There is a excessive probability that even in case you’ve by no means heard of the title Safa Brian, you’ve got seen him journey a motorcycle. His daring using fashion sees him deal with descents the world over at breakneck velocity in a bid to remind his viewers not simply of biking’s uncooked magnificence but in addition that much less is nearly definitely extra.
Brian Wagner, higher referred to as ‘Safa Brian’, has been formed by a life that has revolved round bikes, even when he was almost 30 by the point he clipped into the pedals of a highway bike for the primary time.
Spending 18 years as a motorcycle messenger offered the South African with expertise that few WorldTour execs might ever write on their résumés. Sydney, London, Mexico Metropolis, Glasgow, and New York – their enterprise districts, his playground.
Now primarily based in Los Angeles, the bike owner’s YouTube channel has over half one million subscribers. His earliest add from 2013, titled Much less Regulation – Mexico Metropolis Fastened Gear Legends, is a promotional video for the next yr’s Cycle Messenger World Championships. It will depart even one of the best bike handlers within the WorldTour bunch feeling nauseous as he cuts via visitors within the Central American capital, arcing his physique at precarious angles as he skirts round lorries, buses, and pedestrians.
But when that way of life ultimately started to put on skinny, Brian discovered himself in search of an escape. “I began using exterior of the town to get away from all of the visitors. I wished to get away from automobiles and visitors, automobile tradition will get actually poisonous after that lengthy, you simply burn out on it. So I fell in love with climbing, however extra to seek out peace than adrenaline,” he tells Cyclingnews throughout our sit-down chat at November’s Rouleur Reside occasion.
Biking uphill might be thought of a formulaic problem – even for novice cyclists. The skilled peloton, or no less than on the Grand Excursions, has been consumed by the calls for of climbing mountains as quick as potential for greater than a century. The primary summit end of a Tour de France stage dates again to 1910, with the race recognising one of the best climbers via the King of the Mountains classification since 1933.
Skip ahead to the trendy day, and altitude coaching, energy information, light-weight bikes, and even, sadly, doping attest to biking’s unrelenting want and obsession with climbing quicker and quicker.
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Nevertheless, descending those self same mountains and peaks is an altogether completely different beast. For Brian, no different a part of biking can examine.
Biking’s final mystique
“I believe descending is the final little bit of highway biking that has any type of thriller and mystique left. Every little thing else is boiled all the way down to the quantity, feeding on the excellent time, and it is all science actually.
“You possibly can actually get misplaced in [the descent] and really feel a particular type of method,” he defined.
Some descents may not set the world alight when it comes to their nature, whereas others require the utmost focus and no room for error, however any stresses rapidly fade as soon as the crimson mild is flashing and the gradient goes downhill for the South African.
“Possibly you are wired on the high understanding you are going to go and movie this. You do get nervous. You do get confused. However as quickly as you hit file and also you drop in, all of it type of simply clicks away. There is a swap you possibly can flick.”
Having hit speeds of 110km/h throughout descents up to now, the query of whether or not Brian has reached his restrict is one he responded to with an sincere self-assessment.
“I am at all times getting higher, now I discover myself taking even safer traces than earlier than. The older you get, the extra risk-averse you turn out to be. It is simply human nature.”
Safer does not essentially imply slower, although, as Brian factors out. “However I am truly getting barely quicker on descents that I’ve achieved a couple of occasions, despite the fact that I really feel prefer it’s safer, I believe that simply means I’ve turn out to be a greater rider, and my method is best.”
Balancing security and hazard is a problem Brian has confronted for his whole life, stemming from his childhood in South Africa.
“We grew up in South Africa, it is a fairly harmful place at occasions, after which the job I ended up doing and loving was a reasonably harmful job. My entire life has type of been coping with hazard and never shedding your cool.
Having lived additional out of city than the remainder of his mates throughout his childhood, Brian noticed his bike as his “primary companion.”
From using his bike to satisfy up along with his mates, to ferociously pedalling via visitors in bustling capital cities, it is formed the South African’s using fashion.
“What I can do on the highway now, with the high-speed stuff, plenty of it’s extra psychological than the rest. Simply being in visitors all day, and having all these conditions pop up, having to take care of them, to actually keep alive, made a huge effect on what I do as we speak,” he confessed.
A style of the WorldTour
“Individuals assume I’ve achieved this without end,” Brian reveals, so effortlessly cool does his method to descending look. The usually-used phrase ‘at one with the bike’ would not be ill-placed to explain his rides down the Passo Sella within the Dolomites or Switzerland’s iconic Furka Move.
Nevertheless, he is fast so as to add that this assumption that he is been descending mountain passes since he might first pedal a motorcycle in anger simply is not the case, stating: “I solely picked up a highway bike at 27, or 28 years outdated. So I nonetheless had quite a bit to be taught. I am nonetheless studying.”
Even when he defines himself as a piece in progress, although, there isn’t any denying that his skillset is uncommon.
Firstly of his newest movie Belief, created in collaboration with helmet model KASK, Brian acknowledges: “It is type of like a superpower with the ability to go this quick. If lots of people might do what I do, I believe they’d.”
That could be why the South African has gained WorldTour consideration lately. In as we speak’s digital age, entry to the game’s high execs has turn out to be extra guarded, but Brian has managed to interrupt down these obstacles, thanks partially, by with the ability to sustain.
Alongside a component of luck and being in the fitting place on the proper time, he places it all the way down to the professionals having a stronger understanding of his technical means than a daily viewer would possibly.
“Individuals see the movies, and so they go ‘that is loopy’, however I believe plenty of the professionals see it and determine with it. That is how they journey, they do not go and be taught to get quick in a race. They must follow on open roads too. So to them, I believe it appears to be like extra sane than most individuals, and so they can belief that I can deal with myself near them.”
Having the ability to be on par with the professionals has helped Brian to boost his profile within the sport, with each Scott and KASK at present sponsoring him and his endeavours across the globe.
“I believe there are plenty of biking manufacturers which can be struggling to seek out an avenue moreover racing, and it is actually arduous to work with the professional groups to create content material. I am one of many few folks going on the similar velocity and pushing the bike as arduous.
“Clearly, I am not doing the identical energy as Pogačar on the climb, however I am going via a nook at 80km/h and testing stuff displaying that it’s quick and it is dependable. So I believe it is a good match.”
The likes of Tom Pidcock, Matteo Jorgenson, Romain Bardet (and most of DSM-firmenich PostNL), Fabian Cancellara, and Vincenzo Nibali have all hit the highway with the South African and his digicam.
Unsurprisingly although, it was his movie with Pidcock, multi-discipline star and one of many WorldTour’s most famous descenders, on LA’s Tuna Canyon descent that really captured the eye of the biking world. Even when Brian described the expertise as “a extremely tense day” on the mountain move he is descended as many as 200 occasions.
“Tuna is actually intense each time, there’s large drop-offs and there is a wall the entire method down the opposite facet, so there’s zero margin for error. There is not any runoff and it is actually steep.
“I did not need something to go mistaken for him. I took him down there a few occasions, him following me so we might be taught the traces quite a bit faster. The entire day I used to be simply telling myself, ‘he is a professional, it is not a giant deal for him. He isn’t going to ship it that tough.’
“As quickly as we began going, I am like, ‘he isn’t holding something again.'”
Even when the Briton’s again wheel skids out on a patch of oil – inflicting the hearts of Brian and all 2.6 million of the movie’s viewers to leap – it did not deter him from attacking the remainder of the descent and pushing his limits.
Based on Strava, he accomplished the section simply eight seconds slower than the KoM, set by none aside from – and nonetheless held by – Safa Brian.
The fantastic thing about the descent
Pidcock and Brian share the identical adrenaline-inducing method to descending, with their movie collectively solely echoing this. It was Pidcock’s breathtaking descent of the Col du Galibier that arrange an iconic stage win atop Alpe d’Huez, the Queen stage of the 2023 Tour de France.
On this social media age, you possibly can’t go two weeks with out the video of his nerve-wracking, hairpin-hugging descent within the Alps hitting your cellphone display. “It is lovely to look at a assured descender,” remarked ex-pro Dan Lloyd whereas commentating on Eurosport.
Brian’s descending expertise are equally mesmerising to the attention. His minimalistic cinematic fashion creates an nearly therapeutic impact inside his movies: simply Brian, the bike, and the encompassing surroundings.
Within the South African’s eyes, the landscapes that type the backdrops of his movies are sometimes simply as essential because the rides themselves – if not the movie’s sole function once in a while, he admits.
“Half the time I believe it is actually the situation that’s doing the heavy lifting for me, and biking is only a lovely factor to do.
“There’s a lot content material on the market with folks speaking for greater than they’re using within the movies. And I used to be at all times skipping ahead and in search of the bits the place they’re truly using the bikes.
“I began out filming stuff that I wished to movie, only for no different motive than I assumed it regarded cool and I wished to movie it,” he added.
There is not any query that biking at an expert degree will proceed to advance its obsession with information, numbers, and data. It is finally what retains these on the high of the game hungry.
But, on this data-driven age, the South African stands as a stark reminder that not the entire sport is concerning the formulation, the feeding plans, and the science. Whether or not or not it’s the unquantifiable feeling that comes from descending or simply the sheer pleasure of using your bike to discover extra of the world, Brian highlights these elements of biking that are not so simply outlined.