The Radavist

Leaving your nest ain’t easy, especially when your home town has been good to you. Hanson Little used to be a pro BMX rider – on paper – he still rips and takes trips from time to time, but his days of going big are limited by past injuries and the desire to keep on the bike, not healing off it.

Recently, Hanson bought a van and sold all of his belongings, save for a few bicycles. He plans on spending a great deal of time on the road over the next few months, but before he left town, I met up with him and shot some photos of his new mobile digs.

This weekend, I sent over some interview questions, which he promptly replied to… check them out below in a special Ride Along!

If you love something, thrash it. That’s exactly what Kenny has done with this bike. When he picked up this frame off local Craigslist, he was looking for a classic steel workhorse. It just so happened that he snagged a De Rosa… for a song. If you’re going to spend all day on a bike, it might as well be a great ride, right?

Using mostly spare parts and some swap-found components, he built it up with SRAM force, Profile hubs to H+Son Archetypes, trigger shifters on riser bars and kept the vintage 3T stem. A Wald Basket helps out in light and easy carries while Kenny still wears a backpack throughout the day for the bigger hauls.

This bike has character. The chain lock and u-lock bite marks on the Columbus decal alone do it for me!

Road Cycling in the Valley of Death
Words and photos by Ryan Wilson

Death Valley National Park is one of those places that frequently gets overlooked as a destination for cyclists.  Probably because it’s too miserably hot to do just about anything there for a good portion of the year.  There’s also no cell service at times for 40 miles in any direction, and some of the best roads in the area are some of the most isolated in the country.  That sounded right up my alley, so I planned my first visit in November 2012, when I was looking for some new mountains to ride while the Sierras were snowed in.

The Rouge Roubaix exceeded mine and Ben from Argonaut‘s expectations. I don’t think anyone involved with that trip knew how that race would unfold. Backtrack to a few months prior, team Argonaut had the idea to pull Brian Vernor in to do a video and bring me down to shoot the race and document the new Disc Racers.

We spent the two days prior to the race testing out the bikes and looking for key vantage points to photograph the event. While Vernor got his video footage, I took some photos of the bikes and (part of the) team River City / Rapha. These photos are to be used on the Argonaut website…

Check them out in the Gallery and see the bike in person at the Aether NYC event this Friday!

When I launched the Radavist, one intention was to give some of my best friends a platform to share their photography. Kyle Kelley is an exceptional photographer and his bike shop, Golden Saddle Cyclery, needs no introduction here. A lot of insane rides come through the shop and I miss out on photographing them. I had an idea… and passed it off to Kyle.

Golden Saddle Rides is a series, showcasing the many bikes that roll through the doors of the shop, beginning with this early 2000’s Nagasawa road. Coincidentally, this bike is FOR SALE and will be at the Super Swap Portland at the GSC booth…

The girlfriend bike. Or in this case, the fiancé bike. It can be a tricky, slippery slope, especially when you’re kind of – ok really – obsessed with bicycles. When I bought this bike from Andy at FYXO last year, it came with a C-Record gruppo. Good for looking at, sucky for climbing hills – for Lauren anyway. We quickly found out that that 8-speed cassette didn’t have the gear range she needed to pedal up to Austin’s beautiful vistas…

This bike sat on my wall for about a year, collecting dust.

Jeff Traugott is an artist and his palette is wood. He makes absolutely stunning handmade acoustic guitars in Santa Cruz. These pieces sell for tens of thousands of dollars and are a hot commodity.

It just so happens that Jeff’s shop is right next door to Rock Lobster. Both he and Paul are inspirational individuals who have made a living doing what they love. The word entrepreneur gets thrown around a lot these days, but these two are fuckin’ living the dream.

When Jeff isn’t building geetars, he’s out on one of three Rock Lobsters, this being one of them, an “all road” bike with long-reach calipers and Campy 11 speed. My favorite detail, aside from the frame, is the Calfee-wrapped carbon Easton stem to ENVE bar combo. Perfect solution for the inevitable slipped bars when blasting down rutted, gnarly descents.

I spent two days riding alongside this machine, which happens to be my size. After the first day’s ride from Santa Cruz out to the coast, I snatched up this bike and took it for a quick photo shoot as the marine layer rolled in over the redwoods… #NatureIsMetal

I can’t help myself. No matter where I go, I always take my Mamiya 7ii and at least the 80mm lens. As I was packing for the Rouge Roubaix, I grabbed it, along with two rolls of 220 film, tossed it in my bag and took off for Louisiana. Most of the photos I shot were of landscapes, the vernacular, with a few Argonaut ‘lifestyle’ photos mixed in from the race.

Personally, I can never get enough of that Southern architecture and live oak trees…

Tools of the trade:
Mamiya 7ii / 80mm
Kodak Portra 400