The Radavist

I don’t know how many of you have been paying attention to the Cold Rolled series, but here’s the culmination of all the edits, wrapped into one. I still think that singletrack shred footage is the best!

“Cold Rolled: Marquette Michigan’s Snow Bike Route, is a quirky action documentary from Clear & Cold Cinema, Salsa Cycles and TravelMarquetteMichigan.com that explores the history and progression of winter cycling culture in this small Lake Superior harbor town.

Marquette, Michigan’s Noquemanon Trails Network has nearly perfected equipment and techniques used to launch its Snow Bike Route, a 15-mile winter singletrack developed for fat tire bikes. The fast narrow trail features flowy terrain, steep descents and large bermed turns. It’s believed to be the first trail of its kind–but more importantly, it’s pretty fun.”

Here’s the second chapter to the Cold Rolled series:

“Chapter Two of the five-part short film Cold Rolled: Marquette Michigan’s Snow Bike Route, an action documentary from Clear & Cold Cinema, Salsa Cycles and TravelMarquetteMichigan.com. Chapter Two explores the history and progression of winter cycling culture in the adventure-loving Lake Superior harbor town of Marquette, Michigan.

Marquette’s Noquemanon Trails Network has nearly perfected equipment and techniques used to launch its Snow Bike Route, a 15-mile winter singletrack developed for fat tire bikes. The fast narrow trail features flowy terrain, steep descents and large bermed turns. It’s believed to be the first trail of its kind–but more importantly, it’s pretty fun.

Chapter Two features an interview with Marquette, Michigan native and Noquemanon Trails Network volunteer Mike Brunet who led development of the new Snow Bike Route. Archival newscasts, photos and home video demonstrate the long history of winter riding in Marquette that led to development of the new SBR.”

So rad!

And to think, here I was stoked on doing a shallow river crossing this morning and finding a dead deer while out on the fatty. I can’t let my Pugsley see this!

“Chapter One of the five-part short film Cold Rolled: Marquette Michigan’s Snow Bike Route, an action documentary from Clear & Cold Cinema, Salsa Cycles and TravelMarquetteMichigan.com that will explore the history and progression of winter cycling culture in the adventure-loving Lake Superior harbor town of Marquette, Michigan.

Marquette’s Noquemanon Trails Network has nearly perfected equipment and techniques used to launch its Snow Bike Route, a 15-mile winter singletrack developed for fat tire bikes. The fast narrow trail features flowy terrain, steep descents and large bermed turns. It’s believed to be the first trail of its kind–but more importantly, it’s pretty fun.

Chapter One features riding along an ungroomed section of trail that is often packed by foot traffic from Marquette’s active population. This section of trail follows the Dead River and passes under a leaky water pipe that forms curtains of ice in the winter months.”

… and this is the best photo I’ve found on Flickr to commemorate it. Leave it to Porcelain Rocket to deck out this Salsa Muckluck with bags! Also, bike is in little ring because rules don’t apply to fatties. Next year, maybe I’ll post about Global Fat Bike Day a few days before… Did anyone else put in a ride on theirs?

Photo by Kyle Kelley

It’s been real fun hanging out with Jeff from All-City. We raced together, we partied together and even got sick together. Jeff knows how to live the life as the manager of a party brand. But sometimes it gets too much for him to handle. We were supposed to go touring but the urban #campvibes got the best of him.

Don’t worry Salsa, this is an urban adventure. Thanks to Grandpasaurus Rex for the photo.

I don’t like posting video submissions to contests (mostly because I don’t like being flooded with other submissions) but Erinn from Frontage Roads is a rad dude and I’d like to see him win this Salsa competition. Errin, you should be doing the Mt. Wilson fire road, not Griffith!

I’ll admit it. I’ve been a bad owner to this bike. For the past three months, it’s sat in my quiver with no handlebars and flat tires. When I got my Woodville, I kinda stopped riding the Orange One around as much as I should have but now with cross season rearing its ugly head, I scrambled to convert this ambiguous road bike into a dirt machine. Since there isn’t a whole lot of mud at the Dirt Derby here in town, I figured why not? Granted, this build isn’t up to par yet…

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!

The Low track frames are definitely unique looking. While they’re in no way the first aluminum low-pro, Andrew is continuing the tradition of the SF hill-bomber track bike. I took a few photos of Marc’s Low while I was in SF and like a lot of the SF builds, it contains a lotta build faux pas.

Check out more below!

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!

Liam’s Samurai Cycles track frame was at the 2011 NAHBS and somehow I missed it. How do you miss a copper-plated track frame at NAHBS? I have no idea but I did. Samurai is run by Koh Annouraa, a 17-year pro Keirin racer and he’s based in Houston Texas. Which is where Liam rode his track bike from to Austin for SxSW. The trip was about 182 miles and he did it in 19 hours, including a 3-hour power nap. Madness!

I met up with Liam and took some photos of his copper-plated Samurai Cycles track bike. Check out more photos 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.

When I first saw the Colossi Cycles Double Dog stem, I salivated, even though I was unsure of the structural stability of its design. Sure, I’ve seen similar stems before, but always with the slot at the top of the stem, never on the sides. A few days after I posted it up, I got an email from Colossi asking me if I’d like to try one out. Not knowing immediately what I’d use it for, I asked for a quill stem. Then a few days later, a new project came up so I specified a 110mm 1 /8″ threadless at 73°, the classic angle used by Cinelli for their 1a road stems*.

Check out more photos below!

The Nitto Crystemblue stem is one of the most beautiful aheadset quills out there and that’s coming from a sworn Salsa fiend! These stems are pretty hard to come by and when they do pop up, the fetch a pretty penny. Right now on eBay there’s a Crystemblue stem and matching ADB X bar combo for auction. I wonder what it’ll fetch? Too bad those bars are always too narrow for me and the stem is too short or I’d bid on it.