Since 1977 cyclist/pastry chef Tilmann Waldthaler had been pedalling around the globe – clocking over 590,000km in the process. I found out about this guy from reading a small article about his adventures in a 90s bike magazine I was scouring through at a second hand shop—a bit of internet sleuthing later and I was calling up an Australian retirement village to talk to him about bikes, kicking back with Bob Marley and nearly getting gunned down in Iran.
Read it over on the Outsiders site.
On a sort of similar two-wheeled note, I recently interviewed Iris Slappendel about her busy life since ‘retirement’ from the pro-cycling world, making clothes, starting up the Cyclist’s Alliance and working as a commentator for Eurosport.
MTB pioneer Charlie Kelly has been uploading some old issues of his Flat Tire Flyer magazine. This thing started out in 1980 as a simple newsletter before morphing into the first real mountain bike magazine, documenting the transition from balloon tired klunkers to honed Japanese machines. The covers are the best things about this magazine, with the limitations of the era adding to the charm.
The last cover is particularly good. Check the old Nike and New Balance runners to the left. Reappropriating what you can find will always be more interesting than forking out for whatever some ‘development team’ decided you should wear. Mountain biking looked infinitely cooler when there was no such thing as mountain biking clothes.
Here’s an interview with Charlie from a decade ago. Time flies when you’re constantly mithering people half-way around the world about things they did 30 years ago.
On that note, here’s an interview with photographer, rider and magazine-man James Hudson. From back-garden ramp set-ups to the big-top and beyond, James Hudson spent the 80s and early 90s fully engrossed in the world of riding and skating, not just as a rider, but also as a photographer and magazine-man—contributing snaps to R.A.D., editing SK8-Action and publishing BMX Now. This was originally printed in the last issue of Red Steps but there’s no harm in stuff being on the internet too.
Next issue of Roman Candle should hopefully be out sometime in summer. This stuff takes time.
Until then, here’s 28 minutes of audio mastery courtesy of James Ferraro. Been listening to this one a lot lately.
Roman Candle Magazine 