The Radavist

I would like you to close your eyes for a brief moment and imagine yourself sitting at home on a beautiful Summer evening and… oh wait, you can’t really read this with your eyes closed now can you. Let’s try this again. So, now that I have already wasted this much of your time, maybe just imagine (with your eyes open this time) that you get a call from someone asking if you would like to visit the Tour de France and ride your bike for a few weeks with “American Cyclocross Legend Tim Johnson” (he prefers to be called that to just plain old “Tim”.) Now imagine that while chasing the TdF you will also be traveling through the French countryside in a fully restored vintage Mavic Service Course Vehicle from 1974. Now please imagine that you have never been to the Tour de France but you have dreamed about it for years and now someone is offering you a Willy Wonka sized golden ticket in the form of an all expense paid trip. Mavic asked us to fly into France around the 8th Stage and create some videos for social media purposes. The goal was to ride with Go Pro Cameras and capture the energy of the tour to make 4-5 videos in a little over a week. That meant we would need a real life video editor, so I made a call to my buddy Ace Carretero and the trifecta was complete!

This time of year, as warm days are fading, timing is crucial for road trips. As Interbike approached, Mission Workshop / Acre had discussed doing a bit of a photo story with Golden Saddle Cyclery, myself and Sean from Team Dream, who would bring his 1970 VW bus along. We’d shoot instant film from the Impossible Project and document the journey.

Like all trips, things don’t adhere to any schedule, or plan, or route. We knew what we wanted to do and ensured we’d get in at least one ride – more on that later. Since the van was going into the Mission / Acre booth, we had to be in town this morning. After a few hiccups, we made it and most importantly, so did the van with all our stuff!

I’ll have photos from us shredding in the Sequoias shortly, but for now, let’s look at some end of summer car camping photos. Road tripping with three of your friends is the best.

All things considered, negotiating a bike as a piece of important luggage on a ‘vacation’ isn’t easy. The past few times we’ve gone to visit Lauren’s parents on Kaua’i, Hawaii, I’ve been so bummed to not have a bike with me.

Not that Kaua’i is a cycling destination, moreso because everything we’ve hiked here is totally bike friendly, aside from a few hike-a-bike moments up some mangrove forest or down a waterfall.

After taking two weeks off four our road trip, Lauren agreed to let me bring my cross bike. I argued that it’d offer me two or so hours a day of fitness, thus making me less restless during all the family time outings. Remember, Hawaii means ‘chill’ and sitting still is something I’ve programmed out of my daily repertoire. Must. Keep. Moving.

Look, I didn’t want day two to be more Portland photos. I know this city is awesome and I have a lot of rad friends here but come on. I need some nature. Alas, yesterday was our last day in PDX, before we head out of town, along the Nestucca River to the PCH.

It’s been 12 years since I owned a vehicle and I was quickly reminded at the cost of maintenance. New tires? Yeah, expensive. Funny how you can rationalize $80 tires for your bike, but $200 tires for a car or truck? Dammit!

After running some errands, I swung by to see my friends at Rapha North America to see their expanded offices and drink all their coffee before heading out to do much of the same – try to meet as many friends as I could before we headed out of town in the morning…

Vacations, holidays, or just plain breaks. We all need them and regardless to how fun you may think this job is, it’s a lot of work. Like, I’ve worked for 8 years in architecture and I thought that was a lot of work. No way. Traveling, shooting photos, maintaining this site, is all work and once a year, I like to take a break.

Granted, the very fact that I’m writing a post today, on the first day of our West Coast Best Coast trip, contradicts the notion of a true “holiday”, but hey, I can’t just leave the site alone for a week!

Lauren and I have been apart a lot this year, she’s been kicking ass in Myanmar doing design research and I’ve been jet-setting around the globe attending various events. So when we had a week or two open in our schedules, I planned a trip.

The general idea was fly into Portland, spend a few days there and then dip down to LA along the Pacific Coast Highway, aka PCH.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with this route, I rode it a few years back on my touring bike, albeit a bit later in the year. In August, it’s a haven for people in the US and around the world, leaving camp sites, hotels, everything booked out for months, making it difficult to plan anything.

Luckily, I’m not a big fan of plans and I have a pretty good idea of where to go, what to see and how long to spend in each place.

The only planning I did was our vehicle. I’ve been wanting either a mid 80’s – mid 90’s Toyota 4×4 4 cylinder pickup since moving to Texas and getting back into mountain biking. Trucks in Texas are crazy expensive and so I extended my search to the west coast, where I found a pretty good deal on a ’96 Tacoma.

It’s red, has a 3″ lift, camper shell and it needs a name. More on that later. Best news is, it runs and will be our vehicle for this trip and hopefully many others.

Yesterday, we did the tourist thing in Portland. Went to a few shops, met friends and took it easy.

It was a perfect day to begin our West Coast Best Coast trip!

Over the past few weeks, I hadn’t had much time to get out and shoot with the Hasselblad, so when we went to Hawaii to see Lauren’s parents for the Holidays, I made sure to bring it. Like the digital Gallery, there are no bikes here, just #naturvibes. Enjoy!

Today is our last day in Hawaii visiting Lauren’s family. Her parents have lived on Kaua’i for eight years and they aren’t lying when they say that they’ve done everything there is to do here. Truth be told, over these past two visits, I believe we can check most of it off the list as well.

This trip was very relaxing. We had no great plans, no itinerary and best of all, no expectations. I will say though, my last-minute decision to not bring my cross bike was a horrible idea. Turns out “it’s been raining all day” translates to a shower here and there, for five minutes. The next time we come here, I’m definitely bringing a bike!

I’ve compiled some photos from our ten days on Kaua’i. Don’t expect any bikes, just lots of #Naturevibes. The highlight was having access to the nesting Albatross… Enjoy the weekend!

I thought I lost this roll of film somewhere overseas but as I was cleaning my office, I found one last roll from Bali. So I dropped it off to get developed and viola, vacation vibes all over again. These are all completely random and the film crops are all off (gotta fix that setting on my scanner) but they’re all pretty good!

If you can’t tell, I’ve been relaxing in Portland with the lady. We’ve spent a great deal of time outside the city (isn’t that why people move here?) and it’s been great. This Recent Roll is dedicated to those #NatureVibes…

Click on the above photo to launch the gallery, or here to open in a new tab.

This past week has been insanity. I can’t even describe how much fun we all had. Without rubbing it in too much, I’ll do my best to hit the main points. We got put up in an amazing villa, at the top of a range, surrounding Bali. We rented scooters, Ryan and I got lost. Really lost. Like 35km outside of town lost. Then we spent our days, kicking around town and finally, we visited the Monkey Forest. Tyler got bit on the thumb, sending him to a clinic, while the rest of us perused the local shops.

Our last day was spent at Dreamland Beach, where I almost drowned (long story) and now, we’re back in Jakarta for a few hours before I leave to head back to the States.

This trip would not have been possible without Rocket Company and their hospitality. For that, I am truly grateful and I cannot thank them enough. While I’m flying, enjoy the Bali Randomness below…