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Photos by Jason Sellers
Over at Wheel Talk, Jason Sellers compiled a gallery from last weekend’s Mission Crit 3 in San Francisco. The fixed crit season has officially begun, continuing with the Red Hook Crit Brooklyn this weekend. Head over to Wheel Talk to see more photos from the Mission Crit 3.
Hey SF! Perhaps you saw that new analog cycling GPS Omata earlier this week? Maybe you’ve got questions? Or you’d like to see one in person. Head over to Mission Workshop tonight for a launch party! Hear about the product design and development from founders Julian Bleecker and Rhys Newman along with photos from Brian Vernor.
Beer and Wine Provided
Doors open at 6:30
541 Valencia St. San Francisco, CA 94110
Graduating Skid University on Fallen Angel Island
Words by Erik Nohlin, photos by Erik Nohlin and Dylan Buffington
Fallen Angel Island is a Bay Area gem tucked away in a hard to get to corner of northern bay just of the Tiburon shore. In fact, it’s not hard to get to but getting one the seven official camp spots is way harder than just jumping on the ferry to get there.
Fallen Angel Island is a stealth campers paradise but with a locust like ranger infested entrance and exit point with the ferry, it’s difficult, almost impossible to enter the island unnoticed and not being asked for a permit when you first enter the dock. Our friend Nick from Pedal Inn had booked the best site on the island about 6 months in advance so we didn’t have to act like we weren’t going to glamp the shit out of campsite 4 with our first time SF visitor from The Warhead Courier Copenhagen chapter – The legendary Simon Busk.
San Francisco is an ideal city to ride a bike, both for pleasure and work. This documentary interviews the city’s bike messengers from 1987 who by the looks of it, ride for both reasons!
Photos by Tom Hood
It used to be if you wanted to look good in the office, you had to commute with your clothes in a backpack. Over the past few years so-called commuter wear has stepped up its game, allowing you to wear the same clothes you commuted in on around the office all day. Parker Dusseau, a clothing designer in SF believes there’s no compromise between looking good on or off the bike and function. Their latest photoshoot, featuring Chas and Marc showcases their bike-friendly Travel Blazers and Chinos. Their functional clothing doesn’t stop there. I’ve been wearing their merino longsleeve and shortsleeve shirts for the past few months on everything from my cross bike to mountain bike.
An added bonus: brand makes everything in San Francisco.
See more photos below and check out the full holiday collection at Parker Dusseau.
Please join Mission Workshop, Andrew Low and Dustin Klein for an evening of bicycle talk!
Andrew started Low Bicycles, a small manufacturer of high quality, handmade aluminum racing frames, located in San Francisco, CA in 2010. Hear about his history, his take on aluminum, and questions from the crowd. Introduction by Dustin Klein, of Cadence Collection.
Nov. 20th
6pm Doors open
7pm Talk starts
Close when the beer’s gone
Broadcasted live on TheRadavist.com Starting at 7PM PST.
Hosted at Mission Workshop San Francisco
541 Valencia St. SF, CA
Hit up RSVP@missionworkshop.com for entry.
Mash is celebrating its ten year anniversary with an incredible 9×12 inch, 350-page color book. Inside is a copy of the Mash 2015 video with an additional 1 hour of bonus features as well as a decal sheet.
They’re currently running a pre-order for this new MASH book and video and are expecting to ship in early November 2015. Head over to Mash to reserve your copy now.
I got to see the video at Interbike this year and it’s so damn good!
October 10th brings about yet another Ask a Founder event at Mission Workshop. This time, it features Mike Sinyard of Specialized Bicycles.
“The Founders Event was created in effort to pull the curtain back and learn more about cycling brands that we respect. We as an industry tend to focus on the stunning finished parts but not as much on the struggle it takes to get there. For the event we simply turn the cameras on, step back and watch the story unfold. We cover the inspiration behind ideas, the projects that never got off the ground and everything in between.
For our fourth installment of this project we present to you the relatively unknown founder of one of the cycling world’s leading innovative forces. Mike Sinyard of Specialized will now take your questions. Join us Saturday October 10th at 7PM PST to watch Mike live on Bikemag.com. Be part of the event by asking Mike a question via Twitter using “#AskSinyard” as the hashtag. Live audience space is limited, if you can make it to Mission Workshop San Francisco, email RSVP@missionworkshop.com for a seat.”
Mash has been working hard on a new video, which is premiering on September 12th in SF. I love seeing everyone stoked and shredding. Also, the Tioga footage with Rainier is amazing!
It’s labor day here in the US, so we’re all taking the day off… See ya tomorrow!
This is the ninth layout of the Radavist 2015 Calendar, entitled “Morning Wheelie”. The camera and location are noted on the bottom left of the document.
The Marin Headlands is an easily-accessed stomping grounds for many SF locals. Visible from the Golden Gate Bridge and Hawk Hill, trail runners, hikers and cyclists alike find refuge from the busy city life in its hills. Early mornings bring about a dense marine layer and piercing sunshine, which makes for an awe-inspiring experience. Throw in a wheelie and you’ve got all the ingredients for a killer photo.
This photo in particular was requested by multiple people to be the September calendar image. Thanks for the recommendation, y’all!
For a high-res JPG, suitable for print and desktop wallpaper*, right click and save link as – The Radavist 2015 Calendar – September. Please, this photo is for personal use only!
(*set background to white and center for optimal coverage)
I’m so stoked for our friends at MASH and the SF community. I wish I could be there to celebrate! Here are all the details:
“Please join us Saturday, September 12th, 2015 to celebrate the world premiere of our new video project. We have set up a fun weekend in San Francisco, we hope you can join us.
ALLEYCAT: 5:00PM at MASH 284 Sanchez Street, SF CA
ART SHOW: Doors open at 5:00PM at The Lab. 2948 16th Street, SF CA
VIDEO PREMIERE: 8:00PM at The Victoria Theater, 2961 16th Street, SF CA
Group RIDE at MASH Sunday September 13th, 1:00PM
Please look for updates on how you can get tickets to the screening in the coming weeks.
Look for updates with stops in Las Vegas September 17th, London September 26th, Berlin September 29th, Tokyo October 17th, Seoul October 21st 2015
Thank you to our friends for the generosity and who have helped make this possible: @vans, @oakley, @oakleybike, @cinelli_official, @girocycling, @clifbarcompany, @sellesanmarco, @kryptonitelock, @castellicycling”
That shirt. You know the one, or maybe you don’t. It’s what first piqued my interest in San Francisco’s Fresh Air Bicycles, a shop that’s been around for a while (who apparently sold a lot of Softride MTBs), yet was just sold a few years back to a new generation of Bay Area cyclists.
Travis and the dudes at Fresh Air live, breathe and eat dirt riding. With the Headlands at their fingertips and cyclocross always just around the corner, the Team Fresh Air Hunter ‘cross squadron need no excuses to get dirty.
While visiting SF, I swung through to see the guys, buy one of those shirts and take a few photos, which you can enjoy in the Gallery.
Fresh Air Bicycles
1943 Divisadero St
San Francisco, CA 94115
Open Tuesday – Saturday 11AM-7PM
415.563.4824
I’m down in SoCal, where it’s hot and dusty. Rides await but I can’t stop thinking about the jaunt that Fresh Air Bicycles took me on last week in San Francisco. Saturday afternoon in the Headlands tends to be busy, but we did manage to find some empty trails, like Coyote Ridge.
There’s more to come tomorrow, so stay tuned!
Rust Never Sleeps on Sofia’s AWOL Touring Bike
Words by Erik Nohlin, photos by John Watson
TRUST ME, I’M A DESIGNER
As a designer of bicycles I try to stay on top of things like material development, new alloys, paint pigment, flakes, pearls, platings and whatnot. It’s in my interest to stay updated in an ever-changing world. What you see on the floor in a bike shop is not just a bicycle with a random color: it’s the result of hundreds or thousands of hours of trial and error behind the scenes at any one man bike shop or huge bike brand with a fleet of designers.
That one color started out as 666 other potential colors and in the end, only one made it. For the one man operation or smaller brand in a well-defined niche it might be easier to do cool and crazy shit to please that one customer with that weird request of a thermochromatic dead matte black that fades to metallic peach with a pride parade pearl to top it off. I design bicycles for a global brand and need to create a bike that pleases a global rider and as you all know, trends and cultural differences around the globe vary, fluctuate and make my day pretty complicated.
I’ll be honest with you: it’s frustrating to rarely ever be able to bring the raddest and weirdest stuff to you. One example is the one off Full Nuke Rainbow AWOL I created for the Transcontinental Race, a bike that almost blew up the internet when John posted it. So much stoke and love was thrown on that bike but the reality is that it would be impossible to produce it, guarantee the surface quality, get a decent price and distribute it to you. Doing rad stuff is easy but mass producing it is a completely different story. So, I try a lot of surface treatments and materials but most often these tryouts, experiments never leave the design studio as more than dirt on my hands, stains on my jeans and once in a while, a painted one off bicycle that I can tell you about.
The Rust AWOL is my wife Sofia’s bike and it used to look quite different. A super glittery rainbow flakey touring bike that was left in the hands of Garrett Chow on a journey to the heart of Death Valley early last winter. The washboard and dirt in Death Valley eat bikes for breakfast and the beat up bike that was returned to her had a couple of scars too many so I promised to bring it back to its “old glory”. The frame is one of the first nickel plated frame samples for the Transcontinental Edition AWOL we did and a perfect canvas to be creative on since the nickel makes it completely sealed for corrosion – ironic isn’t it? Rust is corrosion and in this case impossible to achieve without some chemical magic from a UK paint company called Rustique.
My colleague Barry Gibb had previously used it to create a fantastic surface on a carbon bike and I wanted to try it to, on steel this time. We ordered some paint and decided that Sofia’s nickel plated bike would be the victim for this experiment. The month of June is usually pretty mellow at work (read: not as completely fucking crazy as July and August) and I spent some afternoons in the workshop and paint booth to finish off this creative experiment in an effort to bring real organic life back to a surface that’s dead. In a step by step series on Instagram, I told a transparent story about the process of the #rustawol and here it is and for the first time, a somewhat finished bike. The project was crowned with a Brooks Cambium rust saddle and bar tape where the fabric matches the bike and the vulcanized rubber matches the tan wall tires nicely.
As a last step I gave the Supernova headlamp and the Tubus rack a kiss of iron oxide. The humid and cold San Francisco summer will continue to corrode and oxidize the surface even though it’s been sealed with a clear coat as I surprisingly discovered after picking up the bike today. I learned a ton on this project, got my hands dirty and created a bike that Sofia really seems to like. I love that I sometimes can show you the hands-on process of being a designer at a big brand when 90% of my work never leaves the design studio. Confidentiality keeps us all from sharing what I know a lot of you like seeing and know more about.
Personally, the making-of-dvd in the Indiana Jones DVD box is far superior to the movies themselves and getting dirty is the only way to learn something new.
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Follow Erik on Instagram.
While LOW Bicycles might be known best for their made in San Francisco track bikes, for the past year or so, they’ve begun to develop road and ‘cross frames. Debuted at NAHBS, the MKI road is Low’s first geared bike offering, selling in small production runs and starting as a collaboration with Cadence, a longtime supporter of the brand.
A lot has changed at LOW since my last visit. Andrew hired Michael full-time, who aids in everything from prep to production and finishing. This enables Andrew to focus on welding and keeping up with the ever-increasing demand for frames.
When I was at the shop, Michael was working on one of the LOW MKI ‘cross frames in their new color: safety orange. These frames are being raced by TCB Courier and should be available soon for purchase.
When visiting a longtime friend like Andrew, more time is spend chatting and catching up, but I did get a few photos of the shop, the new frames and his dog, Manny. Enjoy!
If you’d like to pick up a LOW, head to their web shop or email Andrew for availability of their new MKI road and MKI cross frames.
Retail ain’t easy. Especially in the bike industry and it’s not like San Francisco doesn’t already have a large number of bicycle shops already, so if you’re going to start up something new, you better take a unique approach.
City + County Bicycle Co is a new shop in SF. Well, new to me! I’ve known the owner, Jon for a few years and first met him at Box Dog Bikes years back. The shop is located off Clement Avenue, right en route to GGP via the Presidio. If you know the area, you’ll note that it’s intravenous in the vein that is the route to the Golden Gate Bridge. i.e. one of the main access points to the Marin Headlands.
San Francisco, you’re always so much fun. Thanks to everyone who made this trip particularly exceptional. Now it’s time to head down the coast to Los Angeles but there’s much more to come from my stay here, so stay tuned!
