#Brian-Vernor

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The Nomad

Our friends at Blackburn pulled together an excellent video with Erick Cedeño, aka Bicycle Nomad, along with Brian Vernor.

“I’m not from here. I’m not from there. I’m from everywhere. And I belong there.” – Erick Cedeño

Blackburn ambassador Bicycle Nomad, aka Erick Cedeño, is a nomad in the truest sense of the word. Long a traveler, Erick chose the bicycle to satiate his curiosity about the world around him. The bicycle continues to be his medium to inspire others to push themselves and make their world a little smaller.

What a great video of a great human.

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To Live and Ride in LA with Andrew Jackson

What a cool project from Giro and Vernor!

“The bike world is undeniably insular. It’s always been divided into categories, but as we add more subcategories, riders become more confined to fitting into their neat little boxes of road, cyclocross, gravel, XC, enduro, downhill, freeride, BMX, street. Riders pick a box and stick with it, rarely acknowledging that the others exist.

Andrew Jackson is out to break down those barriers.”

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Pure Sweet Hell

Shot during the 2002-2004 cyclocross seasons, Pure Sweet Hell is a film by Brian Vernor and Willie K. Bullion that looks at ‘cross racing’s roots in an era before web edits and Instagram. Check out more backstory at Metroactive.

What’s in a Name: A Recap of the 2019 Land Run 100 – Sarah Swallow and Brian Vernor

Reportage By: John Watson

What’s in a Name: A Recap of the 2019 Land Run 100 – Sarah Swallow and Brian Vernor

What’s in a Name: A Recap of the 2019 Land Run 100
Photos by Brian Vernor and words by Sarah Swallow

You might be wondering, out of all the gravel events popping up around the world, what makes the Land Run 100 special? Why ride gravel in Oklahoma, in a place known as “Tornado Alley”? If you are wondering this, you are not alone.

Last week, I had the opportunity to participate in my first Land Run 100 gravel race. Bobby and Crystal Wintle host the event from their shop, District Bicycles, in the center of historic downtown Stillwater, Oklahoma. The race attracts two thousand gravel cyclists from around the country and has some legendary stories attached to it. For instance, in 2017 rain soaked the red dirt roads to the consistency of peanut butter mud and only ~25% of the riders who started the race finished. Despite the treacherous conditions that bad weather can bring on race day, the Land Run 100 has established itself as a must-do event on the gravel race circuit. Before I talk about why I think that is and what I learned from my experience there, I’d like to acknowledge the history behind the name of the event.

Wolf Ruck’s Freewheelin’ Article in Freehub Magazine

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Wolf Ruck’s Freewheelin’ Article in Freehub Magazine


Photos by Wolf Ruck, words by Brian Vernor

“It was my friend Kevin Wilkins, founding editor of The Skateboard Mag and an avid mountain biker, who first came across the film on YouTube and sent it to me. The upload date said 2010 and the quality of the video was grainy at best, a poorly digitalized version of old celluloid that made it hard to view details.

But you didn’t need a sharp image to see the obvious— if dated—skills of the mountain bikers it portrayed. The mustaches, the fanny packs, and cutoff-jeans, the insane bike setups with everything from drop to bull-moose bars, the riders’ radical style; it all added up to a masterpiece both timeless and purely 1980s.

The film was titled Freewheelin’, and was made with a windup 16mm camera by someone named Wolf Ruck. I immediately emailed Kevin back, and our conversation went crazy from there. We scoured the internet for more information, but beyond the grainy YouTube video, Freewheelin’ seemed to be completely forgotten. The original publishing date said 1985, ancient in mountain bike terms—so ancient that, as far as we could tell, the poetic, funny and, by any standard, action-packed romp was the first mountain bike film ever made.”

Check out this story at Freehub Magazine and make sure you pick up a subscription!

Bicycling: Under the Darkness of Depression a Cyclist Pursues Zen by Bike

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Bicycling: Under the Darkness of Depression a Cyclist Pursues Zen by Bike


Photo by Brian Vernor

“Do you have a spiritual practice?”

Of the many questions I expected a psychiatrist might ask me, I hadn’t expected that one.

I was in his office seeking help for my depression, anxiety, and irritability. For more than a year I’d been struggling with some of my personal relationships, but most especially with my wife Shana and our young sons, who are 8 and 5. I could go from calm to explosive almost as quickly as a firecracker. My boys thought me angry, sometimes mean. Shana and I had been distant for months; I couldn’t recall the last time we’d kissed.”

Continue reading this article at Bicycling Magazine.

10 Years of the Red Hook Crit Brooklyn – Brian Vernor

Reportage By: John Watson

10 Years of the Red Hook Crit Brooklyn – Brian Vernor

10 Years of the Red Hook Crit Brooklyn
Photos by Brian Vernor, words by Dan Chabanov.

The Red Hook Crit turned 10 this year. I first did the race in 2010, Brian Vernor was also there for the first time, making a movie and shooting photos. Seven years later we were both in the media tent at the 10th edition of the race trying to take it all in while simultaneously being completely blown away by the race. A few days later I got to see his photos from that day (the one’s you see in this gallery) and the images he made just struck a cord with me. The choices he was making about what to photograph and what not to photograph made me feel like he was understanding the race in a way that was similar to mine. So I called him up to just talk about the Crit, his photos, and why he keeps coming back.

Just Say Yes to Bikepacking – Jen Abercrombie

Reportage By: John Watson

Just Say Yes to Bikepacking – Jen Abercrombie

Just Say Yes to Bikepacking
Words by Jen Abercrombie, photos by Brian Vernor (unless otherwise noted)

“Why do I keep saying yes?” That’s the thought I had, sitting in the San Jose airport heading to Las Vegas to meet up with the folks at Blackburn to embark on a two-day “InterbikePacking” trip in the desert, organized to coincide with Interbike, the giant annual American bike trade show that attracts, in decreasing numbers it seems, exhibitors, retailers and cycling enthusiasts from all over the world. I hadn’t looked at a map and knew only the vaguest details about the trip, one of the most concerning being that there might be a kayak involved. I wouldn’t say I’m exactly an expert on the bike, but compared to my proficiency in the water I’m Greg LeMond. I also heard there would be sand…a LOT of sand. None of this was making me excited, but when asked if I wanted to go, I just said “yes”.

Roll With It in the South – Brian Vernor

Reportage By: John Watson

Roll With It in the South – Brian Vernor

Roll With It in the South
Photos and words by Brian Vernor

There’s a shocking casualness to the hallucinatory contradiction of culture that is The South. I’d seen this place in great detail as a child, often visiting family throughout Tennessee and Alabama. Though I grew up in Santa Cruz, and went to college in California, I wanted to reconnect with The South in that awkward period of life right after college, before I could say “I want to do _____ with my life.” In 1998 I had finished school, got heavily into nothing, and spent seven months playing with cameras in Santa Cruz, enough time to forget what my degree was in.

Ornot Ornot
Mondraker Mondraker
Endura Endura
Flagstaff Flagstaff
45NRTH 45NRTH
State Bicycle Co State Bicycle Co
Paul Paul
Gravel Adventure Field Guide Gravel Adventure Field Guide
Leatt Leatt
Rivendell Rivendell
SimWorks SimWorks
Quad Lock Quad Lock