I hit High School just as the first The Fast and The Furious movie dropped.. to say it was an influence on me would be an under statement. I would still love to have a 1995 Mitsubishi Eclipse sitting my driveway.. NOS fogger system and all. So when I got this commission for a race helmet inspired by the movies I dove right in. Which meant watching every F&F movie while sitting in my studio drawing, pretty much speed racer heaven.
I got my first Ortlieb roll top messenger bag in Portland Oregon back in 2007. One of the most iconic and long running messenger bags, the roll top has been a fixture of alleycat races and messenger championships since the 90’s. My roll top bag did years on the road working in PDX and SF, came with me on a fixed gear bike tour down the west coast. That bag crossed the Darien Gap, a roadless jungle between Panama and Columbia. And is still as comfortable as the day I got it and still fully waterproof.
My dude Kurt Boone has been rocking Ortlieb even longer than I have, and he has been trying to lace together a custom roll top with art for a while. Eventually we agreed that hand drawing on the bags is way cooler than printing the same design over an over. A box with 10 roll tops showed up to the studio with the instructions: “get wild.”
FAR FROM HOME BORN TO ROAM - The Ortieb roll top is first and foremost a rad bag. I feel like got famous for messenger work, but I’ve always loved it as a travel bag. I took it across the Darien Gap on a 4 week expedition in which we spent more time in canoes on rivers than on our bikes. More than a few times my roll top save all my gear when a canoe would over turn, or rapids got too wild! You just have to buy the ticket and take the ride! TMAX 400 is a 35mm B/W film I like to use in point and shoot cameras.
RIDE FAST TAKE CHANCES - “It’s the best job in the world, you ride your bike around fast all day and get paid for it.. “ When I started working as a bike messenger I felt like I had one the lottery, I couldn’t believe that someone would pay me to hang around with my friends all and risking life and limb sprinting all day bank deposit jobs across town. Later I figured out that there was something even better!! BIKE RACING!! Not only did you get to hang out with your friends all going fast, but you got to travel around to races!!! Forgetting the road rash, broken bones, crashing, sleeping on floors, airplane food, and hang overs, paying rent with bike race winnings is one of the coolest things ever. You just have to ride fast, and take chances..
TRUTH SEEKER RISK TAKER - Long days in the saddle, lots of time spent thinking and dreaming. What does it all mean? Why I am here? Why are you here? I feel like I am searching for a truth, for something bigger than myself. The juxtaposition of this mental clarity is the excitement and thrill of dodging traffic, flying down a mountain, or pinning it through intense single track. The risks we take define the truth we seek.
TED SHRED - The only way to fly…
SEARCH FOR STOKE - Constantly on the search for stoke. Stoke is defined as “add coal or other solid fuel to (a fire, furnace, boiler, etc.” to fuel the fire. People always ask what does it mean? To me Searching for Stoke is searching for what fuels your fire. What motivates you, excites you, gets you in your zone! For me that usually involves going too fast on two wheels, preferably in some exotic local. But you can find your stoke anywhere you look hard enough.
UNHINGED OPTIMISM - Some people think the glass is half full, other half empty but an unhinged optimist is just blown away they even have glass at all. Finding the positive in any situation no matter how dire or hopeless things look. Call it PMA with a touch of gallows humor.
SHRED NOW CRY LATER - Nothing in life is perfect, especially not for long. Why waste time crying over something when you could be shredding!! Not to say that you shouldn’t feel low sometimes, processing the bad things that happen in life is super important. But SHRED NOW!!! and deal with the rough stuff later!
NEVER KOOL ALL WAYS LUCKY - I’d rather be lucky than cool. Coolness fades away, and you can never be cool to everyone. In fact why try to be cool when you can be lucky? But how can you be lucky? Pay attention to the little things, the small opportunities, and jump on them. Put in the work, show up, and when the time is right go for it!
CATCH YOU LATER - all they see is the back of your bag as your sprint off!
THE HARDER YOU WORK THE LUCKIER YOU GET - Make your own luck! Show up, put in the work, stay longer than everyone else, try harder, never give up. I believe that luck comes from being present and paying attention. You can’t get lucky sitting at home on the couch, you have to get out there and live it! All most all of luck is seeing opportunities and capitalizing on them, noticing the things other people miss and making it your own!
WILD IN THE STREETS - RUNNING RUNNING!! In the heat of the summer had to call out a plumber!! These are lyrics from one of my favorite Circle Jerks songs. When I was a kid I watched the movie THRASHIN and the chase scene set to this song blew my mind! It has always embodies the messenger spirit to me, wild in the streets, constantly moving, shredding, no rules, now worries, just stoke!!
DODGE DEATH DAILY - The person who trained me my first day as a bike messenger said that we were daily death dodgers. This has always stuck with me, and it goes far beyond picking things up and dropping them off for a living. We dodge death daily in everything we do, walking outside, eating cereal, brushing our teeth, life is a wild place. All was can do is endlessly evade enternity.
HIT THE SKIDZ - whip it sideways, grip it and rip it!
I love drawing on my bike parts, it sets my whip apart from any others even if they have the same build as mine. It provides the stoke and motivation to push harder when the going gets tough… but the only problem is using paint pens on Alloy parts is sketchy and never lasts. I have found that smooth matte carbon is some of the best material to draw on, it is such a great feeling to pull that first clean line across some untouched carbon. The fine folks at ZIPP heard my pleas and sent me one of their top of the line carbon groups to draw on. The SL group is the race born and breed top of the line MATTE carbon group that ZIPP offers for those truly obsessed with speed. Countless hours and a few DECO oil based paint pens later I was ready to do away with the matte finish with 3x coats of high gloss auto specific dual compound clear coat. This group is ready to grace a sweet display bike, or get shredded on the streets!
This group is for sale in the store here
Most bike shops have a test saddle kit kicking around, usually in a corner gathering some dust, minus a few saddles from test rides that never came back. I have always thought that it would be a cool project draw on the all white sample saddles. The rad people at Selle San Marco were stoked to send me 4 of their most popular saddles to draw on! Now the only thing left is to figure out how to seal in the ink so you can ride these!
Thanks to John Daniel Reiss for the photos!
I have owned a lot of bikes and have coveted even more, but this is my golden unicorn.. The 93 Cannondale track bike, the Crack and Fail, love it or hate it there is no denying that this bike was a huge influence on the resurgance of the track bikes on the streets in the early 2000's as well as many production models that have come out since (The MASH Bolt frame for one).
A friend turned me onto this frame on CL, it has a few dents and is not my size, but I haggled a good deal and it sat in my room for months as I doodled on it. The HED disc came from Florida, supposedly from the Gatorade inspiring University of Florida Gators cycling team.
This frame is too big for me, the wheels are old and skecthy.. but this is a #sttb build for the ages.
58 cm 93 Cannondale Track
HED Disc Wheel
Spinergy Rev X "death" wheel
Sugino 75 165mm cranks NJS
Sugino 75 BB NJS
Suntour Superb Pro 51t Chainring NJS
Izumi NJS chain
EAI NJS 15t 1/8 cog
Salsa 110 track stem
Nitto b123 40cm NJS track drops
LOOK KEO pedals
Thomson Elite seatpost
SHREDDERZ saddle
1993 Cannondale Track
THINK FAST RIDER FASTER NEVER LOOK BACK
RIDE FAST TAKE CHANCES
Mike Martin supplied this classic Salsa / Nitto bar stem combo
PIZZA MENTAL ATTITUDE
Mike Martin supplied these classy purple LOOK pedals
STAY CUTTY
DO NOT HARM TAKE NO SHIT BEG NO MANS PARDON
TAKE SOME RISK
Bill Bones made this SHREDDERZ saddle in the Messenger Mansion 2012
The magic number (although this build is on a 51x15)
TAKE SOME RISK
