We see them all the time now, kids on bikes downtown, all male, all under 25, riding bikes in wheelie mode. It’s a thing. Literally all over the downtown streets, 5-20 of them at a time, riding in wheelie mode, doing tricks, jumping curbs. When I was 12, popping a wheelie was a feat of daring-do, but these dudes take it next level.
Downtown streets weren’t our purview then- we lived on a former country road in an area that was rapidly suburbanizing. At the top of the road was a large field—probably 10-20 acres or more. That was our haunt. We’d ride up there from the house on a summer afternoon. Someone would build a ramp or two and we’d do jumps and wheelies for hours.
There’s no country for these guys; it’s all urbanity; they’re dodging trucks, buses, cars, streetwalkers, moms with strollers, harleys, and cops. There’s an air of rebellion in their adventures : they’re distracting, they yell, large packs of them make mothers hold their children tighter, but I find them a perfect addition to the landscape. These dudes are badass.
I was perched outside for a long while downtown last week and observed two different groups; they kept circling the block, these two groups one behind the other, some racing, some weaving across traffic; I heard one kid yell ‘we’re a Bike GANG’!
YES! Of course they are! How cool to be with your friends, free of your parents and your stupid apartment, riding together, terrorizing the local populace, going where and when you please, looking as killer as a teenager can be. Yeah, we’re a fuckin’ GANG.
But then I worried; what happens when these kids get older; when school is over and they either graduate or don’t; when they move off to another world or the whole wheelie thing just gets old; what happens when one or more of them gets hurt or hurts someone else? It’s bound to happen. What happens when the joy and freshness wears off? Where does the gang go?
I imagine one of them realizing they all have some amazing riding talent and organizing them into a travelling act, like BMX riders or the Harlem Globetrotters; they would barnstorm the country in a bus with a trailer full of ramps and bikes and uniforms and a big sound system. They’d hit all the small towns, put on show, make cash and meet girls.
But that wouldn’t be nearly as fun as terrorizing prim and proper Charlotte on a Friday night in the spring, weaving in and out of traffic, flipping cigarettes, scaring pedestrians, and being in a BIKE GANG. Not even close.
Ride on dudes. Ride till’ you can’t anymore.
Charlotte needs those guys. They remind us that nothing is as important as play in a world of expanding complexities and the burden of day-to-day life. I have often talk to those guys and told them how much they mean to me in terms of reminding me of my inner child and the wild part of me. I consider them a gift to the city.