The Radavist

Steel Wül is a club in Santa Cruz, founded by Jake Hess, a local fire chief. He started the club to give people a super chill platform to explore the many roads in the area. I got to ride with Jake during the Giro #SantaCruzEffect event and his Caletti steel road bike looked so damn good the whole time.

Some of my favorite details are the custom-painted Ritchey stem, his family’s names on the stem cap, his battalion number on the NDS top tube, Steel Wül branding and the paint. When we rolled out of the Giro offices, the morning light made the frame just pop.

Granted, it looked even better after descending down that gnar gnar gravel on Gazos Creek…

The Mudfoot Dirty Hundo
Words by Kyle Kelley / Photos by Kyle Kelley and Ace Carretero

Chris Skogen (the organizer of the Almanzo Gravel 100) once said, “If only 10 percent of the people racing Almanzo would organize and throw a grassroots race, we would have a race to go to every weekend of the year.” It was the spirit of that statement that originally sparked the idea for the Mudfoot Hump Hundred last year and brought it back again this year.

Nearly half of this year’s 90 mile ride, called the Dirty Hundo, took place on steep, loose and rocky service roads in the Angeles Forest. The route wasn’t entirely out of the ordinary in terms of SoCal dirt rides, but it was special nonetheless, with some of my favorite views in the area.

It’s the week leading up to Sea Otter and each year, Giro invites a group of media heads to come out to Santa Cruz, ride bikes, talk product and soak in the #SantaCruzEffect. That means it’ll be slow for the next few days while we’re out riding, exploring the local roads and sleeping in cabins.

After our intro ride this afternoon, I scooped up this special Rock Lobster for some very quick photos – I literally had a few minutes with this awesome machine. Eli is the lead visual designer at Giro and he’s got a thing for punk rock, prompting him to add a few custom logos to his Rock Lobster. Many of which you should recognize.

The thing I like about this bike is its no-nonsense build, the simple color palette with matching stem and one of a kind graphics. Those Rock Lobster logo treatments look so good!

Ever since I started following Ryan Wilson on Instagram, I knew he had an incredible eye for roadscapes. Landscapes are one thing, but roads speak to us as cyclists. We look at the bend, the bank and the angle differently than other travelers. Being able to capture those traits isn’t easy, especially while being completely overwhelmed in a place like the Sierras. I’ve never ridden there, yet suddenly I really want to, in the Summer of course…

In order for the Red Hook Crit to maintain its unofficial title of the gnarliest track bike criterium, it sometimes must rely on mother nature. This year’s race was a total wash. Literally. Rain poured all day and well into the women’s and men’s circuit, shortening both and creating a less-than-desirable mental mind fuck for the racers.

Even the photographers and crowds suffered.

Chris Lee has contributed multiple times to the Radavist and I couldn’t think of a better person to capture and document the eerie environment of the 2014 Red Hook Crit…

It says a lot when someone buys the two most important women in their life custom frames from one builder. Ian Sutton from Icarus Frames is a good friend of mine, so when I realized that my mom was in need of a new road bike, I called him up and got the ball rolling.

This is the third custom bike I’ve bought from Ian. The first being my Viking Track, then Lauren’s Porteur and now, this True Temper road bike for my mom.

The geometry is clearly road, but the drivetrain is geared more towards a cross bike. Up front, I chose Shimano‘s Ultegra cross crank, with a mid cage Ultegra rear mech and a 32t cassette in the back. This will help my mom get up steep hills with ease, while giving her the range she needs while riding coastal North Carolina roads.

Circle A nailed the paint, coating the frame and the ENVE fork in a bright “marine” blue.

Easton was kind enough to send along the bars, post, stem and even bar tape. I couldn’t be more thankful! For her wheels, I bought a set of the NAHBS display Chris King Alloy Ride wheels. Taking advantage of the trade show pricing, I also bought some King Cages.

When I dropped the parts off to Mellow Johnny’s I still needed a headset – NoThreadset in Sotte Voce black, a saddle – Fizik Vitesse- and tires – Continental Gran Prix 28c. In the end, it came out great. As shown, it weighs 17lbs on the head.

There is no greater feeling in this world than to see your mother happy, healthy and riding in style. Cycling has no doubt changed her life for the better and to me, this bike was worth the investment. She did her first century last summer and I’ll be pressing her to do another this summer!

Dan Chabanov is one of the first people I knew who transitioned from a cocky bike messenger to a less cocky, more mature professional bike racer. His perspective is unique, especially at the Red Hook Crit, because, you know, he won it a few times.

I reached out to Dan to lead into the Tales from the 2014 Red Hook Crit series here on the Radavist. Below you’ll find his report.

Red Hook Crit Observations from the Ground
Words and photos by Dan Chabanov

It’s amazing how much access you can get to an event when you know pretty much everyone putting it on and you’ve won it three times. Dave Trimble runs a really tight ship so I consider it a special privilege that he lets me get away with running around with my little point and shoot in places where I clearly shouldn’t be.

I have a love/hate relationship with the RHC. I love going and supporting all my friends who are racing. I love taking weird photos of them. I don’t really like having random strangers bugging me in the bathroom about why I’m not racing though. Honestly that question is getting pretty old. I imagine it’s like being a marathon runner who constantly gets questions about why he isn’t running the 1000m or something like that. Maybe that analogy makes no sense but I don’t really have a good answer to that question anyway. Bike racing is supposed to be fun and I’ve had more fun watching the last two years. So let’s just leave it at that.

In that time, this race has gotten pretty crazy, but this year with the downpour it was particularly intense. After a bad crash interrupted the women’s race there was a sense of dread ahead of the mens race. Dave and Al were crazy stressed out and worried. They couldn’t realistically cancel the race but at the same time I know they at least considered it. In the end the race was shortened to 15 laps and a couple hundred people stood out in the rain and cheered.

The RHC has changed a lot in the last four years. In 2010 I got made fun of for bringing a trainer to warm up on. Last Saturday three hundred people showed up with rollers. The field has also grown decisively more international. Thibaud Lhenry’s win on Saturday is the first in Brooklyn by a foreign rider. The field gets deeper every year and at this point I think it’s no longer possible to be successful at the RHC without being full on. For better or for worse this is no longer a race that can be won with a cavalier approach, some track bike experience, and a bunch of fitness.

Follow Dan on Instagram, Twitter and at his blog, Bonedeth.

Pass the Torch is a concept I’ve been thinking about for some time. Its intent is to allow frame builders to share stories from their workshops. Whether it’s technique, random thoughts, or even, as in this case, production procedures, Pass the Torch will (hopefully) be a great, well-rounded resource for builders and nerds alike (myself included).

The first person to contribute is Mitch Pryor from Map Bicycles. Mitch creates some of the most elegant randonneuring frames and he documents his process with apparent ease. It’s not easy for frame builders to take the time to photograph their work, so I appreciate the time and energy Mitch puts into doing so.

These 3D printed lugs caught my eye and prompted me to reach out to Mitch and ask a few questions. Read on below and in the Gallery captions, as Mitch discusses a recent development in lugwork for his Randonneur Project.

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Words and photos by Mitch Pryor

The laminate process is unique in that it allows a LOT of options in joinery and a more modern aesthetic than a casting, in my opinion. With the bi-lam, you not only get total flexibility of joining tubes of any size at any angle, but you get a very clean look with a traditional feel, and more personality than a straight fillet.

When I started doing the Rando Project, I was using lugs and building all those different sized bikes using the same castings was not ideal. Fit up has to be just right for everything to turn out spot on, and I wasn’t happy. It was a fight. Inspiration to try the bi-laminate approach came from looking at pictures of the French constructeurs tandems.

Here is where they had the same problem as me – no lugs would work. I made the switch to this approach in 2010 and have been doing it since. It’s a lot of work for style, so it costs, and that’s why I started working with Steelman on the S&P frames. It’s been working out great, but the urge to complete the look of a lug of my own design has been hard to resist.

That’s where Jono came in. Since I work primarily with physical things, it’s been hugely helpful to be able to model different design possibilities with Jono’s help. The 3D printed lugs you saw are what we arrived at over the past year of fooling around and tweaking the design. With the 3D samples we can actually miter tubes and set up the fixture as if these are actual lugs, to check angles, fit, and proportions.

3D printing makes it easy to dream, but reality is that tooling for the casting molds, and required minimums, make turning these laminates into investment castings very cost prohibitive to a company of my size. I’m planning to do the extra work of building with them as two laminates for now, fillet-brazing them together and then silver-brazing the frame, until I’m convinced there is enough reason to pursue a new casting.

Maybe a Kickstarter approach marketed to the framebuilder community to gauge interest. We’ll see.

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Follow Mitch’s work at the Map Bicycles Flickr.