writing
editorial, technical/product copy, pitches, editing
THE RADAVIST
A COFFEE FARMER SHOULD HAVE BEEN COLOMBIA'S GREATEST CYCLIST
Wrote and edited
Shot and edited all images
excerpt
“There is a distinct sharpness in the Sunday morning Andean air as José Villegas plucks a tiny coffee shoot from the ground, barely as tall as an espresso cup. Looking out over the valley on the edge of the steep slope, the setting is idyllic, like something from a late 20th-century film epic. Dressed in little more than slippers, gym shorts, and a t-shirt, he studies the greenery carefully nestled in his palm, nods in approval, and continues scouting the steep slope around him for other shoots…Everything on the farm is done mostly by hand. There are no chemical fertilizers or pesticides. The family has been farming like this ‘from the beginning’, José explained, not because it was popular, but because it was the right way to do things. The only way.”
BAUM CYCLES
THE BAUM SUPREMACY
Wrote and edited
Shot and edited some images
excerpt
“Geelong is an unassuming place, in history and memory. Its economic story is one familiar to many denizens of America’s Rust Belt – places like Cleveland, Ohio. Gary, Indiana. Detroit, Michigan. Scranton, Pennsylvania. There’s an exception, however. The timeline in the town on the shores of Port Phillip is more present, its own slow bleed of manufacturing, talent, and money occurring now instead of twenty years prior. Shuttered, slumping oil refineries, aluminum mills, auto manufacturers, and a vast textile industry dominate the northern skyline of the city of a quarter-million. It is a Southern Hemisphere anachronism. And, in a beautiful twist of fate, the most coveted bicycles in the world are built in the shadow of its derelict silos and smokestacks.”
PEZ CYCLING NEWS
EROICA CALIFORNIA
Wrote
excerpt
“For the first 20 miles, there was a fierce struggle between the bike and I, as I attempted to learn the art of finding gears, anticipating my shifting needs ahead of time, escaping/entering my tiny pedals, skittering through gravel, and riding mostly in the drops. Finally, with a quick tightening of cables, we began to groove. The experience evolved from something frustrating into deep liberation. The requirement to tune into the terrain, into my riding style, and into the bike itself brought the journey and my companions to the forefront. My shifts became methodical, calculated, and planned, much like shooting with film after several years with a digital camera.”
KENTON COOL
MEETING LUCK HALFWAY
Wrote and edited
Shot and edited some imagery
excerpt
“He cannot accept the consequences of the risk he undertakes with regularity. He does not want to leave his family. He can’t leave his family. He’s seen the pain, firsthand. But he also loves the Mountain, and the Mountain is part of his life - of his understanding of life. Much like a professional cyclist climbing off the bike for the last time, or a fighter pilot who’s hanging up their flight suit after their final sortie, his existence predicated by the very brink of human experience is structured around the moments it affords him. How can that be replaced? Can one even deign to replicate it? He doesn’t know.”
BICYCLE QUARTERLY
REVIEWED: THE OPEN UP
Wrote
An overly-technical bike review for a renowned overly-technical cycling print publication - Bicycle Quarterly.
tap image for full article
MOSAIC CYCLES
AMERICAN FRAMEBUILDING, REINVENTED
Wrote and edited
excerpt
“‘This,’ he shouts over the whir of the motor ‘is my favorite tool.’ Aaron is holding what appears to be an oversized electric toothbrush with a long sanding belt where there should be bristles. It’s a handheld belt sander, he explains. ‘This is so much faster than filing,’ he lamented. ‘That can take hours.’ He finishes the job cleaning up the brazed dropouts of the new TrueTemper S3 RS-1 steel frameset in five minutes. It’s a model for how he’s run the business. He could tig weld the dropouts much faster, he explains, ‘but then it would just look cheap’. Efficiency and purpose married to artistry, which Aaron explains is the root of the company’s namesake – a mosaic. Everything at Mosaic exists for a reason, creative or practical, standard kitsch be damned. And it works.”
TECHNICAL & PRODUCT COPYWRITING
Assorted product content and technical copywriting. There’s something fun about giving abstract, technical concepts life and a narrative, especially if I have to learn about them in the process. Probably because I read too much Wikipedia. Behold, product copy, blogs, and even occasional UX writing!
tap image to peruse copy, additional samples available upon request
