The Radavist

A century in Texas can be boring as hell if you don’t plan accordingly. It’s easy to get stuck alongside a busy highway for miles on end if you’re not careful selecting your routes. When I wanted to put in a hundred or so miles a few weeks back, I had a general idea of where I wanted to go: Pedernales, Johnson City and past Hamilton Pool. Most of the roads were desolate, with minimal vehicular traffic and climbing over the hill ranges provided some excellent descents into the river valleys.

One of my favorite routes is the switchback over the river right outside of Hamilton Pool. It’s this really sharp right, over a worn-down bridge and then a steep, switchback up, landing you at the base of one of the few Cat 3 climbs in the Austin area. Four of us went out in high spirits and under the cloudy skies, we had a blast. Until the sun came out and scorched us all. This Recent Roll is dedicated to fun with friends. We totalled 110 miles and about 5,500′ with an 18mph average. Not bad.

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When Andy from Fyxomatosis and I both decided to carry our cameras on a ride in the Australian bush, we thought we’d mix it up a bit with a “dueling banjos” photoset exchange. In other words, he’d post my photos and I’d post his, while we each told our side of the story (in two posts, here and here). It worked quite well but to showcase all of my photos, I’ve decided to re-up them, just in time for the weekend. This was the most intense ride I’ve ever been on. Two days, over 220 miles and over 20,000′ of climbing on both sealed and rocky terrain. All self-supported and on cross bikes. Bugga!

Look, I don’t care where you live, going on rides like this can happen (almost) anywhere. Granted, you might not find a Lace Monitor lizard dead in the road, 200 miles outside of your town…

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Brian Vernor has been asking me to come to Santa Cruz for over a year now, so when we rolled through his home town for the #ATOC, we hit him up. Initially we just wanted to grab a beer and a burger but then he muttered a word that piqued our interests: RIDE. How can you pass up a ride? Even with just an hour left of sunlight, Brian took Simon, Jeremy and me on a kick-ass ride in Santa Cruz. A lil bit of climbing, a lil bit of gravel and a lotta fun. Followed by a drink and a burger, naturally.

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My absolute favorite day of the #ATOC was the Mt. Baldy stage. We woke up, rode to the first KOM and hung out all afternoon in the blazing sun. After shouting and being utter jackasses all day, we took off down the descent. What a day!

While I was shooting on the top of the Rapha Mobile Cycle Club, I passed my T4 off to Jeremy Dunn, who assisted in the KOM shots. Thanks to Jeremy for getting some of the action and thanks to everyone who made that day so rad.

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If there’s one thing I’ve learned to cope with over the years, it’s the inevitable hungover road ride. You’re up drinking the night before and chances are, you’ve only had a few hours sleep. What I wasn’t expecting however, during our recent stay in Bakersfield during the ATOC, was to roll out of bed without coffee or breakfast, only to be hammering in a 20+ mph paceline for 10 miles. We stayed with Gareth Feldstein, a local racer, who promised an early morning ride through the oil fields and hills.

The temperature in Bakersfield, much like Austin, requires you to get out on the road bright and early to beat the upper 90’s. We did just that. At 5:30am we rolled out and reeled in 60 miles, around 3,800′ of elevation with an 18mph average. Oh and I ran over a squirrel…

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Excuse the lack of updates today, I’m slowly recovering from a week of madness in SF. These few stragglers were left on a roll of Neopan 400 during the Colorado Bend State Park ride we went on last month. Black and white really captures the looming skies and textures of the ride. I’m digging these!

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