The Radavist

Ever since Erik showed me the first sneak peek at his Specialized AWOL, I knew I’d have a blast photographing it one day. Little did I know, however, it’d be in San Francisco. By now, you’ve seen photos and video of this bike here on the site. How could you miss it? With the special Nickel PVD – Physical Vapor Desposition – coating, it pops!

Erik even referred to this bike as a “peacock” in the Transcontinental video. It’s almost so distracting that you fail to notice the Shimano Dura Ace Di2 Alfine 11 speed Gates carbon belt drive set up with hydraulic disc brakes. Or the wicked fat tire clearances.

Other nifty details are the Plug by Supernova, which charges electronic devices but one of my favorite frame details is the special bracket for mounting the rear Supernova light onto the non-drive rocker dropout. And of course, the Fällkniven F1 Swedish special forces-issued knife with its (purple) zip-tied sheath.

Trust me, during our ride in the Diablo Range, I was geeking out so hard on this bike.

Yeah, it’s pretty jamming and what better place to shoot it than Bernal Heights in SF, at sundown, as the sky itself put on a color-assault of its own. Countdown to full nuke… 3… 2… 1…

When Erik and I met at Eurobike last year, we talked about doing a ride to celebrate the Specialized AWOL release. Originally, we talked about Oregon, then LA, but after some research, we realized there were plenty of roads, tracks and trails literally in SF’s backyard.

With the help of Jared from Riv Bike, Erik began to think about a three day route from SF to the Diablo Range, Morgan Territory, Henry Coe and finally, into Morgan Hill where we’d share our story and watch the premier of the Transcontinental film. It seemed like an achievable goal. We’d pack for camping, which included cold nights and mornings and most importantly, we’d take our time.

Rather than actually planning our route, we decided to take trail maps and meander a bit off the beaten path. Digital maps don’t have all the trails marked and some of the current maps of the Diablo range revealed a path none of us had taken. We were set.

Unfortunately, as it tends to go, unexpected elements came into the equation and our plans changed. At first, I was pretty upset about it, seeing as how I was planning on pulling a few stories out of our ride, but after reviewing my photos, I decided it made for a good story…

Part of what the Specialized AWOL project represents is an escape, a desire to get out of your normal ride routine and try something new. Taking a chance if you will. While we didn’t complete our ride, we had fun and saw some incredible displays of color as Mother Nature impressed us all.

Seriously, the sunrise the second day rivals all in my past experiences…

Read on in the Gallery!

There’s more to come, including my review of the AWOL Transcontinental Limited Edition and a Beautiful Bicycle post on Erik’s own bike.