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.

‘Cross bikes, ‘cross bikes, ‘cross bikes…

Look. I love cyclocross bikes but I was beginning to get a little Grinduro’d out. After a weekend of shooting, talking, riding and basically living bikes at the event, I wanted a recovery day. Decompression. Detachment. Whatever you want to call it. I needed a vacation. Ok, not really. I just wanted to ride mountain bikes and be out of cell reception for 24 hours.

Luckily, we were already in the midst of some incredible mountains, so it was literally a no-brainer to hop on the road and book it up to Downieville. That place has always carried such a mystique for me. I’d never been before, for various reasons, but had ridden all over California so I was familiar with the terrain. But still. There’s something about that trail network that had been beckoning me for years.

It was my friend Andrea‘s birthday on Monday and she too wanted to ride there one last time before the season ended. She’s been numerous times, so it worked out perfectly. Sunday morning after Grindruo, we would leave Quincy, drive an hour or so, get to town, pass out, wake up for a morning shuttle, take it super chill, shoot photos, eat gummy worms, sip the flask and barrel along the downhill line, ending at the river…

There was one detail we were missing: bikes. ‘Drea and I were on Grinduro-ready rigs, not 6″ trail bikes.

Luckily Yuba Expeditions had rental bikes for around $100 a day. I scooped up a Ibis Mojo, Andrea got a Santa Cruz Nomad and we were good to go. Oh and tubes. Oh and I needed knee pads. Now we’re good to go.

I’m here in Portland, Oregon attending the Bike and Beer festival at HopWorks Urban Brewery. While I’ll be documenting many of the frames, I’ll also be capturing the general vibes. For now, let’s just check out some bikes!

Some would argue that one’s best work is done for their partner. In this case, Chris Igleheart‘s latest bike may not be his best in your eyes, but if you pay attention to the detailing, you can see his heart not only went into this creation, it poured over it.

Fran’s bike has everything considered.

A SON Hub, Edelux lamp, beautiful hand-shaped chain guard, Alfine internal hub, nice cushy tires, excellent fit, stem-mounted bell, beautiful stem, segmented fork crown and many other details make it unique. My favorite details are the heart brazed into the top tube split and the fender’s unique coating with a 3M paint, which if I had a flash I would have tried to document more clearly.

Look, Igleheart’s legacy extends well beyond this bike for his wife. He’s built frames for some of the most renown builders, but you see something else in this bike. You see a special love…

It’s happened. The locals of Austin, Texas have embraced Lauren from Saila, the woman who welded for Seven Cycles in Boston for years, laying down tight weld lines over even tighter mitres.

Saila makes performance steel and titanium bikes ranging from “all-road” to cross and road. This bike in particular is a perfect example of a guy who wanted something special, yet didn’t want to splurge on componentry. Rather than dropping a couple grand on new parts, he built this race bike up with old parts left over from previous bikes.

Titanium is a medium that yields classic beauty without the need of expensive paint, or even expensive parts. Holler at Lauren if you’d like her to create a piece of work like this!

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…

It happens every year. Frame builders get the request for a new ‘cross bike and while it’s not necessarily a bad thing, there’s always that one caveat: “can I have it in time for this year’s season?”

Last year around this time, the Mudfoot team was clamoring for their new bikes and one of the rider’s wife, Crystal, really wanted to get one as well. After some thought and a brief conversation with Megan from Moth Attack she decided to support not only a female builder, but an ex-LA frame builder. Megan re-located to Colorado a few weeks back, but her and Crystal stayed in touch.

The docket was easy: discs, 44mm head tube, an english bottom bracket and red paint! Megan delivered on all fronts and Crystal built up her new bike with Shimano Ultegra, Chris King, an ENVE CX fork and Easton parts.

Personally, I’d like to think this is the kind of ‘cross bike most people would want to order currently and It’s one of my favorites I’ve seen this year. There’s something about its size, simplicity and I love the various logo hits on the bike. Great job, Megan and Crystal, ENJOY!

In Los Angeles, a ‘cross bike’s limitations are self-prescribed. You can ride just about everything on one, as long as you’ve got the right equipment and the willpower. Bigger tires and appropriate gear range are paramount. Things like blinged-out componentry are just added bonuses to the spice of life. And in LA, the spice must flow.

Kelli‘s not necessarily new to cyclocross but this is her first legitimate ‘cross rig. Her husband Ty reached out to Aaron Stinner to make a bike that would embody race pedigree but still be at home in the hills and mountains of Los Angeles county and beyond. When she’s not running her women’s cycling team, LA Sweat, she’s trying to take on more off-road riding and this bike is more than enough motivation to do so.

PAUL Components, 3T, and a Luxe Wheelworks Chris King to H+Son Archtype wheel build all compliment the absolutely mind-fucking beautiful AirGlow paint job by Hill Clarke. If you like to geek out on painting procedure and process, make sure you check out Hill’s Instagram.

Before the comments open up, YES, technically the tires are on backwards here and yet the bike didn’t explode upon hitting the dirt. ;-)