There is a excessive probability that even in case you’ve by no means heard of the identify Safa Brian, you’ve got seen him trip a motorbike. His daring driving model sees him sort out descents the world over at breakneck pace in a bid to remind his viewers not simply of biking’s uncooked magnificence but additionally that much less is sort of definitely extra.
Brian Wagner, higher often called ‘Safa Brian’, has been formed by a life that has revolved round bikes, even when he was practically 30 by the point he clipped into the pedals of a highway bike for the primary time.
Spending 18 years as a motorbike messenger supplied the South African with abilities that few WorldTour execs might ever write on their résumés. Sydney, London, Mexico Metropolis, Glasgow, and New York – their enterprise districts, his playground.
Now based mostly in Los Angeles, the bicycle owner’s YouTube channel has over half one million subscribers. His earliest add from 2013, titled Much less Regulation – Mexico Metropolis Mounted Gear Legends, is a promotional video for the next 12 months’s Cycle Messenger World Championships. It could depart even one of the best bike handlers within the WorldTour bunch feeling nauseous as he cuts via site 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 driving exterior of town to get away from all of the site visitors. I wished to get away from vehicles and site 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 search out peace than adrenaline,” he tells Cyclingnews throughout our sit-down chat at November’s Rouleur Stay occasion.
Biking uphill might be thought of a formulaic problem – even for beginner cyclists. The skilled peloton, or at the least 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 fashionable day, and altitude coaching, energy information, light-weight bikes, and even, sadly, doping attest to biking’s unrelenting want and obsession with climbing sooner and sooner.
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Nonetheless, descending those self same mountains and peaks is an altogether totally 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 form of thriller and mystique left. Every thing else is boiled right down to the quantity, feeding on the good time, and it is all science actually.
“You’ll be able to actually get misplaced in [the descent] and really feel a particular form of means,” 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 gentle is flashing and the gradient goes downhill for the South African.
“Perhaps you are wired on the high realizing you are going to go and movie this. You do get nervous. You do get pressured. However as quickly as you hit report and also you drop in, all of it form 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 develop into. It is simply human nature.”
Safer would not essentially imply slower, although, as Brian factors out. “However I am truly getting barely sooner on descents that I’ve achieved just a few instances, though I really feel prefer it’s safer, I believe that simply means I’ve develop into a greater rider, and my approach is best.”
Balancing security and hazard is a problem Brian has confronted for his total life, stemming from his childhood in South Africa.
“We grew up in South Africa, it is a fairly harmful place at instances, after which the job I ended up doing and loving was a fairly harmful job. My complete life has form of been coping with hazard and never dropping your cool.
Having lived additional out of city than the remainder of his mates throughout his early life, Brian noticed his bike as his “primary companion.”
From driving his bike to fulfill up along with his mates, to ferociously pedalling via site visitors in bustling capital cities, it is formed the South African’s driving model.
“What I can do on the highway now, with the high-speed stuff, lots of it’s extra psychological than the rest. Simply being in site visitors all day, and having all these conditions pop up, having to take care of them, to actually keep alive, made a big impact on what I do as we speak,” he confessed.
A style of the WorldTour
“Folks assume I’ve achieved this ceaselessly,” Brian reveals, so effortlessly cool does his strategy to descending look. The customarily-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 Go.
Nonetheless, he is fast so as to add that this assumption that he is been descending mountain passes since he might first pedal a motorbike in anger simply is not the case, stating: “I solely picked up a highway bike at 27, or 28 years previous. So I nonetheless had quite a bit to study. I am nonetheless studying.”
Even when he defines himself as a piece in progress, although, there is no denying that his skillset is uncommon.
At first of his newest movie Belief, created in collaboration with helmet model KASK, Brian acknowledges: “It is form of like a superpower with the ability to go this quick. If lots of people might do what I do, I believe they might.”
Which may 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 develop into 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 precise place on the proper time, he places it right down to the professionals having a stronger understanding of his technical capacity than a daily viewer would possibly.
“Folks see the movies, and so they go ‘that is loopy’, however I believe lots of the professionals see it and determine with it. That is how they trip, they do not go and study to get quick in a race. They need to observe 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 lots of biking manufacturers which can be struggling to search out an avenue in addition to racing, and it is actually exhausting to work with the professional groups to create content material. I am one of many few folks going on the similar pace and pushing the bike as exhausting.
“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 exhibiting 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 famed descenders, on LA’s Tuna Canyon descent that actually captured the eye of the biking world. Even when Brian described the expertise as “a extremely annoying day” on the mountain move he is descended as many as 200 instances.
“Tuna is basically intense each time, there’s large drop-offs and there is a wall the entire means down the opposite facet, so there’s zero margin for error. There isn’t any runoff and it is actually steep.
“I did not need something to go improper for him. I took him down there a few instances, him following me so we might study the traces quite a bit faster. The entire day I used to be simply telling myself, ‘he is a professional, it isn’t a giant deal for him. He isn’t going to ship it that tough.’
“As quickly as we began going, I am like, ‘he is not 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.
In response to Strava, he accomplished the phase simply eight seconds slower than the KoM, set by none apart from – and nonetheless held by – Safa Brian.
The great thing about the descent
Pidcock and Brian share the identical adrenaline-inducing strategy 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 telephone display. “It is stunning to observe a assured descender,” remarked ex-pro Dan Lloyd whereas commentating on Eurosport.
Brian’s descending abilities are equally mesmerising to the attention. His minimalistic cinematic model creates an virtually 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 necessary 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 placement that’s doing the heavy lifting for me, and biking is only a stunning factor to do.
“There’s a lot content material on the market with folks speaking for greater than they’re driving within the movies. And I used to be at all times skipping ahead and in search of the bits the place they’re truly driving the bikes.
“I began out filming stuff that I wished to movie, only for no different purpose than I assumed it appeared cool and I wished to movie it,” he added.
There isn’t any query that biking at knowledgeable degree will proceed to advance its obsession with information, numbers, and information. 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 in regards to the formulation, the feeding plans, and the science. Whether or not it’s the unquantifiable feeling that comes from descending or simply the sheer pleasure of driving your bike to discover extra of the world, Brian highlights these elements of biking that are not so simply outlined.
