The Radavist

24 hours. I’ve always wanted to complete a Sub24 Interbike and this year, it finally became a reality. Part of that had to do with the size of the show this year. It’s noticeably smaller. A lot of the bigger brands have pulled out and other companies are now doing private screenings in hotel suites. Consequently, you can now walk the entire show in half a day, so for someone who keeps their eyes on products and trends within the industry, it makes it easy to hop into a booth and spot the product that’s relevant to the Radavist.

Interbike isn’t only about products though. As a media outlet, I like to connect with the companies that I’ve gotten to know over the years and meet readers who might work in the industry, or are just visiting the tradeshow. Enjoy the Gallery and check out some of my favorites below.

All the Action from the Women’s Elite Trek CXC Cup
Photos and words by Kevin Sparrow

To me, the Trek CXC Cup is the official start of the midwest cyclocross season. The best of the best show up and battle it out on the Trek Factory grounds. This year was huge. World Champion, Wout Van Aert and a bunch of Belgians, showed up and, as expected, destroyed the rest of Men’s field. It was impressive, and it goes to show that they are (still) on a totally different level than the US. Although this seemed more like a training ride for Wout, a shout out to Stephen Hyde, the top US finisher, seems deserving.

I’m sure, by now you have read about (or watched) the results and highlights from this past weekend on all the typical media outlets. Yeah, having a world champion race in front of you was pretty rad, but when it comes to good ol’ fashioned racin’ the Women’s Elite race was where all the action was happening.

Most of the Women’s Elite raced both days, unlike the Men’s field who were saving their precious legs for C1 points. That alone says a lot about the Women’s field and about Women’s CX racing in general. It’s positive, healthy competition that seems to be based around the love for racing. The way it should be. I heard many words of encouragement and solidarity at the start, during the race, and at the finish line.

I could go on and give a play by play but that seems sort of boring. Instead, just enjoy some photos of some real rippers from this past weekend. Read the captions for a better feel for the course.

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I would like you to close your eyes for a brief moment and imagine yourself sitting at home on a beautiful Summer evening and… oh wait, you can’t really read this with your eyes closed now can you. Let’s try this again. So, now that I have already wasted this much of your time, maybe just imagine (with your eyes open this time) that you get a call from someone asking if you would like to visit the Tour de France and ride your bike for a few weeks with “American Cyclocross Legend Tim Johnson” (he prefers to be called that to just plain old “Tim”.) Now imagine that while chasing the TdF you will also be traveling through the French countryside in a fully restored vintage Mavic Service Course Vehicle from 1974. Now please imagine that you have never been to the Tour de France but you have dreamed about it for years and now someone is offering you a Willy Wonka sized golden ticket in the form of an all expense paid trip. Mavic asked us to fly into France around the 8th Stage and create some videos for social media purposes. The goal was to ride with Go Pro Cameras and capture the energy of the tour to make 4-5 videos in a little over a week. That meant we would need a real life video editor, so I made a call to my buddy Ace Carretero and the trifecta was complete!

Eleven Years of Party at the 2016 All City Championships
Photos by Kevin Sparrow and words by Jeff Frane

11 years. 11 years we’ve been doing this.

Every Summer, for one glorious bike party weekend we own these streets, we own this fucking town. The All City Championships were the first major non messenger-organized alleycat in the city of MPLS. It proved that anyone with a little hardwork and determination could make a major impact on their community, do something good, give something back. It inspired others to start their own races, it helped inspire me to found a bicycle company, it brought old friends together and has facilitated making many new ones around the globe.

4,000 Miles of Collectibles: The Adventure Cycling Bikecentennial Memorabilia Show
Photos and words by Kyle Kelley

For the last 10 years of my life I’ve been staring at photos, patches, maps, and booklets from the Bikecentennial. When the track bike world was in a lull, I’d pull from the hundreds of amazing photos on Flickr of the Bikecentennial for Tracko content. The touring bike goes in and out of fashion quite often, but has always been something special in my book. A bike that can carry everything you need to live, smoothly and reliably across the open roads of America will always be the perfect bicycle to me and the people who ride them will always be the most interesting to talk to. The bicycle tourist may be the one that keeps the great American story teller alive. You’ll find eccentrics, artist, musicians, dirtbags, and all types of bike punks zigzagging their way across the world on these bikes and I think this is what originally drew me to the Bikecenntenial and vintage bicycle touring memorabilia.

Giro Does the Downieville Classic
Words by Amanda Schaper and photos by Ian Stowe

Let me start by saying that if you haven’t been to Downieville, you’ve gotta go.
And if you haven’t raced the Downieville Classic, well then you’ve gotta do that too.
It’s one heckuva weekend.

The 2016 Downieville Classic happened Aug 6-7, marking the 21st edition of this race. Most people are there for the Classic Cross Country race, but the lucky few who clicked “Register” faster than anybody else compete in the prestigious All Mountain event—it sells out in seconds. The AM racers not only do in Saturday’s XC race, but also the famous Downieville Downhill on Sunday. Here’s the catch: you have to use the exact same bike for each event—don’t even think about changing your tires because they’ll catch you at weigh-in. Choose your gear wisely.

Man, what a weekend in Los Angeles. Our friends at Sim Works drove down from Portland to open a pop-up shop at Golden Saddle Cyclery, which became the catalyst for group rides, hangouts and a Sunday brunch, provided by Mick of 100 Tacos. I hung around, camera in tow to document it all, from sun up to sun down, all along Sunset Avenue…

Many thanks to everyone who came out!