Podcast: I Ride A Bike
“It was one of the coldest days of the winter when Steve “DOOM” Fassbinder and I connected at 7am in the basement of a friends house in Portland, Maine to chat bikes. He and his partner where visiting from Colorado, and thankfully for me, a mutual acquaintance introduced us just before they headed back west. Technically the first recording of the new season, we sat on boxes and drank coffee as I did my best to remember how to podcast. We chatted about his first of many hike-a-bike adventures as a kid, solo adventures in the Himalayas, discovering his passion of bikerafting and ultimately launching Four Corners Guides to share it with like-minded adventurers. I just wish I remembered to take some photos!”
The Radavist: Push, Paddle, Pedal: Solo Packrafting
“I love being alone all day, deep in remote and wild areas, reliant only on myself to move through the landscape, over difficult terrain, and in bad weather. I enjoy utilizing the various ultralight backcountry travel skills I’ve gleaned since my early twenties. And I feel immense joy when I can be efficient and accomplish goals. I’m also really afraid of the dark. Not so much of wild animals, but rather of wild weirdos who wander the woods and kill innocent middle-aged women. I know. Super unlikely. But I never sleep much at night while on solo adventures.” Read Lizzy’s full article here.
The Radavist: Maine, America’s New Fatbiking Biking Mecca?
By: Lizzy Scully & Steve “Doom” Fassbinder
My friend Seth Levy, an obsessive bicyclist of the most masochistic variety, relentlessly tried to get me to fatbike with him when I lived in Maine in the mid-2010s.
“But I don’t like being cold, and I’m not a cyclist,” I explained. Maine’s long winters were glum, wet, and frigid. I preferred being in front of my wood-burning stove. And improved weather meant rock climbing.
Ignoring me, he enthused that I could ride fat-tire bikes all year round.
“Fatbikes open up so much more terrain for winter AND summer,” he explained. Yes, Maine has long winters, but also long springs “filled with mud, wet rocks and sloppy dirt roads,” perfect for a fatbike, not to mention great terrain to ride in the summer (aka “black fly season”)…”