still here for the long haul, let’s dip our toes into the ever-fleeting world of this “down-country, enduro-lite, extreme gravel, or whatever the industry’s buzzword is this week” bike.