Our Radar Roundup compiles products and videos from the ‘net in an easy-to-digest format. Read on below for today’s findings…
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Radar
Island in the Sky: Protect Conglomerate Mesa – We Need Your Help!
Kyle Von Hoetzendorff connected with Ken Etzel, videographer and activist to discuss the current threat to the Sierra and Inyo basins as mining encroaches upon this delicate zone. Along with Friends of the Inyo, Ken helped out with Protect Conglomerate Mesa documentary. Read on below for how you can help and an interview with Ken.
Radar
Evan Weselmann’s ‘Desert Trip’ for the Radavist
We’ve always got something fun cookin’ up over here at the Radavist and recently, Minneapolis-based artist Evan Weselmann reached out asking if we need any illustration work. Once seeing his portfolio, I knew exactly what we could task Evan with. I sent him our Death Valley bike tour photo gallery from 2019 and requested that he take inspiration from that. He delivered an insane graphics package and this illustration is but one tile in his multi-page package. With cooler temps on the way, I thought it’d make sense to ask y’all what you’d like to see from us this fall/winter season. Long sleeve t-shirts? More Nalgenes? You know what products we stock, so let us know what you want and we’ll do our best to deliver. You can ignore the background image, I just wanted to ground the drawing a bit.
We’re all looking forward to the ‘Desert Trip’ capsule collection! Drop us a note in the comments.
Radar
The Radavist 2019 Calendar: December
This is the twelfth layout of the Radavist 2019 Calendar, entitled “Mojave Mob” shot with a Canon 5D and a 70-200 lens in Death Valley National Park, California.
“Our trip through Death Valley National Park was one of my favorite stories of the year and with it, came many memorable moments, but this one image really resonated with me, even after editing, culling, and selecting hundreds from over a thousand photos. Enjoy…”
For a high-res JPG, suitable for print and desktop wallpaper*, right click and save link as – The Radavist 2019 Calendar – December. Please, this photo is for personal use only!
(*set background to white and center for optimal coverage)
The mobile background this month is a layered blue hour ombré fade, complete with the lilies of the desert, the joshua tree. Click here to download December’s Mobile Wallpaper.
Reportage
Deserted, Dusted, and Dolomite: A Central Death Valley Bicycle Tour
The cold. Oh, the cold. Never before had I experienced 10º temperatures at night and 70º during the day. There I lay, in chrysalis, asleep in my bivy thinking to myself, “this is miserable.” That was two years ago, at the foot of the second tallest sand dunes in North America, nestled between the Last Chance and Amargosa Mountains in Death Valley National Park. Needless to say, it took a while for me to want to tour this unforgiving place again. There’s something transformative about touring in the Mojave Desert. The dryness, the elevation, the sand, the silt, the wind, the washboard roads; insurmountable obstacles really bring out the truest human condition, that Lovecraftian urge to get out and test one’s limits. Push it a little bit further and come out the other side. Had I known that this love for the deserted, the dusted, and that grandiose dolomite was merely biding its time as I shivered uncontrollably in my bivy sack two years ago, I might not have been so absolute in my cynicism. It was time for emergence.
Reportage
Erik’s Peacock Nüke AWOL 650b is a Death Valley Tourer
Behold. A steel bicycle that lasts a lifetime and pushes through the trends, accepting new builds and uses with ease, with finesse, and most importantly, with style. Do you remember Erik’s Di2 Alfine 11 Peacock Nuke AWOL? That photoset was fire back in 2014 when we originally posted it. While propped up on a hillside in Bernal Heights, an incredibly scenic neighborhood in the US’ most scenic city, Erik and I lamented how this whole “adventure” stuff was going to take off, big time. The AWOL was the first bike Erik designed for Specialized, which is raced the Transcontinental Race on and little did he know that just five years later, the brand would put a bullet in this peacock project.