The Radavist

Hallie Silva is taking on the Tour de Los Padres this year and is running a fundraiser to help raise awareness for the area. Hallie reached out with some details of her effort, including some organizations she’s currently fundraising for:

“I’m a teacher in Santa Barbara riding the Tour de Los Padres this year as to bring awareness to, and fundraise for the San Marcos Foothills Preserve. This public space is the ancestral home of the Chumash and one of the last remaining access points for front-country wilderness in Santa Barbara, and right across the street from the junior high I teach at. This access point is being currently threatened by corporate luxury home development. 

I’m currently collecting donations that will go directly to two local organizations:

Seeds to Forest Defense, an autonomous group of Chumash, BIPOC and white allies protecting the land who center Indigenous ecological knowledge. They also work to provide resources such as lawyer fees for the indigenous folks who were arrested in ceremony while protecting our public lands. 

The second organization is Save the San Marcos Foothills Preserve, led by Channel Islands Restoration, whose mission is to purchase the undeveloped property next to the San Marcos Foothills Preserve at fair market value, to protect it forever as public open space, and to restore the native habitat. You can learn more at their website, https://www.savesanmarcosfoothills.org  “

If you can and would like to help out Hallie’s efforts, you can donate to her cause. Right now, she’s $1,000 into her $3,000 goal. Expect more to come from Hallie in the near future.

Aren’t familiar with the Rough Stuff Fellowship? Well, here’s a good introduction. After a successful Vol. 1 book, featuring impressive feats of bicycle touring photos and stories, the RSF has launched a Vol. 2 on Kickstarter…

The Warlock is a beefy gravel bike/light tourer from UK-based Fearless Bikes. Built around either 650bx58mm or 700x47mm tires, with a unicrown fork, flat mount brakes, 1x dedicated routing, internal dropper compatible, and more.

Warlock framesets are £720 for customers in the UK and £600 outside of the UK including EU countries.

Specs:
Tubing: Double Butted Chromoly Steel. Internal E.D coating and powder coat paint
Dropouts: Rear: 142 x 12mm thru axle. Front: 100 x 12mm thru axle
Tyres: 700 x 47c, 650b x 58c (27.5 x 2.25″)
Brakes: Flat Mount 160mm front & rear. Post mount- 180mm front, 160mm rear
Seatpost: 30.9mm. Dropper post routing
Headtube: 44mm- tapered carbon fork compatible
Headset: 404 Type 2 Fork: Top cup- ZS44/28.6, Lower Cup- ZS44/30. Tapered fork: ZS44/28.6 top cup, EC44/40 lower cup
Front mech: 1x dedicated
BB Shell: 68mm width. BSA/English thread
Chainring: 1x road (Sram 1x Road, Shimano 1x road conversions) – 42T. 1x Shimano GRX – 44T
Fork: Straight blade 4130 Chromoly Steel. 404mm A/C. S & M size frames- 52mm offset, L & XL- 48mm. Mid-blade rack mounts, eyelets for mudguards and carriers, 2x sets of cargo cage mounts
Color: Cool Grey, Faded Olive

Check out many more details at Fearless.

With the release of their aluminum gravel bike, the Atlas, Focus has started supporting video projects like this one. Follow along as a group of friends ride from Stuttgart to Basel, through the Black Forest… See the full story at Focus.

Today’s Readers’ Rides coincides with John’s review of the Kona Sutra ULTD. This build was done for the owner, Jason, of Back Alley Bikes in Carrboro, North Carolina. This build was documented by Jared Harber, so you know it’s going to be good! Let’s jump right in!

Everyone’s favorite pony from All-City just got a lot better. The ride quality of titanium is second to none. It’ll outlive carbon and won’t rust out like steel, plus it magically smooths out bumpy roads. Perfect for a bike like the Cosmic Stallion! This beautiful ti tubing is a new thing for All-City so they had to develop their own tubing, dubbed Oberon Titanium Tubing.

This frame also comes with the All-City Signature Details you’ve come to love with custom dropouts, reinforced bottle bosses, custom-designed Shot Collar. All-City paired this titanium chassis with a Columbus Futura Cross carbon fork, which comes with Di2 routing. The frame also has a rear rack and fender mounts.

To stick with the versatility of the steel Cosmic Stallion, All-City equipped the ti pony to fit either a 700x45mm or 650bx42mm (both with or without fenders).

Offered as a frameset only; $3,199 MSRP. Head over to All-City to see more and your local dealer for ordering.

A few weeks ago, Porcelain Rocket announced they were selling their bag designs and technology to the Ashville, NC brand Rockgeist. Over the weekend, Porcelain Rocket and Rockgeist posted on their Instagram that they now have two Porcelain Rocket designs for sale, the Nigel bar bag and the Meanwhile Wald Basket Bag. Both of these bags use welded seam technology, resulting in a waterproof portage option from a small company. Head to Rockgeist to see more.

What a year it’s been. As you might imagine, we need some time off to rest, recover, and spend time with our families. We’re going to take the rest of the week off but will be back on Monday with our year-in-review posts, some of our favorite moments, and the top Beautiful Bicycles of the year.

The first week of the new year, we’re going to have a very special restock of our made in the USA Radavist hats as well as some other goodies.

Enjoy the Holidaze and let’s look forward to a brighter future.

xo

Northern New Mexico is home to a lot of cyclists, so it should come as no surprise that many of these cyclists are also makers. From framebuilders, manufacturers of MTB bars, and yes, bag makers. Down in Albuquerque, a new company just launched. Buckhorn Bags makes custom frame bags, hip bags, and more, using lightweight materials. There isn’t much on them online, so check out their Instagram account for all the tidbits and if you’d like one of their hip bags, Sincere Cycles has some in stock.

It’s no secret that for the past few years, we spend a lot of time on the road traveling to bike events. We often spend 7 months on the road, visiting gravel races, MTB events, framebuilder showcases, or just checking out the cycling communities and rides in various towns all over the Western United States. 2020 put a damper on that with Covid-19 but this year I’ve been building out a desert tourer and road trip vehicle of a different sort, an HJ75 Troopcarrier from Australia. This “long van” is one of the most capable and compact RVs in the world and unfortunately, we never got this specific model of Toyota here in the States.

When BF Goodrich caught wind of a recent interview with me where I discussed desert touring… by bicycle. They had to know more. How in the world do you ride in the desert on a bike? So I sat down with them for an interview about the Radavist and what it means to “Shred Lightly.”

Guide books like this are where I get a lot of inspiration for bike rides and tours.

The piece might be common knowledge for a lot of y’all but it’s always nice to push a positive message for outdoor recreation on a large platform like that. Head over to BF Goodrich Garage to check it out.

This week’s Readers’ Rides comes from Dan, who pedals this bike all over the Northeast. It’s a Crust Bike Nor’Easter and Dan calls it his Party Bike. Follow along with Dan on Instagram and check out more photos and a parts breakdown below…