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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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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I’ve been enjoying Tony Fast’s Disposable series he’s been doing on his Tumblr and so when he was planning on coming back to Austin to hang out this month, I made sure he shot a few cameras for me. Don’t expect any epic freestyle or craziness. This was a good, chill time and at the same time, a great glimpse into how we cope with the Texas heat all summer. Ride, swim, eat, drink, repeat.

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Roll two from my last trip to SF was kinda all over the place. Terry from Full Frame Collective gave me a roll of expired HP5 and it ended up developing quite nicely. The photos enclosed in this gallery are as you’d expect from a weekend like RideNStyle. A lotta boozin’, late night cruizin’ and sightseeing. Enjoy.

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I really, honestly have very little recollection of this roll. Rather than deleting a bunch of photos, I’m putting them all up. Sorry Crihs. With everyone in town for RideNStyle, Chas decided to have a party at the Messenger Mansion. As expected, a ton of people showed up for the band and the booze but stayed for the shenanigans. This included drawing all over poor Jerome and throwing water balloons as we downed a bottle of Bookers.

As the night got out of hand, Chas relocated the party to Dolores where a highschool prom had apparently ended. The rest of the night was spent convincing girls in sequined dresses to fly down a metal slide on a skateboard. Yeah, blurry night.

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