The Radavist

Team Dream Extreme Volume 01: The Backboner
Photos and Words by Sean Talkington

Lyle from Acre recently moved to LA from SF and has been talking about “secret trails” near my home in Topanga for some time now.  He kept saying that they were easily the best thing he had ridden in our area.  I had skeptically tried to find the “secret trail-head” to the “secret trail” multiple times and always ended up lost.  A few months ago I thought I had found said trail, so two buddies came with to rejoice in the new super secret discovery, only to end up trailblazing for 2 hours & schlepping bikes over loads of rock faces.  I was bummed, my friends were bummed and I began to secretly hate these secret trails.

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I’ve been a long fan of Cadence for some time now. Over the years, they’ve been huge supporters of PiNP and The Radavist, so when the new Flow kits dropped, I wanted to do something special to commemorate them. I knew from Cadence’s Instagram that they had just ridden from SF to LA and TCB Courier‘s John Daniel Reiss was trucking along taking photos, so I reached out to them to do a Reportage on the trip… Below you’ll see the ride unfold.

If you’ve ever ridden with Eric Brunt aka Skullcrusher then you’re well aware of this dude’s strength on a bicycle. A recent transplant to Los Angeles, Eric spends his weekends doing insane rides (like going up Cloudburst, TWICE in one day) and soaking in the San Gabriel mountains.

The last time I was visiting Los Angeles, I shot some photos of Eric at GSC, working on his Ibis cross bike. Check out a ride along interview below!

Without a doubt, a musette is one of the oldest forms of on-the-bike portage. Dating back to even the early days of the Tour, “water boys” used to raid villages for bread, fruits, cigarettes, wine and water, filling these bags before handing them off to racers.

Nowadays, we use them to carry clothes, food, electronics or even around-town items. I use musettes on rides where I want to carry a camera and not have it exposed to the elements around my back. Even then, cotton musettes aren’t water resistant.

When I saw Strawfoot’s newest design when I was in Santa Cruz, I had to try one out. Waxed canvas, designed well, packable and the addition of a sternum strap made it a stylish, yet practical solution for quick, on-the-bike portage.

I like to use it on rides to carry my camera, film, food or to shed arm and leg warmers once the sun comes out. It folds up nicely and stuffs into a pocket and the sternum strap keeps it from swinging around unexpectedly.

The waxed canvas is water-resistant, not water proof, so I usually put a ultralight dry sack inside it as well if it’s going to pour. Or in our case last weekend, dump snow on us.

Each of these musettes are made from hand in Santa Cruz and take approximately a week to construct. In stock now at Strawfoot and Calfee has the pictured silver strap / orange lash option for sale.

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

Paul Sadoff is a character. His personality has a patina. One that’s formed over years of racing pedigree and loud music. The name of his company was derived by the B-52’s billboard hit but before Paul would name his brand Rock Lobster, he had to have built a MTB first. “I couldn’t call it Rock Lobster if I didn’t have a MTB” Paul said when asked about the origins of his namesake… Then he built a MTB and the world changed for the frame builder.

The logo was even derived from MTB riding. Those blocks holding the letters represent rubble falling down the trail as you’re riding…

His frames have always been some of my favorite in the industry. These no-nonsense bikes are straight-forward, tig-welded masterpieces. Yes, utilitarian art – I’m standing by that phrase. Paul builds each frame in an industrial building within the Santa Cruz city limits. His own space is literally littered with cycling memorabilia from the past twenty years (even longer?) and is a gold mine of interestingness.

From track to TT, each of Sadoff’s frames bear some uniqueness and have a story to tell. Even the various crash-replacements…

While I was in town for the Giro #SantaCruzEffect, our group of 10 journalists swung through Rock Lobster to see Paul and his space. It was probably one of the most rushed Shop Visits I’ve done to date, but I managed to gain some understanding as to how Paul works and what makes Rock Lobster tick… Check out a narrated Gallery for more!

Steel Wül is a club in Santa Cruz, founded by Jake Hess, a local fire chief. He started the club to give people a super chill platform to explore the many roads in the area. I got to ride with Jake during the Giro #SantaCruzEffect event and his Caletti steel road bike looked so damn good the whole time.

Some of my favorite details are the custom-painted Ritchey stem, his family’s names on the stem cap, his battalion number on the NDS top tube, Steel Wül branding and the paint. When we rolled out of the Giro offices, the morning light made the frame just pop.

Granted, it looked even better after descending down that gnar gnar gravel on Gazos Creek…

It’s the week leading up to Sea Otter and each year, Giro invites a group of media heads to come out to Santa Cruz, ride bikes, talk product and soak in the #SantaCruzEffect. That means it’ll be slow for the next few days while we’re out riding, exploring the local roads and sleeping in cabins.

After our intro ride this afternoon, I scooped up this special Rock Lobster for some very quick photos – I literally had a few minutes with this awesome machine. Eli is the lead visual designer at Giro and he’s got a thing for punk rock, prompting him to add a few custom logos to his Rock Lobster. Many of which you should recognize.

The thing I like about this bike is its no-nonsense build, the simple color palette with matching stem and one of a kind graphics. Those Rock Lobster logo treatments look so good!

As I sat down to scroll through all of the Beautiful Bicycles I photographed this year, I quickly realized how diverse PiNP has become. Previous year’s lists never had a MTB, much less two and even though the site has begun to embrace dirt riding more and more, there are still three track bikes in the rankings. Most of these bicycles were made in the USA by small frame builders, but two overseas-manufactured bikes made the cut.

This year for the Top 10 list, I looked at site metrics, social media ‘chatter’ and my own favorites (which were remarkably in-line). All of these bikes got at least 100 Facebook likes and over 20,000 visits within the first week of posting. The latter two requisites were necessary to bring it down to ten bikes, from the dozens of my personal favorites. Also, I omitted my own bikes from this list.

I like to think of PiNP as a showcase for Beautiful Bicycles and how they get put to use. See the full Prolly is Not Probably’s Top 10 Beautiful Bicycles of 2013, in no particular order, in the Gallery!

The Mudfoot Cyclocross Racing Team began years back as artist Geoff McFetridge found himself racing cross (solo) in Los Angeles. He started winning races and eventually thought it’d be rad to form a team that wasn’t really like other teams in the area.

People take racing very seriously and Mudfoot was about having fun while still kicking ass. Soon Mudfoot grew to a small group of like-minded individuals in the Los Angeles area. Some raced, some didn’t but they all enjoyed cycling. Go to a cross race in SoCal and see for yourself just how ridiculous these dudes act. I know this seems sort of cheesy to read, hell, it sounds cheesy to type but it’s mostly the truth.

Mudfoot has grown to be one of the most coveted “brands” and each year, the team kits get radder and radder. I can’t tell you how many times these guys get hit up to sell shirts, stickers, kits, whatever. People go nuts over it! This year however, Geoff and the Mudfoot elite did something a little different. They teamed up with Santa Barbara’s Stinner Frameworks to design a small fleet of team bikes.

With Geoff’s hand-drawn graphics, paint by Kelli Samuelson of Ritte Cycles and a list of American-made components (PAUL, Chris King) as well as Vittoria, Giro and ENVE, they’re by far the nicest team bikes I’ve ever seen. In fact, I’d go ahead and say that this is my favorite bike of 2013. Kyle‘s bike in particular has some great details.

Details include: Mini Moto front brake, Touring canti rear, Salsa mis-matched skewers and a blue and orange Chris King bottom bracket. While we didn’t get the sunrise light we wanted that morning, the photos came out pretty rad!

I can’t think of a better way to end a year of Beautiful Bicycles… See more in the Gallery!