The Radavist

The 2016 Cyclocross National Championships

Words by Amanda Schaper, photos by Jordan Clark Haggard

For cyclocross racers, the National Championships is our biggest and best party of the year. You travel to a new place and spend a week filled with amazing racing, lots of great people, and—of course—even a little debauchery. This is cyclocross after all.

This year’s event was hosted in Asheville, North Carolina, at the Biltmore Estate. This is a stunningly beautiful 8,000-acre property that has been family owned since 1895, and it features the largest privately owned house in the U.S. Seriously—it’s a 178,926 square foot mansion with absolutely incredible architecture. Riding through the Estate grounds reveals sprawling gardens, forested areas, creeks, waterfalls, a winery, intricate stone walls, and farm animals grazing through open fields. Everything about the Biltmore screams luxury, and it made for an amazing location to host the Cyclocross National Championships.

Over the years, I’ve developed a bit of a phobia for being social during celebrated holidays. It’s not an anti-social behavior because I enjoy the company of friends. It’s the waves of party-goers, long lines, and crowded parties that pushes me out to the vast landscapes. Since moving to Los Angeles, this has only been heightened. I cannot sit inside this plane of tarmac, so my go-to escape during said events has been the wilderness. This year, Halloween, Christmas, and New Years were spent car camping. You know that thing where you can bring a bunch of shit that you normally can’t tow during bicycle camping outings. Now, I know this is a cycling blog and I’m a cyclist but I’ve learned in my years of riding non-stop all year that time off the bike is great for both your mind, body, and chamois contact spot. Everyone needs a couple of days off, so why not spend them hiking, and enjoying the outdoors?

Los Angeles is warm and sunny all the time. Los Angeles is not warm and sunny all the time. Both statements are half-truths, the problem is one half can swing against your favor in an instant. That instant being when you head into the Angeles National Forest, chasing sunsets. Ted King is an east coaster. Granted, he’s raced all over the world but his home is the east coast. So when he made a trip out to California recently, he was surprised at how warm it was in the city. I warned him though, once we start climbing up into the mountains, it’ll be freezing. Guess what? It was cold. We were cold. Then the sun set and it was even colder. Luckily, warmth was just around that last bend coming back down Highway 2.

Enough environment… Our agenda was pretty clear and it should be obvious to you all: shoot photos of Ted to announce his new partnership with Velocio, an apparel company specializing in high-tech, race-fit apparel without super flashy graphics and gimmicks. You see, once you retire from professional cycling, you can’t just walk away from the sport. Ted loves to ride bikes and he wants to partner with like-minded companies who make products that he wants to use full-time. Assignments aside, I was just stoked to spend some time with Ted and show him some local rides. His bike was really dialed, his attitude, even more and don’t let Ted fool ya, he’s still fast as ever. Or maybe it was just my 30lb camera bag causing me to lag behind. Yeah, that’s it…

Velocio has an in-depth feature on Ted at their site, which you are more than welcomed to go read. In fact, you should because yes, while it is marketing, it’s true-to-form, real life Ted King. Head to Velocio to check it out and see more photos in the Gallery.

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Follow Ted on Instagram and follow Velocio on Instagram.

Titanium makes for a great off-road material. The tubing diameters are oftentimes larger than steel resulting in a ride quality that’s unprecedented. For Santa Barbara’s Stinner Frameworks, titanium was the next logical material to learn how to tig weld. Their shop now offers titanium road, touring, road and mountain bikes, with Matt’s being one of the recent beasts to be born.

Keeping the Tunnel 29’r frame raw, it’s offset by the razzle-painted Rock Shox Pike fork, Jones wheels, SRAM 1x drivetrain, internally-routed Reverb dropper and a Thomson cockpit.

Matt grew up riding MTBs in Topanga and Calabasas as a kid but hadn’t touched one in over 14 years. This bike will be the catalyst to get him back on the trails in Santa Barbara and hopefully he’ll be shredding with us when he comes home to Los Angeles over the holidays.

For those of you unfamiliar with Matt’s work, he’s the photographer for Stinner Frameworks and goes by the handle @HazardousTaste on Instagram. I highly suggest you give him a follow!

2015 was life-changing for not only myself but for the Radavist, its authors and content. For the most part, the year felt like a giant ping-pong game as various stories brought me and the contributors of this website all over the globe. Luckily, the first major story unfolded in Austin, Texas so no traveling was necessary! Check out the Radavist’s 2015 Year in Review below!

Colin, like many of us, uses his ‘cross bike for racing only a fraction of the total time he spends riding it. When he grew tired of riding and racing production bikes that never quite fit him or his preferred style of shredding, he decided to go custom and began looking into Stinner Frameworks.

Since moving to Montana from Austin, TX, he’s been spending a lot of time exploring the many mountain roads neighboring Bozeman. He wanted a ‘cross bike with a slightly altered geometry that would still be able to hold its own at races, yet be fun and zippy on fireroads or singletrack. While a standard ‘cross bike might fit the bill, Colin’s been riding for so long that he’d developed a few particularities. First, he wanted to race the bike as a singlespeed but didn’t want to go with a slider dropout. He also wanted thru-axles. The simple fix for this is an eccentric bottom bracket which would give him the right chain tension, easily. Then once the race season was over, he could put a 1x group on the bike and take off into the woods. He raced it for a season as a singlespeed and then upgraded to a new group.

The problem is, while switching a group over from an older bike, his rear brake line was too short and no one in town, nor the neighboring towns, nor the damn mail order companies had the damn part in stock. Keep in mind, this switch-out was happening the day before he was leaving Montana for a bikepacking trip down the Pacific Coast. Way to wait ’til the last minute dude! So now, he has a brake line that even as a photographer, was painful to photograph, much less ride behind or next to. I kept thinking the damn thing was going to rip off the caliper and spray me with hydro fluid, yet it’s still in place.

While it’s not an ideal photo, or an ideal brake line setup, the bike made it down the coast to Los Angeles just fine, where we’ve been riding local dirt. Yesterday, I shot some photos of it in the early morning light. Don’t worry, the part is en route to Colin shortly, after a lengthy delay from the Holidays…

Looking past the brake lining, we see Industry Nine hubs laced to an eBay Chinese carbon rim, with a Hope cassette expander, TRP’s thru-axle disc ‘cross fork, SRAM X9 derailleur, ENVE parts throughout, WTB Nano 40mm tires and that sweet, sweet Stinner steel. My favorite detail? The paint! I absolutely love what Stinner is doing in-house and it almost distracts even me from the brake line.

Almost…

Never does nature say one thing and wisdom another. The Angeles National Forest is a magical place, where ex-pro road cyclists learn to summon their inner powers of levitation by smoking pipes filled with sun scorched Poodle Dog Bush while drinking fermented Untapped Maple Syrup packs. Or something…

Ted King is technically still a pro, until January 1st but yesterday the two of us took off on a ride into the ANF. The last time Ted got to experience Highway 2 was in a peloton during the Amgen Tour of California, which as Ted so gracefully put it, was very, very painful. Luckily pain wasn’t on our agenda yesterday. Instead, we took a super casual pedal up to Mount Wilson and back down to Mount Disappointment.

NorthEast coasters should know better than to not bring gloves on a ride in the mountains, yet the sunny and warm temps on the streets of Echo Park fooled Ted into thinking it’d be warm, even around 6,000′ elevation. Bottom line, Ted was cold. I was cold. We were kinda cold.

While we took a break to bask at a warm and sunny switchback, I took the time to check out Ted’s new, yet temporary bike: the Cannondale SuperSix EVO Hi-Mod fit with Zipp 404s and SRAM’s new mountain magic eTap shifting system. Now, I didn’t see cables anywhere on those derailleurs, so I can only assume it’s more Poodle Dog Bush magic that makes it shift. Crazy huh? This bike just looks fast, sitting still. Yet, I know what you’re thinking: SLAM THAT STEM. Well, ya know what? When ex-pros leave the peloton, spacers magically appear under their stems, which also shrink in length, sometimes up to 3cm. I too was amazed at the transformation this bicycle seemed to go through. It’s like, life for Ted was about to get more fun.

There’s more to come here at some point, but for now enjoy some sleek, lightweight road bike photos with an epic backdrop straight out of a Lovecraft novella…

Nils, aka #PartyNils has been getting a lot of social media love these days and it’s easy to see why. When he’s not bringing a camp stove to LA River Camp Coffee, he’s racing ‘cross on his cargo bike or this Chumba Ursa 29+ rigid mountain bike.

The Ursa 29+ frames are a killer deal for anyone looking for a 29+ bikepacking rig or even a rigid MTB and Nils has his set up with all the creature comforts you’d expect from a guy who lives life on the bike with a smile.

A bent Brooks saddle with just the right amount of sag, solid platform pedals, comfy grips with a little extra twine on the side and a shellac’d chainstay to muffle any slap that might occur. If you see Nils partying away on this thing, give him a shout!

A few months back, Sean from Team Dream Team and Ringtail quickly realized he’d outgrown his home office in South Pasadena, prompting him to look for rental space in the neighborhood. Now, rent isn’t exactly cheap in South Pas. It’s a nice neighborhood with a lot of pedestrian traffic and that usually means high pricing. Well, that didn’t stop Sean. He already had a good idea of where to go…

Boogie woogie bugle boy. Boogie on your bicycle, boogie to the party. Ace Boogie gets around, man.

Ace is the Sleepers, a one man video production outfit in Los Angeles. You’ve surely seen his work on this site, right?

His Cannondale track has seen various permutations, as these things tend to do. The ones that are actually ridden, anyway. From drops to risers and now a super simple city bar, Ace’s bike has finally hit that sweet spot for cruising around Los Angeles. I’m pretty sure Kyle shot photos of it a few years back, yet I can’t dig anything up. Some notable notes: the off-center head badge, Phil Wood hubs, Sugino cranks, loved and weathered Flite with one of those damn hot Salsa stems.

Three Sisters Three Rivers
Photos and words by Gabe Tiller

This trip has been steeping in Limberlost’s coffer for quite some time. A lot of trips we’ve been and help create like the Oregon Outback were amazingly fun, but lacking the singletrack I crave. Last year’s Pushwacking the Idaho Hot Springs Mountain Bike Route re-kindled our interest in one of the first bikepacking adventures I had read accounts of: Scott Morris’s 2010 Oregon Three Rivers route.