The Radavist

Since the Cannondale Compact Neo e-bike launched last fall, I was certain I had to review it. I always wanted a Hooligan (how did they not call this the e-Hooligan and where’s the Lefty?!?), their previous compact 20”-wheeled model, and as more e-bikes become available I have grown increasingly curious about trying one out for commuting. The more I looked at Compact Neo, the more I thought that its folding design and utilitarian features might just make it the perfect bike for Portland: fenders, lights, and plenty of mounts for racks. And, it’s not too flashy. After a few months riding the Compact Neo for daily commutes and “car-free” family weekend adventures, this entry level e-bike has unexpectedly re-energized the way I view the commuting and the point-to-point side of cycling.

Wowzers… Okay! Sean Talkington of Team Dream coming in a bit late on this one but hopefully it is worth the wait?! It’s been two months since the second installment of the Los Angeles Invitational, a two-day event hosted at The Cub House that included a day of riding on Saturday, then a Bicycle/Car Show and parts swap turned block party extravaganza on Sunday. This started off eight years ago as a half-baked and half-assed excuse to BBQ with friends and sell some old bike stuff. It has somehow grown into a pretty sensational (though maybe still a bit half-assed), fully-loaded weekend for thousands of people to enjoy. I can’t believe we pulled it off again AND managed to do it even bigger this year. Read on for a recap of the festivities, check out the video, and be sure to peruse the stacked gallery of cars and bikes from Traece Craig and Thibault Linossier.

You won’t find many fully rigid, bi-plane forked, singlespeed mtbs on the trails of Kamloops—or anywhere else for that matter. But Lachlan Sillitoe, an Aussie transplant in the Loops and owner of the Bicycle Cafe, breaks the mold of the typical British Columbia Interior ride, with style and flow to spare. After hanging on his wheel during a few rides earlier this year, Dylan Sherrard writes about his friend’s unconventional bike choices and eagerness to embrace the entire spectrum of the riding experience—comfort be damned. Read on for Lachy’s thoughts about why easier isn’t always better and for a closer look at his anonymous vintage rigid SS mtb “beach bruiser.”

Cyclotourists, bikepackers, and other backcountry travelers love shaving down their gear to just the bare essentials, splitting toothbrushes in half, or rationing the squares of toilet paper with every wipe. But, when it comes to personal hygiene, I feel like I owe it to myself to splurge a little, given how much I put my body through day-in and day-out whilst on a long, multi-day journey.

It wasn’t until recently that I became aware of the lack of information around the topic of personal female hygiene and bikepacking. As I’ve been approached by more women with different questions on the subject over the years, I began to realize that there’s a need for this kind of information sharing, and that actually, there’s no distinctive guidance out there to help.

So, I want to share my knowledge and experience with the hope that it will help other riders better understand what female hygiene on a bike looks like. There’s no universal solution for everyone, and I can only speak from the anatomy that I know about, but perhaps you’ll find good tips and advice to integrate into future trips based on your needs.

As an ode to the artistry of vintage bikes and simple adventure, Eroica events present riders the opportunity to embrace personal challenge on world class routes. Nick McIntyre traveled to Cape Town to ride the Eroica South Africa on a Hansom Track frame where is 25c rubber and single speed setup certainly made for a memorable day…

For framebuilders, there’s no better test for their product than a long bike tour. When I last saw Brian, he had just completed the Baja Divide on a bike he built. At the time, he had just left the outdoor industry and hoped to transition into building frames full-time under the Rare Earth Cycle Craft banner.

His hardtail was one of my favorite bikes I documented this year until I saw his Tour Divide bike…

Traveling to Mongolia has been a dream for Ryan Wilson since he first got into bike touring. Vast open spaces dotted with interesting geographical features, dirt tracks as far as the eye can see, and a history and culture that runs incredibly deep all contribute to making this east Asian country a dynamic experience. Sandwiched between Russia and China though, Mongolia can be tricky to access and, as a result, it often seemed to get pushed down the list of places for Ryan to visit, but when he finally had a chance to spend a summer there, he jumped on it…

 The hardtail market is far from saturated, yet there are a lot of bikes that just blend together with similar angles, colors, details, and pricing. This isn’t a bad thing, but when buying an incredibly well-rounded frame that can be built up any number of ways, you’d be hard-pressed to find anything in the same realm as a Monē.

The La Roca is Cjell Monē’s production hardtail, made by hand in a small operation in Taiwan using a unique fillet brazing technique. What you’re looking at now is the V3 frame, and we have yet to feature a La Roca V3 here on The Radavist so when Bailey was building this up at Sincere Cycles last Friday, I had to take it out for photos! Let’s check out what’s new in V3 and more details on Kevin from Adventure Bikepacking‘s build below!

As you read this, the last remaining dots on the 2023 Tour Divide are probably still trickling towards its southern terminus. Meanwhile, Kurt Refsnider is gearing up for a parallel but far more ambitious adventure of his own. An adventure that only three other humans have ever completed on bicycles. The Continental Divide Trail, like the Tour Divide route, runs from Canada to Mexico and tracks along the Continental Divide. But unlike the Tour Divide, the CDT is almost entirely singletrack.

This article will be the first of many that Kurt will be sharing about his ponderous trek. He starts by outlining the route, telling us where the idea came from, and detailing the years of planning that got him ready to take the plunge. Stay tuned. We definitely will.

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… 

Eurobike is a massive convention that takes place annually in Frankfurt, Germany, and is described as “the central platform for the bike and future mobility world.” Petor Georgallou was on the ground at this year’s event and, below, uncovers the latest and greatest from the longest-travel downhill bikes to the smallest-wheeled folding bikes. But, first, he had to get in…

“A packraft is like a giant key that gets you into places. When the road ends and you can no longer ride your bike, you blow up your boat and continue down that river or lake, seeing things you’d never see if you only stuck to the trails and roads.” –Doom

Bikerafting—the combination of biking and packrafting—makes a lot of sense for the multi-sport enthusiast. But, since the first-documented bikerafting expedition in the late 80s, it has stayed a relatively niche sport. Lizzy Scully dives into the data with an overview of the history of bikerafting, the most avid participants of the sport today, and a breakdown of the April 2023 Bikeraft Guide Survey Results. Read on for inspiration and information about who and where to turn to get your feet wet in this creative genre of exploration. 

Back in late 2018, I took delivery of a quirky steel full-suspension bike to review from a small framebuilding operation in the UK called Starling Cycles. Over the course of a few months, I rode the shit out of it in Los Angeles, where I was living at the time, and couldn’t get enough of it. As someone who lives metal bikes and loves riding trails, I hadn’t fully migrated to a full suspension chassis because I didn’t like the way the widely-available carbon models rode. The Murmur changed that for me. I reviewed the Murmur in April 2019 and immediately bought a V2 Murmur. 

Now living in Santa Fe, with arguably more technical terrain, I haven’t been able to put down the Starling Cycles Murmur; taking it high into the Sangre Mountains and beyond, this steel full-suspension bike really changed my perspective on the potential ride quality of full-suspension mountain bikes. Late last year, Joe from Starling reached out, saying he had a V3 frame for me to test out, and once again, I’ve been reaching for it nonstop.

Let’s look at my thoughts on the small changes the V3 underwent, leading to large improvements, and a broader perspective on steel full-suspension bikes below…

The North South Colorado Race kicked off Friday morning at 6am with about 60 riders taking the start at the grand depart from Lee Martinez Park near Old Town Fort Collins. Continue reading for an overview of this exciting event, along with a few insights from the field’s progress thus far.

Los Angeles has no shortage of amazing bike shops, which should come as no surprise for those who have ridden bikes there. Be it road, gravel, mountain, or inner-city mixed terrain routes, there is a myriad of hidden paths, bike expressways, and cutty cut-throughs connecting this city’s many parks. That route finding was the impetus for Let’s Ride Cyclery‘s Mike Kalenda to start his LA Tourist Race. This event breaks down the barriers of sprawling city navigation, taking entrants from the palm tree-lined streets high into the San Gabriel Mountains.

On my last visit to Los Angeles, I swung by to say hey to Mike and to check out Let’s Ride…

This is a long story. It is a story of Blue Lug‘s influence on me, an interview with the co-founder, and hopefully it will lend some inspiration to American bike shops.

The photos you are seeing are of Blue Lug employee bikes that I shot one after another as we visited each location. We thought it would be cool to document the personal bikes of the build artists whose handiwork you see each day on the Blue Lug Instagram softcore porn for bike nerds.

We will begin with the story of my 650b leather and canvas activation as a lead in…

The current mixed-wheel wave started in the gravity racing scene. And that seems to be where it’s set its roots too, given that most options are clustered near the long-travel end of the spectrum. But Travis Engel believes that this oft-misunderstood configuration is better suited for mid-travel bikes like the Santa Cruz 5010 and Juliana Furtado. In his review below, Travis covers the unique way the 5010 balances business and party, but he refuses to call it a “mullet.”

Today we are back with part two of Spencer Harding‘s ENVE Grodeo and Builder Round-up coverage. If you missed the builds featured in yesterday’s post, we’d recommend going back and giving them a gander—3D-printed parts (most ti but some steel, too!) seems to be the unofficial theme for the year but there’s plenty to see across the creative spectrum! Today, we finish up with the remaining frame builders in the showcase—with a few more overseas features—then we head out on the weekend’s main event, a 92-mile gravel ride on some of the best dirt in the northern Wasatch Mountains. Let’s dive in!