The Radavist

It was in the back of my mind for about a year. Take a bicycle, load it up with camping gear and a surfboard, and tour every coastline around the world looking for waves. I figured it would be a trip of a lifetime. Get in shape, surf incredible waves, take photographs and pursue a dream I thought about every night before I went to sleep.

However, I had a problem. I knew nothing about bicycles. So I needed a warm-up trip. A trip to test my knowledge and see if I really wanted to pursue this idea.

Sami Sauri’s Into the Atlantic Islands project takes an artistic approach to documenting multi-sport endeavors throughout Macaronesia with episodic videos, analog photography, and physical fanzines. We recently previewed the Madeira Islands installment of the project and, since then, Sami and team released five episodes on YouTube to complete the sequence. Today, to complement the video series, Sami shares some context around the project along with a stunning image gallery that’s only adding to our urge to start traveling internationally again! 

No, this isn’t a troll and yes, I’m aware of the polarizing nature of this particular topic of discussion but I can’t help but say I had a lot of fun making this short gallery.

As the editor, or owner, or whatever you want to call me, I tend to hold a certain sensitivity to topics here on the site. Or at least I am mindful of the Radavist’s impact on riding, even in the smallest of ways. E-bikes, for whatever reason, tend to generate a lot of flack and rightfully so. There’s the issue of trail stewardship, of accessibility, or perhaps it just looks wrong on paper. Or in this case, on screen. There have been tons of op-ed pieces circulated over the internet over the years, of all I have not read. Personally, I’m more of an experiential learner. I like to actually try something before putting my opinion down. Just a few weeks ago, I was finally able to truly use an e-bike. Not just in a cruise around a bike shop’s parking lot kinda way, but actually use one.

While fatbikes might be at home in wintery environments and locales where it snows more than the sun shines each year, over time these strange bicycles began to migrate to sandy regions. From the Mojave to the Oregon coastal dunes, fatbikes have spent a fair amount of their short-lived existence on Earth shredding sand. With their high volume, low pressure tires, suddenly you can pedal for great distances through thick sand. Something not really possible on a bicycle prior. Visit any beach town, especially one with a high influx of tourists and you’ll find some janky fatbike sitting next to a beach cruiser and soft top surfboards in the rental fleet.

That’s not what’s going on here, I can assure you.

No Reception in Northern California
Photos by Michael Armenta, words by Brian Larson

There’s never a perfect time to escape. Chores, obligations, monetary deficits, or priorities—it seems the doldrums of the day to day too often take hold with gripping force. We can’t always hop on plane to the backcountry of the Chilcotins or ride ribbons of trails through the Alps; sometimes planning a trip can seem more complicated than landing a rover on Mars.

And in some instances even more so.

But on the rare occasion a trip can manifest itself without a formalized plan or strategy. The right players show up with the right gear and seem to have a rare abundance of time to spare. It’s like watching ripples forming from the wind blasting a sand dune. From a seemingly chaotic environment comes a perfectly organized pattern: from entropy emerges order. We’re not going to pretend to understand it, but that is what happened with this trip. A few emails were sent to a handful of folks and almost magically we were standing speechless in awe of Northern California coastal viewshed. No itinerary, no schedule, no obligations, and no reception.