The Radavist

Austin, Texas is my home. I know that sounds strange because I’m rarely there, but it’s true. My good friends in my cycling club are throwing a race called “UrboCross” tomorrow. You should come. I’ll be there, with my camera. Roll through, race, have fun and don’t puke on the cacti.

See more details here! Oh and see the course’s checkpoints here.

Cross is here for a lot of the US and the MASH team competed in DFL #02 last weekend. Check out a race report at Mash!

I have been spending so much time this trip shooting rad cross bikes. All of which have come from Golden Saddle Cyclery, including this one. Ty needed a new fork for his All City Nature Boy, so Kyle lent him the coveted Death Spray Custom painted ENVE cross fork. There’s more to come…

I made a comment on Twitter this morning about “cross practice”. To me, bike control is inherently more important than learning mounting and dismounting techniques. If you’re new to cross, riding in the woods will teach you everything you need to know, from cornering, dismounting, run ups and bunnyhopping. Clinics are great and I fully support them but you’ll learn more eating shit on a trail than riding in a grass field.

You can learn other techniques as you go, but bike control is going to win you a race, not saving a fraction of a second on your dismount (especially if you’re a new rider / racer). Get out in the woods and get rad. Ride, have fun and eventually, you will be damn good at it and make it look easy! As exhibited here by Matt Hall on the new Breadwinner Cycles Hole Shot cyclocross bike.

Granted Matt Hall has been racing cross in Portland for over a decade… Check out more lovely detail shots of this rad bike at Breadwinner and apologies for my Monday morning rantings.

Even if you’re not into disc brakes on cross bikes, you’ve gotta admit, that’s one Beautiful Bicycle! Head over to the Baum Flickr for more! I betcha it feels like riding a piece of surgical equipment. So good.

Sorry for the lack of updates this weeekend. We’ve been soaking in Minneapolis in various ways and that means I get very little time to update the site with all the shenanigans. Here’s a quick pre-ride shot from the other night’s ride with the Fulton Brewery All City racing team.

Kyle had a little atavistic urge to get rad… Regular posting will commence tomorrow!

Well, I’m in Minneapolis, crashing at Jeff from Bike Jerks / All-City’s house for the All-City Championships and while the main event is Saturday, Bandit Cross is kicking it off on Thursday night. You should really come out if you can. I’m pretty stoked on this event!

I feel like today’s Beautiful Bicycles are sporting some of the most outrageous finishing jobs. First that Death Spray track bike and now this Firefly light-touring bike. Keep in mind, this is only one angle and you can’t even see all the insane detailing (masking hell!). In order to do that, you’ll have to go to the Firefly Flickr!

The world is going bonkers for disc brakes on drop-bar bikes and Surly is leading the way. While I’m not sold on the fad, I will say this bike looks sick. Here’s the word from Surly:

“…the Straggler, Surly’s long overdue disc brake equipped cross bike. The first thing you’ll probably notice is that it’s got disc brakes. Good, now that we got that out of the way let me point out a couple more things that make it stand apart from our venerable CrossCheck. The rear dropouts have been totally redesigned with a couple things in mind – Disc brakes, rear derailleur, single speed, and ease of wheel removal. The Straggler frame & fork is also ED coated to help to improve the life of your frame. The Straggler fork is using the Long Haul Trucker dropouts, mid blade & crown eyelets to accommodate a wide verity of fenders and racks.  A complete build spec will be available on our website soonish.”

Throw some Bruce Gordon Rock n Road tires on that thing and rip away! Keep an eye on Surly for more updates.

TCB gets into the dirt for a quick ride in some of San Francisco’s trails.

My childhood winters and summers were spent on the Canadian border in Vermont. To this day, a majority of my dad’s side of the family lives in the Green Mountains and their foothills (Vermont actually translates to green mountain in French).

After a 17 hour drive yesterday, my mom, Lauren and I arrived at my aunt’s house. She lives on the top a hill that as we were driving up it last night, all I could think about was bombing down it and consequently riding back up on my Geekhouse Mudville.

This morning, like an excited kid on Christmas, I kitted up and headed down to the main road before turning around and climbing back up. My plan was to do it four times, but neighboring hunting dogs kept me from more than two intervals.

These country roads are amazing. Most of which are closed during the winter months and are straight out of an “epic” ride video. Even though I’ve only got two days up here in the mountains, I’m planning on sneaking a ride in tomorrow morning before heading to Burlington on Friday for the JDRF ride with my mom and brother.

Remarkably, I’ve got wifi in the middle of nowhere, so I’ll do my best to update the site as events warrant.

As a side-note: I’m really digging the RX100!

… and someone’s got a new Firefly. That thing better be getting muddy ASAP!