The Radavist

Spring is coming, so a lot of people are planning their tours for 2013. If you’re the right fit, this blue Signal is one Beautiful Bicycle. Head over to the Signal Flickr for more details and pricing.

What’s up beautiful? Made in the USA from True Temper’s OX Platinum tubeset, disk ready, light-touring ready, cross ready, trail poaching ready, singletrack ready, farmer’s market ready, is your wallet ready for next month? It better be!

Milwaukee Bicycle Co

The hand-made in the USA Milwaukee Bicycle Co road frames just got a lot nicer, and lighter. I recommended to the guys that they should offer a tubeset upgrade. Hailing True Temper’s OX Platinum as one of the best tubesets out there, they looked into it and here it is. Lighter, stronger and assembled by the oldest bicycle frame manufactures in the country, the Waterford-build Milwaukee Bicycle Co road frame is a great option for a “do anything” bike.

Light touring, firetrails, singletrack, whatever you throw at this bike, it can take. The OX Platinum frames start at $819 and the Verus at $679.

Ok, so that “touring bike” I posted earlier is a flat bar commuter / city bike. Does that make it any less bad-ass? Nope. Firefly is putting in work these days.

So here it is, just about everything I’m taking with me on my trip. A few things are missing but that’s the gist of it. Sometimes, it helps to lay it all out and soak it in. A pack list is essential for planning any trip. This was the second time I laid it out and pulled a lot of it out, to the side. I am trying to go as light as possible, all things considered. My bike weighs 29lbs without the bags and this is under 50lbs worth of stuff. Not too shabby. If I find carrying certain items to be too much, I’ll just ship them back.

For a full list, check out more below.

To ease my recent anxiety about this trip, I decided to pack my Geekhouse Woodville up with everything I’ll be bringing with me and riding it down to the Town Lake trails. I really just wanted to feel how she rode before I began to overhaul the bike tomorrow. As it sits there, is how I’ll be riding it, minus the clipless pedals of course. The addition of the Salsa Bell Laps, Sram XO and 12-36 cassette were the last changes I had to make. Everything’s dialed in and ready to roll!

Now I have to break it down and pack it up before Thursday morning. I arrive in Portland on the 18th, do a little project with Embrocation and roll out of town on the 22nd. From there, I’ve got till September 6th to make it to SF for my flight back to Austin. Wish me luck!

Over the next few days, I’ll be taking the time to document some of the products I’ve picked up to prepare for my Portland to SF ride next week. I’m starting the series with the Aerobie AeroPress.

Coffee is just as important as water if you’re a cyclist preparing for a tour. Ok, that’s a stretch but I can’t remember the last time I haven’t began my morning without at least one cup and after riding day after day for weeks, it makes sense that you’ll want an easy and cost-effective way to make a cup. When I met Cole a while back, he showed me the Aerobie AeroPress coffee press. It was so simple to use and packed up perfectly. To boot, it’s made in the USA!

Check out more below!

If this isn’t American enough for you, then I don’t know what is! The latest from Six-Eleven comes just in time for a kick-ass Memorial Day weekend. Aaron just got this light-touring / road bike back from the painters and I can’t even begin to break it down. Let the photos do the talking for you at the Six-Eleven Bicycle Co. Blog.

Enjoy North Cak Aaron! Eat some Bojangles for me!

As Kyle pointed out today, it’s bicycle camping season and for some reason, I just can’t get away from it all soon enough. One of the most frustrating things about owning a touring bike like my Geekhouse Woodville is the constant reminder that it is meant to be on the road, not locked up at the grocery store or hung on a wall. Every day I turn around and it stares me down, waiting to get on the road. All I need to do is just commit to a date I suppose?

I just keep telling myself “soon”. Hopefully the summer doesn’t disappear quicker than it came here in Texas. But until then, I’ll keep telling myself, “soon”.

Drew at Milwaukee has been saying for years “we need to make a road version of the Orange One” and I always agreed with him. But where do you get it made? Taiwan? Sure, you could. It’d be cheap and you’d be able to sell them in bulk. But that’s not always the answer. With Milwaukee’s relationship with Waterford, they decided to go local. Waterford already makes Milwaukee’s Cream City so going with a road model was painless.

I received my frameset a few weeks ago and finally got around to building it up yesterday at Fast Folks. Check out more photos of my Milwaukee Bicycle Co. Orange One road below!

I’m an advocate for re-appropriating bicycles to do things they weren’t designed to do. Hell, we all started doing BMX-inspired tricks on fixed gears. So when someone says they wanna tour on a cross-bike, rather than say that it’s not engineered for that, I tip my hat to them. Cole hit me back up in January, saying he was going to be touring from Baton Rouge to San Diego and heading through Austin at some point. What kind of bike was he going to ride on? A touring bike? Nope. An old Giant cross bike. Was it designed for touring? Nope. Did that stop Cole? Nope. You see what I’m getting at?

Well, he left for his tour in early March and made it from Baton Rouge to Austin in about a week. Friday night he rolled into town and we spent the weekend hanging out during SxSW. Sunday morning came and he had to be set off on his route so I rolled with him for a few miles until we found a spot to shoot photos of his bike.

Check out more photos of Cole’s Fully-Loaded Giant Cross Bike below!

I tried my hardest to document the process of getting fit for my Geekhouse Woodville but unfortunately, the veil of the “show bike” took over. Usually Marty and the crew cover each bike’s process extensively, offering up the client photos of their bike. Now whether or not this is key in the client > builder relationship is debatable. Does it help assure the client? Is the builder looking for approval? Does it muddy the process? These are just a few questions that’s raised by documenting a custom bicycle’s fabrication. But that’s not why I’m raising those points. What I’m trying to do is walk you guys through out process, to make the often overwhelming process of getting a custom bike more attainable.

Check out more below.

When Marty and the Geekhouse crew refused to send me any kind of teaser of my Woodville touring bike during the fabrication process, I knew it’d be good. Sure enough, I showed up at the 2011 NAHBS at their booth while they were prepping everything and was greeted with Marty saying “Your bike took me longer than any other to build”. I replied “For this show?” and he said “No, EVER.”

God is in the details and that holds true here with my Geekhouse Woodville. For a tig-welded frame, there’s a ton going on and you can see more below.

Last year, at the NAHBS in Richmond, Marty from Geekhouse approached me about doing a custom Woodville touring bike for the NAHBS this year. After kicking around ideas all week, last night we sat down and sized me for a bike and began to work out some details. My freakishly-long inseam and long arms but short torso is usually a problem for me to find a good fit on a production bike which is one of the reasons I am so stoked on getting a custom!

So far, most of our ideas will have to remain a bit of a secret but let’s just say it’s gonna be an interesting bike that screams my personality and Geekhouse’s flair. I cannot wait to see how it turns out. I’ll post future updates as events warrant.

The 2010 Bicycle Film Festival is touring around the country and next up is LA. Don’t miss this action packed weekend, beginning tomorrow night! Check out the full schedule and fliers below!