The Radavist

During the Amgen Tour of California, I spent eight hours in Santa Barbara with Aaron Stinner. His framebuilding company, Stinner Frameworks has been on fire lately. From building the Mudfoot Elite cross bikes, to speaking at Mission Workshop and unveiling his newest model: the Fundero MTB.

Available in both 27.5 and 29’r these semi-custom frames are meant to take you to the trail and home again in (mostly) one piece, depending on how much you enjoy ripping. For this build, Aaron went with SRAM XO, Stan’s wheels, XT brakes and a White Brothers Loop 120mm fork but build kits are available in any group.

These frames are lightweight, come with a powdercoat, replaceable derailleur hanger and a tapered head tube. If you’re looking for a straight up, made in the USA shred sled, holler at Aaron!

After I shot photos of his workshop, I grabbed Aaron and his 29’r Fundero for a quick photoshoot at a trailhead down the block from his house… Next time, I need to actually shred this thing!

I’ve been looking forward to this stage since the first time Rapha North America and I discussed doing the Tour of California again. Why? Because Stage 05 ends in Santa Barbara, home to one of my favorite dudes / frame builders, Aaron of Stinner Frameworks.

Our plan was to get into town super early and hit a quick road ride before waiting at the KOM for the Hot Boyz of PRO Cycling to crest. Well, when you’ve been on the road for around a week, plans get shuffled around a bit.

We got to town late, like four hours late, but we quickly assessed the race via the ATOC app and figured we could hammer it up Old San Marcos road to the KOM in time.

Side note: I was over shooting frame builders in their studio, so it was nice getting Aaron out onto a bike. If only I could do this for every “shop visit”…

After literally hammering it up to the top, the breakaway group summited, then the peloton and eventually, the stragglers. The temps were up in the high 90’s and it was hot, hot, hot.

20 miles and 2800′ elevation later and we were ready to hit the road…

Read more in the captions!

The Mudfoot Cyclocross Racing Team began years back as artist Geoff McFetridge found himself racing cross (solo) in Los Angeles. He started winning races and eventually thought it’d be rad to form a team that wasn’t really like other teams in the area.

People take racing very seriously and Mudfoot was about having fun while still kicking ass. Soon Mudfoot grew to a small group of like-minded individuals in the Los Angeles area. Some raced, some didn’t but they all enjoyed cycling. Go to a cross race in SoCal and see for yourself just how ridiculous these dudes act. I know this seems sort of cheesy to read, hell, it sounds cheesy to type but it’s mostly the truth.

Mudfoot has grown to be one of the most coveted “brands” and each year, the team kits get radder and radder. I can’t tell you how many times these guys get hit up to sell shirts, stickers, kits, whatever. People go nuts over it! This year however, Geoff and the Mudfoot elite did something a little different. They teamed up with Santa Barbara’s Stinner Frameworks to design a small fleet of team bikes.

With Geoff’s hand-drawn graphics, paint by Kelli Samuelson of Ritte Cycles and a list of American-made components (PAUL, Chris King) as well as Vittoria, Giro and ENVE, they’re by far the nicest team bikes I’ve ever seen. In fact, I’d go ahead and say that this is my favorite bike of 2013. Kyle‘s bike in particular has some great details.

Details include: Mini Moto front brake, Touring canti rear, Salsa mis-matched skewers and a blue and orange Chris King bottom bracket. While we didn’t get the sunrise light we wanted that morning, the photos came out pretty rad!

I can’t think of a better way to end a year of Beautiful Bicycles… See more in the Gallery!

This has got to be one of my favorite cross bikes I’ve photographed since Ty’s Hufnagel. Raffy’s tale is a unique one, just like his Stinner. He works at Euro Asia and is arguably responsible for gumwall tires being distributed in the continental United States. While the specifics of that are still a but fuzzy, this bike is anything but. Clean, sharp lines mixed in with great paint and a pretty rad build list. See for yourself in the Gallery.

Ride the Divide is one of the most difficult MTB endurance races in the continental US, so when Ty from Golden Saddle Cyclery decided that he was going to participate, he looked to Santa Barbara’s Stinner Frameworks to design a no nonsense 29’r. Utilizing a Rohloff Speedhub 14-speed internal belt drive, this bike will require zero maintenance for the extent of the ride. Tubeless wheels, XTR hydraulic disc brakes, SON hub, E3 lamp and Thomson Ti bars add just amount of show-worthiness to the bike. We rode our new mountain bikes yesterday and I am beyond pumped for Ty. This is one sick ride!