NotChas

In 2006 when I started working as bike messenger in Portland OR these were hands down the coolest track bikes around. My dude Mattchew had one, and he always beat me in alleycats on it. The veteran messenger who hazed me the hardest (Cowboy) had one, his was trashed. Mo had one in NYC and so did Mark Mclane, all the kewl kids rocked a blue Cdale track. Finally, after I moved to SF, Mattchew sold me this one for song. It had been this local PDX dude named Clint’s. I still remember him trying to learn wheelies in front of Stumptown Coffee on 3rd st. and dumping this frame over and over in the middle of the street. Mattchew wrote his name on the chain-stay, but years of locking it up have worn off all but the faintest of traces.

Back in the 90’s these frames were Olympic level competition frames, combining the stiffness of oversized aluminum tubes with a super tight pursuit geometry and NJS Keirin style steel fork. If memory serves this fork is a 28mm rake, Tange all Cro-Mo rounded blades. Perfect for the velodrome and dodging through traffic. This fork has seen its share of impacts and sits a little bent from multiple “cold sets” involving a door frame and lots of pulling.

A true track machine the biggest tire this fork would fit is a 700x23 and since it was the mid 2000’s I rode all my tires at 120psi for maximum speed. The classic lugged fork stood apart from the oversized tubes of the frame. The clearance was so tight that I would flip over the bars racing Trackcx laps, any mud or dirt would immediately stop the front tire in the frame.

There was (still is) a courier legend named Sharky, originally from Philly he worked in Portland when I started on the road. He got his nickname because he never stopped moving, always picking up and dropping off, making money. He rode a 3RENSHO frame with a track wound up fork, a front aerospoke and cut off MAVIC bullhorns. The fastest, nicest, most humble courier ever. If there was anyone who took me under their wing and taught me how to be a bike messenger it was Sharky. So I HAD to have these bars, specifically the MAVIC 355 Bullhorn (same bars Lemond rode to his famous TDF TT victory over Fignon) hard anodized grey. Then you cut the curve and first inch off the bars to make a set of super deep, super short bull horns. I actually went to a bike swap in Seattle with Sharky in 2007 and got these bars.

If you road track bikes in the 2000’s you knew someone who had gotten “core sampled.” Crashed and had the open end of a handlebar (usually drops) dig into their leg, effectively core sampling their muscle. So I always tried to jam something into my bars, usually wine corks for $2 TJ bottles of red, but these bars got something special…ALL WAYS WATCHING

I had these bars before I got the CDALE. I rode them from Portland to Chicago on a track bike for the 2008 NACCC, from Portland to SF on this CDALE with nothing but an Ortlieb messenger bag and $100. Years of sweat and dirt have slowly started to wear off. the anodization. Throwing my bike down at checkpoints during alleycats and poor pack jobs for plane flights have added countless scuffs and scraps over the years.

Made in Petaluma CA these Salsa stems were the “strongest” stem you could buy. And after the brand sold to QBP the original handmade stems became super hard to find. Hundreds of bike swaps all up and down the west coast got me this classy 100m 6° rise MTB stem. I used to run a 90mm Nitto Pearl NJS stem, but so many 3 tub mail runs had my lower back aching so I finally swapped over to a slight rise.

This was the first Chris King headset that I ever bought new. It was kind of of a big deal, these were the best headset you could get, handmade in Portland OR. When I bought this at Box Dog Bikes in SF the mechanic mentioned that the cups were interchangeable, because they were cartridge bearings. Up till that point I had only used loose ball headsets, so I said FUCK IT and had them install it upside down..just because you can. Ever since then ever Chris King I have ever installed has gone in upside down..

When I started riding track bikes Velocity Deep V’s were the sickest hoop you could get, they had just started releasing them without a machined brake surface just for us fixies. But beyond these were the unobtainable, THEE ARAYA SUPER AERO SA30. No braking surface, just miles of smooth chrome aero goodness. My dude Mattchew had this exact wheel set and I always wanted one. It took years of hunting to secure these rims, NOS still in wrap..but missing the decals. The only way to tell what they were was the rimtape and serial number on the rim bed. The only issue is they were 24h front and 28h rear..

24h front and 28h rear rims… the only solution was to get some custom drilled Phil Wood hubs. I guess this sounds chill now, but back in 2009 this was a huge deal. On my messenger salary each hub was a weeks worth of work, not including the cost of getting the wheels actually built. But this was also the time that I was starting to get sponsored..so when the CLIF Bar box came in I ate nothing but gels, bloks and bars for a month and bought the nicest wheelset I’d ever owned.

Speed over function was the name of the game for these hoops. Low Flange single sided hubs were the lightest thing you could get from Phil Wood. Double sided would have been rad, since changing cogs from street to velordrome was a hassle. But I went for the simplest fastest hubs I could get. This is the same 16t Durace Cog and Phil Wood lockring that’s been on these wheels for over a decade.

This is why we can’t have nice things.. The low spoke count, deep rims and low flanges all added up to a light, fast, track specific wheelset. Which I rode on the streets and in the dirt with wild abandon. And while this was my baby, if you were part of the Cdale club I always had your back. Walton Brush used to have one back in PDX (with a SPIN Trispoke front wheel) and after he moved to SF he asked to borrow mine to race some sprints on. Of course he won the sprints, but knocked a huge dent in the rear rim hopping curbs after the race. I was bummed.. but also that’s what this bike was made for, shredding. So we pulled the dent out with some pliers, and kept on going. He even got me a replacement H+SON rim, but I never got the wheel relaced.

One of the standouts with this frame was how tight the clearance is. Front and rear there are a mm or two separating the rubber from the frame. While everyone else was skidding through 700x28 Vittoria Rando’s I was stuck trying to find a good 700x25 rear tire, because that’s all that would fit (there a none that skid well LOL). But even after my rear rim got smashed, it still worked… because no brakes, nothing to rub on. Scotty Wittlake once told me the best part about riding track bikes is that your wheel can be massively out of true and you can still shred “as long as they don’t hit the frame.”

When messengers on trackbikes made their way to the West Coast at the 1998 CMWC in SF, it seemed like all the NYC couriers were riding the smallest chainrings and cogs. I can only imagine this is because the only other 1/8 inch drive trains available were for BMX bikes. None the less I was all about that tiny drive train, 44x16 (which is essentially the same as 47x17 but without all the skid patches).

It was super hard to track down a 44t 1/8 inch track chainring. The 144bcd spider is huge and this is almost as low as you can go. Josh Hunt, who I started TCB with had this Sugino 44t ring laying around the old messenger mansion and I jumped on it. It’s funny now because I run a 43t front ring for TRACKCX races, but a decade ago this was my work ratio. Also at the time there was a ton of NJS gear making it’s way stateside, so finding 48t-49t track rings was super easy (if not expensive), I have no idea why I insisted on riding the hard to find sizes.

You’ve got non brakes, but you’ve got a chain. The only thing keeping you moving and also the only thing stopping you. I all ways, still to this day, only ride IZUMI chains. When I started they were considered to be the absolute best, bombproof never let you down chain, and ripping the hills of SF day in and day out, it just made sense. SUPER TOUGHNESS 1/2 x 1/8 x 106L (all though this is just a normal IZUMI track chain).

As much as I’d love to have one those fancy EAI gold cogs, for me it was Durace all the way. This is one of the first 16t cogs I ever bought, thinking it would be good for the track and the street. But the clearance is so tight on the Cdale that I could only fit a 48t ring on the front without adding more links to the chain. 48x16 is not really big enough for Track racing, so maybe that’s why this bike stayed on in the streets and not on the boards?

So this is a track frame, built specifically for velodrome racing, super stiff, light and highly responsive. To be honest it’s not really the best bike for riding on the street. It’s waaay too stiff for rough city streets, you feel every bump, pothole and crack. It’s light, but at the cost of durability, and aluminum isn’t really known for longevity. Even the steering can be terrifying and dangerous for the uninitiated, a 30mm track fork and 75° head tube angle in traffic is a blessing and a curse.

It was all about pure speed, the stiffness, the lightness, the quick steering everything that made this a bad idea to ride in traffic also made it the absolute most shredding messenger bike ever. You could dance through cars, sprint every red light, fly over the cobbles, barely feeling the bumps. If you lost concentration for a split second you could get dumped to the ground (happened to me plenty of times). But fuck it was (still is?) one of fastest, most aggressive, most fun bikes to shred traffic in. And it doesn’t suck on the boards either, I didn’t hit the velodrome often, but I did win the Velocity tour LA in 2009 in this bike!

I’m not one to stress where something was built, as long as it works well I’m all for it. But I always thought it was rad that these bikes were made in the USA. Mainly because they represented such a leap forward in technology at the time. This was one of the first production Aluminum track racing frames. It has a 2 INCH DOWNTUBE, which these days isn’t a big deal, but in the 90’s that was huge (both literally and figuratively). This frame was pretty boundary pushing when it came out, although it really hasn’t held up well, and it now kind of broken.. a lot like the USA …lol

Kind of joke on that same vibe, I tried to keep the stickers to a minimum but some were too good to not rep. Stupid fast, light, and fragile, a blast to ride..but it may kill you a real “American freedom machine”

Not many people will remember Matt Case, a messenger from Seattle who made the “This machine kills hipsters” stickers. Well I loved those stickers, even though I was (is?) a hipster messenger on a track bike. So I found the french version and rocked. It’s important to remember that these are the right tool for the wrong job.

From top to bottom. - Julian Stranger, Mattchew, myself and STORTS had planned to ride from LA to ATL for the 2010 NACC in ATL. But out van blew up driving from SF-LA to start the ride. So we stayed in a porn mansion in LA for a week then rode home, I got this sticker after we slept in a truck stop after selling the totaled van for $100 to buy beer. - KING TIE FOREVER - BONUS would always beat me at alleycats in Portland, he had the sickest NJS frame and no matter how hard I tried I never got the best of him.

The steel fork would constantly get banged around shredding the streets, so whenever it started to rub the down tube. I’d stick the bike (the drive side pedal) in a doorframe, and yank on the fork until it pulled away from the frame enough to ride. We always joked that hitting things and bending the fork back just made the geometry more aggressive and the bike faster.

Mike Martin at MASH made this WC friendship bracelets, you got two and gave one to the homie and kept one for yourself. Mike has the other one and this one has stayed on the. back of this bike for years. This was the last frame I rode before I started riding Cinelli’s. This wonderful dent on the seat stay is from a flight from Berlin to London after ECMC 2009. I destroyed my bike box over the race weekend. So I took apart the bike, wrapped it in an old blanket, used a whole roll of duct tape to seal it up and threw it on the plane. If I remember they didn’t even charge me for it..but it defiantly came out the other side with a few new blemishes.

To me this is one of the most Iconic dropouts in cycling.

Never forget where you came from - CHANT TSR

In hindsight this is a super uncomfortable position to spend days on the bike. But back in the day when I would hit “the drops” and sprint I felt like nothing could stop me. Turns out somethings can.. These bars are bent from a sprint competition in the rain in Berlin. There was no run out from the sprint, just fence a few meters after the finish line. I won my sprint but had to use the fence to get to a full stop. No brakes, can’t stop, maybe wanted to there.

Speaking of things that are uncomfortable to spend hours on.. The Selle Italia Flite was my saddle of choice for years. This good old ass hatchet got from from NYC to Boston, PDX to SF, and has weathered countless years of mail runs and super rushes in the streets. At this point it’s only stickers and electrical tape holding it together. But those titanium rails are still going strong and I’ll all ways be fresh with my BLACK ICE dangler.

When I built my first real track bike ( a PAKE, maybe someday I’ll do a garage post on that hunk of junk) and brought it to work I asked everyone what they thought.. Pretty much everyone laughed.. but Sharky being the nice guy he is said “I like the seatpost…”. Every part on my first build was the cheapest, except for my Thomson seat post..

There was about 6 years of my life that I lived in MTB shoes. Everyday 9-5 and weekends too. the first time I ever flew to Europe I only wore my Sidi’s.. From the jump TIME ATAC’s were the pedal of choice, mainly because thats what everyone else who rode brakeless clipped in wore. If it kept them alive then it’d do the same for me right? These WC ATAC’s have always been the golf standard of style and “safety” - as long as you keep you cleats in good order you were fine…

FAST AND LOOSE!! This bike took me on some of my first bike adventures, first international trips, I raced hundreds of alleycats, and delivered thousands of packages. Now it’s cracked and dented, beat to shit and honestly kind of uncomfortable to ride for any amount of time. But still every time I get on it I feel IT. Pure speed, pure shred, the fastest thing in the streets, nothing can stop me, nobody looks cooler, long live the CDALE TRACK.

This here bad boi is my COVID CRUSHER.. Actually this is my “road” bike, my training rig and occasionally my race bike if the shred calls for skinny tires. Right now it is set up for long solo rides. I have to carry all my own snacks because stopping is not really cool in this time of shelter in place. I have everything I need to bang out 8 hour jammers, only needing to hit a water fountain to fill water.

But my current COVID CRUSHER wouldn’t be here if not for this frame, the first ever CX/Gravel bike Andrew LOW ever made. Back in 2012 I started to bug Andrew about making a CX bike. I had left Cinelli and still really wanted an aluminum CX bike to race. I loved the track frame Andrew built for me, and he had been hinting at wanting to build some dirt bikes for a while.

The thing with Andrew LOW is… He is a real deal craftsman. He wanted to have custom bent and shaped tubes for his first foray into dirt bikes. Tube shape has a huge impact on how an alloy bike handles. BUT first he had to build the machines to bend and shape the tubes. He could have bought them.. but he had to make them! Fully respecting his need to DIY, I just kept bugging and bugging him till finally he produced the first prototype. As always this frame was built in his workshop in SF. At the time I lived 6 blocks away and would walk over and check up on the progress now and then, talk about a locally built bike!

The first prototype was pretty rough ascetically, but it’s purpose was not to look fancy. The newly formed TCBCX (TCB Courier Cyclocross) race team was to use this prototype to test the geometry, ride quality, and general shreddability. TCBCX was the brain child of John Reiss, myself, and all the riders at TCB who wanted to rip it off the road! When it began all the team members were working messengers at TCB Courier. The team built the frame up with whatever parts we collectively had lying around and then traded it between all the riders for rips through Golden Gate Park and shreds at various CX races around the Bay Area. Each rider gave their feedback and comments to Andrew and then passed it on to the next racer.

One of the things that has always stood out to me about this prototype frame is the welds… You can see them, loud and clear, which for a LOW frame is not normal. Andrew takes such care to weld smooth and then sand and finish his frames so you wouldn’t even know there WERE welds to begin with. So this working prototype with it’s clunky cable stops and un-sanded welds is truly a one of a kind LOW frame.

After prototype testing was done this frame went to none other than TCB rider, the “silent killer”, Nick Keane (named for his calm and quiet demeanor offset by his voracious and mildly unscrupulous messenger work ethic). The team originally got the frame from Andrew with only the orange LOW logo on it. Nick applied all the TCBCX team decals himself. Note the front derailleur cable boss, this frame is built to only accommodate top pull front derailleurs.

The Silent Killer hard at work racing the prototype frame in my personal favorite TCBCX kit, “The Sunrise kit” designed by John Reiss.

One of the major differences between this frame and every other LOW dirt frame was the 1 1/8 inch head tube. We knew we wanted to have a tapered head tube for the race frames but couldn’t source a proper fork in time. So Andrew built this around a Ritchey CX fork he had at the shop. In true messenger fashion the first build for the testing process featured a hodge podge of parts from everyones parts bin.

This was the beginning of the end for rim brakes, quick release wheels and tubed tires. The winds of change were blowing and we were resisting as hard as possible!

It is so rad that the whole TCBCX was able to, as a group, test and prototype this LOW CX frame. Not many frame builders are willing to go through this type of R&D process. It shows a huge measure of trust from Andrew as well as a commitment to truly build the best possible frames out there. He commented many times that everyone who road the frame had a LOT to say about it and just keeping track of all the feedback from all the different riders was a challenge.

From all the TCBCX rider feedback and his own shredding, Andrew built his first small run of CX frames for the teams 2015 season. John Reiss designed the livery, matching our race kits from Endo customs. I believe the first run was 6 frames.

One of the coolest things about the pro peleton is how perfect, all the teams look. Matching bikes, that match the kit, that matches the helmets, that matches the eye wear.. you get it. John and mine’s plan was to get the TCBCX squad looking as pro as possible. We wanted to show that courier race teams could look the part while still maintaining a fast and loose, party time ethos.

The TCBCX team had custom matching helmets from GIRO, matching eyewear from OAKLEY. Color coded race day bags from ILE and fresh components for the new bikes from RITCHEY. Speed came complements of carbon race wheels from ESSOR. City and County, a friend’s newly opened bike shop, took care of the builds. We were the slickest looking team to show up late and hungover to local races, and we shredded harder than anyone!

The tapered head tubes were a game changer for many of us. The increased stiffness and improved handling fueled the stoke. But, like the true messengers we were, we resisted the changing tide of disc brakes. Instead opting for a classic rim brake set up on all our builds. Consequently our choice of tapered, rim brake, carbon CX forks were limited. I had ridden a Whiskey Co. fork before and loved it. They were down to support the team and got us a deal on front ends for our new bikes! Shout out to MORE track bikes.

It’s the little things that really make a bike for me, the small imperfections or unique touches. So when Andrew realized he had misspelled my last name he immediately wanted to repaint the frame. I, on the other hand, thought it was amazing and insisted that it stay the way it was. He eventually relented because all the frames DID have the racers name stamped in the BB shell.

Notice the smoothed welds and sleeker cable stops, as an initial production run Andrew lavished his normal attention to detail on the team frames.

TCB had been working with Bobby of Endo Customs since our very beginnings. When John Reiss first gave into our badgering to make us a kit, Bobby was there to take the ball and run with it (the original camo kit is still my favorite courier company kit ever). For the TCBCX team John kept it simple and bold and Bobby got us skin suits to keep it fast! Each racer also had their name printed on the skin suit. Since ENDO kits are handmade in LA Bobby can do rad shit like that! All these little touches really enhanced the PRO feeling of our fledgling race team.

Many of the changes Andrew made to the design of the bike from prototype to initial production run were only obvious upon closer inspection. The bending and shaping of the tubes became nearly as important as the welds that held the frame together. Countless chain stays littered the floor of Andrews shop as he slowly perfected the subtle curves and bulges of his tubes. The imperceptible changes of the tube can create drastic changes in how a bike handles at speed. The tubes on these team frames were tuned for maximum shredding. *note the flattened, thin shape of the chain stays when viewed from the side.

The extreme bending of the tubes was needed to gain tire clearance while still accommodating the 68mm english BB shell. Not wanting to incorporate a wish bone stay for “ mainly aesthetic reasons” Andrew was forced to use tube shape to gain tire clearance. *note the extra wide flat shape of the chain stay when viewed from above. This is done to maximize stiffness correlated to where the majority of force will be exerted during heavy use.

The only real bummer of CX season is that it ends.. no more weekends spent racing and hanging out. But for these team bikes it was only the beginning! For me this bike was when I really started to shy away from standard road bikes and started using my CX rig for dual duty. This bike came along on a wild trip from Puerto Rico , to Aruba, and finally Ecaudor. It picked up a ton of dirt, more than a few dents and tons of memories.

When the going gets tough, the tough start…walking. This was on a cow trail near the town of Esmeraldas Ecuador. When I dug this frame out of the basement to shoot it for this post, some of this red dirt drifted out.

Geoff Best’s team bike.

Geoffs bike post race. photo : John Reiss

Ryan Gallagher’s team bike.

Andres in action ripping the red tape! photo : John Reiss

For me this project coincided with the beginning of my relationship with ZIPP and SRAM. For the new build they spared no expense.

SRAM Force 22 11spd drive train, Force Cranks, 303 Firecrest wheels with 700x35 Continental tires (with tubes). Ritchey supplied the cockpit and seat post (last non ZIPP build for me since). Selle San Marco saddle with Cadence bar tape. TRP mini V rim brakes are about as close to disc brake stopping power as you can get, although the mud clearance is horrible. Topped off as always with some TIME ATAC pedals, although TBH these light grey XC ATAC’s were some of the worse pedals TIME has ever made ATMO.

One of my absolute favorite memories with this bike was racing the “Wheelers and Dealers” race at Interbike 2015. I had just got my Subaru WRX and a bunch of us drove down to Las Vegas via HWY 395. I ran the car out of gas about 4 hours outside of Vegas and only Erica’s AAA card got us to the race in time. I registered as someone from MASH, so raced in that years RHC team skin suit and barely made it in time to start the race! Straight from the car to hustling under the bright lights against the fastest racer the bike industry had to offer, pure shredding!! I placed 8th and then partied my face off for a few days before limping home.

While most of these bikes have since be relegated to racers garages and basements ( a couple have been sold and are floating around out there..) one has continued to shred into the new decade. Geoff Best converted his team LOW to a TRACKCX bike through the use of an ENO rear hub. *if you ever want to turn a geared bike into a fixed gear check it out here. photo : Terry Barensten

Geoff is one of those guys who will cheerily drink you under the table the night before a race. Then the next day, mid race, pass you with a cheerful exclamation all while sketchily airing some bump in the course. Then be there to offer you a cold beer when you finish. Here he is last year in Japan for TRACKCXWC. photo : Terry Barensten

There is even a epilogue to the TCBCX LOW team bikes. In the 2016 we brought some new shredderz onto the team and Andrew was willing to once again test some new things with TCBCX. Michelle received a disc version of the team bike, and Cubby convinced Andrew to make the ONLY single speed in existence (although he kept his rim brakes). These two new team frames receive a slightly different decal treatment as previous team frames along with a black base coat. RJ shows off his sick skidding skillz as well.

The only LOW SSCX ever made.. photo : Aaron Wojack

Cubby is a tried and true shredder, jumping from his BMX bike into CX racing he was the only racer who didn’t want a skin suit.. instead he got a custom printed cut off t-shirt. photo: Aaron Wojack

Andrew took the track drop out from his MKII track frame to build this one off biike. Photo : Aaron Wojack

Custom name stickers are PRO.. custom name stickers with your nickname on a hand built race frame is SUPER PRO! photo : Aaron Wojack

Full Send! photo: Aaron Wojack

Michelle’s team bike is also a bit of an interesting cross over. The same geometry as the other TCBCX frames. This bike came with disc brakes, but still retained quick release wheels. This represents a transition period for Andrew, moving into the future with disc brakes, but still not fully converted to thru axle builds.

SO, that brings us along to the bike under review. I guess this would be a LOW Gravel MKII, I got this in 2017 for the Transcontinental race, and in keeping with the finest of traditions it was built in Andrew’s shop by Derek Yarra only one day before I left for TCR!

I had never done a race like TCR before, and so it was fitting that this bike was a brand new to me as well. Finally graduating to thru-axle and hydraulic disc brakes, SRAM sent me the newly dropped ETAP HYDRO with WiFli. The WiFli system allowed for what was at the time a HUGE gear range while still only rocking 11spd. The 11-32t cassette was much needed for the mountains of Europe. When I raced that first TCR I wrote the names of those that supported me on my ETAP batteries so I could keep track of which were charged or not. I have since moved on to a numeric system as more of my bikes go ETAP.

Really the only bummer about this build, that would eventually dictated the fate of this bike, was tire clearance. I ran 700x32 tubeless Clement USH tires for the TCR. When Derrek finished the build he notice that there was barely 2mm of clearance between the FD battery and the tire. So it was henceforth determined that no tire larger than a 700x33 would ever grace this frame. SRAM listened to this feedback (not just from me) and the new ETAP AXS system has a completely redesigned FD that positions the batter to accommodate 700x40c and larger tires. But it forever doomed this bike to a life of skinnier tires.

I went with a compact crankset on this build and have never gone back. I find that since i’m not sprinting 6 deep for the finish line very often I had no need for a huge front ring and all the need for more climbing gears! My first TCR I went with the stock 36t little ring, but have since then swapped in a 34t, the smallest ring you can fit in these 110bcd cranks. It is worth noting that these are the third set of chainrings to be ridden on this bike. This is without a doubt the bike I have put the most milage on. The cranks are still stiff as the day there were made, so new rings are needed every year or so to keep things spinning smoothly.

This was also my first build rolling road tubeless tires, and I have never looked back. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, tubeless is the JAM!! Yea, they are tough to mount and get set up, but once they are on those rims tubeless is a total game changer. Tubeless’ ability to soak up flat tires both from punctures and pinch flats (can’t pinch a tube that’s not there!) is amazing! You can shred with reckless abandon and know your tires have your back. And in the case of a flat, Dynaplugs get you back rolling quick and are good for the life of the tire ( I once road a dynaplug over 3000 miles without issue). I love being able roll around on a lower PSI as well, these ZIPP Tangente 700x28 tubeless road tires should be ridden at 55-60 PSI and have a MAX of 80 psi.. To the guy who used to run 700x23 tires at 120 psi that is NUTS!!. Lower psi makes for a much more supple and comfy ride while still offering lightening quick handling. Special shout out to the MUC OFF valve stems, that cap is also a tool to remove the valve core to add more sealant!

This ILE saddle bag was given to me by none other than Steve Blick and it has served me well for years! I used to hate saddle bags and always carried my tools in my jersey, but after numerous saggy jersey bottoms and constant lower back pain I gave into saddle bags and couldn’t be happier. This offset ZIPP Service Course 27.0 seat post helps lengthen my riding position for longe days in the saddle. Bling points for the Thomson seat post clamp (thanks Mike!)

This MASH x Selle San Marco Regal saddle fits in most excellently with the LOW’s paint job. Designed by Al Nelson based on image capturing tools including lens charts and test strips. Slowly wearing the artwork off with hours of sweaty friction…yummy.

I was a MTB pedal dude for years, it wasn’t until RHC came around that Kyle and Walton convinced me to ride road pedals. I dabbled in LOOK pedals for a short time before settling with the Shimano platform. These Ultegra road pedals are bomb proof, year after year they perform consistently and without fail, which is all I really ask of a pair of pedals. The three bolt cleat is large and has lots of rubber grippy parts that make fence hopping, stream fording, and mud trudging a breeze.

Part of riding bikes during this time of COVID is being prepared to not stop for supplies so as to limit your human contact. With that in mind I ditched my trusty frame pump for this OuterShell top tube bag. Designed and built in SF by a long time friend Kyle I have taken these bags across countless countries stuffed to the brim with a wide variety of snacks and candy.

I am a big fan of ultimate comfort while out training and riding. I prefer to eat real food like bagel sandwiches and fresh fruit rather than bars and gels. “Space food” as we call it definitaly has it’s place in racing, but too much processed ride food hurts my guts. I also want to be as warm as possible, Fast Freddy Rodriguez once told me “it’s always easy to take a layer off than put one on” and that stuck with me. So I carry lots of extra layers when I ride. My current favorite is an Oakley puffy down vest and fits perfectly into this Trap City handle bar bag once it’s warmed up a bit and I’ve eaten some of my snacks. Trap City bags are made in SF by a good buddy and former TCB Courier rider. *note the trash stuffed into the side pockets, always pack it in and pack it out!

This is the normal kit that I carry on the bike while out riding. With the exception of the pump, normally I have a frame pump but opted for the Road Morph in the top tube bag. In the handle bar bag: Kook exchange knife made out of skateboard decks, extra ETAP battery, Wolf Tooth master link tool with 2 master links, lighter, and a jammer tube. In the ILE saddle bag: Dyna Plug Mega Pill, ZIPP valve core tool, multi tool, tire lever, spare tube, and a CO2 for if the tubeless needs a boost.

Some good friends on here..

Always improving Andrew tweaked the tube once again on this frame to increase stiffness and responsiveness while maximizing tire clearance. Only bummer is the FD limits the bike to 700x33 tires.. but them sweet sweet curvy tubes make for a ripper of a rear end!

I got the frame raw and unpainted from Andrew and knew i wanted something a little more special than I could create with some spray paint. So I sent the frame to Lucas Strain in Eugene OR. At the time he was painting for STOMPER in addition to running a small courier company. I gave him a photo of a Porsche and some weird geometric shapes and he sent back an understated yet powerful paint job. He also custom painted the headset cap… Higher than most..

Lower than some... Andrew's buttery smooth welds (welds!?!? what welds? you see any WELDS?!!) combined with Luca's paint job constantly have people thing the bike is carbon..or even titanium.

Please, step into my office.. I was vehemently against cycling computers for a long time ( remember “No Garmin No Rules”?). I thought experiencing the ride was more important that staring at numbers on a screen, still believe that. BUT the more I got into Ultra Endurance Racing the more I saw the need for a solid navigation system. I tried a Garmin and was less than impressed. I used solely my phone for a while as well. I have finally settle on a WAHOO Elmnt for all my routing needs. This bike doesn’t have a dyno hub wheel on it currently so I have a USB charged front light for when those rides go a little long. I also have a AAA battery powered rear blinky light for added safety. A ZIPP Service course 110mm stem paired with ZIPP Service Course SL80 44mm wide alloy bars round of the contact points. I saw this PARTYTIME design on a temporary tattoo and made some stickers for a Stoke Pack years ago, and turns out they fit great on longer stems.

From the very beginning the bar wrap has been mismatched, taken from the samples of various MASH bar tapes that may or may not have made it into production. Not a bad place to spend 6-8 hours a day.

Lucas lined up the LOW logo on the head tube and fork as a nod to the green MASHxCinelli Parrallax prototype. It took me a while to convince Andrew to let me try this but I think it was worth it.

I always loved the old Maipei Colonago's and these geometric shapes were a homage to that design.

After racing TCR 2017 Nico and I realized that we needed dyno hubs to power our next adventure. ZIPP was gracious enough lace 30course rims to the SON dyno hubs we picked out. This bike rocked a dyno hub and SineWave cycles light for years.

TCR 2017 set up, my very first Ultra Endurance race, first Aero bars, first full frame bag (custom made to fit this frame by Outershell, as well as the seat bag). This was an eye opening experience for me and set me on the path I am on today. I learned a lot from this set up, but it performed admirably for being set up less than a week before the race started.

TCR 2018, better, lighter, faster. You can see I learned a lot from the year previous. Same saddle bag, but pretty much everything else has been changed to better accommodate the race and my needs. This was the introduction of the dyno hub, same components on the bike, new rings and I went with 700x28 tires for the first time.

Post TCR 2018 Nico and I went on a 2 week adventure in the wilds of Labrador Canada. This set up is more for comfort and supplies than pure speed. Later in this trip bags were strapped to the fork to carry even more gear as we pushed further North into Canada and had to carry more layers and supplies. This experience was the impetus for my next build with LOW, a cargo fork and more adventure additions followed, you can check it out HERE.

I don’t think this project was ever released by GRIO, but we made this 3-4 years ago.

Sidi’s were always the coolest of cool cycling shoes, Italian leather, classic style, and they fit like a glove. 90’s Sidi MTB shoes were the holy grail of messenger work shoes, hours were spent hunting craigslist and ebay for pairs. Check the backwards velcro strap, the totally tubular neon color way, nothing said cool like working in a beat up, stinky pair of early 90’s Sidis. The thing that blows me away is how comfy they were with no socks, just my stinky bare feet stewing in some random persons old foot sweat for weeks on end.

The Dominator was the top of the Sidi MTB shoe line, and this model from 1990-1992 was one of my personal favorites. The blue leather, with micro perforations for venting (this was way before lycra mesh) and all that sweet sweet injection molded neon plastic oozed style. This was the first year that Sidi used a ratchet for tightening the shoe, and the little touches like the embossed dominator logo on the wrong way velcro sealed the deal.

Unfortunately all that super high tech injection molded neon plastic from the 90’s doesn’t last. By the time I got ahold of them the plastic was cracking and eventually the stitching (!!!) used to secure the right side buckle broke and the plastic (and buckle) fell off. Undaunted I found the buckle off a pair of old Diadora soccer shoes and proceeded to rivet the new plastic piece in place. The ratchet systems matched up and was able to rock these shoes with my not so ghetto fix for a while longer. DIY till the day ya die!

Road Sodas.. were an integral part of every messenger event and for some everyday messenger life. Travis from Freight bags made these road soda holders to keep your hands free while you refreshed yourself. Check that original Freight logo!

This design strapped to your top tube and handlebars, it was a precursor to a lot of the bike packing bags you see now days. Inspired by the necessity of keeping your beers close at hand, designed and built by messenger ingenuity.

Hand made in Petaluma CA by Ross Shafer Salsa stems were considered some of the most durable and stylish stems you could get.

Named after Ross’s love of Salsa the signature gold top cap and world champ strip color way logo set them apart from most other quill stems. It could have been that “made in CA” lore or the slightly boxy and unrefined look but regardless these were ( and still are) hot items at every bike swap, and a clean one found on craigslist was cause for celebration.

The majority of Salsa stems had more of an MTB geometry (Petaluma was a hotbed of the 90’s MTB boom) so finding ones for our road and track bikes was tough. I think this 130mm 1 inch threadless stem was meant for some MTB, but paired with a set of 38mm Salsa “short and shallow” road bars it turned any work bike into a classic killing euro speed machine.

The one that got away was the ever elusive two bolt track stem. 9 out of 10 Salsa’s had a single bolt securing the handle bars and most never dipped into negative degree drop. But legend has it that there were a few -6° 120mm stems out there with 2 bolts..I am still on the hunt.

All of these things were found stuffed in an old Thomson stem bag, an eclectic collection of …crap. This Salsa warranty paper came with a stem I bought at a swap meet. Salsa sold their name to QBP before I started collecting so there was never an opportunity for me to buy one new. My collection consisted of strictly pre QPD, made in CA stems, so this little piece of history fit in nicely. Honorable mentions here include the original TCB phone charger, the only reliable one we had for 4 phones. There was a point where I had trained myself to wakeup 4 times a night to swap phones on the charger so they would all be ready for work in the AM. A wallet made out of a Fedex envelope by my good buddy Fox, James Fox, and a breath mint tin repurposed to hold jammers.

Campagnolo cranks (more on that soon) all came with a bolt cap that was made out of the softest aluminum known to man. The 6mm hex bolt hole inevitably stripped out and that wasn’t a big deal…till you had to get your cranks off. So when the time came to finally change that creaking (well actually howling) BB it was time to get creative. If memory serves a hacksaw blade, some scrapped knuckles and a few hours finally got this stubborn little guy off. It was kept as a reminder to never give up, no matter how grim it looks.

The opposite of the Campy dust cover is the methodically and practically engineered Shimano DURACE integrated dust cap and crank bolt. Not choosing sides here, just saying that if you include your dust cover on the crank bolt you will never need to saw it off….. also peep the non NJS Japanese lock ring, only mildly battered and worn.

I used to ride the shortest stems (and also the narrowest bars) so finding a 1 inch thread less 90mm, normal rise Salsa stem was crazy.

Although here is the thing with these Salsa stems… is this really a Salsa..? Slightly odd logo, and while yes the welds and paint look very Salsa esq this could very well be a Kelly stem with a Salsa sticker for added resale value. The world may never know.

This ITM Eclipse stem may not have been handmade in CA, but it was probably handmade in Italy! It shares a lot of the same styling as the Salsa in the collection namely the flush junction of the top cap and stem and the single bolt clamp.

A long time ago, in a land far far away called Portland Oregon I bought my first set of track cranks. I bought them from a shop called Bike Central and the proprietor Dean is the bike shop equivalent of the comic book buy from the Simpsons, endlessly knowledgable and equally scornful. I was a broke bike messenger and bought the cheapest set of cranks he had, against he recommendation to “buy once, and buy right” with some Sugino 75’s. Needless to say I was back buying new BB’s for my cheap cranks every 3 months. These are not those cranks, these are a set of Campagnolo 165mm Pista cranks that were blank anodized by a Portland messenger/track racer. These were the first “nice” set of cranks I ever bought.

So I got these baller Campy cranks, they were anodized black that matched the bike I put them on. A Pake track frame, not quiet the cheapest one you could buy.. but close. Baller cranks, cheap frame, perfect, messenger work bike. They rocked on that bike for 7 years! Until one day I was climbing up Steiner st. SF and BOOM, drive side crank snapped clean in half. Luckily I was climbing, slowly, and there was no damage. I one footed it over to the MASH store and swapped them out for a set of 75’s but kept the broken arms. Both because they were the first nice bike part I ever bought, but also because I broke a set of Campy Cranks!!! TOO MUCH POWA

Get weird stay weird, these 3T Mutant stems were exactly that, weird. I had one in bright yellow for couple of years too, but this one stayed around. Looks like it has seen a lot of use because the logo is almost fully rubbed off.

The two bolt face plate was kind of a game changer coming from the single bolt Salsa stems. But the alloy used in these stems was softer than a day old donut and super easy to strip out. I didn’t try it but I bet at least one bolt on this is stripped out, makes a nice paper weight though.

When I started riding track bikes all the cool messengers road Time ATAC pedals. I was stuck in clips and straps for my first few years but once I moved to SF i decided to make the switch. I really dig the old plastic body ATAC’s (the WC ones are pure gold!) but these ATAC XS has adjustable tension and the rails had tabs to keep your foot from sliding side to side. I spend almost a weeks pay on these bad boys and rode them for years.

You can see the little adjust screws for the tension, first things first these were all ways tightened all the way down and left that way. The one thing that Time really blew it on with these pedals were the ends caps. The end caps compressed the pedal onto the spindle and were made out of plastic. Probably okay for regular MTB riding but as a messenger I was dropping my bike on the ground all day, and as you can see the end caps got destroyed. They would always come loose, causing play in the pedal and in a worst case scenario the pedal would just fall off the spindle. However we all figured out that if you took apart the little plastic clippy jawns the metal ends were the same size as the wholes in the end cap. Every messenger worth their salt has tons of plastic clippy jawns on them all the time to keep deliveries organized. So as the pedals wore out it became an almost daily ritual to take one apart and tighten down your pedals.

I grew up skate boarding, and I love me some tools, This PIG skateboards FIX STIK is one of the few things that stayed with me from my high school days. Turns out it works great for tightening down 15mm track bolts!

A courier lives and dies by their radio, it connects them to their friends, their dispatcher, their job, and also makes them look super cool… Right? What could be cooler than having your radio go off in a silent office? These are a small collection of old TCB Courier radios. Each radio had a name assigned to it based on what shift it was used for, PERSONAL/IKE was a personal line that people could call and order whatever the want, and also a line given to IKE’s sandwich shop to place order. The riders would customize the phones in their standby time. Also.. RIP NEXTEL i325 … this was seriously the best DC phone ever, on the best network EVER, GC/DC if you know you know.

LOCK IT DOWN, the Kryptonite chain lock is one of the most iconic pieces of messenger gear I can think of. All the most badass messengers had one, you can almost imagine them whipping it off in traffic to punish an offending motorist. But in real life it was a drag, it weighed a TON, was super uncomfortable to wear, a huge hassle to use (you had to use the key to lock and unlock the lock). If you crashed while wearing one on your hips….pure carnage. You could lock your bike to pretty much anything, as well as strap a whole bike pile together, and it would stop a fight before it happened if you used it right. But I ditched the chain (and the key) a long time ago and kept the lock as a door stop.

Floating around the bottom of the box was this mixed bag of stuff. Before TCB has business cards we had this stamp, with the lightening bolt switched backwards in a weak attempt to avoid copyright issues with Elvis LOL. Shimano DURACE brake pads were removable so when you wore out a pair you could just pop new ones into the shoe. Free drink token from the Zeitgiest bar in SF, favorite standby spot. Colonago bar end cap, from a Master Light I bought from Kyle of Outer Shell right when I moved to SF. I had never owned a baller road bike before and so I went big. Random lock key, and the cuttiest of straight razors. Even though I needed to shave maybe once every two weeks I still collected a ton of old straight razors.

It is crazy to think how small our phones used to be, these classic phone holsters for messenger bag straps could never fit a new iphone. Bagjack is a german company based in Berlin, they make some of the most technical messenger gear around, I got this while in Berlin for ECMC 2009. I have no idea what phone I had that would have fit in it, but it sure looks cool.

More from the bottom of the box! Moving up from the stamp, this is an original TCB business card, designed by Joe Lumbroso in our second year it really added an air of professionalism to our otherwise slap dash operation. I was (still am I guess) super into hiphop and this free drink ticket from a Stones Throw record release party was secreted away rather than spent on a watery beer. Fat caps…because you know.. Mike Martin gave me this butterfly knife, and I spent hours trying to learn all the moves and tricks. It is a good thing the blade is dull as a dishwasher otherwise I’d be missing a few digits, turns out I am not very good at knife tricks.

You ever get a cog stuck on a wheel, like “fuck your breaker bar” stuck? Yea me too… And for some reason that is lost in time I just really had to get that cog off. Enter the trusty hacksaw and some elbow grease. Proof that with enough time and determination you can accomplish anything. Wether the threading on the hub was usable after I got the cog off is lost in the sands of time. I really dig this though, now I feel like I would take this problem to a bike shop and have them deal with it. But back in the messenger days A: there was no money to spend on bike shops B: it was unthinkable that I would need help with anything bike related. So DIY it was, damned the consequences!

Kashimax 5 Gold was the unobtainium of Japanese NJS swag. From $100 top tube protectors to $200 straps this stuff was the top! I never owned any 5 gold stuff, but when I found this broken strap end in the back room of the messenger mansion (RIP) I kept it. You can see the laminated plastic center between the two layers of leather that made the straps so strong and stiff.

We give service not excuses! Special T delivery was my longest SF messenger job. After working for a couple of shitty companies (Flash..cough cough) I snagged a spot at Special T, it was mostly old dudes but there were a few young guns like me, Silver, Illya the Russian, and we road hard to make that cash. This was in 2008 right before the recession hit the US. Our dispatcher Frank realizes that we would gladly do the work of 3 slow messenger and then ask for more. So he piled it on, during tax season I was doing 50+ jobs a day covering all of San Francisco, one week I made $1400 !! The work was all commission based, and if I recall we made 65% of each job, so the harder you rode the more you made. I feel like this was the salad days of bike messengering for me, radio on my sling bag, brakeless track bike and nothing but hills to climb and money to be made.

There was a time, too long of a time that I only wore MTB shoes, all day. It just made sense to me because I was on my bike all the time. The first time I went to Europe for ECMC 2009 I only brought my Sidi MTB shoes…for a 2 week trip!! So the ATAC cleats were the currency of the day. Riding brake less track bikes in SF you had solid cleats…or you crashed a lot. As you can see I road some to the razor’s edge of usefulness before swapping in new one. To this day I still find thrashed cleats in the most random places around my house, This collection is a fraction of what remains.

Both of these frames are made in Italy, all of the Cinelli prototype frames were hand built outside of Milan.

This is one of first batch of prototype Bolt Frames sent to MASH from Cinelli. Inspired by bikes like the KHS Aero and the early 90’s Cannondale track the aggressive pursuit geometry was all the rage in the mid 2000’s. MASH used these frames for the Tour of California and this was one of the extra’s.

I won this frame at the 2009 Bay to Breakers race, at the time I was riding a 93 Cannondale Track frame and had little use for this bike. Little did I know how far it would take me. ReLoad is a messenger bag maker from Philadelphia and was my first messenger bag.

Like any good messenger my main motivation was making money and riding as fast as I could. BONUS was a Portland graffiti writer who constantly beat me in alleycats when I lived there.

Matt Case made these stickers and while at the time i was probably the biggest hipster out there I thought it was ironic. Bill Walton was a professional basketball player who lived in Portland OR and played for the TrailBlazers, he was 6’11 and he loved riding bikes! He had a custom built track bike he used to ride from his house to NBA practice, and like he said “ the track bike does not suffer fool’s gladly”

Benny Gold designed this logo and it has become an enduring symbol of the MASH brand. Benny has one of these original prototype bolt frames, never ridden!

For a long time this bike sat unbuilt in my room, eventually I decided to “save” my cannondale track bike and work on this frame. After a few weeks on the road I was hooked. Cinelli hydro formed their tubes and despite what I wanted to believe the improved tubes, 1 1/8” head tube and carbon fork made for a much better ride than my 25 year old dented beer can Cannondale.

Courier’s work off of their stomach. If you know me you know I LOVE donuts and in San Francisco there is no better donut than Bob’s… so if you are ever here in SF make sure to get one!

One thing that set the Histogram prototype apart from all the other frame sets what it’s upside down top tube. For reasons unknown the builder flipped the top tube on this one prototype.

The first trip I took the bike on was to Japan for Kyoto Loco and CMWC 2009. It was only my 2nd time out of the country and an eye opening experience. Notice the “fake brake” levers on my bullhorn bar. Everyone in SF had hear horror stories about riders getting arrested for riding no brakes and I wasn’t taking any chance. I raced Kyoto Loco in Kyoto and then spent a wild week riding from Kyoto to Tokyo for CMWC. The ride was my first tour in another country and set the tone for the next decade of my life!

I loved working on this bike, set up with bullhorns for climbing I was a madlad in the streets of SF. I used to go through a tire a week just skidding all over the place and sprinting around, pure speed and pure joy! This is a still from the first clip I ever filmed with Mike for MASH. He met me outside of court in SF and brought me a tire, because the one I was riding was shot. I changed the tire and he followed me all the way out to Hunter Point on a mail run. He filmed by himself and somewhere there is footage of him trying to hop a curb one handed and crashing, but he saved the camera!! You can watch the clip here

Back in the day touring on a track bike all ways seemed like a great idea. You know what is not a great idea? Riding north up the western coast of America. Steve Tortorelli road from San Francisco to Portland for the Westside invite 2009. We were both on bolt frames and just had backpacks for our gear. I remember we both rode 47x17 gearing and each had different handlebars, I had drops he had bullhorns and we would switch them around every other day. It rained almost the time (it was October) and since we were riding North there was a headwind the whole time.

This was from an alleycat in SF, check out that plastic saddle!!

This was one of those trips that was really hard and actually kind of miserable but looking back was full of amazing adventures. We slept on an island in a river one night that we had to wait for a boat to take us too. Our only instructions were to “wait at mile marker 127 at 6pm and someone will come get you.” Let me tell you standing on the side of the road in the rain next to a lonely mile marker sign as the sun goes down is a slightly depressing place to be. But a little after 6 a boat appeared out the rain and mist, ferried us across to the island and had a weird night sleeping in a trailer drinking home made wine.

For how cool the bolt was we were still hooked on out 90’s aero frames and we felt like the original geometry as not aggressive enough. So the second generation of aluminum frames would be steeper and tighter, Garrett Chow’s artwork inspired the histogram name. A histogram is a graphical display of data using bars of different heights

A steeper fork and a tighter rake produced an insanely twitch and responsive frame, we were SO stoked! The gold chrome BIG SUR sticker was obtained at the Big Sur lodge during a ride from SF to Vegas for Interbike in 2010. Marc, Crihs and I made the trip in 6 days and this bike was displayed at the Cinelli booth with the two flat tires I rolled into town on.

Since this was the first prototype frame the paint was never clear coated and the graphics were just stickers. It started to show the patina and dirt quickly. The standard 68mm english bottom bracket was a nice touch as any crankset could be fit into this frame.

This bike went to Jakarta Indonesia twice for Fixed Fest, both time were incredible experiences. At the time the track bike scene has just exploded and thousands of kids showed up for these events, the organizers had us gold sprinting national track champions and street racing late into the night.

LUCAS BRUNELLE is a mad man, and a genius, and a great way to shorten your life. I spent a couple of terrifying and exhilarating years traveling with Lucas, from Africa, to the Darien Gap to the Dominican Republic there was all ways adventure to be had and rules to be broken.

2012 NACCC was a high point for this bike and for me, after a 2nd place at 2011 NACCC I was ready for a W. I won the “Beast of the East” in Philadelphia the weekend before the NACCC in Richmond VA. Then we rode from Philly to Richmond, in the middle of the summer, hot sweaty and hungover it was a wild ride. the 2012 race was open course, some hated this but for me it was perfect. Despite getting clipped by a car in the opening alleycat I managed to narrowly edge out Austin Horse to take the championship!

I met Larz WOLVH racing the 2nd RHC in Milan, at the time I didn’t really know who he was, but he struck me as a gnarly dude… his tire blew out and he flew off course and after the race seemed no worse for the wear. Over the years I have watched the ebb and flow of WOLVH, from producing some amazing gear and supporting talented riders, to radio silence and obscurity. But Larz has always been true to himself and his friends, WOLVH NEVER SAY DIE.

Looking at this frame now it seems so steep and uncomfortable. Remembering the first ride, how I felt like I could cut through any traffic, like a ninja, I realize how it was a dream come true for late 2000’s track bike shedderz.

One thing that came out on later frames that was sorely needed on this one was water bottle mounts. Just because you are fast and loose doesn’t mean you don’t get thirsty. So in true messenger fashion, a few hose clamps and electrical tape fixed that problem. - John Watson took this photo at 2011 NACCC in Austin TX.

CMWC 2011 Warsaw Poland, it rained the whole trip. The Polish Authorities let the event take place on an island in the river, but once you went on to the island there were Polish police stationed at the only bridge to make sure you couldn’t leave. It turned into a messenger “Lord of the Flies” very quickly, the highlight was the utter destruction of a car left on the island.

I had a weird gear ration on this bike for a while 44x16.. don’t ask me why.

Full gas at the Austin 2011 NACCC - photo by John Watson. Note the house arrest style timing chip on the ankle, very classy.

This was the coolest ulock ever. A bike shop in Boston has coated a bunch of the “U” shackles in glow in the dark paint.. This one was confiscated by SFPD at some point and lost for ever.

While the super steep geometry was great for street ripping it was not the best for fixed criteriums. That didn’t stop us from shredding though. This was during the 2011 Fixed Fest Criterium in Jakarta. The race started at 6am to avoid the heat, Walton ended up winning even after he crashed out with 2 laps to go.

Race recon for the Red Hook Crit Milan, photo by Andrea Schiliro. It was amazing how many people (myself included) began racing RHC’s on pursuit frames, it was only years later that a proper “fixed crit” geometry started to emerge.

CMWC 2012 in Chocago was a brutally hot oven of a good time, held at Soldier Field in the middle of the summer. All the racers sprinted as hard as they could just to get done so they could jump in the lake. I raced the RiverWest24 in Milwaukee then road to Chicago with some buddies to race in CMWC, once again touring on pursuit frames…

Super steep pursuit frames, low profile rims, phil woods hubs, turned down ergo bars, strapped on bottle cages, low socks and Sidi MTB shoes. These frames seem a little crazy now, but when I was shredding them I felt like the coolest kid on the block!

photo by John Watson

This was the last Cinelli frame that I road, and even after I left my relationship with the company I still road it all time as my beater bike. It has not traveled as much as some bikes of mine, but it did take me to a 3rd place Monster Track win and put in countless days of messenger work on the road both in SF and NYC.

After I left Cinelli it seemed like a good idea to cover up some of the logo’s.. I don’t really know why now, but Mike always has a bunch of die-cut stickers laying around the shop so I went to town.

One of my all time favorite things about this bike is the MESSFITS sticker on the fork. At the first RHC in London I was kicking it with my dude Barry Mancini and he was very stoked on my new cover band. He wanted to make some stickers so I sent him the file and kind of forgot about it. Till 2 years later Dylan Buffington gave me an envelope from Barry.. containing a ton fo sick die-cut MESSFITS stickers. Truly a man of style and his word Barry came through. I think the sticker kills it as a fork decal!

Not super big on having my bikes personalized but this rad top cap from Nightrider clothing definitely made the cut.

This Cadence X Ritchey Stem has some rad art by Dustin on it, but the little “KEEP GOING” always stoked me out, the little reminders to keep on pushing are my jam!

Once again another San Marco Zoncolan.. but this was the very first one. The first saddle I ever got from San Marco as a sponsored rider. It has been around the world countless times, on too many builds to count. It is beat up and nasty, and to be honest kind of uncomfortable…but I’ll probably keep it forever!

49 tooth ring up front, a little heavier than I normally like but that’s what came on the cranks and the dinner plate style spider on these cranks look weird with normal chainrings.

MASH briefly worked with the company Rinpoch to develop some track cranks. While the project never really took off the team got sample pairs to test. You had to find some crazy combination of spacers to get the cranks to fit correctly..but the little custom MASH flare is sick!

TCB - frame number 3, hand ecthed by Garret Chow

Lots of people have the one bike part they swear by and will defend at all costs, for me that is TIME ATAC MTB pedals. For no other reason then all the rippers in Portland when I was coming up road TIME ATACs on their brakeless track bikes. All the cool 90’s color ways replacing cleats all the time because the bottoms were blown out of their vintage Sidi’s. I prefer the slightly newer ATaC with the flattened and notched spring bar and the adjustable tension, cranked all the way up to keep you in the pedals as you rip around.

Phil Wood hubs have always been the toughest of the tough track hubs for street riding ATMO. Definitely not the lightest, but they will last you forever and then some. Phil made a limited run of MASH 10 yr anniversary hubs custom anodized in a dark grey with red shield logo. Fixed Fixed 32 hole shredding, everyone on the team got a pair and they obviously went on the 10 year builds.

14t for the speed 17t for the shred

I hit up the amazing people at ZIPP about getting these slick nw hubs laced up and their only question was 32 HOLE WHY!?!? Turns out our archaic idea’s about rim strength belonged in the 90’s. Most performance rims are 28 hole or less, the improvements in metal and manufacturing technology have made 32 hole rims kind of obsolete. BUT that wouldn’t stop the rad people over at ZIPP from stoking me out with a sick new wheel set.

The fine folks at ZIPP custom drilled a set of their super light 202 climbing rims to fit these 32 hole phil hubs. It was very weird for them to take some of the heaviest track hub on the market and lace them to one of their lightest rims, but they did it! And these wheels have seen it all, criteriums, alleycats, trackcx, TONS of work days they have stayed true and strong. Even with some cracks in the carbon and few rather large holes I have never had an issue with these wheels. Will never sell them, partially because of all the holes and cracks but also because they are bomb proof!

Lots and lots of lock ups.. evident by the patina around the head tube. Still a big fan of this original mash logo designed by Benny Gold.

These oils slick bar ends were some of the first custom bar ends MASH made and I think they fit on pretty much any bike. Also seriously get some bar ends.. core samples are so gnar.

As always, black cloth tape, well worn into a comfortable if not a bit ragged grip.

This is the loaner bike for homies in and out of town, I don’t ride it a ton but it gets used enough to keep it build and ready to roll.

This No22 Little Wing titanium track frame and fork came my way in 2016, I had just left my longtime bike sponsor Cinelli and was looking for a new frame to rip around on. Wilis at Deluxe Cycles had a great realtionship with the dudes over at No22 and he arranged the sponsorship. It was a big deal for me, since it was my first outside of MASH bike sponsor and it was a big deal for No22 because they had never given a frame to an athlete before.

Always being a fan of fresh build I held off building this frame for a few weeks so I could source some of the sickest parts. A few *slightly pleading emails to San Marco snagged me this totally 90’s Zoncolan saddle.

The yellow leather of the saddle has defiantly taken a beating over the years but somehow the printed graphics have stayed glossy and fresh. I think this is one of my all time favorite saddles. My butt loves the Zoncolan shape and my sense of style really vibes on the 90’s yellow.

Spicy Boiz stay spicy, and really there is nothing spicier than the smooth welds and subtle gloss graphics on this frame.

Originally the plan was to not sticker the frame up, to keep it clean with only MASH and OAKLEY decals.. But you gotta support the people that support and stoke you out!! So gradually the frame got covered in a highly curated collection of stickers. LANDLORDS GS … if you have to ask then I really can’t tell you…

One of the things that really drew me to this frame-set was the combination of classic and cutting edge technology. The Chris King headset is bombproof and the tube sizes are big enough to stay modern but skinny enough to not look over built. This frame is stiff, not like full carbon stiff, but more like if steel and aluminum spent a wild week on a beach down south and then didn’t talk for 9 months stiff.

Gotta stay hydrated, my only qualm with this frame was the lack of bottle cage mounts. But No22 makes race frames and this was a track frame so why would you need a bottle on the track? To be honest I don’t think this frame has ever been ridden on a proper velodrome…just the streets and crit courses.

Love me a good Black Flag rip off.. Love this Copenhagen messenger company even more! Started by JUMBO and now run by a solid group of friends BY EXPRESSEN is a home away from home in Europe.

I’ve never really been a fan of headbadges, but this CNC cut piece of titanium is pretty rad as it is clean and mellow. Also kudo’s to Wilis for matching up the Chris King headset perfectly.

One of the first things I received from ZIPP were a pair of the SL80 ergo road bars.. in carbon. And of course I promptly crashed them at the last Wolf Pack Hustle Long Beach Crit (and to it’s credit this frame came out of a gnarly pile up with not a dent). There is a rough spot where the bars ground down a bit on pavement, but some dental floss kept the bar tape in place and they’ve been solid for years since.

The cheapest cloth tape you can buy, wrap it very tight, shred on it, and keep going till eventually there is no bar tape left on the bars. Should last about 2-7 years depending.

I paired these 44mm wide bars with a -7˚ 120mm ZIPP Service Course stem, the geometry on the No22 is built for criterium racing, so a little more head tube angle. I liked the long and low cockpit as it kept me in a comfortable yet aggressive position.

No22 had a custom fork made by ENVE for these track bikes, paired with the 73.5˚ headtube angle it handled consistently and quickly. It took a while for me to get used to the slightly slack nature of the front end compared to the slightly more aggressive frames I had been riding. Once I spent enough time on the No22 I grew to really enjoy how consistent the frame responded to rider input.

Because COFFEE rules everything around me… and I may have a problem LOL

The Trouble Coffee manifesto has been a mantra of sorts for my myself, get your hands on one of these stickers and feel the vibes. Samauri Messenger is a NYC courier company run by some of the hardest working courier I know. This is mild flattery because they also let me come moonlight a couple of times a year. COURIIER is TCB’s sister company in Paris France.

SHREDDERZ KREW

To weld titanium you have to pump the frame full of inert gas, usually argon.. this along with the sometimes brittle yet incredibly strong nature of the metal makes it difficult to work with. The team over at No22 has some of the smoothest titanium welds around. I am constantly asked if this is an alloy frame because the welds are so smooth.

MASHxSugino.. name a better combo..I’ll wait..

These custom dropouts had to be large to accommodate the oversize seat tubes and chainstays. While it does make it hard to use a 15mm axle, the wide fairings also protect your axle bolts/nuts when the bike goes down.

WOLVH

ZIPP gave me the opportunity to utilize their Impress™ rim printing technology to create some custom 303 Firecrest™ rims. I printed out the template in full size, drew on it and then sent it their way. A few weeks later these speed weapons showed up. It is crazy how they are able to print on the golf ball like speed dimples and still hold the details!

Neo Gothic “brake” bridge

I won this 44RN 47t chain ring back in 2012 at Stupor Bowl in MLPS. This is one of the first production runs Aaron made of these rings…And 7 years later it is still rolling strong. Maybe the black has worn off here and there but for a chainring to stand up to 7 years of shredding and still retain it’s tooth shape is mind blowing.

I do consider myself a purist when it comes to track cranks but when I saw the Kierin association had bestowed the coveted NJS stamp on on the Sugino DD ( direct drive) SEALED BOTTOM BRACKET cranks I had to try them! I was not disappointed (well except for the super soft 25mm chain ring bolts, those got swapped to normal NJS bolts real quick) these cranks are super stiff like all Sugino 75’s but there is almost no BB flex like you would have in a standard NJS BB. Kind of rad to see old school style and new school technology work so well together.

I call this the forever bike because I will have it forever.. It is one of the most consistent and smooth riding track bikes I own. It is tough as nails, and has a classic style that is both posh and subtle at the same time. I’m sure I’ll remove all the stickers someday.. and maybe even throw on some riser bars. But no matter what changes this bike undergoes I’ll still be shredding it with grey hair.

This Green Frame is one of two prototypes from Cinelli that arrived to the old MASH shop on 14th st. on September 20th 2012. One for me and one for Walton Brush. Mike who runs MASH was out of town when the box arrived… The frames arrived bare, raw aluminum and carbon, all of Cinelli’s prototype frames were built in Italy and shipped directly to MASH for testing. No refinement or polish, this was the best part about the prototype process with CInelli, they shipped us the roughest iterations of our idea’s and left the refinement to us.

Of course the first thing we do it rush out to buy spray paint so we can customize our frames. We went with a 2 toned 2 sided fade, my bike was green and Waltons was blue. We drug a bike stand in front of the shop, went to town and when Mike came back we both had fully painted and built bikes. We covered the sidewalk with overspray, the neighbors were pissed, Mike made a joke about it, and to this day you can still see the green and blue sprays on the sidewalk.

Mike’s addition to the project was providing us with a ton of slick dye cut stickers. It was his idea to throw the Cinelli sticker down the head tube and fork, it was a perfect fit. This was the first tapered head tube track bike that we knew of. Cinelli had recently launched their new tapered head tube on their road bikes and they were happy to cross the tech over to our track bike. We wanted a steep rake on the fork so we designed as brutal 28mm rake carbon track fork.

The tube-set was based on Cinelli’s new (at the time) aluminum road bikes, we then incorporated a number of proprietary tubes, like the massive down tube. Walton, Mike and I had all grown up idolizing bikes likes the 93 Cannondale track and KHS Aero, and we wanted co-opt some of that performance and style.

Cinelli gave us pretty much carte blanch when it came to the geometry of the new frame. At the time all of our experience had been on super aggressive track frames, kierin frames from Japan had been our Ferrari’s. Thinking that if we combined the high tech tube set with a crazy steep geometry kierin geo we could turn even tight and sprint harder. 74.5 degree head tube and a 75 degree seat tube put the rider directly over the handlebars and pedals. I wanted an even steeper seat tube but Waltons argument for better leverage on the pedals while seated won over. A foreshadowing to many changes in fixed crit specific geometry to come.

While this frame was designed with fixed gear criterium racing in mind, MASH has always been from the streets. And once we got these frames and started ripping on them we found out they were lean mean street shredding machines. The super tight geometry combined with the stiff tube set and tapered head tube created a dream alleycat bike. You can turn these prototypes on a dime, and dig as deep into a sprint as you want without feeling a moment of frame flex. I had a rack attached to the front of mine for years and it served me well as my TCB work bike.

This bike was a dream come true, how often do you get to design your dream bike and then have it shipped to your door? Unfortunately as with most dreams reality can be a harsh awakening. While this bike RIPPED the streets, the super aggressive geometry made the bike unstable and twitchy during a high speed fixed gear criterium. It was great for Walton, Rainier, Kyle and I but unrealistic for most riders. That’s why the prototype process is so important, we refined the angles and geometry through the many production runs to eventually build a purpose built Criterium frame. These first two prototypes were 2 of a kind, super aggressive street shredderz.

While at Cinelli designing the frame Walton and I spent over an hour debating seat tube angles… Rainier was not nearly as interested in the details as we were and caught a quick nap in the Cinelli HQ hallway.

Fijate 2012 in Puerto Rico was the first time out for the new frame, and it performed admirably! I took 2nd in the Alleycat and 1st in the Criterium. Testing was going well, street racing and criterium racing in the same event gave me a good opportunity to stretch the frame sets legs.

Red Hook Milan 2012 was the day before my birthday and also the first time we raced the frames on the international stage. This was the very beginning of team tactics in Red Hook’s and we brought 5 racers out. I remember with 2 laps to go we had all 5 guys in the front controlling the field, we felt so pro. Until a crash going into the finish shook up the entire field, and Evan Murphy took the W in fine fashion.

Walton really liked having brake hoods to rest on while crushing so he mounted a pair of TRP levers to his bars, even going so far as to zip tying the levers into position so they wouldn’t move. Race officials were less than excited but since these were the early days of RHC he was allowed to race.

Once we had ironed out some of the kinks my prototype was retired from the criterium circuit and stuck strictly to street shredding. Alleycats, shifts on the road at TCB and courier championships like NACCC were all shredded hard as the spray paint slowly chipped away and dents began to accumulate.

John Watson came through SF and managed to catch the build early on before it got too thrashed. It is funny to see how build styles change over the years. Low flange fixed/fixed DuraAce track hubs laced to Mavic CXP30’s with GXP5000 700x25c tires were the hottest wheels on the block.

I realize now years later that I had these ergo bars turned WAY too far down, but at the time it seemed to make all the sense in the world.

Somethings never change though.. Sugino 75 track cranks, 44RN chainring, pure class and style. I have the same body dimensions I had back then, but now I always run a set back seat post and a 110mm stem (this is a 100mm). I wonder how it would feel to ride my old set up?

This was right before I took the leap into road pedals on my track bike, I was all ways Time ATAC on all my bikes. For work, for alleycats, for criteriums, it just made sense. But to be real I was also V scared of the road pedals and trying to clip in.

the last 4 photo’s were all by John Watson

Once we had finalized the changes we wanted to make for production (mainly loosening the geometry to make it more stable in criterium racing) and Garret Chow had designed the graphics it was time for the team to show up and look legit. There were only a hand full (5-6?) of these team issue pre production Parralax frames made. The initial size run of production frames was to be even 54-56-58 but these team frames were odd 53-55-57. To be ready in time for RHC Barcelona 2013 a few corners had to be cut as well…

For the production models all the graphics would be properly printed and sealed onto the frames. But for these team frames most if not all of the graphics were applied as stickers so make the deadline. When they were new you couldn’t tell the difference at all, very subtle lines marked where the powder coat ended and the stickers began. Over the years time and wear have shown more clearly where the stickers were applied. I love this detail, as it shows how hard everyone on the project worked to get things ready in time for the big debut.

Mike had the idea to base the Parralax design on the parralax effect in photography and the artwork was an interpretation of the focal parts of a camera lens. Garret Chow designed the frame and kits for the team to look pro AF when we showed up to RHC.

This was our first solid push as a team for RHC so MASH went all the way with support from HED in the form of some seriously pro tubular track wheels. For all of us this was our first time racing criterium on tubular wheels and for my first foray into the world of deep dish carbon speed!

I think this is Kyles bike.

Castelli cam through with team issue skin suits, with the exception of my MTB shoes and pedals the whole team looked super pro!

Rainier got 3rd and Kyle got 5th in an explosive race where longtime messenger hero FISH took an unexpected win against a stacked field. This was the first time RHC had stopped in Barcelona and while the race was exciting the after party is what kept the race coming back.

The team continued to campaign the team issued frames all RHC season. For us just the feeling of suiting up in a speed suit that matched your bike, your saddle and you bar tape was a special feeling, from street shredding to pro looking criterium ripping the Parralax project helped elevate MASH.

Dylan was not part of the team that went to Barcelona for RHC in 2013, but he made his mark with a team issue parralax. While a lot of frame designs in the years after we launched the parralax focused on lengthening the frames, incorporating more of a stable road bike geometry, Dylan got a hold of a team frame and relished the super steep geometry that was closer to the original prototypes. He traveled with is team frame all over the world and continues to rip on it around SF to this day.

I as well kept my team frame and continued to race criteriums and alleycats on it for years after the initial launch. I still have the skin suit as well and maybe one day i’ll bring it all back out for a rip down memory lane.

I guess the original yellow paint job probably looked really nice when it was fresh and clean, but since the replacement of a few tubes and countless years of wear and tear the patina is really starting to shine through. I think the theme on this build is “comfort doesn’t equal fun”

This frame was bought in the mid 2000’s by a former TCB rider, right at the tail end of the NJS craze that swept the American track bike scene. If I remember when I got it the bike had some NITTO bullhorns and a high flange Phil Wood x Velocity deep V wheelset, very classic. At some point the frame was crashed in an alleycat and both the top tube and the down tube were wrecked. Not wanting to give up on the dream the frame was taken to Bernie Mikkelsen of Alameda CA.

So here in the Bay Area there are few frame builders that have the reputation of Bernie Mikkelsen, he has been at it since 1974 (!!!!) and has created some of the most iconic custom bikes no one has never hear of (the KAMIKAZE, probably one of the first purpose built messenger work frames) and is known at the guy that can fix just about any frame and bring it back to life. I guess Bernie decided to keep it classic, because he kept the original head tube, seat cluster lug and BB, and just replaced the top and down tube. This bike has some very stylish original lug work on the back and then some smooth as butter fillet brazing on the front, and the original fork!!

KALAVINKA, 3RENSHO, NAGASAWA… these were the names that haunted my dreams like teenagers with pop stars. These were some of the most revered NJS frame builders in Japan, and their bikes were always just out of reach. So the NAGASAWA lugs on this Corex polish the proverbial turd to a lustrous glow. While the frame may have been built in South Korea the bones are undeniably of the finest Japanese lineage.

The little details like the NAGASAWA stamps on the drop outs paired with these NJS tensioners (thanks Jake !!!) add to the over all NJSness of the build.. if you can ignore the massive carbon blades in the back ground.

Somewhere along the line a NOS set of COREX decals were hunted down on the internet and applied to the frame. I think the choice to eschew a repaint and just throw a few cans of clear coat on the repaired frame was a solid one. Eventually most of the decals have fallen off and the quick clear coat has led to rust spots. But one of my favorite things about this bike is the contrast between the original paint and the repaired tubes. The subtle difference between the classic lug work and the smooth fillet brazes doesn’t catch everyone’s eye but when it does it produces confusion, slight disgust and sometimes and smile.

In the late 80’s and early 90’s the cycling industry was inundated with new technology, carbon fiber!! anodization!! CNC machining !! the possibilities for speed and performance were unlimited!!! With great power comes great responsibility.. the fine folks over at Spinergy forgot (never had to begin with?) their responsibility for the safety of rider in the pursuit of raw speed and power.

These wheels were all the rage for a year or two in the late 90’s their 8 carbon blades promised an aero advantage over simple spoked wheels. Unfortunately those same blades sliced off a few knee caps during crashes in pro tour races, and “MAYBE” exploded under a few amateur racers in tight turns. So in their infinite wisdom in the early 2000’s the UCI banned the Spinergy Rev X wheels along with a few other carbon follies in an effort keep racers “safer".’ Since then these wheels have developed a reputation as DEATH WHEELS, un predicable and prone to epic and unexpected failures. Not something I really worry about when compared to the stylistic and aero advantages they provide on my jaunt to the coffee shop.

Even after the Rev X was torn from the quiver of the pro peleton they enjoyed a 2nd heyday in the continental and amateur racing scene. Spinergy even made efforts to strengthen their fragile wheel (brand) but creating after market “stiffeners” dubbed the X BEAM to build up the wheels rigidity. These were then proven scientifically to make the wheel LESS STIFF, so Spinergy wisely decided to abandoned the Rev X project for the green pastures of SPOX….. The thing that separates this wheel-set from most other Spinergy’s is the fact they are clincher, and came from the factory with a track hub. Most Spinergy’s out there are tubular (performance wheels DUH) and those that ended up fixed usually got there from some janky conversion and re-spacing. These are the real deal built for the streets and skidz Spinergy Track Wheels!

One the real though these wheels are very sketchy, in a straight line sure they are super fast and once you get them moving they really do slice through the air like the aero knives they are. But turning, especially at speed is a white knuckle experience to say the least. Skidding.. yea no, factory track hub or not you can feel the wheels (or is it the frame…) flex like crazy. So this is strictly a chilleur ride, all show and no go.

A few years back Mavic released a new carbon race wheelset with MATCHING TIRES!! Yep that’s right they created a tire for the front and a tire for the rear of this very special wheel set. Obviously to make the pro’s faster and the rest of use feel better about spending all that extra money for the matching tire set to our new $$$$ wheels.

I was digging through a box of bike parts in JT’s Paris flat in 2015 when I came across this matching set of tires, if there was ever the even fancier matching wheel set is an even bet. Since JT doesn’t ride bikes any more these made it back to my garage where they sat for a few years just waiting for the right wheels to gift their excess speed unto… . Finally this perfect wheel-set appeared and now they have a permanent home for their high technology.

Sugino 75’s forever, the most solid, the classiest, the iconic crankset of NJS racers from the beginning. Paired with a loose ball HATTA NJS BB this is a set it and forget it combo. The original finish on the crank arms has been polished to a high sheen by years of Vans rubbing against it, truly a timeless combination.

unless someone has some Superbe Pro 165mm….? anyone?

ZEN was the tip top, buy it once and use it forever chainring. Still used by NJS and UCI pro level racers at a cool $150 USD these rings may break the bank but they will never break on the banks!!!

Double straps are all the rage and rightfully so if you are going to hit the skidz and shred the streets. But back in the day it was single straps or nothing, paired with the cheap MKS Sylvan track pedal this was the set up that i learned to skid on and still feel is the classiest. Those Cadence Collection singles were saved from a super limited production run, doubles for days, singles are saved.

The coloration of almost a decade of jean shorts and cut off dickies being rubbed into this fine Italian leather is the definition of patina.

For this build I opted to throw out my weight saving tendencies while still sticking with a classic saddle. The Selle Italia SLR has always made my butt happy even it it looks like a torture device to some. This particular saddle came off a messenger’s work bike, I wish there was someway to hold this in time and never let it change while still riding it daily.. alas I really need to get some super glue and fix the tear in the front before it gets worse..because there is no way I am gonna stop riding this saddle.

Salsa stems were handmade in Petaluma CA for years, bridging the gap between the Japanese and Italian classic stem style and a rougher and tougher handmade aesthetic. I have been a collector for years and while there are a huge amount of riser stems finding an aggressive race stem is a diamond in the rough. Almost as hard as finding these flat bars.. oh wait I found these in a box on the sidewalk, and is that an orange soda can as a bar shim.. ?

These bars are precisely measured to the scientifically proven perfect width for shredding, my shoulders.. if the bars can make the gap then hopefully shoulders can too. This is a huge step up from the previous method of cutting the bars to be as wide as my pedals… 2006 was a weird time.

When a friend comes into town i am more than willing to give them a bike to borrow. When a homie comes into town you bring out the Cadillac for them to roll around on. Most of them left something for me after they were done with it.

NTCB all day, also upside down Chris King headsets all day, if you have to ask you’ll never know

SIX PACK

Truly a Frankenstein of style, the best (or worst) of a couple of different worlds, guaranteed to get some weird looks and salty comments. I love this rat rod and couldn’t think of a better bike for my short trips to the coffee shop and bar.

I know that proper bike photo’s require the big ring.. but this bike almost never get’s there.. perpetual little ring cruising!

The paint matched Wound Up carbon fork is pretty much the coolest addition to any custom build, coming up I could never afford a Wound Up but all the coolest messenger bikes had them. I love how the grease and dirt has slowly crept up the fork blades from years of riding

The Cinelli Alter stem was one of the most iconic components to come out of the 90’s cycling scene. Non practical, a bitch to install and prone to failures from all the bolts that you could over tighten, these are the coolest non essential stem EVER (runner up to the CInelli Frog stem from the same era). I have the pin up girl top cap to go with the stem..but they tend to get stolen so it resides safely inside. The bike actually came with a 130mm Alter stem and it took me over a year to find the 110mm that I have on it now.

Also without the cap they Alter makes for a great pen holder..

You have Campy cool.. and then you have Titanium Record 8 speed campy cool… . i have always thought that you don’t really need more than 8 gears, this along with the Dura-Ace flight deck 8spd group was the high water mark of brifters..(ATMO). These have that classic campy “ergo” hood and the brakes have a notched “click” every time you pull the lever. Great on the downshifts, sloppy on the upshifts (always shift down, just go faster!) these are some of the most subtly bling on the bike.

While they are no Delta’s these Campy Record Brakes are pretty flossy, and they “kinda” stop the bike.. The Mango 1 1/8 Chris King headset is on of the few non period correct parts on the bike. While I think it would be cool to swap in a silver or pewter HS, it is too much work so the mango lives on. The cable stop was the only thing broken when I got the bike, and once again I have always meant to fix it….but it still shifts just fine so….

I like to use the cheapest cloth bar tape I can find, wrap it as tight as I can, then let it be forever. The patina from sweat, rain, dirt and life in general just gets better with time.. Eventually it becomes, to me at least, the most perfect bar wrap. Not very grippy, no padding or comfort..but somehow it fits like a glove and soothes even the sorest of hands…. plus it looks v classy.

LEGALIZE SPINACII!!! if you are not familiar with the battle cry go HERE and read all about it. I got these Spinaci’s directly from Cinelli for a trip years ago.. but they are not made for oversized bars, so they went into the collection. A friend knowing my propensity for 44mm bars gave me these wide (for the time period) Cinelli ergo races bars years ago, once again i didn’t have a bike for them so into the collection they went. Then this Croll rolled into my life and I found the perfect frame for my period correct 80’s aero race cockpit!! Years of collecting, hours spent gently tightening old screws provided the coolest thing to hit the streets since Lemond’s 1989 TDF victory.

Also there was a time at TCB when you were required to have a rack.. and this barely served that purpose, but I can confirm that you can fit at least 1 fully loaded catering bag on this ”rack.”

Classic 80’s gearing of 53/39 on this once pristine Campy Record crankset keeps this big perpetually in the little ring. One of the few non period correct parts besides the Chris King HS these BMX pedals keep things chill…and also a little terrifying. This is a classic “long and low” 90’s race frame, so the low BB height combined with the 172.5mm length cranks and super wide BMX pedals causes some serious pedal strike whence diving into turns..you can see it illustrated on the outer edge of the pedals.

CROLL was a Minneapolis based custom bike builder, I can only guess that this frame was built sometime in the late 90’s to be a criterium race bike. All of these are assumptions, based on the geo and build. But it is cool to know I am cruising around on an American built race frame!

All the small parts on the frame are from local legend Tom Ritchey, so once again it is rad to be on a USA hand made frame, with local pieces!!!

The proof is in the puddlng

Another ultimate cool piece of equipment was the Selle Italia SLR saddle.. once again never had the money to get one when I was coming up, but for the Croll I dug deep into the collect to find the “cleanest” one I had. The thinest of padding, totally lack of taint relieving cut out, and classic 165g of pure weigh saving combined to create the literal cherry on top. The bike came with the classic Campy Aero setback seat-post, i swapped in a Thomson straight post to make it more comfortable, this is the 3rd and last non period correct piece on the bike.

The best and worst.. built in seat clamps sweat class and style…but one wrong turn of the wrench and your frame is toast. So once this was set it was has not been touched in 4 years. I also think the MASH friendship bracelet imbibes some luck in keeping this little bolt solid.

8 speeds, and one of the classiest rear derailleur to ever come out of Italy. This has never been adjusted, a credit to Wilis at Deluxe who tuned the bike before it came my way. Maybe in only has 8 speeds, but i think the fact that it can shift for 4 years with only a splash of chain lube once in a while makes up for my lack of shifting options. I love the splatter of dirt and oil on the fancy bladed spokes of the Shamals.

I think the 4 years of collect grease and dirt on these Campy hubs will cause some people to seize up, but for me it is like the rings of a tree, illustrating years of growth and cruising. Security skewers are huge part of this chill ride as I can lock it up anywhere with little worry. I actually have no idea where the key for the skewers is…so here’s hoping these old Continental 4000s tyres hold up for years to come.

It takes years of calculated neglect to create grease marks such as this. Truly an ode to the craftsmanship and precision put into these hubs, they still spin as fast and true as the day i got them.

Deep dish alloy race wheels where the coolest of cool in the 80’s and 90’s. before 80mm deep disc brake carbon rims, the Campy Shamal / VENTO and Mavic Cosmic wheel-sets were raced by in pro pelotons around the world. These at the time where the pinnacle of high speed technology , machine built with hidden spokes and high polish finishes.

Even the 90’s graphic ‘s and front screen speed and the illusion of high tech.

The little things such as the clippy jawn left over from a messenger shift years ago and the frame pump tab on the head tube continue to bring me stoke every time I hop on this bike. Hopefully one I day i will slam that stem to complete the “aero advantage.”

Hand built USA goodness combined with the finest Italy could produce in the mid 90’s !