RAR New Haven started on a bikepacking trip. Kai Addae brought together a group of FTWN-B people (including Jesse and Ali), the bikes, the gear, and in three days and two nights, we formed friendships that felt much longer.

Over the long COVID winter, Kai held a Build-A-Bike class where we met more FTWN-B bikers and built confidence around wrenching bikes. We didn’t want it to end, and Jesse suggested we start WTF nights at the Bradley Street Bike Co-op. In Spring 2021, WTF nights started rolling with a handlebar bag-making class, a somatic healing lecture, and an intro to bikepacking workshop.

As a RAR Chapter, we already have our next adventures planned: bringing more folx bikepacking, holding more bike fixing workshops, and getting people riding bikes more, all while forming more bonds between people, their bikes, and the natural world around them.

Over the last two years we have led dozens of workshops, hosted monthly road, gravel and mountain-bike rides for all skill levels of FTWN-B cyclists, and helped prepare and guide close to 30 FTWN-B cyclists on self-supported bikepacking trips (50% of them on their first bikepacking trip ever)!

RAR New Haven

A chapter of the Radical Adventure Riders

Gravel Camp 2022