The Radavist

River City Bicycles’ bike collection isn’t all tricked out classics. This entry documents the unridable bike, which coincidentally is one of my favorites!

Who knew Peter Sagan would have such a festive spirit around the holidays?

Oh man! This one’s so good.

This website is a resource for a lot of great cycling products. In fact, more of the collective time spent on the site than I’m willing to admit is spent scouring the internet or the products email inbox for unique, high-quality and when possible, made in the USA goods. Over the past few weeks, I’ve gotten bombarded with “Black Friday,” “Cyber Monday,” and other sales. To the point where I decided not to do a traditional cycling-related holiday shopping guide. Instead, I’ll simply point out a few non-cycling related products that have caught my eye over the past few months.

I don’t want to encourage consumerism anymore than I feel like this site already does, but I do want to showcase a few products that a few of the contributors to the site, including myself have been more than happy with owning. Hell, some of these things are on my own wish list! Most are made in the USA but a few are not. Again this isn’t a cyclist’s holiday guide as much as it is a list of a few unique products that people you know might be interested in. There are only ten items, ranging from $3 to $500, so don’t expect too much of a surprise!

My buddy Erik @hellhommus was in town this weekend for the Team Dream and Ringtail Cub House opening party. He’d been to Los Angeles before, but never rode in the Angeles National Forest, so while the group ride went up on road, we took a dirt detour. Dirtour?

It’s so dusty and dry here this fall, yet the wind has been remarkably still in the mountains. Still enough that Erik’s dusty trails just seemed to float there above the fireroad like some remnant of a smoke bomb.

I hope you guys got out and rode a lot this weekend, I know my legs are beat!

This is pretty good!

Every Wednesday morning brings about the Los Angeles River Camp Coffee meet-up and this week, I was finally in town so my morning began there, around 7:30am. After dining on one of Nils’ delicious tacos (yes, he brought that stove on his cargo bike…) I headed out for a ride with Nick from Golden Saddle.

It was a pretty loosely planned morning with the Verdugos on our agenda. The problem with the Verdugos is, they’re so big that you can spend all day going up and down the fireroads and singletrack. Which is exactly what we did.

I didn’t think this was enough for a whole gallery, but I really wanted to share a few of these, so enjoy!

I love this video so much. @UltraRomance is such an icon.

Nice one, WTF Kits!

Thanks for sending this over, Fred!

… one of those long nights of drinking when you forgot where you locked your bike up.

Yesterday, at 4am I packed up my ’96 Tacoma with a few essentials, two bikes, a cooler with Topo Chico and left for Los Angeles. I had originally planned on camping in Arizona, but decided to push through in one go. 21 hours later: one I-10 Sniper, a pack of almonds, four Topo Chicos, two of those horrible Starbucks canned coffees, salty pretzles, approximately $200 in gas and a tuna sandwich, I found myself in Los Angeles in my new home.

I still have another trip out planned at the end of the month with a UHaul packed with bikes, records and my office supplies, but the biggest emotional barrier has been hopped.

Thanks for understanding my business this week with the move. Things will pick up again next week, promise.

xo

Woah! Philip killed it with this Grinduro Scholarship entry. See the rest of the winners at Giro and I’ll see you at Grinduro!

Yesterday people got in a little debate about hub label orientation on Chris King hubs. So which way is it?

A few years ago, I asked Chris King and Jay Sycip which “way” the hub label should be facing on a King front hub. I had always heard the rider should be able to read the label and while most manufacturers agree, Chris King wanted the viewer of the bike to see his name.

One way to tell it was intentional: the cone adjustment is on the same side as the rear hub when you place the name facing out. So, technically, yes the hub is in the wrong orientation with the Stinner. Does it matter? No. Especially since the traditional way is facing in.

Think I’ll pack it in and buy a pick-up. Take it down to LA Find a place to call my own and try to fix up. Start a brand new day.

Guys, gals. I’m beginning to make the move to Los Angeles. Today I left Austin at 4am and began to drive out West, planning to arrive in LA Friday night. Next week brings about a MTB jaunt, a few awesome galleries and Interbike coverage, as well as some Austin-ender photosets.

Thanks for coming here, commenting and sharing the stoke. I can’t wait to land in Los Angeles and share with you some more rad atavism.

Artistic cycling is like figure skating. You either love it or hate it, but Nicole Frybortova’s routine at the recent EMS Cup is beyond impressive.