The Radavist

Spencer Harding and Chris”Dirty” Reichel went down the southern border of Mexico and Arizona for the start of the 2023 Arizona Trail Race. The race taverse the whole of Arizona for racers who elect the 800 mile route or the abbreviated and nonetheless daunting 300-mile option. Summer hasn’t relinquished its grasp on Southern Arizona with temperatures in the 100s for the early days of the race…

In many places, June is Pride Month, or simply “Pride”. What started as a series of civil rights riots in June of 1969 after a police raid of a gay bar in lower Manhattan called “The Stonewall Inn” has become much more. It is now a worldwide celebration of LGBTQ+ culture and the continued demands for basic human rights. For context, it was against the law in the ‘60s to serve alcohol to gays or lesbians in New York City. Legal or civil protections for any part of gay life were essentially non-existent worldwide. Being openly gay was an invitation for discrimination, abuse, or worse.

We all know about FKTs and ITTs but there’s a new acronym on the ultra scene: PFT. The brainchild of Taylor Doyle, PFT stands for “plastic free time,” and was an ultra-racing style she undertook last year on the 2,600km Pan Celtic Race. The effort was so eye-opening about the amount of single-use plastics that are thrown out during most ultra distance cycling events that she’s back now with a new kind of challenge for would-be ultra racers: the Ultra Distance Plastic Resistance pledge. Read on for the full deets about this inspiring challenge!

Hello 2021

We liked this project so much we didn’t think it belonged in 2020. Seriously though, sometimes things are just out of your control and sometimes the things that are in your control take a back seat to other things in your control and those things take a back seat to the out of control things. And well, sometimes you just forget to hit send. That being said I am so happy to be sharing this project here on the Radavist because it’s where it all started. I wrote a little piece about how cool the Enduro Trophy of Nations would be–it was–and how excited I would be to be able to go race it–I did–so this is the story of that adventure.

More than a year later, I’m still captivated by the memory, the scene, the moment.

It was a hot autumn day, one of the last of the year before the seasonal chill poured from the Bay of Biscay into the Spanish Basque Country. A young man stepped into the middle of the road. He wore a flapping outfit of white with a red handkerchief and belt. It was the kind of attire that flails down the narrow streets of Basque cities during the annual running of the bulls in Northern Spain.

The Kenai 250 is a 257-mile, self-supported mountain bike race in the Kenai peninsula, the only area in Alaska with a large network of singletrack trails maintained by the forest service. The race organizer, Michael Braun, stitched together a route that connects the trails with highway miles. It’s 60% singletrack and 40% pavement. The race has been going on since at least 2013. This year, with 36 starters, it’s a record setting year for participation. This will be my first time racing it. I grew up in Alaska. It’s amazing to have the opportunity to ride and race in my home state. A couple weeks ago, Rue and I went out to tour the trails– several of which I’d never ridden. In a single day, from my bike seat, I saw a moose cooling off in a pond and both a lynx and a grizzly bear crossed my path. Alaska is still very wild. I’m really looking forward to riding through the night and experiencing this full route in one go. It would make a great multi-day tour as well.

Today we’re pleased to share a wonderful essay by Cinthia Pedraza on bike racing, white privilege, and the Corona Virus. In these trying times, it’s important to adjust our optics, listen, and most importantly, learn from these experiences…

Bike racers have been sitting at home watching the increasingly violent protests happening around the nation thinking “What can I do to help support Black communities?” In my local Austin community, I have seen donations in support of Black Lives Matter on my teammates’ Instagram stories, racers (including myself) protesting in support of an end to police brutality, and a massive outcry for justice that includes cycling voices like Machines for Freedom and Tenspeed Hero. That being said most amateur bike racers are likely to be white upper middle-class liberals who have a work from home setup where they are not at risk of exposure to Covid 19 or the struggle of the Black community caused by Covid 19.