The Radavist

Wolfpack Hustle Shortline Crit
Words and photos by Kyle Kelley

There were three main reasons why I decided to go down to Long Beach for the Wolfpack Shortline Crit. The first was to shoot some photos for The Radavist. The second was to see three friends who had come down from San Francisco to race – Chas Christiansen, Marc Marino and Erica Schwanke. And the final reason was to watch my favorite Fixed Gear Freestyler, Christian from GSC, compete in his first road bike race…

I’ve been looking forward to this stage since the first time Rapha North America and I discussed doing the Tour of California again. Why? Because Stage 05 ends in Santa Barbara, home to one of my favorite dudes / frame builders, Aaron of Stinner Frameworks.

Our plan was to get into town super early and hit a quick road ride before waiting at the KOM for the Hot Boyz of PRO Cycling to crest. Well, when you’ve been on the road for around a week, plans get shuffled around a bit.

We got to town late, like four hours late, but we quickly assessed the race via the ATOC app and figured we could hammer it up Old San Marcos road to the KOM in time.

Side note: I was over shooting frame builders in their studio, so it was nice getting Aaron out onto a bike. If only I could do this for every “shop visit”…

After literally hammering it up to the top, the breakaway group summited, then the peloton and eventually, the stragglers. The temps were up in the high 90’s and it was hot, hot, hot.

20 miles and 2800′ elevation later and we were ready to hit the road…

Read more in the captions!

How many more of these stages do I have? Are we on the coast yet? It’s been hot as hell… I just want more coffee from the Rapha MCC and some more House Industries caps.

Yesterday was Monterey to Cambria, one of the most scenic routes in the 2014 Amgen Tour of California. The race course snaked its way through Big Sur and the coastal redwoods as they hit two KOMs back-to-back, three total and one sprint section.

I was in the Skratch Labs Neutral Human Support vehicle, watching them work – more on that in the captions – and trying to get a few shots from the passenger’s window. Meanwhile, with no cell reception, we were all forced to soak in the Cali coast…

Read up the captions, because I tried to be clever this morning.

Side note: if you’re on Instagram, follow Skratch and tag your photos with #SkratchNHS and a quick description of what you think “Neutral Human Support” means for a chance to win a bag of product from Skratch!

It’s always a given: mountain top parties. Whether it’s Baldy or Diablo, SoCal or NorCal, there’s always gonna be people / super fans / regular fans / cyclists who congregate en masse at the top (or nearly top) of a peak.

This year, the Amgen Tour of California returned to the hot and sweaty summit of Diablo. Once again, there was a congregation of people both at the tip top and at the various overlooks, parking lots and camp grounds.

Rapha set up their new Mobile Cycle Club, Tillie at the Juniper Campground to serve coffee, blast some tunes and offer a platform for people to park their bikes and fill up their bidons at the water spigot nearby.

You could say the cyclists swarmed, but it was the thousands of pesky – pinching – ear wigs that did that…