The Radavist

There are bikes that epitomize performance and style, but few carry the brand clout of Moots. Sure, your dentist, or doctor might have one, but chances are, they didn’t spring for the Psychlo X RSL. This frame is arguably the best cross offering to come from the brand, with its 44mm head tube, PF30 BB, oversized tubing, shouldering-friendly – formed top tube and more than enough mud clearance at the stays. This ain’t your everyday Moots!

Ben’s a mechanic at Mellow Johnny’s, the local Moots dealer here in Austin. He picked up this frame for a song and built it up over a six month period of time, from used parts and new, with no immediate deadline in mind. A few weeks ago, it was ready to roll with a mix of Force / Red 22, ENVE and TRP Spyre mechanical disc brakes.

We rode out to one of our favorite “hot laps” singletrack spots in south Austin and shot photos of the bike sitting in a field of Blue Bonnets, the Texas state flower. With Nationals in Austin this year, Ben’s starting to train for cross the best way possible: shredding trails!

The girlfriend bike. Or in this case, the fiancé bike. It can be a tricky, slippery slope, especially when you’re kind of – ok really – obsessed with bicycles. When I bought this bike from Andy at FYXO last year, it came with a C-Record gruppo. Good for looking at, sucky for climbing hills – for Lauren anyway. We quickly found out that that 8-speed cassette didn’t have the gear range she needed to pedal up to Austin’s beautiful vistas…

This bike sat on my wall for about a year, collecting dust.

It’s no secret that cyclocross is closer to MTB racing than it is road racing. The degree of separation between the two sports is often blurred, especially when compared to XC racing. In short: you’ve got to have bike control to excel at the sport. Sure fitness is one thing, but learning how to ride is key and tied directly to that is your position on a bike.

Tim Johnson is an advocate of the MTB position on a cross bike and on Saturday, he ran a clinic with Bicycle Sport Shop in preparation for the 2015 Cyclocross Nationals here in Austin.

There were three groups that day: A, B and C – depending on rider skill level. From there, Tim, with the help of two others, Johnny and Pete, broke down the basics of cyclocross racing. I hung around for the most important part: riding position… Read on in the gallery for a break-down of what Tim taught the clinic about how to race their cross bikes and check out some bullet points below.

Tim Johnson is one of the key figures in US cyclocross racing. He’s sponsored by Redbull, Mavic and races for Cannondale p/b Cyclocrossworld.com. He is charismatic, funny and dedicated to cyclocross. Today Tim held a cross clinic in Austin, TX – while he was in town to discuss the 2015 Cyclocross Nationals in Austin – and to check out Moto GP.

After shooting some photos at the clinic, I stopped Tim for a quick chat about the 2015 Cyclocross Nationals in Austin. Check that out below!

Super Bowl Weekend. It’s an excuse for people to drink, eat and yell at the television while a bunch of men in spandex chase a ball around a field. Personally, it’s not my thing and luckily, not my friends’ thing either. So rather than spend the weekend indoors, myself, some friends and Beat the Clock Cycling decided to take advantage of the vacant Texas parks and plan a ride.

Well, I planned the ride. 100 miles, over half of it was dirt. I did one of the roads on the last Yonder Journal Brovet and I wanted to explore the area even more. We’d leave from Inks Lake and take a series of back-country, private roads and kick in Willow City’s popular loop before heading back to camp. Water? Food? None. We had to pack it all in. Most rode cross bikes or light tourers, with bags for food. There was maybe one stop along the way.

Because I had to drop Lauren off at the airport that Friday morning, I drove with two others. The rest either drove out that night after work or rode the 75 miles from Austin, fully loaded.

Since we wanted to convey only the chillest of riding paces and as a protest to the Super Bowl, most of us left the lycra at home. Giro was kind enough to supply some New Road apparel, shoes and helmets. I brought the bourbon. Spencer brought a dull hatchet and we were all stoked.

Did I mention cliff jumps in January? Yeah… Check out more photos in the Gallery, all shot with my Mamiya 7ii and Portra 400 / Kodak TMAX 400. Many thanks to Giro for supplying equipment for this ride!

At last weekend’s TXCX State Champs, John’s Seven Mudhoney cross immediately caught my eye as we were lining up for the 3’s. At first, I didn’t notice the wicked green flame-kissed front end, because the rear half of the bike had some sort of weird box-lined chevrons. Mudhoneys are usually pretty standard-issue. At least the ones I’ve seen, but this one’s got enough personality for all of them!

See more in the Gallery!

Things are finally starting to pick back up over here at PiNP. This weekend was the TXCX State Champs and in between shooting the races, I took a few quick photos of Spencer’s bitchin’ purple All City Nature Boy. People say I take a lot of photos of these bikes and it’s true. Why? Because they’re very common and yet, everyone adds their own sense of style to their builds.

Spencer’s has some limited edition PAUL purple touring cantis, a gold Chris King, Mash bar tape and even a Flag Hatchet sticker. I wanted to get some action shots of Spencer thrashing this thing in the 3’s, but missed out! Which explains the short-ish Gallery. At any rate, it’s a clean build (literally – no mud this weekend). See more in the Gallery!

Over the past year, I’ve had the pleasure of sampling the MTB industry’s best 29r’s on the market. All of which, I might add, are exceptional machines and with the right parts and group, can easily be tailored to your riding style and home terrain. While my Indy Fab rigid has proven to be more than fun on my local trails here in Austin, it’s still a rigid bike, limiting not only the lines you can take, but the speed at which you can take them. The latter being one thing I’ve found out the hard way: the faster you thrash, the harder you crash.

One might argue that riding a new bike on unfamiliar trails is a true test of the bike’s performance and the rider’s ability. While I’ll surely agree with that, seeing as how my experiences with many 29r’s have been on new trails, I will say that ripping your local trails on a new bike is the true test. Especially a more than capable ride like Santa Cruz’s Tallboy LTC. Add a Sram XX1 group and ENVE‘s tubeless-ready wheels and you’ve got more than enough reason to thrash fast.

At this point, I’ve spent enough time on a Tallboy to back my bold claims and even with this bike’s accumulated accolades since its inception, I don’t think anyone will disagree with me.

Check out more of my Trail Tested review of the Santa Cruz Tallboy LTC below!

Since moving to Austin, Ian from Icarus has been making custom steel frames for my friends. Many of which have requested an all-arounder of sorts from him. Ross already has a pretty deep stable of frames. A Richard Sachs cross, a Speedvagen road and now this Icarus light tourer.

I say light tourer because Ross is a bit of a camping weight weenie. Usually a bivy sack will do the trick on top of his titanium Tubus rack. For the front end, Ross chose a Wound Up fork for its fender mounts and tire clearance. He didn’t want ‘cross clearances’, just room for a 28c and fenders. Right now, he’s got it set up for a few weekend outings and just the other day, he put over 300 miles on it.

Other highlights are the split-paintjob chevrons, precisely finished by Bryan Myers at Fresh Frame and full Campagnolo gruppo. Personally, this is one of my favorite Icarus frames, mostly because it’s so tailored to Ross’ idiosyncratic tastes. Check out more below!

Last night brought the third and most fun edition of the Beat the Clock Cycling and Cycleast Urbocross race series. Why was it fun? It was a long course, on singletrack, doubletrack, hobo trails and taped sections through woodchips. Also, it had the gnarliest runup I’ve ever seen. This area of town is one of my favorite training grounds and last night, a couple dozen racers found out why. See for yourself in the Gallery!

This past weekend brought the first cross race of the season to Texas: the Bicycle Sport Shop Six Shooter. Since my first cross race at the end of last year’s season, I’ve been looking forward to this event all summer. I spend so much time on my cross bike during the off-season, that it’s only natural for me to push myself and it, to the test. After getting a good night’s sleep, I cleaned up the bike and headed out to the course to see what Austin had prepared for us.

Turns out, the BSS Six Shooter broke records this year. It was the biggest turn out to a cross race in Texas history. Now, I know that may not seem like a big deal to the Northwest or Northeastern United States but it was a huge turnout. My class had 80 racers register! It was a bit intimidating, but I just broke free like a demon and ended up winning. I guess ripping through the woods really is a great form of “training”. Since I was blasted the rest of the Saturday, I decided I’d shoot photos on Sunday and cheer on my friends.

There were thrills, hella funny spills (sorry Josh, I had to) and good times were had. Check out more in the Gallery!