The Radavist

Born to Run: Whitney and Her 20/20 Cycle’s Kalakala
Words and photos by Kyle Kelley

She sweats it out on the back roads of an American Dream, riding through the mountains on a life saving machine. Sprung from the city on a one way line, polished wheels moving her forward most of the time. Whitney let us in, we wanna be your friend. We’ll ride till we drop, and we’ll never look back again.

The above words are from a song Bruce Springsteen never wrote, but I’m almost positive he would if he ever met Whitney Ford-Terry. She is a woman so enthralled with hitting the road that I wasn’t sure she knew any other way of life until I read her profile on Adventure Cycling. A life revolving around art galleries, alternative education, artistic research, working at non-profits, and most importantly getting lost in the woods on her bicycle. Whitney is equally comfortable working in museums like the MoMa or shooting the shit and drinking the boys under the table at whatever local bike shop she happens upon in her travels.

I became acquainted with Whitney when she reached out to me to discuss routes for a tour she was planning. She needed to get from Los Angeles to Joshua Tree for an artist residency and wanted to make the journey fun. We bounced ideas off one another for awhile and the route Whitney ultimately mapped out was hard enough to make most people call her crazy and shake their heads in disbelief. She decided to go straight up the San Gabriel Mountains, along the ridge and then over Mt Baldy to the high desert. With her route settled Whitney shipped her bike to Golden Saddle Cyclery to be built up.

Whitney’s 20/20 Cycle Kalakala is purpose built and can be configured to handle just about any bicycle tour you could imagine. Complete with DFL Stitchworks bags. This bike has never had a place to call home, Whitney has been riding it around the world for the last couple years and with that in mind I had no question about its ability to make it over the mountains I call home and to the Southern California High Desert that I love. Since photographing this bike it’s changed only ever so slightly with the addition of one more National Park badge to the fender, Joshua Tree.

Next time we wanna go with you, Whitney we were born to run!

P.S. If you happen to meet Whitney someday, ask her what hobo tattoos and Bruce Springsteen mean to her.

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Follow Kyle on Instagram and Whitney on Instagram.

Pretty in Grimy Pink Stinner Roadie
Photos by Kyle Kelley, words by John Watson

Ride Jah Bike!

Custom frames aren’t to be babied, or coddled, no matter how pretty they may be. Pink bikes especially. Now, the common misconception about pink bikes is that they don’t get thrashed; they’re too delicate. Like a flower. Or an orchid. Or a rare flower orchid that only blooms once every 20 years like that one in Dennis the Menace. Andrew, (@Moon_Raccoon) doesn’t care about babying anything. He bought a custom road bike from Aaron Stinner because when the rowdiness is happening, he wants it to fit like a glove.

Built with the usual suspects round these parts: a casual mix of SRAM, Thomson, King, Brooks and some nice, hand built wheels. While you might think this bike is a fashion statement, I can assure you this one is all about thrashin.

Less fashion, more thrashin.

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Follow Kyle on Instagram and Andrew on Instagram.

Ok, mayyybe not forever, but at least a couple of generations.

Not everyone has the budget for a titanium road bike and not every titanium road bike needs to have thru-axles, discs, a 44mm headtube, internal Di2 wiring and other, what many would consider, modern essentials. For Zach, he desired the durability, liveliness and overall feel of titanium to tackle the climbs found in the hills and mountains of Los Angeles.

Originally, this bike had a garish paint job, with a LOOK fork and a mix of components, which Zach slowly replaced over time before stripping the paint to the frame’s bare metal. After ditching the fork, he swapped in a Chris King Ti headset and a Wound Up, one of the better riding 1 1/8″ carbon forks on the market.

This bike is a total sleeper. It’s got a little bit of flash where it matters and for a production bike from Litespeed, has a great deal of frame details including that seat tube cutout.

Titanium road bikes are beautiful, but Zach’s has a story and a process as evident in the final product.

The dog days of summer have landed in Los Angeles. After a completely amazing time in SF, I hopped on a plane and found myself in LA with an agenda unlike anything before: find a place to live and hopefully, an office to work out of. The stars aligned and my dirt sacrifices to the Necronomicog paid off. For the most part anyway. A new home base, somewhere to explore roads and uncover new experiences, or just spend time on the roads and trails with friends, old and new.

Los Angeles will be my new home town and this past trip was stunning on many levels. While this is by no means a story, it is a paraphrased visual showcase to just some of the rides we went on, many of which I’ll expand upon relocation to the west coast.

Coincidentally, because I can’t ever seem to leave for a ride without a camera, I managed to pull together some random photos, which make for a perfect distraction on a Friday afternoon.

Enjoy…

Salsa Cycles’ Grateful Deadwood
Photos by Kyle Kelley and words by John Watson

Leave it to Kyle to bring some hippy shit into the mix for Salsa’s newest drop bar mountain bike, the Deadwood. Sorry, the “Grateful Deadwood.” Personally, I would have gone with some sort of fellen tree or Nature is Metal reference.

Kyle recently went to Saddle Drive, QBP’s open house demo in Ogden, Utah for his bike shop Golden Saddle Cyclery after having spent a great deal of time this year on the Niner Ros9+. Needless to say, Kyle came into Saddledrive with a pretty open mind about the 3″ tire platform. Over the years, he’s also sold a number of Fargos to customers who were planning on tackling the TDR either in the near or far future. How could you make the Fargo better? Throw some bigger tires on it, right?

Golden Saddle Rides: From the Pit to the Crit – Mike’s Parlee Z5
Photos and words by Kyle Kelley

I met Mike about 8 years ago when he moved from Boston to LA and started hanging out at the bike shop where I was working at the time. He was a bike punk from the east coast hardcore scene, cooking vegan food by day and drumming in bands by night. Few things have changed in the years in-between and Mike is still hanging out at my bike shop, but he’s looking a lot more punk jock these days. When he isn’t roasting for Bicycle Coffee or running a Pure Luck pop up, Mike is likely out training for road or cyclocross season.

Mike is a big dude and he does not baby his bikes. He has broken just about every single one he has owned. From touring bikes to track bikes and a steel road frame to a Ritte, the guy is a crusher. Last year when Mike was down a road bike and looking for an upgrade his friend Rudi Jung was starting a new position painting bikes at Parlee. The connection was made and it wasn’t long before Mike owned what many would consider a dentist bike, the Parlee Z5.

All-City’s Junk Yard Dog, or JYD for short, is a do-all, hobo trail cuttin’, curb jibbin, bar or delivery bike, built with burliness in mind. I’ve seen various permutations of this bike floating around in my travels. Some people build it up as a delivery bike with a porteur rack, others a drop-bar monster cross like in Kyle’s case.

Kyle’s had this frameset for a while now and the potential build always centered around the Salsa Woodchipper 2 bar. Those bars, paired with White Industries, Paul Mini Motos and Bruce Gordon Rock n Road tires results in one mean, yet fun around town bike.

On my last day in Los Angeles, I went on a ride with Kyle (who modeled the new All-City Big Gulp Kit) as we left from our favorite pre-ride spot, Intelli Coffee on Sunset and made our way through bum trails and city overlooks.

Check out photos of the quick jaunt as well as the JYD bike-check in the Gallery!

This is not for the vintage elite, the collectors, the Eroicas, the spoke sniffers, or the internet aesthetes. Do not bother commenting on the lack of period correct toe clips, or the lack of bar tape, or how you don’t like white tires. The bar angle will rub you the wrong way and Scotty will ride on, not giving two shits.

Scotty’s a working messenger in Los Angeles. Scotty’s older than dirt. He walks with a stride, or a cadence that is only found in individuals who live, breathe and sleep track bikes. You won’t see Scotty on a road bike and in fact, you won’t see him on any other bike than this street-thrashed Eddy Merckx SLX pista. The components tell a story, moreso than any museum-grade bicycle will, regardless of heritage.

Like beausage? This bike is for you. Just remember, before you type a critique, Scotty don’t care. Happy Merckx Mondays. Thanks to Tracko for the heads up on this bike!

The Samuel Hillborne is Rivendell’s self-proclaimed “Country Bike”, meaning while it’ll do just fine around town it’s best at home touring the countryside. Actually, that’s not true at all. Not that bikes need rules, or stigmas for that matter, but the Hillborne is one of the most beautiful bicycles to be included in the Rivendell lineup. A veritable “do it all” bike. Road rides? Sure. MTB singletrack? Yep. Touring? You bet. It’ll do all the above with an uncanny elegance.

So elegant that you really can’t photograph this bike in a cityscape. It needs the sunbleached, parched rolling landscape as a backdrop. Whether its Walnut Creek’s rolling hills, or in this case the terrain of Los Angeles where it currently resides.

As far as the build is concerned it’s very Riv-esque with shellac’d Nitto Albastache bars, Schwalbe Little Big Ben tires, Nitto M1 rack, the IRD quill stem shifter mount and a brand new Brooks saddle.

Built originally for a rider who later determined it was a bit too long for him (hence the short stem), this bike is now at Golden Saddle Cyclery in Silverlake, Los Angeles with a price tag of $2,200 as shown. If you ride a 58cm and want a killer deal on a like-new complete, holler at the shop. Otherwise, just ogle this Beautiful Bicycle in the Gallery.