JAKE STANGEL PHOTOGRAPHS GRANT PETERSON FOR THE NEW YORKER

“This magazine has been my dream client for my entire career,” says Jake. “I read the print issue nearly every morning over breakfast. To photograph Grant Peterson, the founder of Rivendell Bicycles and one of the luminaries of cycling, figuratively thwacking his own narrow path across the meadow as the rest of the cycling world marches along a well-trodden path, came with a certain gravity.

Cycling has been one of the greatest forces in my life for the past 25 years; it has profoundly shaped my mind, my body, and outlook on life, and it has also provided much of the community that surrounds me. 

I decided to follow the ethos of Rivendell as closely as I personally could: no assistant, no strobe lights or gimmicky tricks or filters, just shooting from my bike to his. Zero fanfare. Cycling is entirely about the feeling of movement. I want you to feel like you were there on the ride. We got to this perfect fire road right after Grant had ripped a good joke, the light was perfectly separating him from a shadowed grove of trees, so I locked in, kinda knew this was the moment, reached some sort of divine focused state, looked backwards, engaged my core, and fired off this shot of Grant in his element, on his beloved bike, on a beloved trail, in his beloved backyard. It’s an honest, very simple photo that will hopefully still be relevant and meaningful in ten or 50 years.”