The Radavist

Themed rides are quite popular. You know, where you dress in vintage clothing, on a vintage bike and the whole time you ‘gram with a brand new iPhone as photographers shoot away on the best DSLRs available. These rides take you, en masse around a town as on-lookers wonder what brought all these people to their streets. You ride for a little while, drink for a long while and head home, remove your garments and pack them away for the next ride.

The L’Eroica is not a themed ride in that sense, although many of those traits apply here. You must ride a vintage bike older than 1987. Your attire should be of similar age, as well as your shoes, gloves and other accessories but don’t be mistaken, this is no casual jaunt around the park. This is no leisurely stroll, only sated by a cold beer at a pub. The L’Eroica Britannia is a ride for cyclists.

The L’Eroica Britannia was born from its mother event, L’Eroica in Italy, a race where vintage rules everything and aside from the random cell phone in the palm of a rider, everything is period correct. Brooks England brought various media sources out to ride on their team and I was lucky enough to score a position.

Here in the UK, the event is in its first year and with a crowd of over 2,000 riders in attendance, they need a place to call home base. Located in the town of Bakewell, UK, riders have set up camping tents in the pleasant valley along the river.

Rolling hills and picturesque landscapes await, but until then, there is music, drinks and food to be had.

We began our morning with a cold-start descent from our cottages at the top of the hill range, down to town for a sausage sandwich, pudding and some coffee – at least that’s what they called it… From there, we rode out to Chatsworth to tour an old estate, showcasing art that was “procured” from around the world before ending back at the festival for late-afternoon food and drinks…

Today the 2014 L’Eroica Britannia awaits.

This morning, after no sleep and a long day of traveling, I landed at Heathrow with the sunrise. In fact, I’m pretty sure it was the sun, peeking through the neighbor’s window, hitting me in the face that kept me from getting an iota of sleep.

I hopped on the Express train and made my way to the hotel, before taking a stroll with the PEdAL ED team around the neighborhood.

Holding onto consciousness, in an almost sleepwalking state, we swung through a few shops, all of which I’d like to spend more time combing through the details and doing proper Shop Visits at, but in the interest of time, I’ll have to go with these random details.

Kinoko was amazing. One of the nicest shops I’ve been in and the Rapha Cycle Club was quite the experience… I’m here with Brooks England, for their Eroica event and our days are pretty packed, but I’ll do my best to document our journey.

A while back, I featured Andre, my new intern’s Stoemper Cross. Well, since then, he got in a wreck and folded the top tube in half. He was pretty bummed, as you might imagine, but luckily for him, a friend who used to work at Co-Motion had this magenta Lucifer frameset sitting in his garage since the 2005 Interbike when he bought it…

The 2014 Schwarzwald Giro – Kevin Sparrow
Photos and Words by Kevin Sparrow

Most of us got a good night sleep in our camper. The nights in Freiburg are chilly and it doesn’t start to warm up until the sun peeks over the tree line later in the morning. Everyone met at Biosk at 9:30, for a planned roll out at 10. It would have been nice to get a decent breakfast but Josh and I downed a bowl of cereal and I took a nutrition bar for a reserve. Others stuffed their jerseys full of snacks. We all knew we had a long day ahead of us…

When Austin, Texas based Fairdale first came onto the cycling market, it all began with the Skate Rack. Soon, ex-pro BMXr Taj Mihelich and his team at OTX began designing commuter bikes and other around-town / get outta-town rides.

From there, Fairdale grew and in my opinion, it wasn’t until the Weekender OG that the company reached its full potential. A 1×9 disc, townie bar cruiser quickly took over. Now just about every city has fleets of Weekenders rolling around, all built up differently, as per the customer’s specific needs. Even the production models have options now: a drop bar with disc and a canti version.

For 2014, Fairdale is set to release their most ambitious project yet: the Goodship road bike. A race-inspired geometry, paired with Fairdale sensibilities. Utilizing the Odyssey integrated head tube, scaled for a road bike, an ENVE road fork and a custom pulled Japanese Drawnright tubeset. This tubeset is custom butted, heat treated, custom shaped and tuned to Fairdale’s specifications.

The Road to the Schwarzwald Giro: Freiburg
Photos and Words by Kevin Sparrow

Freiburg is a quaint little town nestled on the edge of the Black Forest near the French/Swiss border. The city is rich in historic buildings and churches. The streets are covered in cobbles, train tracks and tiny canals on the sides of the streets. Bike lanes are everywhere, cyclists and tourists fill the streets for most of the day. The food is cheap the beers are tall…

June has been a crazy month for me. After months of searching, I finally came across an office space that was too good to pass up. The price was right, the location was right and it met my current needs with room for growth.

Since starting PiNP back in 2005/2006, I have always operated from home. In the almost ten years this website has been in operation, it’s seen a lot of growth, which has taken its toll on me in more ways than one. If you work from home, you’re well aware of what I mean. Having a separation from work and home is important.

For those of you who have visited me in my Austin home, you probably remember what a clusterfuck my office was. Boxes, tires, bikes, jerseys, caps, bottles, thrown everywhere, awaiting organization, or use. It was a stressful environment and I felt like I never got anything done.

I needed somewhere soothing to work from, that I could commute to and enjoy spending time post-processing photos, or having meetings, or just working on the day to day operations but one of the things I’m most stoked about with these new digs is having a place to display products that I’ve bought or accumulated over the years.

Finding furniture was a bit of a hurdle, but I got some great deals on some truly unique pieces.

With the Radavist HQ, I hope to create a space that represents my intent with the site. It’s getter there, but I’m liking how it’s all coming together. The next time you’re in Austin, hopefully I’m around and hopefully I’ll be able to open my doors, pour you a glass of bourbon and maybe even go for a ride…

Check out the progress in the Gallery.

The Road to the Schwarzwald Giro: Amsterdam
Photos and Words by Kevin Sparrow

The Schwarzwald Giro is a yearly ride in the Black forest of Germany. Phillipp of Europeantouches.cc invited me last year while I was living in Paris. It was such a great time I couldn’t miss the 2014 edition. I hopped on a flight to Amsterdam with the plan to drive to Frieburg with Sammy and Frank of Pristine Bike Shop.

Amsterdam is the bicycle mecca of the world. With 300 bike shops and 1.5 million inhabitants its no wonder why it’s the city of bikes. There is this beautiful buzz of freewheels in the air and the people are some of the friendliest I have ever encountered. They say the average resident of Amsterdam has 3 three bikes. One that kind of works, one locked up somewhere they forgot, and one in the bottom of the canal. I only had one day to explore this time and with my wife and daughter in tow we made the most of it.

My buddy Jon (@twotoneams) generously set us up with a bed and a bakfiets to explore the city for the day. So I loaded up my girls and headed out to get a taste of what this great city has to offer…

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Follow Kevin on Instagram and check out photos via #schwarzwaldgiro

Somewhere down the line, I developed a curse. Not unlike something a gypsy would bestow upon some unfortunate vagabond. My curse, however is related to cycling, specifically, any kind of ride or trip that involves camping…

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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