LEADER BIKES | NEW 721 AND CURE 2016
Leader Bikes introduce new 721 and Cure
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MY OWN TEAM | 8bar
The 8bar team is a Fixed Gear racing team from Berlin, Germany.
TEAM RIDERS
MAN
WOMEN
OFFICIAL SPONSORS
2016
The team is sponsored by adidas cycling, DT Swiss, Kappstein and Brooks England (new for 2016).
BIKE
2016
8bar KRZBERG v6 – 8bar team edition black
BIKE SETUP FOR THE TEAM IN 2016
8bar KRZBERG v6 – 8bar team edition
DT SWISS RC55 Track – tubular wheelset
8bar GIGA crankset
8bar GIGA seatpost
8bar GIGA stem
8bar GIGA road drop bar
Brooks Cambium C13 Carbon saddle
Continental – Gatorskin – Tubular
Kappstein Sprocket
www.flickr.com/photos/8barbikes
Photo courtesy of Stefan Haehnel
SPONSOR LINK
www.adidasspecialtysports.de/radsport-shop
www.dtswiss.com/Laufrader/Laufrader-Strasse/RC-55-TRACK-T
PATRICK KOS
When you fall in love with cycling? How old did you start?
I started cycling in 1999, at the age of 11, together with my brother Christian. My father was a former pro-cyclist and World Champion on the track (1981). He was more or less the reason my brother and I started cycling. At first, I was not good at it, but I got better and better. It was 3 years later that I was sold to the sport of cycling. It was the Dutch Championships Omnium on the track and was leading the classification until the last discipline. I got beaten by a fraction, but it was the first time I got the excitement of winning big races and thinking about a bright future in cycling.
NICO DEPORTAGO CABRERA
Photo by NVAYRK | Beto García
Who is Nico?
I am an artist, an athlete, and a lover of life experience. I can’t say that I’ve made
all the right decisions in my life, but they have led me to where I am now and I
couldn’t be happier.
Photo by NVAYRK | Beto García
When did you start cycling?
Why the bike is so special for you?
When I was 20 years old I lost my driver’s license due to a series of alcohol
infused bad decisions. Initially, the bicycle became a necessity if I had any plans
to hold down a steady job. I held it together for a while, but continued to drink
heavily and get myself into trouble. Several warrants, arrests, and hospital visits
later I was finally able to dry out and move back to the city (Chicago). I was
unemployed and all I had was a guitar and a busted up old 80’s Japanese ten-
speed. I started to ride around the neighborhoods out of boredom and I fell in
love with the freedom it provided me. I could go anywhere at anytime for free. I
felt so unrestricted. This sensation is what makes the bicycle so special to me. I
felt like a prisoner to depression and alcohol abuse and I couldn’t break free, until
this two wheeled machine showed me the way. Now, I couldn’t imagine my life
without riding.
Photo by NVAYRK | Beto García
Tell us about your sponsors and and your relationship with them.
In the end of 2009 I was approached by All-City Cycles after winning the NACCC
in Boston. Jeff Frane, the brand manager and founder, wanted to put together a
team of couriers to represent the brand and support the urban cycling lifestyle.
For me it all started here. At the time, messengers were not getting
sponsorships. This was new territory for both brand and riders. Having All-City’s
support, I was able to start relationships with some other brands who’s products
and ideology I could get behind. Bern Unlimited and I made an incredible
connection after they sponsored the 2012 CMWC in Chicago. I became fast
friends with those guys and it was so natural to start working with them on a
sponsorship level. Same with Fyxation out of Milwaukee. Around that time I
struck up relationships with Boombotix, DZR Shoes, and Kryptonite Locks.
In 2013 I started talking with the Athlete Marketing Manager for Red Bull here in
Chicago. Red Bull had been supporting Austin Horse for a few years at that point
and they had garnered interest in what I was up to on both a local and
international level. By 2014 I was signed on as an athlete and I couldn’t be more
pleased with that relationship. Red Bull has helped me to accomplish things I
always felt were out of my reach. They get excited about things their athletes get
excited about and do what they can to nurture that excitement. Austin and I were
later approached by Zipp Speed Weaponry after they saw some of the video
projects we did with Red Bull and brought us into the Zipp/SRAM family. Zipp
being a midwestern company and the best wheel manufacturer in the world it
was a no brainer for me. I recently started working with Seagull Bags, another
midwestern company, and I am really pumped! They make amazing bags and we
are putting together some collaborations for 2016 that I am really excited about!
Looking back, I never thought taking a job as a bike messenger would lead me to
where it has, but its a wild ride I am happy to be on.
Photo by NVAYRK | Beto García
You’re part of the team All-City , for us one of the most radical and genuine company of fixed gear culture .
Your collaboration with them.
Projects that you have both.
One of the things the courier team does with All-City is help influence the brand’s
involvement with cycling culture. It is not only about being the fastest, but also
how we affect our local communities and the greater cycling community. Its one
thing to win races, but all of us on the team are heavily involved with urban
cycling culture through things like event organization or content production and
this helps both the riders and the brand have a strong and positive presence in
cycling. Its been a lot of fun to see the brand grow over the years and to see the
riders mature and develop who we are as riders and people.
Photos by NVAYRK | Beto García
Photos by Jonathan Loic Rogers
Alleycats are particular races with a special relationship between man and bike. A different form of competition.
What they represent for you?
Alleycats to me are what separates us from much of the cycling world. It is a
format born out of the daily life of the bike messenger and is unique to our
culture. It takes a set of skills that doesn’t exist in road, cross, mtb, or track
cycling, yet for many people that skill set transfers to other disciplines. Our
senses are developed in ways they can only develop by riding in the
unpredictability of urban traffic. In time however we learn to predict the
unpredictable. Winning an alleycat means you are fast, but fast in an alleycat isn’t
just about legs. Its about making split second decisions based on your
surrounding. Its about improvisation. The way isn’t laid out for you, you have to
make your own way. To me, this builds both skill and character.
Photo by NVAYRK | Beto García
Nico # Music
Tell us about your path in the music, what represents for you, what do you feel
when you go up on stage.
I grew up playing in various punk rock bands. I was in a suburb of Chicago that
didn’t really have much to offer to young people, so we made noise instead.
When you are 15 years old and angry (though not sure why really) playing in a
loud rock and roll band is salvation. When I first experienced that salvation I
knew that this would be a part of my life forever. Punk rock also taught us that if
there is something you want but don’t have, you create it yourself. This DIY ethos
has been a big part of my life and I see a lot of parallels in the messenger world.
These days my music is less angry or punk rock, but I still take that approach to
it.
Young Distractions photos by Jen Marie
What are your interests besides music?
Between cycling and music my life is pretty well occupied. I am always working,
training, or rehearsing. Both cycling and music however are my conduits for
seeing the world. I would be just has happy touring with my band as I would be
with my bicycle. I am lucky to have these things in my life.
Photo by NVAYRK | Beto García
What are your plans for the future? Can you imagine a life outside the world of cycling?
I often think about what I would do if something happened that left me unable to
cycle. Like if I lost a leg, what would I do? Then I think about the messenger in
New York who lost his leg saving a kid from getting hit by a car. He makes it
work. There also used to be a guy who raced cyclocross in our local series who
lost an arm and still raced every Sunday. I think that one way or another I will
always find a way to be involved with cycling no matter what. Working with all the
brands I do has given me a de facto degree in marketing that maybe I will try and
put to use someday, but I would rather keep riding and playing my guitar. I have
no delusions of being rich off of all this, I just want to be happy.
Photo by NVAYRK | Beto García
4 Star Courier Collective.
You are owner and manager. Tell us about of your work. What is like moving and working in a city like Chicago?
I recently left the collective as a partner due to my travel and race schedule
occupying more and more of my time. But in the 4 1/2 years I was a partner there
the company grew a lot and I’m really proud of everything 4 Star has
accomplished and continues to accomplish. I will always feel like a part of the 4
Star family. I’ve since gone independent and do deliveries for my own set of
clients and started working evenings for Cut Cats Courier, a collective who does
primarily food delivery.
Chicago is a fun city to ride. It is beautiful from an architectural perspective. It is
easy to navigate. The weather can really put you to the test however. Our
summers are among the best in the world, but our winters are among the most
brutal. I’ve worked days that were -47 degrees F. Everything freezes. My contact
lenses have frozen to my eyeballs. The city is flat, but our wind makes up for it.
Riding into a 35 mph headwind is like climbing a mountain without the sense of
accomplishment. When you combine that wind with sub-zero temperatures you
get a unique state of misery only the midwest can offer you. Even still, I don’t see
myself leaving anytime soon.
Photo by NVAYRK | Beto García
Chicago Cuttin Crew.
Your relationship with them.
The Cuttin Crew started as a bunch of knucklehead messengers doing
knucklehead things together and throwing alleycat races. Somewhere along the
line, it became a USA Cycling team and a way for messengers and alleycat
racers to transfer their energy and skills into sanctioned racing. The team has
grown quite a bit over the years and our reach has extended from just racing to
USAC event organizers, alleycat organizers, and beyond. We throw a race at the
end of the cyclocross series that acts as a benefit for West Town Bikes and
Blackstone Bikes, two organizations who run after school bike programs for
urban youth in low-income areas. We’ve also got some of the fastest women in
Chicago in our ranks who have accomplished a lot for women’s cycling locally.
Photo by NVAYRK | Beto García
Cycling has given to you the opportunity to travel around the world, know other peoples and cultures, and make friendships outside your country.
These experiences have changed something in your life?
I am constantly amazed at the opportunities I have been given through cycling. I
never thought international travel was something that was accessible to me on a
working class salary, but this is part of what makes messengers unique. We
support each other. You can show up in a city with a bike and a bag and find a
place to stay with a messenger you’ve only just met. You can find a job. You can
experience a side of a city that even most locals don’t get to experience. I’ve
made so many amazing friendships and connected with so many people through
this messlife. It has truly defined me and made me a better person. Before all
this, I was on a path that was going to leave me dead or in jail. I had no sense of
purpose and I believed in no future. Messlife has given me a purpose and has
helped me become the person I was meant to be.
Photo by NVAYRK | Beto García
www.kryptonitelock.com/en/home.html
NICO DEPORTAGO CABRERA
www.facebook.com/nico.deportagocabrera?ref=ts&fref=ts
www.instagram.com/indigo_nico/
Photo courtesy of
NVAYRK | Beto García
Jonathan Loic Rogers
Jen Marie
A VERY SPECIAL THANKS TO BETO GARCIA AND NVAYRK
www.facebook.com/NVAYRK/?fref=ts
GIOVANNI OCCHIPINTI | LACREMO’
Photo by Emanuele Barbaro
Two years ago I started to work in my laboratory in Lacremò.
Lacremò is the dialect noun for a neighborood of Finale Ligure , where I live. So Lacremò is a toponym.
I love to think of it in this way, as a point on a map.
Photo by Emanuele Barbaro
I started with a minimum manual knowledge due to my father massive experience as a worker in shipyard, mixed with my experience as a designer and the big will to learn.
Photo by Emanuele Barbaro
The passion for bikes and cyclism is a great motivation, we can’t forget that it has been an important part in the past of our country both for what concerns cycling and the cyclistic productions.
Bricklayers wins the ”Giro D’Italia”. Cyclist that becomes designers and succesfull businessmen.
This is a story made of people who had the chance to run unknown roads. The heroic aspect and the social emancipation that the bikes brought, it’s still bringing is a vector of noble values.
Photo by Emanuele Barbaro
Unfortunately modernism and hyper technicism have distort this aspect, and that’s why I choose a different road, a more romantic and emotive road without ending in the melancholy of vintage. The spirit of vintage cycling fascinates me and
I would like to link to the future.
That’s the theme of my research.
I really like to have a wide open view, to think the bike as a way transport, trying to value the most important aspects of the materials and their use.
The most important part of a bike is the frame, the frame must answer a need.
We should consider it as an extention of our body, at the same time as a driver and fuel.
Photo by Emanuele Barbaro
The frame is a complex product.
I’m in the planning and realization of frames, filled brazed and conjuctions .
I’m the businessman and worker of a small reality.
Photo by Emanuele Barbaro
I like to define my laboratory as an experimental laboratory of artisan production.
We not only produce, we study with an eye on past, the tradition , innovation , melting together other arts to create a unique results. To enjoy the personal experience of freedom.
Photo by Emanuele Barbaro
Sections, tubes, angles, trail, wagon length, lowering the bottom bracket, are only few aspects that allows us to customize a frame, we add the measure and the new construction could start.
Everyone has its own style and interpretation, some answers come through experience, other through study and other with knowledge but there is quite never a unique response.
The only certain thing is that the bike is sweat and tears, it requires always a strong effort but it gives you more : new perspectives, wellness and freedom.
“Passion is the motivation of a unique object.”
Emanuele Barbaro
H E A R T B E A T
“I’m Luca Botte, i’m 21 and i live in Cesena, a small city in Italy. I met Filippo Cinotti a long time ago… One afternoon i decided to give him my positive feedback about his movie works… Than we started to talk, and he told me that he was keeping in mind a project about ”a passion” but not a common or popular one, it should have been a passion different from the others and unseen. At the same time, i was thinking about how to spread my thought about my passion, and i was really sad cause i was enable to realize it… so we decided to put our ideas together, that’s how all started.”
Your background.
Filippo : I was born as a video maker and than as a photographer in between 2010 and 2011. My career has been influenced by the love for cinema. I started to work with music videoclip, than I moved towards wedding and fashion world, till I came to create with a crew Vmultimedia, a group that works for cinema.
There is a very specific concept behind this project?
Filippo: The concept behind Heartbeat is the Heartbeat itself. The emotion, the heartbeating that the passion for this way of living give us… all described with a narrator and images.
I have always been enable to answer to these questions… I really do not like to be like everyone else, I hate monotony… I just found what works for me, what keeps my heartbeat high, what is full of adrenaline in each turn… in each crossroad. Running through the traffic and monotony makes me feel free. The reason of this project is to surprise you, and let you feel what I feel everyday on my bike. I do not have a real goal, I really would like to remember that this is not a sport for everyone, it’s not the usual cycling… we should keep this world close without letting it transform in something different as the other sports. In any case, I’ll be cycling next to those who share my view.
Who has supported you to realize this video?
We did not receive any external budget and we do not have sponsors. It has all be done with our money and efforts.
“We have the impression that the entire movement has a vital need of projects like this. To communicate to a wider audience the difference of approach and culture compared to a ” more traditional and fundamentalist cycling.”
www.facebook.com/dafne.fixed/?fref=ts
www.facebook.com/vmume/?fref=ts
www.facebook.com/adastrafilm/?fref=ts
www.instagram.com/ad_astra_cinema/
www.instagram.com/leaderbikeusa/
www.facebook.com/LeaderBikes/?fref=ts
LUCA BOTTE
FILIPPO CINOTTI
www.instagram.com/filippo_vmultimedia/
www.facebook.com/F.Cinotti93?fref=ts
RHC MILAN 2015| BY CHIARA REDASCHI PHOTOGRAPHY
Photo courtesy of
Chiara Redaschi
cargocollective.com/chiararedaschi
www.instagram.com/chiara_redaschi/
RHC MILAN 2015 WOMEN | BY CHIARA REDASCHI PHOTOGRAPHY
Photo courtesy of
Chiara Redaschi
cargocollective.com/chiararedaschi
www.instagram.com/chiara_redaschi/
NOTES OF BIKEANATOMY | 2015
Hacheon Park | Johanna Jahnke | Augusto Reati | Jörn Bucklitshc | Jo Celso | Luis K Escajeda | Luuk Derks | Apolline Guillemin | Michael Stromberg
Fleur Faure | Safa Brian | Paolo Bravini | Toms Alsbergs | Virginia Cancellieri | François Février | Zac Felpel | Langdon Taguiped | Nico Deportago Cabrera
Jan Hoffmann | Chris Yang | Tim Ceresa | Christopher Rabadi | Manuel Velez | Mario Paz | Francesco Martucci | Carlos Beltran
CANNONDALE TRACK | HILLS OF BARCELONA
Rider Toni Jimenez
Photo courtesy of Brazo De Hierro
Made Exclusively for FHTN
www.facebook.com/Brazo-de-Hierro-Photography-256412159560/?ref=ts
LUCIANO BERRUTI
Hello everybody, my names is Andrea Giana.
I made this amazing interview with Luciano Berruti, global icon of heroic cycling.
I dedicate this to all fans of cycling .
We are on the hills of Savona, in Cosseria, Val Bormida, where my dear friend Luciano hosted me to his house for a conversation and spend a nice afternoon together.
As you know and as you could see, in the last years Luciano has taken part to Red Hook Criterium, not as a rider but as a trailblazer, with old jersey made of raw wool and beautiful colors.
Hi Luciano, tell us more about you
Hello, I’m Luciano Berruti, I live in Cosseria near Savona in a beautiful house in the middle of a green little garden.
My story is simple.
I had a passion since I was a child and that passion was cycling.
I started in 1950 running with the juniors of the Casanova cyclistic society with a little coffee sponsor from Finale Ligure.
My teacher mrs. Innocenti one day brought me and my classroom in Montecala, near Valbormida hill, to admire the Giro D’Italia… I think this was the exactly moment when everything started.
All those cyclist, bikes, people… it was for sure, the most important event of my entire school life.
So I started to stole the bike to my mum, and going for long running in the fields behind our village… then my brother decided to borrow me his bike and immediately I went to ask for a place in the sport society.
Tell us about your Museum
The Cosseria bike museum has been a great surprise even for me.
Few years ago I decided to renovate an old abandoned school, so I went to talk about the project with the president of Liguria region.
He really loved my idea, so with my son, after the structural works, we started to prepare the permanent show, bringing there all the bikes we had in our garage, from the oldest to the most famous… a large collection of original and unique bikes.
It was 2010!
It has been and is still my gift to the others, a way to dedicate them my passion, “cycling”.
Luciano, what does it mean for you the word ”cycling”?
Cycling is not a question of bikes, expositions, competitions… for me cycling is a way of life, a way to live healty looking clouds and skyes…
If there is no joy in cycling, it has no sense.
What do you think about the Red Hook Criterium world?
It’s a short time since I discovered Red Hook even if in past I run with …..
The things I prefer are the passion and the joy everyone put in it, you can see them cleary… smiling and suffering at the same time.
In this sport people used to talk with each other , even when they loose a race, every one want to talk with other cyclists to improve their standards and then be ever more ready to next race.
In those races you run, but you live with the people.
And I really love this way of acting.
Goodbye everybody, it has been a great pleasure! Remember Cycling is a long journey… Lose or win it’s not so important!
Keep running and friendship at the first place!!!
Interview by Andrea Giana
Photo courtesy of Andrea Giana
MADE EXCLUSIVELY FOR FHTN
8bar TIM CERESA RACE SPOTLIGHT
Photo by Stefan Haehnel
TIM CERESA 8bar Team
Photo by Caro Paulette
Photo by Stefan Haehnel
Photo by Caro Paulette
Photo by Stefan Haehnel
Photo by Caro Paulette
Photo by Stefan Haehnel
Photo by Stefan Haehnel
STEFAN HAEHNEL
Photo Courtesy of Stefan Haehnel RHC Barcelona
Photo Courtesy of Caro Paulette RHC Milan