Carolyne Whelan, Author at Adventure Cycling Association

Road Test: Wilde Supertramp

Carolyne Whelan — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 16:19:57 +0000

Despite their prevalence in society, bikes aren’t commonly featured in mass-consumed media. At least, not for stories set in the modern day, and not ridden by adults. So when a show like “Stranger Things” comes out and the opening episode has children riding their bikes home from a late-night game of Dungeons & Dragons, the fog as thick as the whimsy still in their hearts, I — like most bike nerds out there — latched on. I was that kid, and at 41 years old, I still am. It struck me hard: look how much fun they are having! I thought. Sure, one of them got captured by a monster and kept from riding his bike, which could be seen as an allegory for capitalism and the ways in which adulthood forces us away from our joyous freedom of youth and into the deep valleys of our psyches as we hide away from the relentless pressures of our jobs … but I digress.

My point is that as someone who specifically leans into bicycles as my way of staying connected (perhaps too much) to that magic, looking at my stable I saw that all my bikes were purposeful, specific, fast. Don’t get me wrong, my bike is my primary transportation, and I do like to go fast sometimes, but my whole ethos had somehow become completely disregarded, at least in how it had manifested materialistically. So when the Wilde Supertramp came into my life, the fog was lifted. The swept-back Velo Orange Seine handlebar has a perfect sweep for my sensitive wrists, and paired with the souped-up beach cruiser frame design, I find myself fighting the urge to PeeWee down the bike trail. On an early ride with this bike, I had to catch myself in the woods as I gained speed on the main corridor of my favorite national forest, leaving my dog in the dust as she struggled to keep up after leading me on some singletrack; my instincts egged me on to swing my legs from one side to the other, to shimmy my belly onto the saddle as I careened past the limits of the off-leash area. It was an exercise in self-control, and as I clipped my pup back onto her leash, gave her some water, and we bobbed along at a much more metered pace, I thought to myself, Might this bike be too fun? Of course not; this bike is the perfect amount of fun. As spring turned to summer turned to fall, I’ve enjoyed taking this bike on a variety of adventures, from singletrack to commuting to lightweight bikepacking to a three-day trip in the Mission Range on Tribal Lands of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai communities (with permission). On this trip, I was loaded up with a front rack with a basket, a framebag, and a seatbag. It was a last-minute decision to take this bike on this weekend adventure with new friends who invited me on their second-ever bikepacking trip, and I was nervous how it would handle with so much front-loaded weight I hadn’t truly tested before. To my sincere amazement, it handled better than my beloved Fargo, which has tens of thousands of bike tour miles on it from the entirety of the Great Divide to a two-week trip around Yukon, British Columbia, and Alaska, and so, so much in between. The Wilde had some interesting flex, where I could shake the handlebars a bit without upsetting the steering — much like my decidedly not-twitchy van — but was a dream to climb out of a reservoir up a suddenly steep dirt road. Even experiencing gut-punching cramps, I was able to push this bike up any hill necessary and keep up with the gang. This is no doubt due in part to the SRAM Eagle 10–52T cassette and 32T chainring, then doubled down with the laid-back positioning the bike naturally put me in while keeping traction on the front wheel with my basket, gear, and tent. I was genuinely impressed. The rest of this day was entirely climbing at various grades, and even with not feeling well, even with the relentless climbing up the mountain, I still had the sort of playfulness on a bicycle I hadn’t realized had long been lost for me. It also handled well on the last, final, glorious day, which was almost entirely a descent down the mountain. I once again had to deploy remarkable self-control to keep myself rubber-side down. As always happens with more than five hours spent on my bike in the wilderness, I had wiped all memory of the outside world. Suddenly, I was once again on pavement. My friend who mapped out this loop warned us the last three miles would be an absolute slog of a false flat crawling back to her house via paved roads. I was worried I would be left in the dust by the group, most of whom were on sportier rigs, but I was quickly reminded why I feel such a kinship to this bike: it may be goofy and unassuming, and people can make any number of assumptions on its lack of ability to do anything well, but it truly is a bike of all trades. Who cares if the Supertramp isn’t interested in mastering any specific discipline? It has the life experience and generational tools imbedded in its DNA: Wilde is the bike-child of Jeffrey Frane, founder of the beloved (now defunct) All-City Cycles, who partnered with the co-owners of Angry Catfish bike shop in Minneapolis. This sort of magical thinking and grease-under-nails dedication is felt in every detail, such as the mounting points on the fork and frame to accommodate just about any bag, the space under the saddle to actually fit a seatbag without rubbing on the rear tire (something I always have a problem with on the smaller frames I ride), the high-quality components that keep the bike light and stable but also totally serviceable and reasonably priced, and of course the style, paint job, and — I’ll say it — whimsy that oozes from this bike in the best way. If I go into my garage later to find this bike has somehow grown streamers from the handlebars, I won’t be surprised.

Wilde Supertramp

Best uses: Cruising, bikepacking, flowy singletrack, commuting Price: $3,100 ($1,200 frameset) Frame: Wilde TLC double-butted chromoly, mounts everywhere, internal dropper post routing Weight: 27 lbs. (without pedals) Available sizes: S, M, L, XL Size tested: S Contact: wildebikes.com

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Over the Edge

Carolyne Whelan — Tue, 28 Feb 2023 17:35:43 +0000

This article first appeared in the December 2022/January 2023 issue of Adventure Cyclist magazine.

In 2018, I was on a work trip riding my bike down the Colorado Trail with Rim Tours, a bicycle touring outfit specializing in van-supported mountain bike tours in Utah and Colorado. It was a dream trip at my dream job, and I was escaping a pretty uncomfortable home situation by riding a rental bike that was nicer than any bike I’d ever owned in an area I’d never ridden in a part of the country I love and had recently moved away from. It was a perfect September afternoon with a light breeze and just enough clouds in the sky to keep the sunburns away, the smoke from nearby fires not yet reaching us and the leaves of the aspens just barely starting to turn golden.

There was a problem, though: I couldn’t ride. I chalked it up to altitude sickness, vertigo, new bike jitters. I found myself scooting along a ridge of a mountain at a petrified crawl. I hit a tight bend in the trail as it carved right and I dabbed my foot on the wrong side, the side that goes off the cliff rather than into it, and was saved by a bush a few feet downhill. I had tunnel vision, couldn’t see, was hyperventilating. I was the soon-to-be Editor-in-Chief of a famous mountain bike magazine, yet I was unable to ride even the most timid of trail sections of a terrain where I had become most comfortable riding just months prior. But a lot had changed in those months. Sometimes I refer to it as my long bad week, or my very bad year, or years, or simply 2018–2019. Often it’s just vaguely referenced as “the bad time.” I don’t need to get into all of it, but there was death, sexual violence, heartbreak, moving, and a number of other major stresses for myself and people I love. I was devastated — not like a heart, but like a house in a mudslide. This wasn’t the first time the mud piled, or that my foundation was tested. I had a panic attack while mountain biking a decade earlier. Something about the sound of my boyfriend’s (eventual ex-husband’s) voice, something about the sound of splashing through the creek. Something the light through the trees, something the wind blowing in my ear, something the stress of something unknown. I saw myself falling endlessly into an abyss of dark waters from which there was no bottom, the sparkling rocks a blur of movement, a swirling field of unmarked graves in which to fall. I started hyperventilating, threw myself to a log on the side of the trail, and gasped and sobbed and apologized. We got Slurpees at the nearby 7-11 and rode back to his mom’s house. It took me another 15 years to get used to crossing a creek on my bike. Even riding the Great Divide, I laughed at the feral dogs who chased us, pedaled full-speed and fearless and alive despite still being sick from tainted water, and yet paused shaking at a trickle of water in my path and hesitated at any bridge. It wasn’t the creek I was afraid of; I played in a creek for most of my childhood. But that’s not what my brain recalled. Instead, another long bad week in the early 2000s was recollected in the tire splash and turned the idea of a shallow, slow-moving gash of water into despoliation and despair.

The scree field of destiny, and in the distance, the easy grassy section where I crashed.

Courtesy Rim Tours Mountain Bike Adventures

Here on the Colorado Trail with a group of incredibly kind and patient middle-aged men, there was no creek to survive, no trauma triggers I could identify. Just me, some strangers, and a bike. Just months before, I had ridden my bike solo from Pittsburgh to West Virginia for a mountain bike fest; before that, I rode down the California coast from San Francisco to Los Angeles to raise money for AIDS research and community support; before that, I was riding my bike to work a few times a week, up half a mountain to a resort in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and back; and in between I was commuting, road riding, and mountain biking my little heart out to get used to the East Coast terrain I never quite got the hang of when I lived there years before — I was so often caught with these flashes that didn’t take me back to that creek but caused me to pause, my heart racing. I set up logs in the yard of my work building to practice riding over them, but when I hit the trails I would have to psych myself up before coming across a log pile au naturale. Out west, I rode over chunky, sharp rocks with no problem. Not only should the logs have been fine, but the dusty, occasionally rocky terrain of the Colorado Trail should have been right up my alley. I was at the peak of my fitness and my skills. And yet, there I was hanging onto a bush that had found itself wedged between me and my absolute doom. One of my fellow riders had been hanging back with me, casually chatting to keep my brain from focusing too much on the riding, or on the cliff, and helped me back onto the trail. He made sure I wasn’t broken and I made my slow way down the trail to catch up with the group, my tunnel vision making it ever more difficult. The trail tucked into the woods from the cliff; it became moderately easier but I was terrified, unable to pedal more than a few miles per hour. My gracious, patient guide rode with me and told me about his own experience with vertigo and didn’t make a big deal about my utter lack of ability to not only mountain bike but ride a bike at all. By the time we caught up with the rest of the riders at the next trail fork, my guide and I decided to call it an early day and rode to the camp along the fire road while the rest of the group took the fun singletrack. Back at camp, no one said a word about my panic attack. We greeted one another with hoots and hollers and the camaraderie that comes with camping in a spot we reached by bicycle. We took turns showering behind a bush overlooking a purple mountain vista as the sun set. I broke the shower, my brain still beyond capacity. There was a slight tint of exasperation in my tour guide’s voice when he told me it was no problem, but just slight. We ate dinner and clinked glasses, sitting in a circle where, in a wetter climate, there would have been a crackling campfire. People shared their stories of vertigo, altitude sickness (I also had a screaming headache for the majority of the weeklong trip), and even the yips (a term often associated with baseball players and golfers to describe their sudden inability to pitch or putt, respectively, that is both neurological and physiological). I felt sheepish and somewhat ashamed of myself, but I still got back up in the morning and kept riding. What else could I do? I was on assignment. I was supposed to be good at it, a literal pro. Plus, I love this stuff, even when I can’t do it. If embarrassment could stop me, I wouldn’t have made it far in life.

My very capable legs, with tire marks from running myself over.

Courtesy Rim Tours Mountain Bike Adventures

Momentum again setting in and the memory of how to ride coming back to me, I was again moving at a faster-than-snail pace through light-speckled woods and rocky, punchy climbs and descents. We came across a section I was prepped might be a challenge for “some of you” (me), a ride along a narrow trail in a mountain of scree. The trail was off-camber, it had a swift descent with another cliff dropping sharply into oblivion on the right and sharp rocks on the left. Looking at it from afar, it was practically flat, but in the moment, up close, with my abject terror, it was a straight 90 percent pitch into hell. I made it down scooting awkwardly with my post dropped like a kid’s Strider, not enough room to walk my bike, and finally got to the dirt section of the trail where the drop-off was grass-covered rather than scree and I could pick up some momentum. I almost immediately hit a grass-hidden tree stump and flipped over the bars, breaking my wrist. Somehow, that was the crash that did it for me. I had broken my wrist and didn’t die, I fell and not over the cliff (this time), I laughed and brushed myself off (with my left hand), and kept riding. My brain was unbroken, sense smacked into me. I had a fantastic time, despite everything, and eventually the panic subsided. By the end, I was using my dropper post as intended, rather than as a Strider, and was keeping up with the middle pack of the crew. My legs actually had a chance to get tired. I crashed again, and at the end of the official trail section I sat on a rock to assess the damage. I took a photo of my beat-up, bloody knees and ankles, my riding buddies barely dusty. Still, I felt great. I returned a call from my mom, who had tried to reach me while I was out of cell coverage. My Nana was in the hospital, she’d taken a bad fall. Riding into town in Durango, I was once more struck with panic and was nervous to hop over a curb, something I’ve done easily since I was a kid. I stayed with some wildland firefighters, a friend I knew from graduate school and her colleagues, and played down the stress and panic, the tunnel vision, chalking them up to altitude and vertigo. I housed pizza and beer and felt like a champion, choosing to believe my own narrative. Back at the office in Pittsburgh, I had little time to recover from the broken wrist, with bikes to test, products to review, features to write, and other events to attend. I froze at the top of descents that were less steep than roads I’d ridden, surrounded by colleagues who had no problem making it down. As we dove deeper into the year, and my marriage pulled further apart, “the yips” as we called them on the Colorado Trail that one night became more severe, and yet I had no outlet for them. Instead, my brain started to short circuit. Each time it was the same: I grabbed my helmet and suddenly felt a zap. There was a sort of black and white flash, and I woke up on the ground covered in sweat. I got shingles. In therapy, I sometimes talked more about the pressure to be good at mountain biking than the divorce, the coma, the assault, the dead dog, the move from my favorite place on earth back to the city I never thought I’d live again, living alone in my marital home. It was all connected, but the bikes were at the forefront of my duress. The tool of my freedom, the object of my passion and career, the monument of my lifelong obsession was the hub connecting all these traumatic spokes. How’s that for a lousy metaphor? When my life was so centered around the bicycle, when I turned to cycling to get over every injustice and infuriation, my dumb brain saw the common denominator in all my life’s stresses and warned me against it.

A group shot of the kindest people I could ask to have a complete functional breakdown with.

Courtesy Rim Tours Mountain Bike Adventures

I talked with Dr. Tanisha Ranger, psychologist at Insight to Action in Nevada, about the relationship between exercise, specifically cycling, and mental health crises. She likened my temporary connection between cycling and panic with insomnia. “The reason that it starts is not the reason it persists,” said Dr. Ranger. “What helps it to persist is the conditioning that we do to ourselves unwittingly. When you are dealing with insomnia, it’s incredibly frustrating and anxiety-producing and all of that, right? And so you spend enough time in your bed feeling that way and start to associate your bed with that feeling, and now you’ve conditioned yourself to evoke certain stimuli just from being around something that was previously neutral, if not positive.” As a person who struggles with sleep on many levels, this hit close to home. Pavlov’s dogs came up, with their salivation at the ringing of a bell. My heart gets racing at bedtime, and for a while I started panicking whenever it was time to ride a bike, however much I wanted to do it and did it anyway. I remember sitting on my bike at a local trailhead, frozen in fear about the thing I’d been looking forward to all afternoon. “If you pair feeling terrible with going on a bike ride, eventually you’re going to turn bike riding into something that makes you feel terrible. And so when that happens, you’ve now created a problem for yourself where the thing that you thought you were using to cope has now become something you need to also cope with.” As a kid, my bicycle was my freedom. I duct taped a small tape player to my handlebars and cruised to the candy store, friends’ houses, down to the harbor to watch the tide change and the lobster and fishing boats take turns at the dock, blasting Anthrax, Young MC, and Salt-N-Pepa, feeling on top of my small world. Later I used it to go to concerts, to ride to parties so I could leave without waiting for a ride or for a friend to sober up, or would just pedal until I felt better about the world. Sometimes that took all night, riding around Boston or Santa Fe or New York City until the sun came up and I felt some sense of accomplishment or closure. Sometimes it took three weeks. New England is famous for rugged individualism, and so’s the Southwest. Heck, it’s the American way. And what’s more rugged, more individual, than bicycle travel? I moved from Massachusetts to New Mexico because I was looking for something absolutely new to me, but it was in many ways the same. As my mentor said one day when she heard of a plan I’d concocted to take off once again, you can’t escape yourself. No matter how many rotations your legs make, no matter how many chains you replace. It didn’t stop me from trying. You could draw a constellation of my Long, Bad Weeks by finding the imprints of my tire treads on soft shoulders and gravel roads. Stitches and scabbed knees. Gravel and road shrapnel embedded so deeply in my skin I set off metal detectors at the airport and have to pretend I’ve had a knee or hip replacement. Bone heart skin bike: steel. In The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel van der Kolk, M.D., writes about how our bodies hold onto the trauma we’ve endured and how that can wreak havoc on our physical selves. “It’s not just a phrase,” Dr. Ranger said. “We store things in our body and it’s movement that helps us to release things. But you have to process it. You have to engage that frontal lobe part as well.” There are a number of therapeutic practices that engage movement to help patients process, from somatic motor therapy to tapping and walking therapy. “Physical movement is such a huge part of our mental health, especially around PTSD,” said Ranger. “But it’s not the only thing.”

A lunch stop near the tree line.

Courtesy Rim Tours Mountain Bike Adventures

Our brains give us chemicals as rewards for movement. Endorphins, dopamine, and serotonin are good. Our brain makes them for a reason. We need those chemicals, plus water, sunlight, and positive social interactions. And any distance cyclist knows that bicycle travel offers us all those things. But like any chemical, we can build up a tolerance, and if we are using those chemicals to deal with a pain rather than dealing with the thing that causes the pain, we will find ourselves pedaling endlessly. Which is fun until our brain also makes that bad connection between pain and cycling. “We just have to move out of this feeling that there is one thing that’s going to be a magic bullet,” Ranger said, “whether that’s just medication or just therapy or just riding your bike across country or running across the entire state.” If he allows it (I imagine he would be a member of Adventure Cycling, were he still alive), I extend Walt Whitman’s exaltation to all of us: we are large, we contain multitudes. And similar to how getting out of bed and onto a bike may feel impossible to a person struggling with depression, so can seem the obstacles of finding a mental health professional who is both a good fit and affordable or/and accepting of our insurance. But if cycling isn’t enough, and you find yourself riding more and more and the problems are still waiting when you pitch your tent for the evening or get back home, then it’s worth the trouble — you’re worth the trouble — to find someone who can help in addition to riding. Eventually, the bike, the treads, the chains, the patience, the stomach for it all give. In addition to the brain zaps and the shingles, I had bouts of hives, rashes, internal bleeding, and pains. But the most painful was the inability to ride. I didn’t just sit frozen at the trailhead, I also stared numbly at maps, unpacked panniers, and airline websites, unable to do the thing I’d always done best: leave. Instead of the trip to Singapore I’d been dreaming of, I managed my expectations a bit and rode down the GAP Trail. I hit reset and rebuilt my skills until suddenly I was once again traveling solo down dusty roads in a far-off wilderness. And there I was again: straddling my bike, edging a descent on an off-camber trail with a drop-off to my right, an incredible vista on a partly cloudy, smokeless autumn day in the mountains. My saddle dropped, I lifted my weight and hovered over my bike and flew down. I spent two weeks cycling through Alaska with a partner and seven strangers, back to my antics and feeling as natural as ever in my favorite place on earth: the saddle. Most striking in my memory, though, is the moment I came back together. In Hot Springs, Montana, last summer, pedaling at dawn with my dog running by my side, I kicked up dust one-handed while holding a travel mug of coffee in the other. Cows and horses lined the wood and barbed wire fences and I sang along to the song in my head, “Juice” by Lizzo. All the trepidation I had felt the day before, struggling to leave, had left my body and I felt alarmingly, completely, free. Like a kid. It became once again so easy that I wonder some days if it was ever that hard. But my body knows. I still have a moment of fretting at the top of a drop when riding singletrack and remind myself that I know how to ride. My first impulse is always to ride alone, before remembering I no longer zone out for an hour, no longer hold anyone up. I just ride. Ride your bike. Take it easy on yourself. Find professional help if you need it. Lean on family and friends but not too much. You are already a rugged individual by design, as an adventure cyclist. You don’t need to prove anything, push anything, denounce any agony in your heart asking for something more than just endorphins, dopamine, and serotonin.

Nuts & Bolts

Help is Available

If you find yourself having a mental health crisis, whether on a bike tour or just sitting at home, you can call 988 for immediate, free, and confidential support. If you are in suicidal crisis or emotional distress, there is help and support. To find a mental health provider, visit psychologytoday.com. You can narrow your search based on location, insurance/payment options, types of therapy, and more. Dr. Tanisha Ranger’s book, Finding Your Person, is packed with helpful information regarding what to look for in “the one.” Dr. Ranger’s other book, Nontoxic Positivity, is a helpful guide to combatting toxic positivity (whether external or internal) and connecting to your emotions in a healthy manner. If you wish to combine your love of cycling with breaking down the stigma about and the barriers to mental health, visit rideformentalhealth.org.

The post Over the Edge appeared first on Adventure Cycling Association.

Road Test: Salsa Journeyer

Carolyne Whelan — Tue, 03 Jan 2023 20:29:03 +0000

Nothing gets me ramped up to ride my bike like those surprisingly warm, sunny days mid-spring when the flowers all seem to come out at once and the trails, despite all the rain, are dry. Here in Missoula, the buttercups and alpine sunflowers and shrubby cinquefoil all burst from the ground like yellow hives, especially on nearby Mount Jumbo where we love to take our test bikes for their first rides. The Journeyer GRX 600 650b, in its bright yellow best (the website calls it lime, but it’s closer to lemon-lime), fits right in among the wild things shivering in the breeze. As we have remarked in other reviews, there is something to be said for a bike that makes you want to ride it, and that starts with pulling it out of your stable as it catches your eye. The Journeyer is fly. The color borders on safety-yellow but with a tint all its own, bright and welcoming as that first perfect spring day. Among the bikes in my garage, it’s the Journeyer that always calls my attention first.

On my first ride, I had miscalculated the start of my route, entered the forest through the wrong trailhead, and found myself mountain-goating up the hiking trails rather than the doubletrack I’d expected. This bike, at barely 23 pounds despite its alloy frame, dutifully churned up, up, up the singletrack until I finally decided that yes, I did take a wrong turn. Coming down, I was pleasantly surprised at the bike’s handling over the rocks and loose topsoil as we flew down the narrow trail. When I first got into mountain biking back in 2007, I ran into a friend on the trail I was struggling on and he rode joyfully in front of me on his cyclocross bike, bopping over rocks and roots, powering up and around the tight stump-pocked trail. It has since been a goal of mine to achieve handling skills proficient enough to ride a dropbar bike with narrow-ish tires on mountain bike trails, and the Journeyer just about got me there. By the time I found my way to the area I had intended to ride, I had found my comfort zone with this bike, and it handled nimbly over the dirt trails without feeling twitchy. This bike takes some aspects of mountain bikes, specifically the somewhat raked-out fork compared to other dropbar bikes, and a shorter stem. These dimensions help keep your weight a bit farther back when you’re riding in the hoods than one may expect. While it comes with a standard seatpost, it’s compatible with an internally routed dropper post so you can play around even more with your positioning if desired. The tires are 650b x 47mm, so they aren’t too narrow, but they offer a great balance between enough cushion to handle bumps and impact (the Waxwing carbon fork and Cowbell bars with cork bar wrap also help) while still being high volume enough to maintain both grip and roll on a variety of surfaces. The stock tires are Teravail Washburns, which strike the balance between traction but not too much. For someone like me who can’t make up her mind about anything, these are a good option. I can see other personalities wishing for something a bit more distinctive that can do a better job on a certain type of ride, whether that’s something knobby for gravel roads and occasional singletrack, or something a bit smoother for a better roll on tarmac. The Washburns are fine tires, but I like them more for their comfort than for their grip. If you’d rather utilize a larger diameter wheel size, the Journeyer is compatible with 700c wheels as well, so you can purchase the bike with the size you prefer or keep a second wheelset at home (fancy!) for when you feel like changing up your ride style. In honesty, I would probably upgrade the stock wheels anyway, though I do love the 650b sizing; the Shimano Tiagra/WTB wheels that come stock feel heavy on an otherwise paper-light bike, and it’s an easy upgrade that would likely make a big difference. Despite being a fairly consistent 51cm frame rider, this 51cm fits me quite snug, and the seatpost is extended to the highest possible point. Salsa does have a sizing guide, so I recommend comparing their frame sizes to the sizing chart of the bike that fits you best, to see if you need a different size than typical. That said, I have a very short torso by bike fitting standards and the 51cm felt great in terms of reach, which is often an obstacle for me. Being compact on the frame helped me maneuver over some technical terrain without feeling like the bike was getting away from me and kept the bike feeling stiff with its small triangles. Plus, having the additional space with my seatpost meant I could fit more in my seatbag for an overnight without it rubbing on my rear tire. My exceptionally long inseam (32in. for my 5-ft. 5.5in. stature) is what makes this fitting a bit odd for me, but I was glad to have the snug cockpit particularly on later rides when I challenged myself more on this bike. In terms of components, I loved the gravel-designed Shimano GRX group. It shifted so smoothly that I had to check myself more than once to confirm that no, this wasn’t the electronic version of this group. All my other dropbar bikes have cable brakes, and the hydraulic GRX 400 brakes felt so smooth and in control right off the bat. Just like e-shifting, I am a bit wary of hydraulic brakes when it comes to multiday trips that go way into the backcountry. A cable can be easily adjusted or replaced on the trail with a bit of planning, but if a ride goes awry and a rock throws a rider into brush that then pulls out the brake housing of a hydraulic brake, I worry that fluid would be lost, taking with it all braking power. That is the only reasonable downside I can see in this group or in these brakes. Maybe it’s the skeptic in me saying, “what’s the catch?” but it still feels worth mentioning for anyone considering this bike for, say, the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route. I would for sure recommend it for a mixed-surface tour or for a tour that is mainly on gravel roads but never gets too rambunctious or far from a town. Also, if you have no mechanical knowledge, it doesn’t really matter why your shifting or braking is malfunctioning, you’ll need to reach a bike shop (or UPS drop box) before riding on anyway. The GRX group continues with the shifting to an 11-speed, 11–34T cassette, and a 46/30T crankset. 1x drivetrains are all the rave these days, but for long, multiday rides and rides that have a lot of climbing and descending, especially over mixed terrain, I personally love having a double chainring so I can kick it into high (or low) gear to get me where I want to go with as much power as I can muster. The shifting, despite my sometimes lack of finesse, was consistent and reliable, even when I waited too late in a climb to shift into an easy gear. I took this bike for a weekend camping trip with a couple of friends on mainly dirt roads with some singletracking (we got lost) and a decent amount of climbing and descending. This bike has ample storage capacity with its three-pack mounts (one on the downtube and on each fork leg on smaller frames, an additional mount on the seat tube for frames 55–60cm). I used the mounts on the fork for my Everything Cages, plus a seatbag in the back with the clearance from the smaller wheel size and higher seatpost. The Cowbell bars on the 51cm frame felt narrow (400mm) for carrying anything significant up front so I used a smaller handlebar bag, which was fine for what I brought with me. This bike handles cargo weight well and didn’t feel too front-loaded though it did feel just slightly sluggish even if it handled fine. I’m always grappling with the age-old debate: is it n+1 because every bike is made for a very specific form of cycling I ought to embrace, or is it one bike to rule them all because in 2022 those bikes are being designed and designed so well. It’s a very personal choice, and I think this bike has an argument for either position. It’s a fun, lightweight bike perfect for multisurface rides and exploring routes that may take you off the beaten path, with enough cargo options to keep yourself prepared for anything. Equally, this bike can go just about anywhere you are willing to take it, especially with an upgraded dropper seatpost and an alternative wheelset/tires. At $2,449, it isn’t cheap, but for how nice this bike rides, it feels more expensive than it is.

Salsa Journeyer GRX 600 650b

Price: $2449 Sizes available: 49cm, 51cm, 53cm, 55cm, 57cm, 60cm Size tested: 51cm Weight: 22.5 lbs. (without pedals)

Test Bike Measurements

Stack: 528mm Reach: 368mm Head tube length: 105mm Head tube angle: 69.5° Seat tube length: 380mm Seat tube angle: 75° Top tube: 510mm (effective) Chainstays: 440mm Bottom bracket drop: 70mm Fork offset: 50mm Wheelbase: 1028mm Standover height: 652mm

Specifications (as tested)

Frame: 6061-T6 aluminum frame heat-treated to T6 alloy standards, rack and fender mounts, three bottle mounts Fork: Waxwing carbon fork, triple mounts, rack and fender mounts Handlebar: Salsa Cowbell 3, 31.8mm, alloy Stem: Salsa Guide, 6° rise Rear derailer: Shimano GRX 810, 11spd Front derailer: Shimano GRX 810 Brake levers/shifters: Shimano GRX 600 Brakes: Shimano GRX 400 hydraulic disc Rotors: Shimano RT10 Center Lock, 160mm Bottom bracket: 68mm, threaded Crankset: Shimano GRX 600, 46/30T, 165mm Cassette: Shimano HG700, 11–34T, 11spd Headset: FSA No.42 Seatpost: Salsa Guide 27.2mm, alloy Saddle: WTB Volt Hubs: Shimano Tiagra RS470, 142 x 12mm rear, 100 x 12mm front, thru-axles Rims: WTB ST i23, 28h, tubeless compatible Tires: Teravail Washburn, 650b x 47mm, tubeless ready

Gearing Range

46 30 11 110.9 72.4 13 93.9 61.3 15 81.5 46.7 17 71.9 46.7 19 64.2 41.9 21 58.1 37.9 23 53.1 34.5 25 48.3 31.8 27 45.1 29.5 30 40.6 26.5 34 35.8 23.4 Contact: Salsa Cycles, 6400 West 105th St., Bloomington, MN 55438, salsacycles.com

The post Road Test: Salsa Journeyer appeared first on Adventure Cycling Association.

Wild Beasts

Carolyne Whelan — Sat, 02 Jul 2022 18:29:21 +0000

This article first appeared in the July 2021 issue of Adventure Cyclist magazine.

Meghan, Taylor, and I passed the bright, wooden sign with a yellow Zia and “Land of Enchantment” as the road dipped down a fast descent and everything opened up, my heart pounding in recognition of arriving home to New Mexico. When we reached Chama, we hung out at the depot for a while, relaxing in the sun, delirious. In our minds, we were racoons. To every human who said hello, we responded with a private snicker that we’d tricked another one. There were lurchy guys outside the saloon, our only consistent predator on tour. Meghan treated us to lunch at the Boxcar. There we met a sweet high-school–aged kid named Aaron who offered for us to stay at his Catholic church where his family goes and his dad does Build-a-Bike. We were denied overnight access to the church by whatever priest authority determines who gets charity, but Aaron let us in the building to shower and eat their snacks.

We camped on a nearby deer trail that a woman who works at the saloon showed Taylor, right behind Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad train station and depot, in tall grass with the Rio Chama trickling by unseen. None of us felt particularly hungry since lunch, despite putting in so many miles, but we made some tacos and picked at them. In hindsight, the sick sweats were coming on. But we were always sweaty, and it was New Mexico in summer. Bike touring is glamorous. I got up at 2:00 AM after farting myself sick and expelled in the thorny bramble by the train tracks, which was demoralizing except for the beautiful stars — they feel so much brighter after weeks of rain. There was no time to dig a hole, but I forgave myself for the mess, interpreting the scrapes on my legs and face as penance, and reminded myself that monsoons wash away all things eventually. I started puking mid-walk on my way back to the tent, and by the soft glow of Taylor’s headlight I could hear her retching and sighing too. Early in the morning, Meghan caught the inevitable. We tried to sleep in a little since we didn’t sleep at night, but the train started up and someone started walking on the trail Meg was blocking with her tarp and had to walk around us in the thorny high grass. Taylor, the youngest and most consistently task-driven of our group, headed down the road to a country store while Meghan and I slowly packed up, pausing often to let waves of nausea pass. Thanks to compartmentalization and dissociation and good ole fresh air, I felt better after riding the two miles to the store. Taylor bought some B.R.A.T. snacks to share, and Meg ate a banana while I filled them in on our situation: our rest day destination, Lake Abiquiu, was another 60 miles away with few amenities along the way; Santa Fe, where I lived, was roughly 100 miles away; friends in Santa Fe were eager to pick us up and take us home, but it would be significantly off-route and we were trying to stay as true to the course as possible. As we talked, Meghan expelled the banana — we were not as “better” as we’d told ourselves. My companions went to a nearby abandoned gas station and lay in their sleeping bags. A friend living on the Taos Mesa texted me, “Say no more, I’m on my way.” It took her a few hours to reach us. Meghan and Taylor rested in the slowly shifting shade of the gas station while I paced and swayed in the sun. If I stopped moving, I’d have to acknowledge everything was spinning. My friend eventually arrived to rescue us and took us to Lake Abiquiu, a guardian of my optimism, where the rest of my close friends showed up to care for us. I washed off my sick in the shower, sank my feet in the wet clay, jumped in the lake, and spent the night shivering and delirious, happy to be among my friends, my loves, my stars.

The living watercolor of Jicarilla Apache territory in northern New Mexico.

Carolyne Whelan

It looks, at first glance, like a place with two colors: brown and blue. But within those are infinite shades. The brown is actually pink and gray and white and burgundy and black and red and brown, ash and sky and rock and shadow and sand. The blue is green and cobalt and sapphire and gray and black and white and onyx, sky and water and cloud and shadow and stone. Sparkling everywhere, bright everywhere. Outside Cuba on State Route 197, there was a bad smell on the road, the second of the day. Me: There must be a lot of roadkill in the ditch or something. Meghan: That was a dog in a box. I didn’t want to … Me: Say it? Meg: [silence] Houses had tires holding the roof on, people just making do. We got lunch at the Transportation Building. Meg got sick again. Lots of rolling hills even though it looks flat on the map, making us all feel sick and weak in the sharp sun. It was about 55 miles to the Chaco Trade Center in Pueblo Pintado from Cuba. We rolled in around 5:00 PM, meaning we weren’t too much slower than average. We hung out there for a while, watching Nickelodeon on TV and basking in the air conditioning and cold drinks. Little kids came in and hung out with us by the TV. Meghan gave them her popcorn and they climbed all over everything. We washed our laundry in the bathroom, and I bought a single-serving pizza, glued the holes in my rain fly, and laid it out to dry. The owner, Dennis, finally asked if we knew where we were staying for the night. We told him we were still trying to figure it out so he offered us to camp on his property by the store, behind a Santa Fe Railway boxcar. I slept for a good part of the night with no rain tarp, watching the meteor shower overhead in the clear sky. My eyes had no choice but to relax, which is the best way to catch meteors. To not focus on any one space but allow yourself to encompass all of it, as if that’s possible, to soak in the universe in a vague, broad, incomplete way and allow the motion in the sky to find you. One after another, they shot past my delirious face. I started to fall asleep, but it was cold and getting colder in the desert, so I threw the rain fly on the tent for extra warmth, putting the sky to bed.

If I stopped moving, I’d have to acknowledge everything was spinning.

The next day, after passing a llama and cliff dwellings (“ruins,” the Navajo man at the market had told us to look for, in a soft New Mexican accent that had us on the lookout for runes), the landscape changing yet again, this time to the red rock of canyons, Taylor realized she’d lost her GPS charging cable. We went to a few gas stations in Milan and Grants, and a flea market in Milan, but ultimately rode to the far edge of Grants to the Walmart. I pointed out a field behind the nearby Dollar Store to camp but was out-voted. We passed abandoned resorts and motels that seemed recently squatted and ultimately went back to City Center to camp in the park. I didn’t vocalize my concerns about the park being noisy and too public, but they were realized when a bunch of children chased geese, teens skateboarded in the pavilion, and a mariachi band played well into the night (until almost 10:00 PM, which is late for us). We made dinner at a picnic table, still feeling sick from food poisoning, and waited for the crowds to clear. A kid ran up to us and asked if we play Pokémon Go. He asked us: Water, Fire, Wind. We answered and he freaked out, cheering and running around the park. “Yes! They all said Water!” Eventually, we were able to set up our campsite in the bushes once people had mainly left. We didn’t pitch tents, just rolled out our pads and sleeping bags so we wouldn’t be seen, but were concerned that if we were exposed like that then people would see we were girls, whereas if we had our tents up then maybe they wouldn’t bother us. A group of guys stayed up for a long time, talking loudly, playing “Marco Polo” and whistling after a woman named Angela who yelled at them in response. Headphones eventually drowned out most of the noise, but I heard what sounded like arguing. It turned out to be a teenager practicing his rap lyrics. It was pretty cute, but he wasn’t very good. Also, a train and ducks and a very loud bullfrog.

If the lava rocks don’t getcha, the goatheads will.

Carolyne Whelan

There were many signs that told us not to ride through Malpais, from the GPS directing us to take the road to literal signs on the street saying not to continue during wet weather. CR-41 was clear and a gorgeous ride through canyons, and it felt great being on dirt roads again after a few days on pavement due to weather and illness. So we figured it probably couldn’t be so bad. It had rained very hard a few nights ago, but that was a few nights ago and it was so dry out here. We deliberated. We would never have the chance to ride out here again, to know how bad it is, how beautiful. What is the risk, and was it worth more days on the pavement? We couldn’t bring ourselves to continue on the paved road, though we all had a feeling we were deliberately choosing the poorest option. CR-42, unlike its friendly cousin CR-41, was a series of small lakes on the road made of cement-like mud. One of Taylor’s shift cables snapped and she rigged up an impressive fix. Goatheads everywhere shredded our tubes (especially in my front tire, which got it the worst). I fell in the mud. It was so challenging, it was comical. We couldn’t be mad because we did it to ourselves. In addition to the lakes and goatheads and cement, we also got to ride through huge deposits of lava, with lush spooky forests on flat terrain with black trunks, and the black lava rocks against the greens, yellows, and blues of the fields, and the smoky sky so velvety and foreboding.

CR-42, unlike its friendly cousin CR-41, was a series of small lakes on the road made of cement-like mud.

After pedaling for 11 hours, the sun set like a miracle. This place was a wilderness that felt as wild and remote as Wyoming, but only lasted a day — albeit a very long, exhausting day. We camped at the turn for Homestead Canyon. By that time, it was dark and the road was too muddy to traverse. There were cows in the field across the street (Pie Town Road) who came to look at us one-by-one until eventually there were over 30 of them lining the street, staring at us. Meg went over and talked to them. She has a way with animals: when she moves, they move. If she were to walk down the street, those cows would have followed her. It was beautiful and lonely feeling in this deep way I couldn’t put my finger on. This place was truly different, unearthly, and yet so of this wild planet and untouched by humans, except for this “road” no one with any sense would have traversed. I was lonesome for my then-husband and my friends I had to say goodbye to once again. I was lonesome for the idea of a life that could find some stability. But I was lonelier for the adventure that was about to end, even though in my stubbornness I was only now settling into it and allowing it to Wow me. I was lonesome for the feeling of awe I’d denied myself, and for its impending doom once we crossed the border into Mexico. The cows’ eyes glowed in our headlamps and they sang their lonesome cowsong, the monks’ chant in reverse. Eventually a car approached and drove down toward the Canyon. The cows stampeded away into the darkness.

Mud so cunning it brought a drivetrain to its knees, but not the mechanic who outsmarted it.

Carolyne Whelan

Then we got to Pie Town. We went to the Pie Town Cafe. Our waitress, Betty, was very nice. This place loves hikers and cyclists; we are possibly the reason a town can really sustain itself out here, with little industry and not enough residents to support the handful of diners and bars. I got a perfect green chile breakfast burrito. Meghan got two plates of French fries and homefries. A seasoned potato eater, she said these were the best homefries she’d ever had. The cook came out after the second order and said, “You like our fries, eh?” “They are the best I ever had.” “Russett #2s,” he said, as if giving away an industry secret. Another waitress came out and had the same conversation, but this time added: “The trick is to fry them a bit, refrigerate them overnight to let them relax, and then fry ’em up again as they’re ordered.” She went on about the relaxing, how you can tell when a potato is stressed out. After lunch, Meghan and Taylor went exploring Pie Town and I went to the Toaster House where we were spending the night. A devout introvert, even on a bike tour with two people I need a good amount of alone time to collect my thoughts and recharge. Eventually I went out wandering myself and found Taylor and Meghan on the edge of town at a midday karaoke event at the local watering hole. Googie was the drummer in the Bobby Fuller Four, who popularized the song, “I Fought the Law (and the Law Won).” He sang “Folsom Prison Blues” in a duet with Meghan. Another older man sang a very good and sweet “Sweet Caroline” to me and it was very touching. Jake was a guy who was staying with us at Toaster House, even though it was a house strictly for people who were traveling on foot or by bike, and he wasn’t traveling or on foot. He had a truck and worked the next town over but had had problems with housing so the kind owners of Toaster House said he could stay there (according to him). He had his gun on him at all times and flashed it around and talked about how everyone should have a gun because you never know who is going to come after you, which only made us worry that he would come after us. He sang and played guitar well into the night, songs from the ’60s and ’70s like “Eve of Destruction.” I wrote my own song: The locals warn us, watch out for wolves But it’s men we hear howling at night Who rub their necks against our tents Leave their scents We sing to ourselves descending mountains What harm could the fast road do But skin us alive We sleep with knives Dream of barren red clay rivers Sleep ourselves awake with the Fear of closing our eyes After a day of potatoes and pie, singing and patching tubes, we were in good spirits headed into the Gila National Forest. I felt like I was finally bonding with my friends, 45 days since we flew into Calgary. Meghan and Taylor had developed their own weird language, and I was a little envious. I’ve never had that sort of relationship with anyone, especially female friends. My best friend was a woman, I had lived in a house with 10 other women, and yet that hyper-intimate level of friendship was always lost on me, and here I was seeing it develop among people having the otherwise-same experience I was. But if it had taken me a month and a half to finally feel wild, it would certainly take me longer to tap into the feral nature of my femininity. A fox, then a coyote, crossed our path.

I don’t think a cat, still far wilder than a dog, realizes it’s domesticated until it’s let outside.

People were camped outside the forest boundary in a little cabin compound, New Mexicans who summer in this spot but live in California. They waved us down to give us water. When the older guy heard I lived in Santa Fe, he joked, “Really? And you went all the way to Canada to ride your bike? I oughta throw a rock at you!” Everyone we met on this trip was worried about the wolves. Even the woman at this compound couldn’t believe we camped outside with “the wolves,” and I told her people are scarier. She agreed. For the most part, truthfully, people were some of the best parts of this trip. But when you meet so few, it’s the ones who corner you when you enter civilization, who insist on riding with you when you’ve made it clear you don’t want their company, who pull up next to you in their pickup truck on a desolate mudroad in the rain and say nothing but just stare as you try to not wonder what they’re thinking, who strip naked and remind you there’s no one around for a hundred miles, who make you remember it’s not the wolves that make you sleep with your knife. The landscape so far is much different than expected. Heavily forested with juniper and alligator juniper, firs, and shrubs, then rolling pastures and fields for miles, a little house with a horse. Then a canyon of aspen and pine trees, and hoodoo rock formations. We pitched our tents and set up camp in the middle of the woods, a section of nice pine trees in a canyon of grass and rock. Red, green, gray. After the Divide, I often told people that the bike ride was the easy part — you just tell your legs to go. Sure, my knee hurt, and for a day or two I thought I might not make it; one of my companions got excruciating saddle sores; our bikes broke at varying times and our tires were shredded with goatheads toward the end; we got food poisoning or drank contaminated water; we crashed (well, I crashed). The hard part, for me, was abandoning myself. I don’t think a cat, still far wilder than a dog, realizes it’s domesticated until it’s let outside. Spending six weeks on a bike, largely in the wilderness, with two other people really highlights a spectrum. I wasn’t the one who posed naked in the Wyoming Basin. I wasn’t the one who developed a secret language with my riding partner. I was the one apologizing to her then-husband for having left yet again, who spent time alone in her tent writing and reading memoirs of other travelers, still detached from her own experience. The one who didn’t plan for anything, not out of fluidity but merely a knowledge of my own rigidity, that if I had a plan it would fail and I would not adapt well. It was probably the expulsion of my entirety onto the brush by the railyard, but I like to think it was this homecoming back to the state that has always held up the best and freest version of me that finally cracked me open. After riding for 2,000 miles, it was in this last stretch that I finally started my tour.

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Road Test: Juliana Wilder

Carolyne Whelan — Tue, 18 Jan 2022 10:39:14 +0000

This article first appeared in the Dec. 2021/Jan. 2022 issue of Adventure Cyclist magazine.

We are all in agreement that the past almost-two years have been doozies. And while yes, sure, we should still be looking out those in need of love and assistance, don’t we deserve a treat? That’s what I told myself as I pulled the Juliana Wilder out of its box, perhaps the fanciest bike I have ever ridden. Let’s just get it out of the way now that a bike this price is nearing obscenity levels. (Please don’t write to tell me how expensive it is — I made a four-figure salary through most of my 20s and some of my 30s, and I helped start the used bike collective in one of my former homes.) But sometimes a bike is so preposterously expensive that, while we may never own it, we can still appreciate the engineering and extravagance of the design. And even the more affordable builds have the same geometry, and they’re all either Carbon C or Carbon CC (tested). That soothing lavender color had me sighing as I snapped away at the zip ties and protective foam. I’m typically found wearing black, red, and gray, but that lavender got me feeling like a different person. A person who deserves a treat.

I often joke on group rides that I’m an uphill mountain biker. I love to climb and am pretty scared of descents. But the thing about gravity is that if you start at a certain point and you end at that same spot, you will inevitably end up going down some version of what you rode up. In Missoula, Newton’s Law is all the more apparent as the best mountain bike routes (maybe even the worst ones) involve riding up and then down a mountain. The Wilder was surprisingly easy — nimble, even — to maneuver up the singletrack, and I had no problem keeping up with my friends who were surely fitter and knew the trail better than I did. The real joke is that I’m not particularly good at climbing, I’m just worse at descending. With the electronic shifting, there were no moments when the derailer did that clunky cha-chunk because I realized too late that I needed to shift down a few gears to make it over a suddenly steep section or a bunch of roots. I truly felt like a proficient climber and a decent bike handler, and was barely out of breath when we got to the top of the mountain and stared out at the void that would have showed us the majestic beauty of the Missoula valley below if it weren’t for all the smoke.

When it came time for the descent, I insisted on going last but lost that argument to a few people and was pretty smack in the middle of the pack. I didn’t exactly zoom down the trail because I didn’t know what was coming and I have a very firm “don’t break a femur while on the clock” rule, but I didn’t hold anyone up. I was impressed by the bike’s handling of the dusty washboard trail, as well as the brakes’ agreeability to my insistence on riding them for literal miles while I tried to make out what to do with the blur in front of me. By the end, I was leaning into the switchback turns and shifting my weight to get some air on a few whoop-dee trail features and step-downs.

A few days later, I headed back up the mountain from a different angle. As I sucked in smoke on this 102°F day, I was thankful for the incredibly light frame and components that keep this machine just barely below 24 pounds. I ate my peanut butter sandwich at the same non-view spot, then headed down the same trail as my first ride. This time, now aware of the terrain ahead, I doubled my speed; each subsequent ride down this same trail was incrementally faster.

Concerned I may have pedaled into a glitch in the matrix, I called a friend who took me to a different trail network. Again, I had no problem climbing, and this descent, while a new trail network to me and therefore approached with caution, was zippy and I felt confident leaning into the turns of the dusty switchbacks. It was definitely a rockier trail network than the other spot I’d been testing this bike on, and the brakes did a good job not only at managing my speed but also being used as tools to help me purposefully leverage myself over some particularly chunky terrain. The Maxxis Rekon tires held their line as the Wilder flew me down the mountain like Falkor.

When it came time to start writing this review, Ally, our Art Director, asked, “Are you just going to say it’s perfect because it’s a $9,500 bike? How could you not?” And to a degree, that’s true. Of course, a bike that costs three times more than my van is going to feel impeccable. The Fox 34 Step-Cast Factory fork makes for an incredibly smooth ride, whether you’re lifting up and over a rock, bombing down a pocked and washboard trail, or — dare I say it — sending it off a tabletop. Similarly, the rear Fox Float Factory DPS shock absorbed all the micro-hits of the rockier trail sections, my legs felt fairly fresh after even long descents, and on those trail sections where I let loose and either rolled over a large rock or allowed myself to sail into the air for a few blissful seconds, I landed on a cloud of suspension that absorbed the impact and kept my momentum in motion.

While it’s worked like a dream on the Wilder, I’ve had issues in the past with AXS electronic shifting, and the support I received from SRAM was frustratingly insufficient. While I only charged the AXS battery maybe 20 minutes tops when I first built up this bike out of excitement to get riding and have since committed to forgetting to ever charge it, the shifting has never died on me or even faltered or been slow to react. That said, if this bike is to be used for a longer tour, I recommend bringing an extra battery and maybe a solar charger or other sort of power pack system because without juice, you’ll have no shifting capabilities. Still, I will be forever wary of taking electronic shifting too far away from civilization, since it can’t be adjusted on the fly if something breaks. But the way this bike handled myriad trail conditions, I’d feel confident using it for a multiday adventure that at least touched a road at some point.

Due to the limited storage space on a small bike made even lesser with a dropper post and slack geometry, I’d opt for a hammock or bivy setup with this bike, and would for sure check the forecast to make sure I don’t need rain gear, additional layers, or cold-weather sleeping gear. That said, for a summer tour on terrain that is bound to get bumpy, I think this would be a fantastic bike to put in long days and not fear getting too tired or having to walk my bike over an unexpected boulder field.

For riders who are, like me, between sizes, I recommend consulting the size chart. I’m 5 feet, 5.5 inches tall, and therefore right on the line between small and medium. The small was the size available and I gladly accepted it. The benefits are having a tight cockpit, feeling compact and in control without feeling like I am hovering over the bike, the ability to make small adjustments to my body positioning and feeling major changes in bike handling, and dropping the seatpost to ride over or down something that feels outside my skillset so I’m at once shifted back to allow the front of the bike to do its thing while also centered to feel in control of handling. While this may be how most people feel on bikes all the time, it’s a rarity for me to feel it with a stock build and it really did make a difference. I have an incredibly short torso and a 32-inch inseam though, and recommend someone with my height or slightly taller with a longer torso to size up.

Even without the super fancy-pants features that make this particular model so exceedingly expensive, I love this bike and would be very happy to ride any of the more affordable builds. It’s compact, and the 115mm travel (120mm front) makes it a bike I can really control but is still capable of riding what I want it to ride. I’m not a racer, but I’ve been beating my own PRs with this bike that instills confidence without weighing me down. I love that all the small details make this a very competent riding partner, and that I could really trust the Maxxis Rekon Race tires to grab onto everything I rolled over and again, didn’t feel nearly as heavy as I would expect for such reliable tread. And, come on, who can look away from that color without blushing?

Juliana Wilder X01 AXS TR RSV

Price: $9,449

Sizes available: S, M, L

Size tested: S

Weight: 23.9 lbs. (without pedals)

Test Bike Measurements

Stack: 587.4mm

Reach: 412.3mm

Head tube length: 90mm

Head tube angle: 67.1°

Seat tube length: 405mm

Seat tube angle: 75.1°

Top tube: 568.4mm (effective)

Chainstays: 430.8mm

Bottom bracket drop: 32.6mm

Bottom bracket height: 339.9mm

Fork offset: 51mm

Wheelbase: 1125.8mm

Standover height: 743.5mm

Specifications

Frame: Juliana Wilder Carbon CC, three bottle mounts, Superlight suspension system

Fork: Fox 34 Step-Cast Factory, 120mm

Shock: Fox Float Factory DPS, 115mm

Handlebar: Santa Cruz carbon

Stem: Syntace LiteForce, 60mm

Rear derailer: SRAM X01 Eagle AXS, 12spd

Shifter: SRAM GX AXS

Brakes: SRAM Level TLM hydraulic disc

Rotors: SRAM CLX Center Lock, 180mm

Bottom bracket: SRAM DUB 73mm, threaded

Crankset: SRAM X1 Eagle carbon, 32T

Cassette: SRAM XG1295 Eagle, 12spd, 10–50T

Headset: Cane Creek 40, integrated

Seatpost: RockShox Reverb Stealth, 31.6mm

Saddle: Juliana Primiero

Hubs: Industry Nine 1/1, 110 x 15mm front, 148 x 12mm rear, thru-axles

Rims: Santa Cruz Reserve 28 XC Carbon, 28h

Tires: Maxxis Rekon Race, 29 x 2.4in., tubeless

Gearing Range

10 93.7

12 78.2

14 67.1

16 58.6

18 52.1

21 44.5

24 38.9

28 33.4

32 29.3

36 26.1

42 22.3

50 18.7

Contact: Juliana Bicycles, 2841 Mission Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95060, 831.471.2547, julianabicycles.com

The post Road Test: Juliana Wilder appeared first on Adventure Cycling Association.

A Rustling in the Rocks

Carolyne Whelan — Thu, 12 Aug 2021 17:08:46 +0000

If you’ve been hiking, riding, or even camping in many parts of the country, you may have kept a metaphorical antenna tuned to the sound of rattlesnakes, a critter whose iconic chchchch sound casts fear into the hearts of people around the country who dream of stepping foot in the outdoors.

I have occasionally been teased for my snakevangelism, singing the praises of rattlesnakes as timid, polite ground dwellers who are kind enough to let us know when we’ve gotten too close for their comfort and that they may possibly feel the need to maybe potentially protect themselves if we don’t heed their warnings. I spoke with Ryan Dumas, Head Keeper in the Herpetology & Fish department of the Cincinnati Zoo, to see if my affectionate interpretation of that unmistakable sound was accurate or naïve, and whether he had any tips on how to keep humans, pets, and even the snakes safe as people venture farther from their dens and closer to the snakes’. These answers have been slightly edited from their direct quotes.

I am under the impression that rattlesnakes are very sweet and timid snakes that give us the courtesy of letting us know they are stressed and may attack before actually defending their space. How naïve is this?

It’s nice of them to give you that warning. You don’t always get it depending on how close you are. More people get injured and bitten by snakes by trying to kill them or relocate them than just leaving them alone. It’s best to either just let the snake alone or call a local county official or park and alert them there’s an animal in need of relocation.

If a rattlesnake is giving warning signals and is in my path, can I go around it? Is it protecting eggs? Is walking through the brush more dangerous? Should I turn around?

Definitely do not mess with it. Rattlesnakes all give birth to live young. If they are gravid (carrying eggs), they may be basking (lying in the sun), but if it’s ready to have young it will likely be hiding in a spot. It’s very circumstantial. You can’t go wrong turning around. If you turn around, bike a bit, then come back, the snake will probably be gone because they don’t like to be exposed.

What are good places to avoid where rattlers might live if you’re hanging out on some dirt paths?

Anything that you can see that has a place to hide where they can feel secure. If it’s the heat of the day, they’re probably sheltered up somewhere. If there’s a tumble of rocks somewhere, that’s probably a place you want to be careful because it will be a nice cool place. Any kind of old debris, old mattresses, carpet, large pieces of something manmade, a lot of shade.

If you’re on a paved road, snakes may be on pavement around dusk to soak up some of the heat still in the tarmac after the sun’s gone down. That can be true for dirt roads that have a lot of sun exposure as well.

Their optimal temps change from species to species and region to region, depending on elevation, size, atmosphere, etc. They get energy to do things from warming up. They don’t need to regulate the way we do and use all that energy that we do, they just do it in the sun.

Where do rattlesnakes sleep? Underground?

They usually are going to rest wherever it’s coolest. Most of them have optimal body temperatures that aren’t nearly as hot as most people think. The longer they’re out, the larger chance they have of being predated upon. They don’t want to be seen and exposed. They like to feel secure. They are positive thigmotactic, which means they like to feel touched on all sides. If you have a big box, a rattlesnake make feel secure, but if you have a smaller one that’s the size of their body, just a few feet off the ground, that would feel best. They don’t burrow but they will utilize a burrow.

How far can a rattlesnake leap?

They can’t really jump. They can strike half their body length or a third their body length. Some small ones can strike with enough force that they leap off the ground. If you are close enough to get struck, you are either very unfortunate as to where you put your hand or foot, or you interacted purposefully in a way to make the snake feel threatened.

Is it true that baby rattlers don’t know when to stop injecting venom so they’ll actually just kill you?

No, it’s the same venom. You may be able to say it’s more concentrated because they haven’t lived long enough to inundate their body with water. They may give more venom because they are more scared because they’re smaller. A baby rattlesnake is only a half an inch tall so a five-foot human looks like a giant. I imagine a baby can control it to some degree, but that’s speculation.

Is there a difference between rattlesnakes in different regions, and should someone who grew up, say, in Appalachia use the same skills they learned there when interacting with rattlesnakes in New Mexico?

Yes, if your skill is to just avoid them. If you do it in the east, continue to do it in the west. If you limit your interactions, you limit your ability for something bad to happen. Snakes in the east are more heavy-bodied and slower moving, where snakes in the west are a bit faster and more aggressive.

What’s the best way to prepare a snake (for cooking/eating)?

The best way is to go to a restaurant that prepares it and eat their recipe.

Do venom antidotes really work?

Antivenoms are not antidotes, but they do save lives. They are dangerous in their own ways, but a professional who knows how to use them can save a life. Most areas that have a high population of rattlesnakes or other venomous snakes will have some and will transport it if you need it. Many antivenoms work for many breeds and species of snakes. Profab is the most commonly used, and that’s good for pit vipers, which is copperheads and rattlesnakes.

Besides not getting bitten, what’s the best way to treat a rattlesnake bite, and is that different from other venomous snake bites?

The best thing you can do is stay calm and limit activity. Seek help. The more spooked you get and the faster your heart pumps, the more the venom will get into your bloodstream. By keeping calm, it will slow the process. If you have a friend with you, let them care for you, let them drive. If you are the friend, keep your bitten friend calm, ask them questions about positive things, which will help keep their mind off the bite but will also help keep an eye on how well the person is doing cognitively.

My advice for everyone is to avoid [getting bitten]. Most are active at dawn and dusk. If you aren’t familiar with the area, then maybe avoid going out during that time if it’s not a well-maintained trail. Limit interactions as much as possible. Keep your wits about you, and if you hear a rattle, stop and listen to where it’s coming from so you can avoid it. If you hear it, slowly and calmly move away from it. It won’t chase you or attack you unless you are actively threatening it. The snake’s best defense is camouflage, so in most circumstances they see you and just try to keep hidden because that costs them nothing.

If you are in a new area and are concerned, call the local park authority and ask them if there’s been any activity and if there’s any behavior you should adopt or adjust to keep you and the snakes safe.

It’s good to keep in mind that there are only like three rattlesnake deaths per year, if that. Additionally, a quarter of bites are theorized to be dry bites. Venom is not free to produce, it takes energy, and they don’t want to make more or have to use it if unnecessary. If they unload venom with a defensive bite, it may mean they can’t eat.

Dumas finished our conversation with a jewel of wisdom. We were discussing festivals that celebrated the killing of rattlesnakes, and general regional cultural habits aimed at eradication rather than cohabitation. “One of the tougher things for people to do is to open up and be available to different perspectives,” he told me. “All animals play a vital role in the ecosystem and keep it in check, and that includes rattlesnakes. The more you interact with the rattlers, the higher your chance of getting bitten, which is a self-fulfilling prophecy. There are things that predate the traditions of killing snakes, like hawks and rodents, and by killing off the rattlesnakes it negatively impacts a lot of other species.” As a lover of rattlesnakes for all their danger and charm, hearing the best thing I can do for them is to leave them alone is music to my ears, even more beautiful than that highly sensory chchchchch of my favorite reptile.

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Bear Necessities: A conversation with James Jonkel, Wilderness Specialist

Carolyne Whelan — Thu, 22 Jul 2021 16:50:44 +0000

With so much excitement about loosened travel restrictions, people are rushing into the outdoors for some much-needed space and fresh air — us included! While we have covered bear safety before, such as this one about cycling safely in bear country, or this one about camping and bear awareness that includes a video on how to hang your food, it’s always nice to have a fresh reminder of safety and etiquette tips for bike travel, whether it’s a tour through human communities or through the yards of our wilder friends and neighbors. For more info on staying safe and being a good cycling ambassador, check out our other blog posts.

After learning of a tragic incident close to the Adventure Cycling office that resulted in the death of a cyclist, I called our friend James Jonkel, the Wildlife Management Specialist for Montana’s Fish, Wildlife, and Parks department, for some personal education as well as some helpful information to pass on to our readers and members who may be venturing into the Great Outdoors for some bikepacking this summer.

There are a few main takeaways worth sharing:

1. Scope your surroundings.

Are there huckleberries or other snacks nearby? If so, then a bear and possibly her cubs could also be nearby looking for a snack. Check the dust (or mud, if you’re lucky enough to get some precipitation) for tracks. Check trees for scratches. When and if you come to a clearing, check the next stretch of range you’ll be riding toward to see if there is anything coming up on your path. Bring binoculars! Most importantly, take it a chunk at a time, scanning as you go.

2. Make noise.

A bear bell is a good start, but it’s not really the sort of noise that bears are paying attention to because it isn’t organic and it can become rather rhythmic depending on the terrain. Talk, sing, whack trees with a stick so it sounds like something big is coming. Don’t just start making noise out of nowhere because it could startle a bear, but keep on making it. Not necessarily the entire time, but whenever you start going into a valley or somewhere dense, knock rocks downhill, talk loudly (don’t yell), knock on trees, etc. Bears have about as good hearing as humans do, so you want to make enough noise that you’d be able to hear from a fair distance.

3. Get comfortable with your spray.

Jonkel walks around playing with his bear spray, twirling it, shifting it from left hand to right, tossing it up in the air. He holds it in his left hand, then his right, and gets a feel for how easy it is to get in and out of the holster. In an ideal situation, you will never need your bear spray, but if you do, you don’t want to be as afraid of your bear deterrent as you are of the bear.

4. Set up camp.

Find a nice spot, a blow down with some nice brush. Cut off a few spruce limbs with a saw and make a circle around the tent with an extra by the tent door so you can hear if a bear or other predator cracks the sticks. Keep fire and cooking a bit far from tent. Some people hang bells on string every few feet. Keep in mind that deer and elk will come by to eat where you’ve gone to the bathroom, so do that away from tent too. There are also ways to make a backcountry electric fence, though it’s heavy.

If you are using a campsite used by people regularly, you don’t know what sort of traps other people have left for you, whether it’s having dropped a peanut or dripped bacon grease on a tree stump. Bears have a good memory and sometimes keep coming to the same spot every few days. Look for scratch marks on trees, rocks, and dirt, and keep in mind where you pee so you don’t put a salt lick right on your tent. When asked whether this means we should avoid common campsites in the backcountry, Jonkel dismissed the idea, saying it’s important to be bear aware, but we must also protect the environments we’re visiting by limiting our footprint. It’s a fine balance but one certainly possibly to maintain through smart actions.

5. Be dog-gone smart.

If you travel with a dog, you want a dog with a good, calm disposition and that won’t chase after an animal but will alert you to an animal in their space. You don’t want a dog that will bring a bear back to you by going after it. Bring your dog into your tent with you at night if possible. Their barking should be a good enough deterrent to keep the bears away, but you don’t want one out there on a lead protecting its family and turning into bait.

6. Ride smart.

“Don’t go blasting through an area where there are bears,” Jonkel said. “People end up smacking right into a bear, and that’s a death sentence.”

Also, don’t ride with headphones; speakers are okay because they alert the wild animals, but they’re also annoying. In Jonkel’s opinion, new trail systems that invite bikes to go fast are a bad idea in the backcountry. Bikes are not compatible with commonsense bear awareness.

“They are too fast and too quiet. Quieter and faster than a mountain lion,” he said, “enhancing the level of danger by 10 to 15 times by how fast they are moving.”

Bears often end up taking trails because they are also easy for the bears to travel compared to bushwhacking. Bears in traveling mode just put their heads down walking the trail and not paying attention to their surroundings as they are headed to their feeding or swimming spot.

I have only come into contact with bears from a relatively safe distance and have had the privilege of being distant enough to be in total awe of these animals without being afraid. I know I am incredibly lucky, though, and asked Jonkel to give me a rundown of best- to worst-case scenarios of bear encounters and how to react appropriately to ensure the best results for everyone. Here is his breakdown:

In the best-case scenario, the bear hears you and you scare it off, and you never see it but see its tracks.
You see the bear running off into the woods.
You see the bear on the trail before it sees you, and you turn away and it doesn’t see you and you make noises. It now knows you’re coming and moves out of the way so as not to be bothered.
You have a standoff and the bear doesn’t want to get off the trail. You have to get off the trail and give it a wide birth. About 10 yards is good.
The bear starts to charge and you use your bear spray. Read the instructions on your bear spray canister and hopefully you have been making yourself comfortable with the canister so you know what to do. Wait until the bear is extremely close so the spray doesn’t dissipate and become ineffective. “Think of bear spray like a skunk,” said Jonkel. “If the bear is getting way too close that it’s a legitimate threat (not just an emotional threat), then use it like a skunk spray. Don’t spray too soon.”

The vast majority of bears are not looking for conflict. They communicate by going in one direction and indicating they want you to go in another direction. I’m from a city, so my association with being nervous around creatures is much more from humans than animals, and Jonkel agreed it is a good comparison. If you see a person down the street and they give you bad vibes, you don’t spray them with mace from across the street just for the heck of it. You cross the street and see if they cross with you, you see if they start speeding up to get close to you, and then you react.

“Treat bears in their surroundings the way we treat humans in city environments,” said Jonkel. Be aware of your surroundings, not in such a rush to “win” the ride.

I hope to have more articles throughout the summer about bear awareness and other good practices to help keep us all safe and able to enjoy the things we love. In the meantime, thank you so much to Mr. James Jonkel for taking the time to speak with me. This knowledge has helped calm my nerves, and I hope it’s helped calmed yours as well. Please take a moment to read our other blog posts on bear safety, linked above.

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Road Test: Rad Power RadWagon 4

Carolyne Whelan — Tue, 01 Jun 2021 13:42:15 +0000

This article first appeared in the June 2021 issue of Adventure Cyclist magazine.

I pre-ordered the Rad Power RadWagon 4 last spring when cabin fever and COVID precautions were both blooming. I wanted a bike that would satisfy my adventure cravings and take away the conceived necessity for a car by being able to haul a bunch of crap, including my dog, up whatever hills got me farthest from home while not venturing too far. This cargo eBike can haul me, my pup, and whatever fun we can shove into the bags (River gear? Books? A typewriter? Yes.) and get us about 20 miles away and back, depending on the weather, and that feels just about right.

The RadWagon 4 is a Class 2 eBike, which means that, unlike Class 1 or 3 eBikes, it has a throttle. It’s still pedal-assist, but it has a twist throttle (yes, like a motorcycle) to get you going from a standstill or to give you an extra boost. And like Class 1 eBikes, the motor assist cuts out at 20 MPH.

There are smart design choices throughout that make this a fantastic investment at $1899 for all-around small-a adventuring fun. The display has a hidden USB port for charging your phone, GPS, or other devices while you ride. The stabilizing spring helps keep the front wheel steady while the bike is parked, and maybe it’s just in my head, but I swear it also helps me maintain steady steering when I have a heavy load on the front rack. Also helpful for parking is the handle on the back of the saddle, which makes this beast of a bike surprisingly maneuverable for bringing inside or otherwise moving around. The telescoping seatpost and adjustable handlebar are also easy to adjust and will fit riders five feet, one inch (with at least a 26-inch inseam) to six feet, four inches (with no greater than a 35-inch inseam).

For some smaller riders, the length and weight of the bike, plus accessories and any cargo, may feel a bit unwieldy when trying to maneuver it while not riding, especially if you accidentally rev the throttle while trying to roll the bike to its parking spot (not that I regularly do that). While this bike is surprisingly easy to get into my house for all the built-in-1889 angles and steps, it’s certainly no folding bike or flyweight road bike.

There are mounts everywhere that allow this bike to be truly modular. It can be built up to fit multiple people, though Rad Power recommends no more than 120 lbs. on the rear rack. If you’re a dreamer like me, it’s easy to get caught up in possibilities: I could quit my job and deliver pizzas by bike with the tray and insulated bag (it will pay for itself!); get the child carriers and haul my nieces around after riding (in 40-mile increments) to New England to see them; get a small dog to carry in the dog carrier while hauling my large dog in a trailer behind us. The cargo accessories for the RadWagon 4 are many, but most of them are proprietary to Rad Power.

The battery is a 672Wh lithium-ion unit that powers a 750W hub motor. You’ll want to remove the battery between every ride to make sure it keeps a full charge and isn’t left exposed to cold weather, which will surely drain its power faster than expected. What a treat it’s been to have an eBike waiting at the ready whenever I want to zip around the neighborhood regardless of the temps, whether or not I want any exercise — like any bike ride, though, once I’m out the door and pedaling, I’m happy to be moving in the fresh air. The included battery-powered front and rear lights, as well as a bell and fenders, make it hard for me to turn down any small-a adventure I can think of, and the handlebar mitts Rad Power sent me have made even this frosty winter fair game for getting weird on the bike path (or, you know, getting some groceries).

Its 22 x 3.0in. tires are super stable regardless of how awkward your cargo is or how treacherous your road surface (within reason). I would love to have the option to switch these to tires with a knobby tread, but I don’t know where I’d find 22in. tires in general, never mind 22in. knobbies, and Rad Power’s site only sells the stock option. Rad Power Bikes claims this size and the tread pattern were specifically engineered to enhance strength and stability. I do agree that I feel totally stable on this bike even on winter terrain, but I do fear for the day I tear a sidewall and show up at the nearest bike shop knowing they won’t have what I need. In the meantime, with the massive storms we had this year, I expected the RadWagon 4 to feel like it was surfing on snow and ice, but it felt more like a horse — I may lose my grip and get bucked from the bumpy ride, but this stable, heavy beast was going to stay upright.

Despite it being a real workhorse, it handles like a regular bike and can take surprisingly tight corners for such a long wheelbase. The Tektro disc brakes aren’t fancy, but they’re strong enough to stop whatever mischief you get yourself into. It has a 7-speed 11–34T cassette, so while the battery helps get you and your cargo moving, you don’t need it all the time; the RadWagon 4 can ride like an analogue bike when you want it to.

As a Class 2 eBike, it isn’t as fast as some other designs — I topped out at 24 MPH going downhill in Level 1, which is slower than I’ve gone on my traditional bikes, and I can feel resistance kick in when I’m pedaling in Level 4 or 5 once I hit 20 MPH, which is typical for this sort of motor. For the practical use of a cargo eBike, this isn’t a motorcycle and I don’t need to be going super fast. What is like a motorcycle, and is my favorite feature, is the throttle to help me get started when I’m loaded up (or lazy) or give me a quick boost up a short climb, and five power levels in addition to the seven gears. Even with 40 lbs. of dog food on the rear rack and a 60 lbs. pooch in a trailer behind me, I have no problem pedaling normally on flat ground once the throttle gets me going, and changing speeds and shifting gears on the motor and cassette respectively allow me to continue pedaling uphill without losing momentum or feeling like I’m just riding a motorbike.

This bike helps with the hills, carries the load, feels stable on reasonably uneven ground, and its lights are always charged. Once we are out of this mess and big-A Adventures are again in our view, I can see this being a fantastic bike for romantic overnight trips, riding 40 miles to a B&B where you can charge your battery (figuratively and literally), then pick up the next day to ride again. And if you do opt for indoor accommodations, you can leave the cargo at home and just carry your sweetheart or the kids. Alternately, you can plug into an outlet at a number of less rustic campsites, ensuring a powerfully lazy start in the morning. I’m feeling romantic just thinking about it, but luckily in the meantime, the RadWagon 4 helps me manage my wanderlust with micro-adventures.

Rad Power RadWagon 4

Price: $1,899

Sizes available: one size

Weight: 76.7 lbs. (including pedals)

Test Bike Measurements

Stack: 635mm

Reach: 550–635mm

Seat tube length: 345mm

Seat height: 690–940mm (measured from bottom of pedal stroke)

Chainstays: 739mm

Dropout width: Front: 135mm Rear: 175mm

Wheelbase: 1365.7mm

Standover height: 600mm

Payload capacity: 350 lbs.

Rear rack capacity: 120 lbs.

Specifications

Frame: 6061 aluminum, integrated rack

Motor: 750W geared hub motor

Battery: 672Wh lithium-ion, rated for 800 charge cycles

Charger: 48V Rad Power Bikes smart charger

Range: 25–45 miles per charge

Fork: Steel, rack and fender mounts

Handlebar: Rad Power Bikes alloy swept-back

Stem: Satori EZ3 AHS tool-free adjustable stem

Rear derailer: Shimano Acera, 7spd

Shifter: Shimano Acera

Brakes: Tektro Aries MD-M300 mechanical disc

Rotors: Tektro, 180 mm front and rear

Bottom bracket: Square-taper JIS

Crankset: 46T chainring, 170mm length, dual-sided chainring guard

Cassette: Shimano Acera 7spd, 11–34T

Seatpost: Satori telescoping

Saddle: Plush with lifting handle

Rims: Shinning DB-X50, 36h

Tires: VEE 22 x 3.0in.

Extras: Spring-loaded dual-leg kickstand, aluminum platform pedals, front and rear lights, full fenders, water-resistant cables, LED display

Gearing Range

11 92

13 78

15 67

18 56

21 48

24 42

34 30

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