PROLLY IS NOT PROBABLY

Recent Roll: I’ve Never Taken This Trail

“Yeah, I’ve got a route planned, but we might dip off and take this one trail”. No matter how organized you try to make a friendly, chill ride, sometimes the best thing you can do is take that trail. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes you end up walking a hobo path over a twelve foot drop onto limestone but more often than not, you can make due.

Most of the trails here in Austin are very cross-bike friendly. Some are not, but we avoid those for the most part. People say, “get a MTB”, but they’re also the ones driving their cars to do a piece of 5 mile singletrack. You don’t want to ride a MTB out 15 miles on the road, then up a 18% sealed climb before you bomb down a scenic descent. But a cross bike…

When Kyle was in town, I pulled together a little ride with some friends. We spent about 40% of the time on sealed road and 50% on gravel, singletrack or dirt. That missing 10% was on this one “oh shit” hiking trail we poached on a piece of government land. We made it out alive, save for Chris flipping over his bars and one flat tire. John even rode a stock Nature Boy up some very steep faces. It was impressive.

Beers were had and stories were made. Bottom line is, we had a fucking blast and all lived to tell the tale / Instagram it but no Strava for this route. I wanna keep some of it a secret. We ended up doing +/- 40 miles and about 3,500′.

Recent Roll: Ross’ Nagasawa

Ross35mm

I really love the Leica M7 and the Elmarit 90mm f2.8 is a great portrait lens. When I shot the digital photoset of Ross’ Nagasawa, I also got a few with the Leica. One noticeable difference between film and digital is the highlight detail you can get from film that just ends up getting lost in digital.

Check them out at my Flickr.

Recent Roll: Naturesaurus Rex

It’s easy to come to Austin and just want to ride all day and a lot of the parks and sites are about 100 miles outside of town. Rather than ride out to them, Kyle and I just drove out to Enchanted Rock and Hamilton Pool. In doing so, we got to spend a lot of time at each. They’re beautiful parks and should not be missed if you ever find yourself in Austin. Oh and don’t miss the Knot in the Loop Saloon, in Willow City either.

This Recent Roll was shot with a Leica M7 / Zeiss 28mm f2.8 T* ZM and Acros 100 / Pro 400H.

Recent Roll: Choose Your Route Wisely

26550032

How good is this? I had to take a photo of this when I saw it a few weeks ago at the Liberty.

Recent Roll: Crossin’ Town

While I try to ride everyday, it’s usually impossible. Believe it or not, it’s a lot of work to run this site but that’s why I’ve gotten in the habit of looking at riding as “coffee rides”. I usually kit up, hop on the cross bike and kick around on the local trails and roads, inevitably ending up at the best coffee bar in town, Frank for an Americano. The rides are never more than 20 miles or so and take about an hour and a half. Something even the busiest blogger can find time for.

When Kyle came to town last week (I already miss that little shit!), I took him on a coffee ride. We cross’d town and had a freaking blast, stopping at every jib spot we could find along the way until we got to the Hill of Life and the Greenbelt. Once there, we encountered a few falls, some sketchy, techy lines and a helmet-stealing dog. It was a lot of fun.

Recent Roll: We Ride Past This…

26540014

… just about every day on our road bikes and let me tell you, it’s a blast to fly down on a cross bike.

I Hope Your Weekend Was Rad

Roads

Sorry for the lack of updates this weekend. Tracko’s been in town and all we’ve been doing is riding and partying. Hey, it was the weekend, right? He heads back to Cali tomorrow and regular posting will commence.

In the meanwhile, I hope you had a great weekend.

Recent Roll: The 128

This is by no means a recent photograph. It’s from a ride I did in California with the Giro New Road team. Highway 128 snakes its way through the Navarro River Redwoods State Park and when the road aligns with the setting sun, you get these great slivers of light coming through the trees.

It’s been too long since I’ve been in California. After two months, I’m jonesin’.

Recent Roll: The Son of Daedalus Redux

RecentRoll012013_120-12

Two years ago, I visited Ian Sutton of Icarus Frames at his workshop in Boston and shot some photos. I ended up naming the post “The Son of Daedalus” after the Greek tale. For those unfamiliar, Daedalus was a great inventor and he had two sons, Icarus and Iapyx. Icarus and Daedalus wanted to fly like the birds, so they fashioned wings of wax, string and feathers.

Before pushing his son into flight off a cliff, Daedalus warned Icarus not to fly too close to the sun. Icarus ignored his father and fell to his death. It’s a very morbid tale but Ian found it suitable as a name. Even before he had a name for his small framebuilding company, he used to attach feathers to his bikes, which later became his head badge.

I’ve been wanting to shoot more photos of Ian working in his small shop here in Austin so I took my Hasselblad, the 50mm CF T* lens, a tripod and some Ilford Delta 3200 over to do just that. The grainy, low light photos capture his shop environment quite well. As he worked away, sanding and filing on a new road bike, I tried my best not to get in his way. His shop is small but utilized efficiently as his tools and frames occupy every inch. I felt like the standard approach would be to try and bring more light into the film, but the dark exposures turned out perfect.

There will be a lot of Icarus on the blog in the forthcoming months, with Lauren’s bike on the way, my MAX fork, Ross’ light tourer and Chris’ road, pictured here.

See more below.