Long Beach Artist Alyssandra Nighswonger

Alyssandra Nighswonger is a 26-year-old musician, artist, painter, poet, traveler, Korean-style letter brush artist at Disneyland and barista/ open mic host at a coffeehouse in Long Beach, CA, called Viento y Agua. Music is her passion, and this past summer she completed a music tour by bicycle from Seattle, WA, to Long Beach, CA. “It’s pretty much been the most challenging, beautiful and amazing adventure of my life, so far,” Nighswonger told Momentum Mag.

Q How do you use your bike in your daily life?

I ride my bike to work from my house in Lakewood, CA, to Disneyland in Anaheim, CA, which is a 30-mile round trip. Whenever I hang out in Long Beach, and if I don’t have to lug around a bunch of music equipment or ride too late, I’ll ride there, too.

Q What bikes and bike gear could you not live without?

I found out that when you’re on tour you wouldn’t want too much weight on your back, so I opted to get a custom rack built by Evan at the Bicycle Stand in Long Beach, CA, for my guitar. The rack mounted to my bike on the side of my rear tire, where a pannier would go. As I got further into the bicycle tour I found that riding down steep roads and dealing with wind was pretty difficult and mildly terrifying at times. A bandmate carried the guitar for me on his BOB trailer. This has worked out very well because it’s flat, so it doesn’t have too much wind resistance and hasn’t interrupted his riding at all.