The Radavist

Fluoro and functionality. That’s what caught my eye when I first saw Justin‘s Serotta T Max mountain bike. That and the big ol’ Columbus Max OR sticker (I have a crush on that tubeset). Justin took what many would consider an obsolete 26″ frame, added mustache bars to it, a rack with a Wald basket and flat pedals, resuscitating it back to daily use. Of course it still shreds dirt, but it also shreds to and from work. Now we gotta find you a front derailleur dude.

Bum tracks, fire roads, singletrack beware, this Serotta T Max is looking for lunch!

In Los Angeles, if you don’t have a cross bike, you’re fuckin’ up. Seriously. There are so many dirt roads and tracks to explore, all within the city limits that you’ll quickly realize your road bike or mountain bike’s limitations.

For Yanco, he wanted a frame from a California pedigree. He had put a deposit down with Hunter Cycles a while back, way before the second year of Mudfoot Stinners popped up. So when his spot in the Hunter queue finally came up, he contacted Geoff McFetridge and Aaron about setting him up with a Mudfoot-painted ENVE fork for his Hunter.

At first, no one was sure how it’d look, but after Rick posted a photo of the grey frame with blue logos, we all knew it’d look incredible. Matched with mango Chris King, some Paul skewers and a little sumpin’ sumpin’ locked into the downtube bottle bosses, this bike has some real style…

Then it fell over and I felt horrible! Sorry Yanco! Hopefully it’s not the last time this bike goes #RubberSideUp…

It might snow, there might be rain, the temperature is dropping tonight.

Still wanna ride? Of course. While the whole adoration of the inevitable clusterfuck or yard-shitting makes for interesting stories, sometimes just appreciating the spectacle that is mother nature’s mood swings merits documentation, regardless of how ethereal tales told on the internet tend to be.

Four hours. We had four hours to ride before the day’s responsibilities would set in for us. Kyle from Golden Saddle and Brian from Brian Vernor Making Blog (heh) wanted to ride Strawberry Peak in the Angeles National Forest. I’ve never been, but was promised picturesque San Gabriel shredding. While Strawberry Peak is strictly XC riding, there are plenty of places for unbalanced placement potentially resulting in catastrophe or consequence. I.e. exposure and lots of rocks.

The Samuel Hillborne is Rivendell’s self-proclaimed “Country Bike”, meaning while it’ll do just fine around town it’s best at home touring the countryside. Actually, that’s not true at all. Not that bikes need rules, or stigmas for that matter, but the Hillborne is one of the most beautiful bicycles to be included in the Rivendell lineup. A veritable “do it all” bike. Road rides? Sure. MTB singletrack? Yep. Touring? You bet. It’ll do all the above with an uncanny elegance.

So elegant that you really can’t photograph this bike in a cityscape. It needs the sunbleached, parched rolling landscape as a backdrop. Whether its Walnut Creek’s rolling hills, or in this case the terrain of Los Angeles where it currently resides.

As far as the build is concerned it’s very Riv-esque with shellac’d Nitto Albastache bars, Schwalbe Little Big Ben tires, Nitto M1 rack, the IRD quill stem shifter mount and a brand new Brooks saddle.

Built originally for a rider who later determined it was a bit too long for him (hence the short stem), this bike is now at Golden Saddle Cyclery in Silverlake, Los Angeles with a price tag of $2,200 as shown. If you ride a 58cm and want a killer deal on a like-new complete, holler at the shop. Otherwise, just ogle this Beautiful Bicycle in the Gallery.

Paul Sadoff has been getting a lot of love here on the Radavist as of late and surprisingly, a lot of the recent the bikes featured have been steel. These days, I feel like Paul is doing more aluminum frames, so when I catch sight of a steel road bike like Mat‘s 2010 Rock Lobster with Dura Ace and Chris King, in a bright blue I have to shoot photos of it.

Mat went with the pewter head badge upgrade, orange nipples, orange Salsa skewers and used his trusted Concor saddle for the finishing touches on what otherwise is a relatively straight forward build.

Steel road bikes will always have a place in this world and bikes like this are perfect examples of aesthetic balance and function.

The first ride on a custom bike is one of the best feelings in the world. At least to cyclists. Every pedal stroke, every turn, you form the beginnings of a new relationship with a machine that will hopefully one day take you to your dream landscape or roadscape.

For Sean from Team Dream Team, his Stinner hardtail has been in a shop since Sea Otter, getting everything dialed in for riding. When your dream bike is the poster child for a company like Mavic, sometimes it comes down to the wire and “the functioning build” is actually more of a “photoshoot-ready build.”

Anyway I’m in LA, stressed from being on the road, shooting photos and trying to maintain sanity but on Monday, I cracked. I needed to ride. I too have a new MTB and I wanted to shake it down some mountains and splash some sand across its powdercoat. Sean and I dipped out on responsibility, in a fuck-work kind of way and pedaled our way up to Brown, to hit one of my favorite descents in the area, El Prieto.

It happened to be at sunset and guess what? It’s LA, the weather was perfect. The dirt was dry, the poison oak was parched but on-trail adjustments were made resulting in a perfect shred sled sess…

Let’s play a quick word association game. Think about Los Angeles for a second. What comes to mind? Chances are if you haven’t spent much time there, or even if you have, you’ll quickly rattle off something along the lines of: traffic, congestion, Hollywood, smog, sprawl and road rage.

As the roughly 3.8 million residents move about the city’s crowded freeways in their cars, the ever-expanding population of cyclists take to both the urban streets as well as the surrounding hills and mountains. While LA is flat in some areas, it packs in its share of elevation. With Mount Lukens being the highest point within the City of Los Angeles at 5,074′, Mt Baldy breaks 10,000′ in LA County. Everything from sea level to around 9,000′ is accessible by bicycle. If you know where to look.

Southern California is a second home to me, for many reasons, the obvious of which being the excellent cycling and the people that live here. Life’s a bit easier when it’s always sunny and excellent riding is at your finger tips. Perhaps that’s why Ben from Argonaut has always liked the crew at Pedalers Fork in Calabasas. They’ve got world class roads and trails literally surrounding their unique restaurant, coffee and bike shop.

I can’t tell you how many times people attempt this business model, yet Pedalers Fork didn’t just attempt it, they nailed it. Excellent food, great coffee and high end bicycles. Pedalers Fork has created an environment that caters to the local cycling scene with group rides, fund raisers and parties. While their bike is small, they turn out many precision high end builds. Up until this point, they’ve sold only Moots. Not because of any exclusivity deal, but because they were looking for a carbon fiber match to the brand. That’s where Argonaut comes in.

A few weeks ago, Ben from Argonaut asked if I wanted to come out to Calabasas, ride bikes, eat great food and hang out with friends. All to celebrate this new union. Well, that and Ben would be giving a presentation of sorts about the brand to a few select people… and I’d shoot some photos.

We spent the morning riding bikes over the Santa Monica Mountains, with lunch at Pedalers Fork, an afternoon Putt n Pump track action at a secret location before attending a dinner, curated by Chris DiMinno of the Chris King Gourmet Century.

Rough day, huh?