The Radavist

This black-metal son of Odin is half of the Great Escape, the tale of a Göteborg couple who are on a journey to cross the great American west in search of the most crushing music. HELLHOMMUS is from Göteborg but he’s not into that shitty technical death metal. He likes the real shit. That black shit. Darker than your bottom bracket shell and harder than 7075 aluminum. I spent a cloudy, rainy afternoon with HELLHOMMUS at the dead pool in Asgard, where we read the poetry of skalds and planned his conquest of the US.

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I met Khalil while I was in Sydney a few months ago but I met this bike at the 2011 Philly Bike Expo. When he found out I was in Australia, he wanted to meet up and I offered to shoot some more photos of his Bishop flatbar fixed gear. It’s still in immaculate condition. Khalil takes it out when he can and rides the coastal roads with. You already know how partial I am to Chris Bishop’s work and this bike shows a different side to his work.

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We saw a few shots of the Dosnoventa track bikes in action during my Brooklyn Randomness post but I’ve been holding off on posting these photos up. Dosnoventa is a Barcelona-based company who have taken on making a track frame from the three materials of choice: carbon, steel and aluminum. The name translates to 290, or the bottom bracket height (29cm) for every bike in their line. The Tokyo is their carbon fiber model and this build was over-the-top to say the least. Rotor cranks, HED wheels and one bitchin’ paint job make this bike scream.

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If you’ve known Wilis from Milk Money and King Kog for any amount of time, you’ll know that he has a Daccordi’ction. He can’t pass up a good deal on these Italian steeds. While I was shooting some photos for my Shop Visit to King Kog (still to come), I took his Daccordi pista out for some lens love. The Campagnolo and Cinelli build paired with the monotone frame is one of the more subdued builds I’ve seen come from his stable but I like the simplicity here. Especially with the deep drop of the 3T bars and the Grammo stem.

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The Brooklyn Machine Works Gangsta Track is hands down my favorite street fixed bike of all time. These rugged machines were all the rage a few years back, when FGFS was still in its infancy. Everyone from Tom LaMarche to Austin Horse and even myself rode these noble steeds all over NYC. But these bikes could still be found worldwide, as far as Japan. Ian’s a bike messenger, or courier, in NYC and this is his work bike. Taking in cues from BMX bikes, his Gangsta’ is a mix of fixed and BMX components, all holding together a well-used street machine. This was my favorite bike I shot while I was in NYC a few weeks back. See for yourself below.

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I’m always amazed how how many people are still into alleycats, especially in NYC. One morning, I was finishing up my coffee when this kid came flying up the sidewalk yelling “CHECKPOINT??!??!?!” “CHECKPOOOOINNNT!!!!!!”. I’d seen this happen before. It’s so sad. He was lost during a race. Brooklyn’s far from a difficult city to navigate, so I went over to ask if I could help. He replied that he saw an alleycat on Twitter and that the manifest was posted with the #fixiefamous hashtag. I didn’t have anything going on that day, so I agreed to follow him around town, as we looked for these “checkpoints”. Part of me knew someone was just messing with the wide-eyed, tattoo’d, pink fixie kid….

The following is an epic poem, read the image captions for the story.

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I love SF but man, my allergies have been killing me since I’ve been here. My day began at the Rapha Cycle Club to see how some familiar faces but since I didn’t have a bike, I had to borrow a cruiser from Mission Workshop. While everyone told me to do “the wiggle” to the Marina, I just went up and over the range. Climbing on a triple with a long-reach is a piece of cake, especially with promenade bars. Doing so provided with some great vistas of the Bay and the cityscape. From there, I headed over back to the Mission for the Levi’s Commuter Party where I met the legendary Erik Zo of Zo Bags and kicked it with some old friends. It’s been a blast SF. Thanks for everything! See you at RideNStyle. Happy Friday everyone.

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This is a bit of a strange bird. Usually, when you see 650c road bikes, they’re used on small frames, not a 56cm. Like Strawberry and Serotta, Landshark also dabbled in the niche trend of 650c wheels on their road bikes in the early 90’s. Joshua’s road bike has some interesting details, akin to Slawta’s work but the wheels just take this bike over the top. Such funky proportions and yet, it works. Unfortunately, it’s not working for Joshua, so he’s selling it. Hit him up in the comments if you’re interested.

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Since Andrew LOW began building aluminum track frames in SF last year, the whole world has been salivating over their aggressive geometries and bright liveries. But I’ve seen few that rival Marc Marino’s newest LOW track bike, remember his Low Pro? This bright pink beast is almost impossible to photograph but I did my best to get all the details. We took the TIME to look at his pedals already but did you notice the extra gussets at the bottom bracket cluster? Or the killer Ritchey cockpit? Details, this bike has ’em and it’s hella #FixieFamous.

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The whole week I was in NYC, I couldn’t get over how rad the SF to NYC connection was working out for people. Chas and Steve came over to race Monster Track this year and stayed for the Red Hook Crit. They work for TCB Courier in SF and decided to work in the city with various independent messenger companies while they were in town. These two got thrown in the fire and had to learn the ways of the streets almost immediately. But they’re resilient and took every lesson in stride. After he settled in a bit, I met up with Steve on 15th street to see how he was adjusting to the NYC hustle. He’s working for Clementine Courier and has been on his hustle. As I said, dude’s resilient and you’ve gotta be when you’re #FixieFamous.

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Squid was one of the first “OG messengers” in NYC who reached out to me. Still to this day, I have the utmost respect for the man. He embodies the hardworking NYC hustle but is never to busy to stop and chat for a minute. He’s split off from his old courier crew, now named Street Kings NYC and continues to push advocacy through Cyclehawk, Velo City and is the rep from Chrome in NYC.  I caught up with Kevin last week in NYC and shot some photos of his work bike, a custom Squarebuilt track bike.

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