The Radavist

Back in the early 2000’s, here in Austin, a guy named Whitney Moyer headed to a mecca of hopeful framebuilders in the US, UBI. Upon returning with all the experience needed to build frames, he was looking to commission a local project. This was that frame. Moyer’s first…

Ride Along: Leah Hollinsworth
Words and photos by Chris Lee

I first met Leah Hollinsworth a few years ago in Chicago, a couple days before the Stupor Bowl. I decided to meet her and a handful of other couriers in Chicago to ride the AmTrak to Minneapolis. What was supposed to be a 6-8 hour train ride turned into something like 14 hours because of winter blizzards and other mayhem that comes with obnoxious snow accumulation in the Midwest. Needless to say, I got to know Leah well during that train ride.

Fast forward to the first weekend of May, 2014: I just crossed over the border into Canada on my way to the 5th annual Mayday alleycat. Mayday is the biggest race that the Toronto courier community throws. It brings racers (courier or not) from all over Canada and even the United States. In addition and even more importantly, this race is a fundraiser for the Bike Messenger Emergency Fund, or BMEF for short. After the race and the parties were all said and done, I met up with Leah to talk a little about her involvement with the BMEF and the Mayday alleycat.

Today, without an iota of hesitation, I loaded up two mountain bikes, some snacks, my Fuji X-T1 and took Lauren to McKinney Falls State Park. On the agenda: girlfriend (ok, fiancé) shred. Lauren had never, ever been on a mountain bike before and was eager to do so. She’s actually the one who recommended we take advantage of the overcast afternoon and get out on the trails. Anytime she wants to ride, I’m down and all I had to do was dissuade her from the Greenbelt, with its super technical, rocky terrain.

Instead, McKinney is where we do our Friday afternoon cross hustle loop. The trails are still fairly rocky, but filled with fast descents and narrow singletrack. It’s picturesque and this time of year, filled with wildflowers, birds and other animals.

Even with the relative ease of these trails, I have to say, I was a little nervous. After a 10 mile loop, she was grinning ear to ear and finished the afternoon saying “this was way more fun than road riding!” We ended the morning collecting flowers…

Side note: I had accidentally switched my camera to JPG from RAW, so I lost all the whites in these photos, hence the black and white. Although, I caught it before this photo.

At this point in the MTB game, probably one of the greatest inventions in the past few years has been the narrow wide chainring. Sure, there was a patent from a century ago, that called out a similar design but at a much larger scale but it was SRAM who first applied that technology to the cycling industry.

Later, companies like Wolf Tooth and Race Face adopted the narrow wide ring design, making it applicable to a wider platform. Basically, any system can use this ring design and work.

“Fun” on Mt Pinos – 1.5 hours north of Los Angeles
Words and Photos by Sean Talkington

The term “Mountain Biker” is used to describe a person who rides a bicycle in the dirt.  This term, although correct is also very broad.  For example,  a RedBull drinking, flat bill hat-sporting, goggle-wearing downhill rider in futuristic board shorts has very little in common with a spandex toting, gram (and calorie) counting, leg shaving XC mountain biker.  I personally find myself (way) more on the side of the calorie counter but can still find pleasure in watching my friends get “sick” or “pitted” while I “walk” or “slowly walk” across big gaps and technical drops.

The word “fun” is often used to describe bike trails by all parties of mtb’er who ride them but this word “fun” is subjective. I have grown to find that some of the trails I find “fun” are often refereed to as “miserable” or “way too much climbing” or “hella boring” when you ask certain friends.  I have also found that these same friends call trails “super fun” that I find “super terrifying”.  We all have our favorite rides, routes, trails etc. but it is rare that you find trails that make the whole of mountain biking happy.

This is the bike that really put Ian from Icarus Frames on the map. Well, at least that’s what I think anyway. My reasoning? It was one of the first truly over-sized / shaped tubesets he fillet brazed and the Fresh Frame paint job was so loud at the time, that I don’t think anyone was coming close to hitting that mark. Seriously, what the hell is up with those chevrons?!

Anyone who hangs their cross bike on the wall when season ends is missing the point. A cyclocross bike is one of the most well-rounded rides you can own. I’ve said countless times before that my Geekhouse Mudville is my favorite bike I own. If only because I’ve made so many fond memories while riding it, in pain, covered in sweat, hating life, on a ride, not racing it.

For some reason, I never once thought to beef up my bike post-season. Well, I did, but I couldn’t fit my Bruce Gordon Rock and Road tires on it – the derailleur hanger clamp gets in the way. That was well over a year ago however.

Ok, the real reason why I never monster cross’d my cross bike is because there aren’t a whole lot of 40c cross tires on the market. In fact, just the other day I was planning on buying some of Surly’s 41c Knard tires when these 40c WTB Nano tires showed up in the mail.

As we continue our “Hot Boyz of Cycling” series – that’s what I’m calling it anyway – I caught up with “Dominican Crihs” in Los Angeles en route to a local unsanctioned cross race. Which he lost to Hern if I recall. His Legor is one of my favorite singlespeed cross bikes I’ve had the chance to photograph. Crihs is a good friend of mine and one who is always quick to call me out on whatever he so pleases, so I put him on a spot a bit.

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!

The Road to Mineral King and Kings Canyon
Words and photos by Ryan Wilson

A couple weeks ago I woke up at about 4:30am on a Saturday morning with no real idea where I was heading. I just knew that I packed up my gear the night before for a reason, and I was definitely heading for the mountains. I’ve done a number of Eastern Sierra trips the last few months, so I decided to switch it up a bit and head up the 5 from Los Angeles toward Sequoia and Kings Canyon, in the western range of the Sierra Nevada mountains.

I feel like I’ve known Tyler for years, even though that’s mostly because I’ve probably shipped a ton stickers, kits and shirts to him. We also have a few mutual friends in NYC and Austin, so there’s a lot of overlap.

Back when Tyler first moved to Austin, we went on a few cyclocross rides and I was impressed at his bike control. Riding cross bikes in Austin, on the trails, is treacherous but Nutter held his own. Last night, while testing out the Fuji X-T1, I interviewed Nutter for a Ride Along post. Check it out below!

Let’s see, where were we? Oh yeah. We left off with the Blackburn Rangers at the top of Granite Mountain – 7,000′ – in the Prescott National Forest. Camp was set up, we consumed calories, sat around a propane campfire and after we killed all the liquor, we settled in for the evening. The weather report called for a 60% chance of rain and temps in the low 40’s. All was well, right? Wrong…

We had a busy day ahead of us. One filled with supplying the Whiskey Off Road racers with bacon and high fives. The plan was to descend to around 4,000′ at a site right before the last climb of the day and before a stretch of technical 1-track. From there, we’d blast music and shove bacon down the gullet of any hungry racer. My job for the day was to document all the fun…

Check out the full day’s Reportage from the Whiskey Off Road race with Blackburn in the Gallery!

The Messenger’s Guide To New York City: The West Village and Midtown
Standby with Hiromi/Ghost stories and local comfort with Stoned Tone
Words and photos by Chris Lee

In the second installment of The Messenger’s Guide To New York City, I got a chance to have the man behind Boda Boda, Hiromi Bruni show me around. Hiromi was born and raised in the West Village and knows the neighborhood like the back of his hand. We payed respects to the remains of Gray’s Papaya, a hot dog joint that was a fixture in the neighborhood and got some desert at Rocco’s. We went by Dave’s Work Wear, the local’s only one stop shop for work wear. And finally chilled at his favorite midtown standby spots.