The Radavist

The second day of any big ride is usually the toughest. Your body just assumes it’s going to be on the defensive for an unknown amount of time and begins to push back. Usually, that is. For Erik and I, we awoke in the Silver Lake Community Park f-u-c-k-i-n-g freezing. The weather said it would drop to 45 degrees as the low, so he and I brought hammocks and 40 degree bags in the interest of space and weight.

At 4am, my phone said it was 28 degrees. A cold front had moved in.

I was shivering uncontrollably, had I known it was going to be that cold, I would have brought a sleeping pad and a tarp, both of which I’ve used to alleviate the loss of body heat that happens in hammocks at such low temperatures. But alas, you reap what you sew. We would be cold on this trip.

All our field guide said about mile 120-240 was that we’d be crossing altitude desert and would be without water for up to 80 miles. I brought an Arundel Looney Bin to hold a 48oz Nalgene, which, after making breakfast, I filled up. Along with my two large Purist bottles. We had to get moving. Fast… It was 6:30am.

Continue reading in the Gallery captions.

With the success and failure of Erik and my last AWOL ride on the Diablo range, we started looking for another mission to continue the story. This couldn’t be just any camping trip, it had to be hard. Like, really, really tough and big and stuff.

Then it dawned on Erik (I was too busy to actually look for anything) – we’d do Velo Dirt’s Oregon Outback. Erik contacted me in his Swedish voice “ok mannn, we’re going to do this really fucking tough ride, called the Oregon Outback, are you in?”. Me: “Of course!” – not wanting to sound like a sissy. At the time, I was probably traveling for something and I didn’t even know what the Outback was. I just assumed it was a chill weekend getaway…

The Sequoia and Kings Canyon Loop
Photos by Sean Talkington and Ryan Wilson words by Sean Talkington, photo captions by Ryan Wilson.

About a month ago I received an email invite from Ryan Wilson to join in with a small group riding Kings Canyon Loop. I had never really ridden with Ryan and had no idea what Kings Canyon was, but seeing so many of his bitchin photos in the Western Sierra on Instagram was more then enough to lure me into a day of riding. What I didn’t know was that this guy goes out on some REALLY HUGE days to take these shots of scenic wonder and most of the time he does it alone.

Dissecting my Oregon Outback photos has taken two full days and rather than dumping everything into one huge gallery, I thought I’d break it up a bit into something that everyone can discuss separately: bikes.

People obsess over setups for rides like this. From frame material, to geometry and wheel size, I saw everything.

Erik and I were on stock, straight out of the box, AWOL Comps. Erik painted his to look all crazy. Mine was just black. I had bikepacking bags and my Swift Ozette rando bag, Erik used panniers and the new AWOL rack. Most people used Porcelain Rocket or Revelate bags on their flat bar MTB.

Personally, I felt like a drop bar bicycle offered more riding options and were inherently faster than a rigid or a hardtail MTB. That said, most of the field were on MTB rigs of some sort. There was one fatbike, a few 29+ but for the most part, the rigid 29r ‘adventure’ bike platform ruled all.

A lot of these bikes were built specifically for the Outback, which is insane!

As I began sorting through all of my photos, I realized that my favorite thing about this ride was getting to know complete strangers. Watching their struggles unfold and seeing how they coped with the incredible feat that was upon us.

These Bikes and Faces of the Oregon Outback will forever remain engrained in my riding psyche. The rest of the story will unfold shortly. Until then, enjoy this Gallery.

The city of Portland and its bike-friendly streets need no introduction. People there have adapted their blocks to child-friendly play zones, their streets are lined with green bike lanes and there are even designated bicycle avenues.

Spending the day with your family, on bikes is a fairly common weekend activity. Especially for Benji from Poler and his wife Nahanni, who take their two daughters, Olive and Sparrow out for rides frequently.

While Olive is old enough for her own bike, Sparrow catches a ride with Nahanni on her Signal Cycles step through commuter via a contraption called the TykeToter.

I’ve never seen this product before, but it’s genius. The TykeToter goes on in seconds, can be used on any bike and gives the child an early introduction into balancing a bicycle.

These two women looked so happy scooting around the neighborhood that I had to shoot some photos!

Ride Along: Henry Mesias of Send It Courier
Words and photos by Chris Lee

Let’s face it. We bike messengers are trying to keep a dying industry afloat. Please don’t ask us how long its gonna last, because we don’t want to think about it. Some cities have tried (successfully or not) to unionize to help make conditions for messengers on the road better. But this is a long and grueling process that often leads to a lot of fired bikers.

During the Amgen Tour of California, I spent eight hours in Santa Barbara with Aaron Stinner. His framebuilding company, Stinner Frameworks has been on fire lately. From building the Mudfoot Elite cross bikes, to speaking at Mission Workshop and unveiling his newest model: the Fundero MTB.

Available in both 27.5 and 29’r these semi-custom frames are meant to take you to the trail and home again in (mostly) one piece, depending on how much you enjoy ripping. For this build, Aaron went with SRAM XO, Stan’s wheels, XT brakes and a White Brothers Loop 120mm fork but build kits are available in any group.

These frames are lightweight, come with a powdercoat, replaceable derailleur hanger and a tapered head tube. If you’re looking for a straight up, made in the USA shred sled, holler at Aaron!

After I shot photos of his workshop, I grabbed Aaron and his 29’r Fundero for a quick photoshoot at a trailhead down the block from his house… Next time, I need to actually shred this thing!

Wolfpack Hustle Shortline Crit
Words and photos by Kyle Kelley

There were three main reasons why I decided to go down to Long Beach for the Wolfpack Shortline Crit. The first was to shoot some photos for The Radavist. The second was to see three friends who had come down from San Francisco to race – Chas Christiansen, Marc Marino and Erica Schwanke. And the final reason was to watch my favorite Fixed Gear Freestyler, Christian from GSC, compete in his first road bike race…

The Cinelli XCR embodies the ideologies representing the brand’s history of making performance steel racing bicycles. Much like the modern big brother to the Supercorsa, the XCR is made in Italy, individually, by hand.

It just so happens that every one of these frames is made to order. Custom if you will, because each frame is welded after an order is placed, which, to me, is pretty rad.

For people like Garrett Chow, the man responsible for many of MASH’s designs, the XCR was exactly what he was looking for after riding strictly carbon for years. He wanted some compliance with a livelier stride…

When the crew at Cinelli / Columbus offered to build him a bike, he gladly obliged and requested a white paint job with Mash insignia added in. Garrett spared no expense on the bike, building with with Campagnolo Record 11, 3T and Fulcrum Racing Lite XLR race wheels. Basically, everything on this bike is made in Italy, minus the Chris King headset and LOOK pedals.

I shoot a lot of nice bicycles, but this one made me nervous as we propped it up on the side of Diablo… See more in the Gallery and thanks to Garrett for thinking of me when it came to shooting this bike!

It should come as no surprise that when David Wilcox plans a Rapha group ride, it’s going to be tough. When he showed me the route we’d take for Stage 03 of the Amgen Tour of California, I knew we were in for a big, bad day…

I’ve known Brett Clever since his days at NYC Velo back when I lived in Brooklyn. Since then, he’s moved out to California like so many New Yorkers in search of sunny weather and mountains. While he helps out with Ritte, Brett also runs a small water bottle / jersey company under his guise DJ Clever.

Bumping into him and Ben at Stage 08 of the Amgen Tour of California was not that big of a surprise, those Ritttayyyyy boyz are everywhere at once it seems. But seeing Brett on his Indy Fab SSR Rapha edition totally caught me off guard. I’ve always loved these bikes.

The build it pretty straight forward, minus the custom MMFG bars, which really tie the build together.

Man oh man. What a day! I’m still buzzing from the final stage of the 2014 Amgen Tour of California. After a week-long road trip with Rapha North America and Tillie, the new Mobile Cycle Club, we were all at our maximum capacity. Late nights working turned into early mornings riding and after a week, all the energy left over culminated into one crescendo of cheering and support for the PRO cycling contingency.

The final stage was a three-lap circuit up and over the (in)famous Rock Store climb. Normally moto and auto territory on the weekend, this road is one of the more treacherous climbs for cyclists in the area. That said, just this one day, for four hours however, the road was ours. Unfortunately, we had to begin early… Like, wake up at 4:30am and drive an hour to start our ride at 5:30.

But, as the saying goes, early to bed, early to shred. With only minimal aggression from motos and autos, we took to the hills of Malibu Creek State Park and eventually scaled Rock Store, where we greeted amass of fans, all in support of the ATOC and looking to party.

It was majestic. Even the pros got down. Thanks so much Ted King!

Read more in the gallery!

The late 80’s and early 90’s saw a lot of serious shred sleds, many of which have become icons in the vintage MTB world. This is one of those icons, the early 90’s Colnago Master. These bikes were the epitome of Italian design and fabrication, notoriously behind the times when it came to tech – hence the chainstay mounted rear u-brake, but made with the same precision as their road-equivalence.

Using Columbus Gilco tubing and an arabesque seat tube cluster, the Masters are still some of the most iconic MTBs, over 20 years later.

The owner, Ray bought it off eBay, as is – sans the Campy QR, grips, pedals and computer. It’s immaculate and the details are just so wild, right down to the Shimano XT drivetrain, which is arguably better than the Italian counterpart… When I saw it atop of his caravan at the ATOC, I politely asked if I could photograph it.

Stage 07 was my unofficial “rest day”. After eight days on the road, I was ready for a chill afternoon, lounging by the pool, with a bourbon in one hand and my ‘gram in the other.

Like all time spent on the road, nothing ever goes as planned. I shot the start of the race because, why the hell not? Then I bumped into some friends and watched the start. Before I knew it, the time was 1pm and I had still yet to find a pool…

Then, we got an urgent call, summoning us to the team hotel, an hour away, to interview a very important person… More on that later, but for now, enjoy some good old fashioned race randomness and race refuse observations.

I’ve known Ben for years. He was a mechanic at Affinity Cycles in Brooklyn and I could always count on him for some solid commentary when I rolled through the shop. Since driving cross country with his BMX and road bike, Ben landed himself in SoCal, where he’s now racing for RITTTTAYYYYYYYYY!

Today at the Amgen Tour of California – yes, I’m still here – I shot photos of him, his Ritte / Clever donuts kit – with matching bottles – and his Ritte Vlaanderen road. I kinda like the owner holding up the expensive road bike theme going on here…

This is by no means a “secret”. Plenty of other sources have covered SRAM’s new prototype wireless shifting. All I’m doing here is showcasing a PRO bike that just happens to be using this new technology…

When a company goes through years of PR&D, in house testing and thorough engineering, the next phase is getting said product out on the bikes of PRO cyclists. This year at the Amgen Tour of California, SRAM unveiled a new piece of technology on the Trek Bissell Cycling Team: wireless shifting.

All I can do is show you Clement Chevrier’s Trek Madone team bike, you can make any assessments yourself. If, for example you wanted to guess what it’s like to ride it, go for it. If for example, you wanted to guess how it shifts or sets up, go for it. If for example, you think it’s “dumb” or “stupid”, by all means, you’re entitled to your opinion, but remember, you’re not PRO!

One thing I will say is that you’re in for a surprise… Thanks to Criag, the Bissell mechanic for hooking this one up!