PROLLY IS NOT PROBABLY

Guest Gallery: Matt Lingo at the 2013 Ride + Style – FGFS

2013 Ride + Style FGFS photos by Matt Lingo

As far as I’m concerned, Ride + Style is the leading showcase for the top street racers and fixed freestyle riders. The days of grassroots comps are for the most part gone, leaving Ride + Style one of the few standing trick comps. It brings people from as far away as Japan to compete but most importantly, to keep the scene strong and connected.

This year, from what I can tell, people were more stoked to just fucking hang out than they were to win any award and to me, that’s the most important thing to take away from any competition. However, since it is a competition, there has to be a winner and this year’s Ride + Style FGFS champ is Matt Reyes.

Many thanks to Matt Lingo for pulling these photos together in such a timely manner. Keep on top of Matt’s work at RecFail and check out more photos from the 2013 Ride + Style track racers in the gallery.

Guest Gallery: Matt Lingo at the 2013 Ride + Style – Racers

2013 Ride + Style racer photos by Matt Lingo

Red Bull’s Ride + Style creates a unique stage for track bike and fixed gear riders to compete on a course designed to host a freestyle competition, as well as a high-paced one-on-one circuit race. Competitors have to do hot laps around the course, in designated brackets and often times at break neck speeds (luckily no one broke anything this year). When all the brackets wound down, one man was left standing. This year, the winner of the 2013 Ride + Style Track was Jason Clary.

Guest Gallery: Matt Lingo at the 2013 Ride + Style – Crowd Shots

As you can clearly tell, I wasn’t able to make it to the 2013 Red Bull Ride + Style this year, so I asked photographer Matt Lingo if he’d be interested in covering it for me. We’ll start off with his Guest Gallery of lifestyle and crowd shots, to set the stage as a record number of people took to the Justin Herman Plaza to watch everything go down…

Many thanks to Matt Lingo for pulling these photos together in such a timely manner. Keep on top of Matt’s work at RecFail!

Beautiful Bicycle: Jeff’s Factory 5 F550 Track

Last month’s tour was one of the best months of my life. China was, albeit a bit taxing at times, incredible and that’s all thanks to the crew at Factory 5. One of those dudes is Jeff and this is his no frills Factory 5 F550 track bike. Bare aluminum, black components and my favorite rims, this bike is clean!

I have to admit, it’s my favorite from the group and that’s mostly due to the utilitarian nature of the setup. Sometimes, there’s risers and a front brake, other times, compact drops. The gear range is spinny and as Jeff proved by smashing it up some serious climbs, he’s well equipped for anything…

Recent Roll: Bush Bash!

The word "epic" gets used a lot these days but this embodied it.

It’s the sort of tale that is the segue into a horror movie. A few mates take to the ‘Strayan wood to celebrate one of them turning forty years young. They don’t have a support car, one (ok two) of them has a camera and all hell breaks loose. Right? Well, not hardly. No hell broke loose, no hillbillies made us squeal like pigs and no thirty foot crock ate our tour guide.

In fact, we all made it out unscathed, including my film…

Tools of the trade:
Yashica T4
Fuji Neopan 400

Previously:
MelburnOut: Shifter Dan’s 40th Birthday Bush Bash Day 02
MelburnOut: Shifter Dan’s 40th Birthday Bush Bash Day 01

Recent Roll: Shifter Bikes

There's no secret, no short cut to craftsmanship.

It’s hard to be around Shifter Bikes and not want to document what Dan does each day. Over the years, he’s become not only a mechanic for many of his customers, but a consultant. There’s only one way to gain knowledge and that’s through experience, something few people have the time for. While many people have naive opinions, Dan has callouses…

Tools of the trade:
Leica M7
Leica Summicron f2 50mm / Zeiss f2.8 28mm
Fuji Neopan 400

Recent Roll: SxSW the Lost Roll

I’m even surprised I had the time to walk around SxSW for an afternoon but I did anyway. Something about the shitshow that descends upon this sleepy little town is very alluring for a person who likes shooting photos. The freaks mix in with the locals and the homeless cope with it the best way they know how. I lost one roll of exposed film somehow, so you’ll have to make due with these…

Tools of the trade:
Mamiya 7ii / f4 80mm
Kodak Portra 400

Recent Roll: Melbourne Commutes

It's funny how dodging trees and cars in the morning are just about the same.

Commuting, for most anyway, can be a fairly boring and mundane experience, even on a bike. But for those who grew old in the wood, taking the “long way” into work as important as a cup of coffee. My Melbourne mornings usually began slightly hungover, no coffee or breakfast (sorry, brekkie) and immediately hopping onto the bike to ride into the city with Dan from Shifter Bikes. We’d always end up in the same place, but we never took the same route. The Yarra Trails quickly became my new favorite locale in Melbourne.

Check out more narrated photos in the Gallery!

Tools of the trade:
Yashica T4
Fuji Neopan 400

Recent Roll: MelburnOut Randomness

When I’m in Melbourne, it’s always a pleasure to meet new people and see some incredible bikes. This go round, I walked almost everywhere with my Mamiya, shooting portraits and other bits of randomness. I finally got all my negatives scanned and they came out great. So let’s waste away the lazy Thursday afternoon with a full-loaded Gallery… Also, a lot of these are sitting in print form at Shifter Bikes, so if you’re in there, swing through a pick up your print.

Check out some narrated photos in the Gallery!

MelburnOut: Shifter Dan’s 40th Birthday Bush Bash Day 02

If I could let one photo sum up day 02, it would be this one. Look at the ferns!

The wood is a magical place. It turns fat bloggers into slightly less fat raconteurs. It clears your head, makes your chest pound, legs throb and palms sweat. You bond with your mates and let the beauty of nature envelop you. The first day of Shifter Dan’s 40th Birthday Bush Bash set the stage for the second…

After a much-needed 12-hours of sleeping, I awoke in my Courthouse Hotel bunk bed to the call of the Magpie and the ruckus of Cockatoos around 7am. We showered, packed and went over our bikes. Which, after the rutted, bumpy and dusty descent into Jamieson, were in disrepair. A little bit of lube and a quick tightening of the bolts and we were ready to take on the second day of Dan’s 40th Birthday Bush Bash.

The course this year was the reverse of last year. We left climbing over the Great Dividing Range and ended up on the very track that caused so many flats on the previous ride, but this time we were climbing up, rather than flying down. Our spirits were bright, our legs were loose and all we could do was soak in the sights and sounds of the bush.

We finished the day at 76 miles and over 14,500′ of elevation gain. There was only one thing, wait, a few things that I wanted after the ride: a bottle of ginger beer, a coffee and a pair of mushroom and steak pies!

Enclosed is the ride report for the first leg of this 19.33 MP/C* ride.

Check out a bunch of narrated photos in the Gallery!