The Radavist

You’ll never know who you’ll meet while on the road, and sometimes, the characters floating around campsites within our National Forests are as colorful as the natural surroundings. While John and Cari were cashing in on some long overdue R&R last week in the mountains of New Mexico, they met a fella with a Ritchey Annapurna and quite the story to tell…

After three years in the making, Cycling UK and Natural Resources Wales launched Traws Eryri this summer, a new 200-kilometer bikepacking route that crosses Eryri National Park in North Wales. Among the first to ride it, Katherine Moore gives her verdict on the Welsh rough stuff.

Travel is routinely romanticized. And it is romantic—how could having the privilege of “checking out” of the daily drum of work, family, bills, etc., and the attendant stress in favor of experiencing a new place not be? The word vacation is, of course, derived from the verb “to vacate,” and while going on vacation is about the act of leaving, it’s also about finding. Finding new culture, new landscapes, new experiences, but maybe just as importantly it’s about finding new perspective on what it is you’ve placed on hold.

After two weeks spent bike touring in Italy in October, Hailey Moore reflects on what she found while away and the paradox of trying to experience more than the Trip Advisor-version of a place without missing the five-star sights. Read on for part one of her Italy Divide reflections while riding from Trento to Florence.

Located in a commonly overlooked corner of the United States, there is a place with endless gravel roads and trails. A region with an incredibly vast network that can be linked through systems of singletrack and small towns. A land where flowing water and spring-fed lakes abound. With prime fall color promised, Josh Uhl makes a last-minute trip to the lesser-known ATB paradise that is Wisconsin to ride the 360-mile Tour de Nicolet and reconnect with the place he found bikes to begin with…

Held in Omaruru, Namibia this past July, the Onguza Loskop Local is a weekend festival with “great food, drinks & friends, with a wee bit of cycling thrown in for good measure.” After deciding the event looked really lekker Cape Town locals Stan Engelbrecht and Donnet Dumas made the trip out and each rode the event in divergent fashions—Donnet on a borrowed too-small Giant, and Stan on his ill-advised fixed-gear with skinny tires—and share a joint account of their adventure…

For McKenzie Barney, cycling the world was never about chasing a record, or even adhering to all of the Guinness Book of Records parameters to qualify for an “official” time. But after an introduction to bike touring in Vietnam and learning about the 18,000-mile goal post for a “Cycle the World” completion, she was intrigued. For the next few years she planned, scrimped and saved between trips while pursuing her own Cycling the World project. Earlier this year, she completed the project after having ridden 18,000 miles, in 28 countries, and on five continents. Read on for Part 1 of her journey download, where she writes about moving from thru hiking to bike touring, gaining solo experience in Europe, and then putting it to the test on a ride from Cairo to Cape Town with her partner James. Plus, don’t miss the trailer to her upcoming self-documented, self-edited film!

As cyclists, we love bikes that can do more than one thing. A Swiss Army knife rather than a scalpel, if you will. So when a bike like the Hudski Doggler passes through my possession, I want to find its limits and then push through them. I’ve spent a few months riding the Doggler around Santa Fe, in and around our beloved Santa Fe National Forest, and I’m ready to spill the beans on what makes this bike so appropriate for gravel and mountain riding…

Today, we continue Petor Georgallou‘s coverage of Eurobike 2023. In his second installment from this year’s convention, Petor looks at an ensemble of beautiful bikes, in addition to what Eurobike considers the future of mobility. While shocked at first, the more Petor peeled back the layers of what was on display, the more interested he became… 

Traveling overseas to race 360 kilometers in the midst of the demanding schedule of the Lifetime Grand Prix might not sound like the best strategy from a strict performance standpoint. Sarah Sturm writes about what else fed her motivation to line up for Europe’s most popular gravel race and why toeing the line at The Traka in Girona was, actually, exactly what she needed. Read on for Sarah’s reflections, a film by Benjamin Kraushaar and Dylan Stucki, and photos by Alex Roszko from her very long day.