It’s easy to fall into a pattern where riding sometimes feels more like a chore than my favorite past time. It’s easy because my email inbox is full, there are at least three important life deadlines looming, and the sky has been overcast for several days.
Once a week though, I ride out from my house to the top of a nearby mountain a few hours before sunset to meet up with the boys. We drink beers in the tall grass, throw rocks at stacks of cans, talk shit, and then race each other down and back up. It’s in those moments I remember why I love riding bikes.
For brothers James and Dylan Nord, the story is not that different. Growing up, they rode bikes, played pretend, and discovered new haunts, but felt like they lost that spirit of adventure as they grew up. To help rediscover that feeling of childhood excitement they created Deux North. It’s little more than an excuse to gather friends together to chase down future memories, but it provides the rest of us with inspiration and some pretty pics.
As part of the project, the boys go on hunts to explore new roads, meet new people, and adventure. As the number of the hunts increase, so do the stakes. For Hunt Four, nine cyclists from all over the world met in the suburbs of the Silicon Valley at the invitation of James’ long time friend Chris Riekert. A Specialized employee, Chris had asked the group to join him on a 300 mile journey, with 30,000 ft of climbing, to test ride a new adventure bike the company was developing.
Head past the break for images and a few words from Chris about their epic ride along the golden California coast…
“Don’t worry guys, we’ve got 300 miles over the next three days to see how these things ride.”
I’ve literally never seen a more bleak set of faces after I said that late on Thursday afternoon, the night before our three day journey from Morgan Hill to Santa Rosa, CA. So it seems that the boys from Deux North neglected to tell the five guys we invited on the trip that we would be logging three back to back 100 mile days on as much gravel as we could find… whoops.
The goal of the trip was to meet up with Miguel Crawford. Miguel is the man behind the Northern California race series know locally as the Grasshopper Adventure Series. It is a group of five races on mixed terrain that blast through the beautiful northern California coastal hills… as the great Ferris Bueller once said, “if you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.” or in this case, coming out to race/compete/complete.
Keep your eyes open for the next chapter in #SeekandDiverge with Deux North Hunt5 this fall… bigger and better things to come!
Share your rides with us regardless of the bike you’re on with the hashtag #SeekandDiverge
Riders
James Nord
Dylan Nord
Chris Pino
Donalrey Nieva
David Hall
Gui Rosa
Justin Weeks
Chris Riekert
Video By
Aaron Vazquez
Photos By
Andy Bokanev
