So, once again, Chris Habib came out to document our trickery with his HVX camera. So clean… ALL HAND HELD. Shot by a pro. Chris has shot and directed a majority of the Sonic Youth videos and is the man in all respects.

Cycling’s popularity has hit a critical mass… especially in Streetwear. The current Issue of Vapors is devoted to all things 2 wheeled, and has some great features and interviews on who’s who and who’s doing what in the modern cycling world.

We were fortunate enough to be included in the Issue with a  small interview with John Prolly, the D.A.R.T. team captain talking about the crew, cycling and what makes the riders so straight up awesome!

Check out the whole issue here with Vapors Digital Edition!

Internet news site Vimby was at the Bicycle Film Fest this year here in New York and interviewed some the Bootleg Sessions and DART riders.

Check out Wonka with the 180 skid to tailtap!

My boys killing it! Gaps, drops and wallrides.

A Slow Wednesday Jam from Bootleg Sessions on Vimeo.

Big ups to:

Brooklyn Machine Works
Profile Racing
Continental
Mishka

So last Friday was the second Peel Sessions competition I’ve thrown in Brooklyn. The first one was big and this one definitely topped that! Since there were Bootleg Session riders in from all over the country, we called it the Bootlegged Peel Sessions. A few of the DART riders were there, both old and new recruits KILLING IT as usual.

I won’t say much about it because these pictures from Mr. Zeta and Blake do it enough justice!

I would like to thank our sponsors and all the riders who competed!

Mishka
RED BULL!
Profile Racing
Bootleg Sessions [FREE BLS 2 DVDS!]
Urban Velo
Dave’s Quality Meat
Affinity Cycles
Laek House
Superflot
Milwaukee Cycles
Continuum Cycles

full size flier here

This weekend pops off proper tonight with the Bicycle Film Fest’s party entitled Bikes Rock! at Studio B

Then Tomorrow night is the Dear Velo art show!

…and Friday night is the beginning of the Film Festival!

Also on Friday is the Bootlegged Peel Sessions contest.

Sponsors Include [but are not limited to]:
RED BULL!
Profile Racing
Bootleg Sessions [FREE BLS 2 DVDS!]
Dave’s Quality Meat
Mishka
Affinity Cycles
Laek House
Superflot
Milwaukee Cycles
Continuum Cycles

Also DON’T FORGET to catch the World Premier of Bootleg Sessions 2 at the Afterparty Saturday!

BE THERE!

FRIDAY MAY 30TH
9pm
Meeker at Jackson
Come After the first screening of the Bicycle Film Festival on Friday!
sponsored events
prizes

Footdown
Skids
Sprints
Freestyle
“Prolly Says”
Freestyle event will be broken into two groups: ‘new jacks’ and ‘jackasses’

working on the sponsors, expect a small entrance fee - like $3… Afterparty TBD

So a lot of great things have come from Mishka forming the DART cycling team. I’ve met a lot of people through various outlets, got to hook up my friends with clothing for doing what they love and have made some really awesome connections! One of these connections is Milwaukee Cycles out of, well Milwaukee. Also known as Ben’s Cycles, Milwaukee Cycles have been making more and more moves to supporting this exponential growth the Fixed Gear “scene” has seen over the past few years. Hell I bought my first wheel set for my fixed gear a few years ago.

After the Monster Track Side Events and Velocity, Peter from Cog Magazine approached me and wanted to know if I’d be interested in testing out Milwaukee’s CRUSHER! When I first heard about the Crusher, I thought to myself “who would chainring grind on a fixed gear?”… After talking to Peter and hearing of the Bootleg Sessions hookup that they worked out earlier, I decided to give it a try. I have to admit, it’s a bit jarring to hear and feel what this does to your bike. But damn, it’s fun as shit.

Below are pics of my Crusher after about a month’s worth of hard riding. It’s pretty much thrashed. I’m working with Milwaukee on a few new prototypes and they’re sending me another one this week. Reminds me of skateboarding in so many ways.

and a pic of it in action

… bike check!

and finally, here’s a video of the action. I apologize for the shitty quality. I have better video, it’s just going to be used in a project and I can’t post it quite yet!!

Chainring Grinds from John Prolly on Vimeo.

Pics by Dancing Weapon of Mass Destruction and myself on Flickr

I’m always a bit late with blog posts. In the end, it’s better late than never…

So last weekend was the 4th Annual Bicycle Fetish Day in Williamsburg. Bicycle Fetish Day is put on by the City Reliquary and basically is just a all-day [and night] block party that brings all kinds of bikes together. The Schwinn Bike Club is there displaying their vintage cruisers and lowriders with crazy horns ablaze, vintage nuts bring out their wall-hangers and of course, the fixed gear kids are there, posing with their bikes and doing stupid tricks all afternoon.

The Philly crew came through and it turned out to be a great time.

Pics by Dancing Weapon of Mass Destruction and Dogseat on Flickr

Burd just dropped the Bootleg Sessions 2 Trailer. It’s pretty epic. Catch the World Premier at this year’s Bicycle Film Fest! Pre-order the DVD here!

“Bootleg Sessions v.2″ Fixed Gear DVD Trailer from Ride/Relax Productions on Vimeo.

So Burd, over at Bootleg Sessions not only received a nice flow package from us, he also finished the ‘tenetive’ cover for the next Bootleg Sessions! The cover features rider Sam Miller doing a fucking curved-wall ride on a track bike!!!!!!

I’ve seen a few of the cuts and all I have to say is this next movie will spawn a new breed of fixed-gear freestylers, a TON of hate, a TON of love and some awesome new projects in the coming months. Mishka’s proud to sponsor such an awesome endeavor and we thank Burd for all he’s been doing!

Be sure to catch the WORLD premier of Bootleg Sessions 2 at the Bicycle Film Fest at the end of this month!

So a while back, Brad from Urban Velo interviewed me about the so called “Fixed-Gear Freestyle Culture”. Seems he also hit up a few of my friends and co-riders in DART for some feedback.

So Todd [who threw Fixed Fight 2 recently] sent me some images and updates as to how the race went last week. Looked like a lot of fun. Seems his route ended up being about 22 miles in the beautiful Florida weather. Mishka sent Todd a box stuffed with all kinds of goodies including some DART shirts!

Here are some pics of the events and the after-event madness… and cupcakes.

Pictures courtesy of Inertiality on Flickr

Saturday was Sludgement Day, an alleycat / circuit / cyclocross race on Randall’s Island. Randall’s island is just south of the Bronx, east of the City and northwest of Queens. You could live in NYC your whole life and never step foot on Randall’s. The City has plans of changing that, so they’re digging it all up and renovating the island.

Sounds like a perfect course for a bike race right?

Here’s the aftermath:
[pictures by DART rider Luke Stiles and cycling photographers Blake Sinclair and race organizer Nick James]

Andrew, toughing through the muck

Crihs took 2nd

This shit sucked

Josh falls hard

DART rider Wilis Johnson takes 3rd

Dave Trimble wearing his 1st place prize

The course was about 5 miles and we had to do 4 laps. So if that wasn’t enough, we had a good 10 mile ride home. It’s not the miles that sucked; that’s nothing. Being caked with mud, blood and tears beer is what sucked!

Then I woke up this morning and learned some new tricks.

…and I want to thank Milwaukee Cycles for hooking me up with a Crusher

This weekend begins the first of four in an event dubbed “Mud Sweat and Tears“. Team Wreck Stuff has put together the most insane shit I’ve ever heard of. Track bike cyclocross on Randall’s Island and an Alleycat in remote areas of Harlem. They’ve also thrown in two weeks of grass track racing. Talk about idiots using track bikes in inappropriate ways…

Dunno how many of you ride track bikes or fixed gears, but this Saturday will be a lot of fun. Basically a good place to get drunk and fall off your bike into mud.

Mishka and DART are sponsoring the event with some serious gear so come out and get pitted.

More information here:

SLUDGEMENT DAY: Saturday, April 12th. Registration is at 1 PM in the Icahn Stadium Parking lot. $5 will buy you admission to the following events: the brutal and infamous Randall’s Island Circuit Race (the featured event); skid-hockey, grasstrackstands, footdown, and any other side events that we may or may not throw. How to get there? Here is a G-map route coming from the top of Central Park. It’s hard to get lost on Randall’s Island, but some basic familiarity couldn’t hurt.

This dude plays Guitar Hero.

P.S. There are too many categories. Proceeds from this picture will go to all the charities and benefits found on the bloglin.

P.S.S. Feel free to protest. :D

Mishka is sponsoring Fixed Fight 2 down in St. Petersburg, Florida on April 19th. We just got the final flier today. Lookin’ good. Big list of sponsors. There’s also a “Head-Start” for anyone wearing a helmet. 10 seconds to be exact. Glad to see safety being a consideration…

So my friend Franco shot this video from the Monster Track side events two weeks ago…

DART riders reppin’ hard!

So I know it’s a week late and that seems to be the growing trend here but I really really really wanna recap last weekend. So yes, Monster Track was canceled on the internet. That doesn’t mean that the side events were.

Thursday was my weekly event, the Peel Sessions. A bunch of SF and JP cats were in town, including the legendary Shino. We just fucked around all night and learned some new tricks.

Friday was Goldsprints. Rather than explaining the significance of Goldsprints, I’ll let you read the Wiki entry.

I’ve never done this before. I’ve ridden rollers before, but not raced on them. I got a 16.53″ in the 250 meter sprint. Which was 4th for most the night, until some people beat the time. Ultimately I took 6th out of about 80 people.

Saturday was the King Kog side events. Skids, sprints, footdown, trackstands and freestyle. Tony Fast (D.A.R.T) won the Freestyle competition and I got 3rd!

While we were at the Side Events, selected people got a text message with the secret location for Monster Track. To give you guys an idea of what Monster Track was like last year, here’s a Youtube clip and the infamous “Monstertrack in 5 Minutes” video is here.

We didn’t get any pics of the race. It was rainy and nasty out. All I know is Austin [Brooklyn Machine Works] got first, Crihs [6 Racing] got second, Yatika got 3rd and our own Wilis (D.A.R.T) got 4th!

Of course partying ensued at the Wreck Room in Bushwick and we woke up Sunday to head out to the track for Cyclehawk’s VeloCity. Kissena Velodrome brought in about 80 people to race in traditional track races. There was a Messenger heat, a New Jacks heat and a City Bikers heat. Overall we all had a lot of fun. It was about 35 degrees out with 20mph headwinds between turn two and turn three.

It was my first time racing at a track. I got 2nd in my heat. Luke Stiles (D.A.R.T), the fucking trackstar finished first in multiple events and got 2nd overall.

Thanks to Jose Martinez, Demoncats and Blake for the pics and Jacobs from Boston for the MT .gif!