The Radavist

Up Nort’ With Angry Catfish
Words and Photos by Kyle Kelley

Every year QBP invites people from all over the world to visit Minnesota during the coldest part of winter for Frostbike. Why they chose this time of year I don’t know but I’ve gone twice and wouldn’t trade it for any other bicycle industry event or convention. The people at QBP, and everyone else I’ve met in Minneapolis for that matter, are exactly the kind of people you wanna be hanging out with when it’s below freezing. They want to keep you warm and comfortable and a bit liquored up and I am A-OK with that.

When I found out I was heading to Frostbike again this year, I put the feelers out to see if anyone wanted to do any partying after the event and Josh from Angry Catfish was the first to respond. All he told me was to bring warm stuff and he’d take care of the rest. So, the Monday after Frostbike Josh picked me up and we headed Up Nort’ to the Angry Cabin with Thomas and Parker, also from Angry Catfish. I made a quick assessment of the supplies packed in the truck and all I could see was loads of beer, tons of cured meat, a comically large flask full of Booker’s and four fat bikes!

Let’s play a quick word association game. Think about Los Angeles for a second. What comes to mind? Chances are if you haven’t spent much time there, or even if you have, you’ll quickly rattle off something along the lines of: traffic, congestion, Hollywood, smog, sprawl and road rage.

As the roughly 3.8 million residents move about the city’s crowded freeways in their cars, the ever-expanding population of cyclists take to both the urban streets as well as the surrounding hills and mountains. While LA is flat in some areas, it packs in its share of elevation. With Mount Lukens being the highest point within the City of Los Angeles at 5,074′, Mt Baldy breaks 10,000′ in LA County. Everything from sea level to around 9,000′ is accessible by bicycle. If you know where to look.

Southern California is a second home to me, for many reasons, the obvious of which being the excellent cycling and the people that live here. Life’s a bit easier when it’s always sunny and excellent riding is at your finger tips. Perhaps that’s why Ben from Argonaut has always liked the crew at Pedalers Fork in Calabasas. They’ve got world class roads and trails literally surrounding their unique restaurant, coffee and bike shop.

I can’t tell you how many times people attempt this business model, yet Pedalers Fork didn’t just attempt it, they nailed it. Excellent food, great coffee and high end bicycles. Pedalers Fork has created an environment that caters to the local cycling scene with group rides, fund raisers and parties. While their bike is small, they turn out many precision high end builds. Up until this point, they’ve sold only Moots. Not because of any exclusivity deal, but because they were looking for a carbon fiber match to the brand. That’s where Argonaut comes in.

A few weeks ago, Ben from Argonaut asked if I wanted to come out to Calabasas, ride bikes, eat great food and hang out with friends. All to celebrate this new union. Well, that and Ben would be giving a presentation of sorts about the brand to a few select people… and I’d shoot some photos.

We spent the morning riding bikes over the Santa Monica Mountains, with lunch at Pedalers Fork, an afternoon Putt n Pump track action at a secret location before attending a dinner, curated by Chris DiMinno of the Chris King Gourmet Century.

Rough day, huh?

Waking up to unfamiliar sounds, namely from animals, is highly underrated. Like an alarm clock going off full tilt, your brain processes new audio notes with a different intensity. Maybe that’s why I sprung from my bunk in our hut at 6am that morning. Scratching my head, semisomna, asking myself “what the hell was that?”

We’re too far south for it to be a Bunyip – the Australian Yeti – and too high in elevation for it to be a chicken. There it is again, now multiple times, surrounding the cabin. I grabbed my coffee kit and headed out to the porch to see what the commotion was all about. Immediately, I began to witness these wingless birds chasing each other around, making this unique call.

The Weka had welcomed us to the Old Ghost Road. A flightless bird, a bit bigger than a kiwi, diurnal, and very vocal. At a certain point, the need for coffee and a few sunrise photos overtook the interestingness of a damn bird.

Pardon the brief nature geek moment, we’re here to talk about bikes.

Europe is blessed with ripping trails, from the seas to the tops of the alps. Many of these trails began as footpaths, or cattle trails, or even military roads, traversing mountains, connecting towns or other trade routes. New Zealand, however, had very little need for such intricate trail networking. Being an island, it was easier to go around the mountains, than over them, even in colonial times.

However, if anything can motivate man, it’s gold.

Which is why and how some of the first mountain trails were made in this country. The path we rode on the Stigmata the day before, the Charming Creek Trail, was the beginning of a network of mining rail lines, which stopped just before our home base for the remainder of the trip, the Rough and Tumble Bush Lodge.

Eroica translates to the heroic in Italian and perhaps that was the intention when the Eroica California team designed the course for the forthcoming event in April. While the original event was born in the Italian countryside, on pristine strada bianche, the California event takes to the hills and mountains separating wine country from the beautiful coastline…

The Long Road to Titus Canyon
Photos and words by Ryan Wilson

It started for me two years ago when I made my first trip to Death Valley National Park. I was rolling along the road to Ubehebe Crater when I passed a little dirt road named “Titus Canyon” that gradually sloped out of the valley floor until hitting a seemingly impassable rock wall a few miles in the distance. No signs of the road switching back and climbing over it… just abruptly ending.

Fast forward to a year later, I had done a bit of research and found that the road does in fact go through the range and over the Nevada border. It’s a 25 mile stretch of dirt that is a one-way road from the Nevada side into California. Plans were set, and I was going to give it a shot. Only hitch was that I wanted to climb it rather than descend it (on a road bike), so I would be heading up going the “wrong” direction, then looping around over a paved pass back into Death Valley…

Wet and Wild On Mt Lowe
Photos and words by Sean Talkington

There is indeed a stigma attached to Southern California’s weather.  Outsiders envision year round palm trees, 80’s style picturesque sunsets, flip-flop sandles, tank tops and oceans of suntan oil being slathered on daily.  For the most part that assumption is absolutely true.  We have it pretty good!  So good in fact that this place will make you soft.  Send me your toughest east coast transplant wearing his/her shorts in negative degree weather and put them in a LA’s treacherous “low 50’s” for a few years and I’ll send that person back to you in some Ugg Boots, “Juicy” sweatpants, Dior sunglasses, a fashionable parka and a tiny chihuahua that fits in a purse…because that’s how we do in this city!

The Freezing Festive 500 in Sweden
Words and photos by Johan Björklund and Even Skår

If you live in Sweden and don’t want to spend a third of the year on a turbo trainer or in spinning classes you have to ride in the freezing cold. There’s no way around it. The last two years I did the 500 kilometers that are required to finish the Rapha Festive 500 between December 24-31 pretty much riding solo. This year I was happy to have a lot more company and I would say that we had some of the most memorable rides of all year over this week.

There are three rough categories of winter riding in these parts of Sweden:
1) Icy rain. Storm winds. Black ice.
2) Piles of snow. Cold as fuck. Super crispy sunshine.
3) Slush puppies. Damp all day fog. Eternal darkness.

For this Festive 500 we got to experience all of them on different days and while there’s at least one terrible factor to each condition I love them all for what they have to offer. With the risk of sounding like a show off these winter rides are some of my favorite riding of the whole year. It’s so much more than just base miles to me.

While you browse through the photos, think of that special mixed feeling of stoke and insanity when you descend a pretty much deserted rough gravel road in the middle of nowhere way too fast. Plus it’s thickly covered with fresh snow and when you look down at your front wheel all you can see when the snow is pushed away is a layer of black ice. Cue endorphins.

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Follow Even on Instagram, Johan on Instagram and at his Tumblr.