Esprited Away

Loving yet another beautiful video from the fellows at Petrolicious. This time I'm digging the stunning interplay between this 4-wheeled machine and its 2-wheeler soul mate. More pics and concepts here and here.

Morning Moodboard

Just a Dude on Pinterest

So I've been on Pinterest for a few years now and I coincidentally reached some milestones this week... eight thousand pins and three thousand followers! What the what?!? Thank you for all the support. I'll do my best to keep the good stuff coming. 

Here's a quick rundown of the most repinned, greatest hits that I've discovered and pinned to my boards over the last little bit. It's so interesting to see which pins got some traction out here. Lemme know what you think! 

State Bicycle Offroad Division

Excited about State Bicycle's new Offroad Division. I'm thinking about one of these beasts. We'll see.

World Series Moodboard

Thanks to a challenge from Upto12 and Mrs. Kyality's hometown love for the SF Giants, I'm commemorating their World Series run with a new moodboard. Enjoy!

Jaguar F-TYPE Coupé Chase Car

I've always had a soft spot for European chase cars from the pro cycling world, especially the hot little sports wagons that often get fitted with numerous framesets and wheels. But the already stunning Jaguar F-TYPE Coupé has just been turned into even more of a rare beauty for the Team Sky racers.


And the sound of this thing... amazing.

DENNY: The Ultimate Urban Utility Bike

I'm very inspired by this, yes I'm gonna say it, innovative bicycle design. DENNY is one of those rare whips that feels fresh and not compromised really in any way. Enjoy!

Sunrise Shot

Been geeking out on this incredible VW + fixie sunrise shot by Mayday Garage. Stay tuned for some VW sunrise shots of my own.

Color Scheming Comes to Life

A couple of years ago, I stumbled onto pics of a bike that  was basically a two-wheeled version of my Clubman. That spawned a little series of experimental posts on this blog that I called Color Scheming.

Since then I've constantly been thinking about a matching car/bike combo and the designers at Hyundai of North America brought my dream to life with this customized Veloster Turbo.

I've always had a thing for the Veloster and this C3 Concept has definitely fanned those flames.

And I totally dig how they've integrated the mount into the rear hatch.

I'd love to see both this car and its matching whip make it to production. Unfortunately, like all concept cars, that's highly unlikely.

The Ranger

If you did already know this about me, I'm a sucker for branded social content creation. And on that note, I'm totally digging the production value, art direction, music on this piece by State Bicycle. Not to mention, that's a sweet whip.

Liberace Returns

Just over a year ago, I finessed a way for Gavin Strange—filmmaker, designer and all-around Renaissance Man extraordinaire—to come all the way from Bristol, England to SLC to screen BÖIKZMÖIND. The day before he left his beloved fixie Liberance was pinched from his flat.

Despite his this sad loss, an insane transatlantic flight, a creepy stay at the Peery Hotel and near crash in my Clubby inspiring Gav to yell at the top of his lungs—"You're a jet fighter pilot, you're a jet fighter pilot!"—he put on a great show. And now the circle is complete. Congrats on the find Gav—can believe you got 'er back in one piece.

My Rides

I was always fascinated with the fact that as a kid, you bicycle's everything to you. It's your car, it's your steed, it's your speeder bike. I thought it'd be fun to see if my parents could locate pics of all my bikes over the years. This fine specimen is actually my second, a Murray Freestyle. Totally diggin' my classic Op t-shirt.

So this here's my very first bike. My dad, @normanity, refurbed this this one for me and it was the bike I learned to ride on. He put some Redline decals on it that went great with the matching mags, but I loved it because for years I thought they said "Red Lion," ya know, Voltron-style. My sis, JessintheCity, had a stellar banana-seat Sting-ray.

In the early '90s 10-speeds started giving way to mountain bikes. The white Giant in the background was my first bike with gears and my parents got a matching green one. I eventually got a rack and paniers for this bike and my buddies and I would stuff all of our tennis rackets in the saddle bags and head off to the courts in downtown Newburgh, NY. 


When I was assigned to a bike area on the mish to the isles of Hawaii, my parents sent me out the green machine. I slapped street tires and fenders (due to daily rainstorms) on her. She was quick as a whip and eventually came to be known as Trigger. She only bucked me once (with a scar on my chin to prove it). Notice the little pant leg clip hanging on the seat, which would pin my right pant leg in order to avoid chain-snagging. (Yes, that's right pants in Hawaii.)

From Paris With Love

This is inspiring and cool and makes me want to watch Amélie like right now.

Single Speed Campvibes

I've been searching high and low for examples of inspiring, single speed bikes built more for the trail than the road. I was recently lucky to stumble upon this beautiful, custom example designed by Ezra Caldwell for Fast Boy Cycles.

Loving the simple lines, beefy tires and techy disc brakes.

It's raw finish pushes it into that retro-rustic territory that's just so hot right now.The radical custom wooden grips totally seal the deal.

Helvetibike

I've always felt that a cleaned-up single speed bike is like a piece of graphic design and motion and apparently Borja Garcia Studio agrees. They've just released photos of a new bike they hope to produce: the Helvetica Bike. The whip will be created for the 55 year anniversary of the founding of Max Miedinger’s classic typeface.

Their reasoning is simple: "Because we love Helvetica. We love swiss spirit. We like precision, purity and clarity. And Helvetica, the swiss typography, represents this complete design-lifestyle."

The Great Tumblr Experiment

One year ago today I started an experimental photo blog on Tumblr. I was inspired by a couple of curation-style Tumblrs, and I wanted not only to learn more about that blogging system but how I'd do as a Tumblrer myself. I'd already amassed a decent collection of cool pics, so I determined I'd post one a day. In fact I only missed a couple of days when we were camping (or unfortunately in the hospital). Here are some of the insights, rules and posts I made along the way:

Curation of Cool
My posts started off being random things I like, the Millennium Falcon, MINIs, etc. I was surprised how heavily influenced (for better or worse) I was by the community. My Tumblr evolved specifically into photos only of cars, motorcycles, bikes, architecture, industrial design, fashion and celebrities. No more, no less.

The Parameters
I noticed over time that I started unintentionally and subconsciously creating a set of image guidelines and parameters for all the photos I uploaded. For instance, all the pics are landscape rather than portrait. I never posted a black and white image. I also posted photos with tons of woodgrain, which became almost an ongoing theme.

Color Scheming Prior to starting my Tumblr, I did a little experiment on the Kyality blog where I paired products with the factory MINI colors, which I called Color Scheming. I found myself connecting one day's photo to the next via color, tone or texture. If you check out my archive, you can actually see some cool evolutions, juxtapositions and color patterns over time.

Celebrity Sundays I started doing this pretty quickly. Every Sunday evening throughout the year, I've posted a pic of a celeb (typically a music or movie star) in what I considered a Kyality-style pic. My favorites are all less polished, more real shots of famous folks in some cool, architectural environment.

Notes vs. Comments Systems like Twitter and conventions such as likes and notes are basically killing comments on blogs. For instance, though this post may be read a few times, chances are it won't get a single comment. The notes system in Tumblr is pretty amazing, you can actually see content—for lack of a better term—go viral. The most comments I've ever received on a single post on this blog is around 8 (with at least one of them being me). The image from my Tumblr above has 126 notes (consisting of likes and/or reblogs) and counting.

Proper Citation After some friendly banter with @upto12 and @wanken, properly citing my sources whenever possible became a substantial effort throughout the year. I'm actually shocked how little this is focused on within the blogosphere. Even more shocking is how social media is more or less set up to celebrate the sharer of content rather than the creator. My experience on Tumblr spawned this post on the StruckAxiom blog.

All in all, the Great Tumblr Experiment was pretty fun. Will I continue to post? Yes. Will I post more than once a day? No. Will I worry about posting everyday? Probably not. Finally, here are some cool Tumblrs to follow if you get a sec: anchordivision, convoy, thefashionator, beeteeth, valeriejar, mwaissmann, everydaycarry and analogdialog. Enjoy!

A Fixie Out of Water

The Kyality Clan made a weekend trek down south to Zion National Park and I snapped this pic of this fantastic fixie. Love the geometry of this whip and even though you'd think this rod belongs in the urban jungle, it seemed to fit just fine among the red rocks. Click here to enlarge.

Bonus Color Scheming: Light White

I'm dreaming of a light white Christmas.

Fast, Fixed, Fun

I'll be the first to admit that the whole fixie movement is bit unbearable at times, but photographers like Brenton Salo still manage to get a casual observer like me pretty pumped.

That's a serious jump for a fixed gear.

Loving the tones here.

Cross-processed 35mm double exposure.

Speed Weaponry

I'm totally digging this custom, hand-built track bike by Hunter. Especially loving the Zipp "Speed Weaponry" it's rolling on. (via Monoscope)