The Radavist

On September 14th, a group of cyclists gathered around a table for dinner in Puy-Saint-Vincent, a small mountain village in the French Alps. Among them were an Italian, a Spaniard, a handful of Dutch, a British couple, a French couple, and a Costa Rican. They were meeting for the first time and were strangers to one another. However, they shared a common passion: mountains, food, people, and bikes – and that’s what brought them together for the inaugural Le Pilgrimage, a brevet-style gravel event…

Now nearly two months and 2,000 miles into this journey, Kurt Refsnider shares more stories from his progress so far riding the entirety of the Continental Divide Trail. 

Spencer takes us on a trip to Colorado to visit Winter Park’s local bag maker, San Util Design. Started as a one-man project, but ever on the up and up, the makers recently opened a new shop on the mountain town’s main drag and hired a few part-time employees. Boasting a range of products from hip packs all the way up to custom frame bags, San Util has some great handmade gear available. Let’s check it out below! 

This is the story of a perpetually unfinished project, but also of a really cool bike that’s taken me a lot of great places – and how it came to me is its own unlikely story. The fact that a custom Rock Lobster built for someone else has been the best fitting bike I’ve ever owned is pure coincidence, particularly as I would learn that it didn’t quite fit the original owner as they had hoped. Settle in for the Tale of the Humongous Rock Lobster.

Over the years, I’ve had the ability and privilege of throwing my leg over a number of fat tire, drop bar touring bikes. From the almighty Tumbleweed Stargazer to the readily available Kona Sutra ULTD, these robust bikes with an off-road and load-bearing geometry make for great interstitial, genre-bending machines for all sorts of riding.

Yet before brands like Salsa were even making high clearance, drop bar, 29er, disc brake, production touring bikes, a brand called Singular Cycles in the UK shifted the paradigm with its Swift in 2007 and, later in 2008, Gryphon models. These frames featured high stack numbers, fit big tires, and most importantly, had rack/fender/cargo bosses aplenty.

This year, Singular debuted its custom Gryphon Titanium, and once again, I’m questioning which bike to crown “best in class.” Check out my full-length review below…

Last weekend, John hopped on board for an overnighter in the Santa Fe National Forest with Adventure Bikepacking and the Santa Fe Fat Tire Society…

It is hard to avoid the bodies of water that surround Seattle. I have always loved the water, from childhood summers spent swimming in Greenlake, to building illicit rope swings in high school, to having a first date on a small strip of sand my family long ago dubbed “Secret Beach.” As I grew up, I learned my friends had their own secret beaches, small access points bordered by tall trees and houses, strips of pebbles off Lake Washington Boulevard with a view of Mount Rainier, and rare sandy beaches touching the icy waters of Puget Sound.

Continue reading below for Conor Courtney‘s two-wheeled explorations of Seattle’s secret beaches…

If you weren’t already familiar with Schön Studio, you may have just seen some of their stellar work in our recent MADE bike show coverage. Tucked into a corner of a quiet neighborhood in Squamish BC, Danielle Schön has been building bikes, teaching classes, and doing a variety of other metalwork and art out of her hand-built, backyard workshop. Read on below for Pat Valade‘s shop visit and in-depth profile… 

Unveiled at the 2022 Philly Bike Expo to much fanfare, the Alumalith is a realization of Ronnie Romance‘s dream to incorporate his favorite aspects of vintage mountain bikes into a deciededly modern offering. Featuring a non-suspension corrected Switchblade-style fork, rim brakes, sharp angulation, and 6061 aluminum fabricated by renowned craftsman Frank Wadelton–but with internal dropper routing, clearance for 27.5 x 2.6″ tires, and a contemporary approach to geometry–the Alumalith is nostalgic delight for riders of today. Josh picked up an Alumalith earlier this year and has spent months building it, riding, refining, and riding some more. Continue reading below for his review of this niche yet capable and fun machine…

Way back in 2018, Spencer picked up an Alpacka Caribou Packraft when he went to visit Alpacka Raft HQ and then proceeded to paddle the East River in NYC. During the time since, he’s spent a lot of time in his Caribou and other boats in Alpacka’s lineup, so he figured it was time for a thorough long term review and clear up some other details about this packraft’s position straddling the cycling and water worlds…

Adam Sklar has been building custom bikes for close to a decade—and we’ve featured plenty of them on this site! But, in 2022 he decided to move production of a new model overseas to Taiwan. Dubbed the SuperSomething, this first production Sklar has road bike bones while still (subtly) paying homage to Adam’s mountain biking roots. Hailey Moore has been riding our signature Radavist edition SuperSomething all summer and, below, shares her review, along with insights into Adam’s design intent for this all-steel gravel bike.

In the heart of New York City, where towering skyscrapers cast their imposing shadows, a hidden haven of summer grass, plastic cones, makeshift barriers, and camaraderie emerges every Wednesday evening from late August to early November. Randall’s Island, a patch of green in the midst of New York City’s concrete jungle, becomes an unlikely sanctuary for cyclists of all kinds seeking the ever-so-special and thankfully still alive-and-well discipline called cyclocross.

Continue reading Angelo Calilap‘s account of NYC’s longstanding ‘cross practice hosted by King Kog accompanied by a wonderful image gallery from Andres Cevallos…

After six months of traveling the world–sans bicycles–Gideon Tsang and his partner Christie touched down in Bordeaux, France. With a full month’s stay ahead of them in the southwestern French city, the couple scooped up two 80s flat-bar “road bikes” for commuting and almost immediately fell in with the wonderful community-centered Musette Bicycles and Coffee. Read on below for Gideon’s insightful shop visit and interview with co-owner Rob Lawrence…

With numerous high summits along the Continental Divide and over a dozen 14,000′ peaks, the Sawatch Mountains are the heart of central Colorado’s alpine riding. Below, Hailey Moore shares a 340-mile bike touring route that circumnavigates 14 of the 15 Sawatch peaks by linking together a few of the region’s classic high passes and resupply options in iconic mountain towns. Read on for Hailey’s inspiration behind crafting this classic Colorado cyclo-touring route, detailed information for each section, and an optional extension that loops around Mt. Holy Cross to make the route a complete circumnavigation.

Reviewing a group of high-end, North-American-made pedals is, perhaps, best compared to reviewing a group of gourmet cheeseburgers: They are all going to be delicious, and you’ll need a pretty distinguished pallet to pull a lot of the finer details out—is that a Wisconsin smoked cheddar or Vermont? Ok, maybe I’m getting a bit off the rails here with the comparison, but the reality is: Just like two people may have differing opinions on what makes the best burger, each pair of these pedals has its own slightly distinctive flavor that may satisfy one rider more than another, or, even the same rider on different trails, bikes, or conditions.

Continue reading for Ryan LaBar’s roundup of six North American-made flat pedals including Blackspire, North Shore Billet, Tectonic, Tenet, Wolf Tooth, and Yoshimura…

This is a continuation of Ryan Wilson’s Altai Traverse Reportage. Read part one here: The Altai Traverse: Finding Tracks in the Mongolian Countryside

In a remote corner of the Mongolian Altai, about 40 kilometers from the border with China, I set off toward a desolate valley from the small, windswept, and dusty village of Bulgan. My next resupply point, about 125km down the road, was, confusingly, another town named Bulgan. I never quite got the hang of the Mongolian naming schemes in my time there, as it was quite common to find a handful of towns and villages across the country with identical names on any given map, and sometimes each town had two or three names they might be referred to by depending on which map you’re looking it, which sometimes makes it tricky getting reliable information.

You know those weekends whose arrival you count down for months, to clock out of work, load up your bike, road trip 1,200 miles, and then readily acquiesce to stunts that question your health insurance coverage? Welcome to Single Speed USA.

Two common ingredients create this one-of-a-kind recipe; bicycles with only one gear, and a guaranteed let-loose atmosphere. This year, Kansas City hosted the annual gathering and it was a surprise to no one that that the weekend proved to be for the books (if you could even remember it, that is).

Registration: optional. Length of course: unknown. Number plates or organized timing: none. Prizes: gold placard bricks. Trophies this year included: “DFL thanks for making us wait,” “Well that was both brave and stupid,” “Never Stood a Chance,” “First to finish? Well f*ck you!,” “Captain No Fun” and “The highlight of SSKC was the sewer I fell in.” This is where the fun begins.

No matter how innovative or controversial a given mountain bike technology may be, it’s usually just a means to an end. A way to add efficiency or capability. Sure, these technologies can often make for utterly spectacular rides. But bikes themselves—especially full-suspension bikes—rarely add any soul purely for soul’s sake.

That may be why we love to highlight bikes like the REEB SST, Chromag Darco, and, of course, the Starling Murmur. These bikes have esoteric quirks usually found only on hardtail, gravel, and town bikes. And they just happen to also offer utterly spectacular rides.

But when Travis Engel noticed function-first stalwarts, Pivot and Specialized suddenly teasing in-house experiments in lugged carbon fiber, he wondered if there might be a new search for soul afoot…