The Radavist

Over the past few months, the Cub House has been host to a number of pop-up shops inside its San Marino space. There’s a 10’x10′ room which happens to make for a perfect space for brands to display their product. This round, Sean, Danny, and Carla reached out to Japan’s Sim Works to open a “Konbini ” – Japanese slang, shortened from convenience store – filled with Sim Works, their outdoor brand, RAL, as well as Japanese snacks and trinkets. In the Cub House fashion, the team decided to make a big deal about it, throwing a group ride, and pinging Mick from 100 Tacos to cater the event.

If you’re in the Los Angeles area, be sure to swing through the Cub House to see the Sim Works Konbini  Store!

The Cub House
2510 Mission St
San Marino, CA 91108

Loose Lobster At The Landing: A Pre-NAHBS Tour Of Nutmeg Country
Photos By Renaldo, words by ‘Cobra Bones’ Sinkford

The show coming to the east coast for the first time meant all eyes are on Connecticut, and who could provide the ultimate pre-NAHBS experience with home court advantage than the mayor of Lobster Landing himself? I was told Nutmeg Country was a place of peace. A place of pizza, and pancake flat roads soft to the touch and pleasing to the eye. Two of those things are true.

Over the holidays the modern and progressive geometry of the #ultranutmegger was designed. Sklar would build a nutmeg themed dream bike for NAHBS, as custom as desired. That was a rabbit hole he should have never walked down. Seriously. One bike became two, because I was not going to be left out of the party. Truss forks and custom racks haunted young Adam’s dreams as the parts started to roll in, literally like Christmas.

Over the past week, nature flipped a switch. Suddenly, like migrating birds, the 100º weather had flown to the southern hemisphere, leaving behind clouds, cooler temperatures and even traces of precipitation. Basically, the perfect ingredients for successful dirt bike rides. All summer, I’d stuck to shorter, partially shaded rides, or banked on getting in my mileage before the heat of the day and now I felt comfortable taking off up my favorite dirt climbs.

No matter where you are in Los Angeles, the snow-capped, towering mountain loom overhead. It’s rare that we get this much rain in such a short amount of time here in Southern California and at the higher elevations, that translates to snow. Over the past few days, there’s been snow and ice as low as 1,800′ in the Angeles National Forest, yet with the warmer weekend temperatures arriving, we weren’t sure just how much we’d encounter once we reached the 5,000′ mark.

On Saturday, Cari and I drove up Highway 2 into the Angeles National Forest, parked the car and began riding a loop I’ve wanted to take her on for a while now: we’d climb Mt. Disappointment and cut through to Mt. Lowe via an unmarked trail, resulting in a short, but scenic ride. As we pedaled up the mountain, on the icy road and through all the people building snowmen and taking selfies, it was apparent even with the warm temperatures, the north-facing sections of road would be entirely frozen. The theme for the day was “go slow, and avoid sliding out” on the black ice and slick roadside.

The views did not disappoint, nor did the riding conditions. That’s the beauty about the wilderness here, you’re only a short jaunt back to civilization…

Hold up! Before the internet police turn on their sirens, technically, this post is about riding bikes in the town of Joshua Tree, not the National Park. We don’t condone breaking National Park rules and regulations. With that said…

We’ve already stated the obvious here on the site multiple times: the desert is best explored in the cooler months and in Los Angeles, with the Mojave just over our mountains, we hear its call all too frequently, especially when guests come to town. This past week we’ve been playing host to Jeff Frane from Bike Jerks and All-City Cycles. Jeff wanted to be here in LA for the new Mr. Pink launch and more importantly, he wanted to go to a National Park with us to explore, camp and partake in the rituals that go along with desert camping.

An entire gallery of just a single climb? Why not. When I first saw photos of Jacob’s Ladder, many years ago, it solidified my desire to ride bikes in Tasmania. There’s something about a series of switchbacks or hairpins cascading their way down a mountain pass that is not only incredibly photogenic but a very satisfying feeling to tackle on the bike. With each corner resulting in a feeling of accomplishment, the climb always feels a bit shorter.

The Ben Lomond National Park attracts all kinds of tourists, but I’d argue cyclists might appreciate the final approach a bit more than any motorists… Enjoy! No matter which way you ride it, Jacob’s Ladder is an out and back.

Many, many, many thanks to Tourism Northern Tasmania for funding this jaunt, Scott for being a model and Rob for providing the shuttle from Derby to Ben Lomond. Also, thank whatever kept me from falling 100′ to my death while I was scaling up the rock faces to find a new vista…

From Clouds to Cacti: Three Southern California Ranges in Three Days
Photos by John Watson, words by David Bangor with notes by John Watson

Intro: I’ll just jump into this before I let David do his thing. The idea of a multi-day road tour hasn’t popped into my head in years. These days, I want to be away from cars and people, on dirt roads, hauling my own shit. What was proposed to us with this ride was very different. We’d be taking on a lot of climbing and distance each day on road bikes but because we’d be in the mountains, we’d have to carry our food, clothing in case of inclement weather, and all necessities like tools or spare tubes. Our duffel bags, containing clothes, laptops and other on-the-road necessities would be shuttled from day’s end to day’s end. We’d stay at a hotel, a friend’s mountain top cabin, and ultimately in Palm Springs at our friend’s Air B&B listing for a few days of post-ride R and R. I have been riding road a lot lately, mostly because it’s easy to get out and get back in a few hours, but was I ready for this kind of ride? Much less, was I fit enough to document the whole damn thing with a camera and a few lenses? Check back in after David’s words and read on in the captions…

Ever since I moved back to Southern California, I have been scheming to take on a mini mountainous ride across all the Transverse Ranges of the glorious classical terrain encompassing the Los Angeles and Inland Empire basins. With all my maps and possible routes planned out, it was just a matter time until I found some like-minded people to take on such a journey. Finally, at the end of September I got a call from Sean Talkington from Team Dream, expressing a need for the exact route I had been planning out in my head for months. He put out the word and we soon had rough plan of three days in the saddle and a solid group of eight cyclists, all willing to take on a solid amount of elevation and miles.