Radavist makes one company’s tire label disappear

[mevan...@gmail.com]

So I haven't contributed much lately, life's been busy. But I found something that I think I need to share. If you're like me you probably head to the Radavist frequently for updates on what's happening in our little alt bike world. The coverage of stuff like framebuilders and handmade shows is really top notch and shows all the details. At least that's what I thought.

 

I was really excited about their coverage from Bespoked in Germany. The best of show recumbent was something else. Is that the first recumbent steel rando bike ever? I think it's pretty cool. 

 

As a tire nerd I immediately started looking at what tires they used. Seemed like there were no labels. Until I looked closer and saw the labels were sort of washed out. Here's another one:

At first I thought it could be lighting or something about image processing, but it's in all the photos of this bike. Then I saw photos of the same bike on other sites and the tire logos are clear and sharp.

So I dug a bit further and found the photo above in a different feature that's clearly photoshopped to wash out the tire labels. It's always Rene Herse tire labels that are faded. I wrote about it on our blog here

https://gravelanddirt.blogspot.com/2025/11/how-to-make-your-competition-disappear.html

I've heard rumors that the Radavist gets paid behind the scenes to promote certain brands. I didn't believe it, but now I'm faced with proof. Or at least proof that their news coverage is actively hostile to certain brands. I mean this is supposed to be news coverage. Editing out some brands in photos? What's next? It's really shocking and disappointing. But I figured you'd want to know.

Mike

[Connor]

Thanks for sharing that. I’d been wondering a bit why it’s always the same people who

are featured on their site. And yeah, the cool kids (or should that be wanna-be-cool?)

are often the biggest bullies. Kudos to you for outing this. You’re a brave man! Let’s

hope the fanboys don’t try to shoot the messenger.

I wonder what companies pay to have Rene Herse edited out of the photos?

[Nate]

This is serious stuff. It's really taking things to a new level: not just secretly promoting your own products (or those of your advertiser), but editing your competitors' products out of news coverage. That’s totally unacceptable.

 

This also makes their website absolutely toxic: Which company will want to be associated with them when they've violated the most basic trust?

Nate

[User 47]

Just to give the BOTD are all tires getting blurred out or only RH? I know aesthetically a bunch of logos aren’t exactly appealing so there could be some reasoning there. Then again RH tires have relatively subtle branding when compared to other brands 🤔🤔🤔

[Nate]

Check out Mike's blog at the link. It shows a photo from MADE in Portland with the tire labels (from another company, arguably a competitor of RH). They're crisp and clear...

Nate

[mevan...@gmail.com]

Here's the photo Nate mentioned (from our blog). No need to zoom in to figure out what tires are on that bike.

[User 47]

Eh, heres more photos from the made show and the more recent show in dresden. Lots of RH logos visible. I know these are strange times but i dont think there are Bicycle cabals the likes of the Christmas Adventurers out there yet…

[User 47]

Could it be that this is a bit of bike-blog  argy-bargy 

[Jambi Ganbar]

Here is a great picture from Tye Radavist where we can all see the Rene Herse logo.

Can we please go back to admiring bikes and discussing 650b conversions?

Thanks

On 3. Nov 2025, at 22:15, User 47 <4re...@gmail.com> wrote:



Could it be that this is a bit of bike-blog  argy-bargy 

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[Connor]

I think Mike's point is not that ALL RH logos are blurred or washed out, but that the logos on bike that would capture the most attention are. So the Best-of-Show recumbent, and also bikes in single-maker features of Meerglas and Drust. Anybody who is following Meerglas knows that almost all their bikes are using RH tires. And yet the Radavist managed to visit the shop and show only one bike with RH tires, and then the logos are hidden in the grass. Same with Drust... only bikes with RH tires has the logos washed out (and part of the rim, too!).

Most of all, the evidence Mike shows of the clearly photoshopped tire logos on the Drust bike isn't going to be explained away easily. Saying that you stopped at ten red lights doesn't get you off the hook when you get pulled over after running the 11th.

[User 47]

The photo jambi Just posted has the literal bike in question with an rh tire learly visible on the frint… Also the tire pictured is bi directional amd the non logo side could be seen?

[User 47]

[mevan...@gmail.com]

Somebody over on iBob asked whether other tire logos were also washed out. I think the comparison below clearly shows what I'm talking about. The RH tire logos are much less visible on certain bikes on the Radavist than elsewhere.

Here's a photo of that recumbent from the Escape Collective:

Compare that to the Radavists:

And here's a typical photo from the Radavist (this one from the Made show):

You can easily see that the Escape Collective doesn't distinguish between tire manufacturers when it comes to showing logos. The Radavist does.

Of course, if you zoom in, you can see the logos. But how many people click on the photos and zoom in? And there are other bikes on the Radavist that have RH logos. But the best of show and also the bikes in builders features from Meerglas and Drust clearly went through efforts to make their tire logos less obvious. It's just another way of putting a finger on the scale.

That's all I have to say. Let's go back to discussing 650B conversions and such. Thanks for listening.

Mike

[Justin, Oakland]

i am no Radavist homer. In fact John has deleted several of my comments calling him out for things. We've also had productive dialog. He's a flawed human like the rest of us. However, he's not photoshopping out Rene Herse Logos.

I posted this on iBOB too but in case the venn diagrams miss folks:

Oh this is hilarious

I think I figured it out.

The rear tire is flipped.

you can Clearly see the logo on the rear tire here: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/wc5wkbta67ifvitiekk1q/ANn_3U3HGg4I_Y0_danF0aQ/Meerglas?dl=0&preview=2025_Bespoked_Dresden_Meerglas-46.jpg&rlkey=u6z1603d2ouomib4n9fjbc20r&subfolder_nav_tracking=1

So there's no photoshopping. Rene Herse tires just have logos on 1 side only. And that side is not drive side for the rear tire. The logo is clearly on the front tire.

Wow. Impressive bit of journalism.

[john watson]

Hey guys, John Watson here from The Radavist. I can assure you, we are NOT photoshopping tire labels. What you're seeing is a foreground blur from placing a 200 mm lens on the ground (which sometimes is uneven) - 200 mm lenses compress the space, and since only some of the ground is uneven, those parts blur slightly. These 3/4 frontal views are shot at f2.8, so the field of view is very slim. Focus is on the middle of the frame, so the furthest forward and furthest away objects will be slightly out of focus. 

The drive side photos are taken at eye level to flatten out the drop bars, which is why the labels are visible then. 

I like placing the camera on the ground to give the 3/4 shots a dramatic effect. 

Sorry to have caused any confusion but do you really think when we're staying up until 2 am each night at the show writing and editing photos, we'd go through the hassle of photoshopping tire labels? Ain't nobody got time for that...

John

[john watson]

Here's the edited and raw

[P W]

But you are an online media presence that prides itself on its highly personal and subjective reporting.

So bias is probably inherent in the business practice.

Which means stuff like this is bound to come up now and again, given the reputation and editorial direction.

P. W.

~

On Nov 3, 2025, at 10:12 PM, john watson <johnp...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hey guys, John Watson here from The Radavist. I can assure you, we are NOT photoshopping tire labels. What you're seeing is a foreground blur from placing a 200 mm lens on the ground (which sometimes is uneven) - 200 mm lenses compress the space, and since only some of the ground is uneven, those parts blur slightly. These 3/4 frontal views are shot at f2.8, so the field of view is very slim. Focus is on the middle of the frame, so the furthest forward and furthest away objects will be slightly out of focus. 

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[mevan...@gmail.com]

John, thank you for explaining (and for reaching out to me off-list). After I got your off-list message I corrected the record on the bob list. As I headed over here I saw that you wrote already. Thanks for that, too. I'm actually relieved. We want our little alt-bike world to be better than the mainstream...

Thanks,

Mike