the best ones
I shot six thousand three hundred and ninety photos of dead ends while working on the LA project raising money for @labikeacademy. A LOT of them were boring copy paste repeats as most city sprawl ends up being, even in a city as varied as Los Angeles. Over the next SIX YEARS they will all be going up on @everydeadendproject (three per day, 9am noon and 3pm) but I’ve tried my best to narrow down some favorites. Some are simply very good lighting, others are lucky captures of small moments, but overall I hope these help illustrate a bit of what you can find if you ramble around your neighborhood a lil bit and poke around in places you normally wouldn’t.
can't stop won't stop
I’ve always tried my best to keep riding a bike from ever feeling like a job but this is the first time in years that I’d wake up and pull a “ughhh time to go to work...” before I get out of bed. The incredible support that y’all have thrown into this thing for @labikeacademy has done wonders, knowing that despite the insane capitalist world we live in I somehow managed to turn my DUMB way of riding a DUMB bike into a not-really-a-day-job that actually helps others. It feels impossible to go back to my life of career and house and stuff and XYZ whatever else I used to value. All I know to do now is this: keep riding bikes, keep helping people help people, and no matter what keep going.
paint isn't protection
Taken somewhere during @russetpeach and my tour down the west coast, never was there a better illustration of what it’s like to exist in 🇺🇸 outside of a 🚗. Yeah we’ll take a painted bike lane as wide as y’all are willing to give us but it doesn’t mean a goddamn when everyone is still rushing around in multi ton machines that can do zero to sixty in less time that it takes me to reach for my bidon.
SLOW
The blessing and curse of becoming friends with so many incredible bag makers over the last few years combined with my VIBES based desires for the aesthetics of my @omnium means that it’s been nearly impossible to conjure up the final piece of this chaotic puzzle…until this lucky @ride_finds construction sign appeared and I reached out to @southcitystitchworks to make the magic happen.
It’s tough to imagine a more perfectly crafted bag, both in the literal way that it fits the bike and my loadout within as well as my ethos of making treasure out of trash. The details are utterly delightful from how Zach utilized the little SLOW labels for the zipper keepers to the impossible to imitate drippy tags (goddamn I love graffiti) and the way it’s not quite a full frame bag leaving enough room for my favorite sticker. There’s been so many incremental changes to this bike over the last 50,000 miles, but after this it’s feeling close to the final form.
I’m getting a little misty eyed writing this thinking about where it’s been, where I’ve yet to go, and how much I smile every time I catch an accidental glimpse of it reflected in a window or the rare times I lock it up like DAMN this is a GOOD LOOKIN BIKE. Thank you @omnium for making my favorite bicycle. Thank you @ride_finds gods for sending me a literal sign. And thank you THANK YOU Zach at @southcitystitchworks for being sooo down for putting all this together.
She visit
As long as I keep posting up in a city that does Mexican food better than Canada, you’ll keep visiting me right @russetpeach??? ‘Twas a lovely break from my daily dead end grind to spend a week seeing if I still remembered how to make your coffee. We got in some noodley rambles, absurd ride finds, completed many quests, aaand I paid for food?! See you again 🔜 so we can make more jokes about family, argue about bug names, and🖕every cyber truck that we see.
Racing
You can get an immediate vibe check on how welcoming a bike event is going to be by paying attention to the types of people that show up to race. I’m disappointed in myself that it took more than 10 years of photographing bike races to end up at one where minorities becomes the majority and there isn’t a single middle-aged white guy in the lineup. Grassroots races like the weekly crit in LA by @allcitygrandprix hold some of the keys to what will support the future of bike racing heading in the right direction and I’m going to try my best to focus on more coverage of those types of events as I continue rambling around. Thanks y’all for putting together a welcoming space where anyone can roll up (let’s get some WTF people out there too though?) and have a good time. See y’all again soon!
Two Years On The Bike
Two years and one month ago (original post went up on December 20, 2024) I left Phoenix heading east with only the slightest clue of where I was headed. There was a definite weight of uncertainty in that first little bit rambling along the southern border around Florida and up the east coast stopping just long enough in cities along the way to get a taste of their various bike scenes. Feels impossible to know exactly when the switch was flipped in my head from a light “aw this is fun” to definitive “this is what I’m going to do with the rest of my life” but ain’t no way I’m going back.
There’s an infinite number of paths crossed, tips received, misfortunes overcome, detours to another to another detour, all nudging me in their own unique little ways towards where I am today. Thank you everyone for the last two years. Whether y’all know it or not, whether our bikes kissed or not, it all matters to me. I’ll never know which of the this and that lead to me rambling around LA with Traece for a hundred miles on a random Friday, but I’m grateful for every one of them.
Los Angeles Part 2
We both became SPORTS people thanks to our boys in blue hitting that tiny ball very far and good. It felt a very LA thing to have a production happening at the train station as we spent some moments together before Taryn got on the train back north. Finally #chillestrideever achievement unlocked. Freshened up my bottom bracket and cranks at @allezlabikeshop. Snapped one last pic of the fully loaded @omnium before it’s in city mode for the next few months. OH also saw a stolen AC1, snapped a pic and posted it, and three hours later it was scooped up and returned!
Josh Tree
Y’all ever been to Josh Tree? They got these weird bushes out there and it’s reaaaally gorgeous! Couple days of brutal hot climbs and then cruising downhills to a tour of the quirky that surrounds Salton Sea. Fuggin weird place out there y’all...but very much worth riding through but watch out for dogs. They’re especially chompy in Slab City. Accidentally took a picture of that comet everyone was talking about on maybe the last night we tented?
