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news
Video: "Bane of the NYPD" cycling gang take on New York City's streets
We don't condone anti-social cycling here at road.cc. But at the same time, we do admire some decent riding skills. And when the two combine, you get something like this video featuring a cycling gang called The Cycle Squad Maniaccs who are based in the New York City borough of Harlem.
The video was uploaded to YouTube by graffiti mag Mass Appeal as part of its new series, New York State of Mind (the title inspired, we assume, by this).
The crew is led by self-styled "extreme bike rider" Rrdblocks, whom we've featured before on road.cc, with this latest video giving an insight into the background of The Cycle Squad Maniaccs and why they do what they do.
> Video: There are wheelies ... then there are extreme wheelies
Here's what Mass Appeal has to say about it:
You've probably seen them, either in the streets or online, weaving in and out of moving traffic, wheels in the air, pedals spinning wildly. It might even have made you flinch while sitting comfortably at home, how close they come to getting hit by oncoming cars. That risk is the point. Getting as near to the edge as possible.
Calling Harlem's Polo Grounds projects home, RRDBlocks picked up the Ruff Ryders name from the New York motorcyclists back in the day and applied it to bicycles. Along with his team of young riders, they're the bane of the NYPD, mobbing Uptown streets, doing wall rides on buses, and manual stalls on top of cabbies. RRDBlocks and The Cycle Squad Maniaccs are a team of kids that blend off-road racing culture with BMXing.
Mass Appeal took a trip Uptown for our new series "New York State of Mind" to rock with them as they do the thing, pointing their tires to 12 o'clock with one hand hanging lazily below, skidding sideways in front of oncoming cars, and ollying other bikes. The trip isn't without injuries though, and DBlocks himself even gets nicked by a car that he fails to weave away from in time. But he gets up with a smile and keeps it moving.
Needless to say, don't try this at home (or in the neighbouring streets).
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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28 comments
There are some nice vintage BMX cruisers amongst that lot. I've a good Floval Flyer frame in the cellar if anyone's interested. If you know what it is, you'll know what it is...
No helmets! Call the nanny state police fast!!
I hope they don't try this in Denbighshire. They'll put up signs.
Pompous is such a great word.
No helmets, no hi-viz...
Is inspired from this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKjj4hk0pV4
KEEP THE STREETS UP!
Mostly fun though it would be better if they didn't scare the shite out of oncoming traffic.
Also, a bit of warning of the video wouldn't go amiss, unless we are all throwing the n word about...
Keeping it wheel
Yeah, I think the title might be 'inspired' by NY State of Mind by Nas.
Leave them to it, just "kids havin' fun".
Someone at Continental might want to have a quiet word with their US-based Brand Ambassador.
That is rather good. I'd never thought of riding a bike in a dressing gown before.
Someone tell keirik I've found some kids with skillz that I actually envy.
Right, step 1: buy a scarlet dressing gown...
How aero is a dressing gown anyway...?
Much thanks for unnecessarily fanning the flames, road.cc. Taking a page from Donald Trump?
Seriously, though - NYPD couldn't be bothered with these kind of losers. Want to know who these people are the "bane" of?
OTHER CYCLISTS.
Don't report on things you don't understand.
'Dafuck?
If you had seen these kids outside of this glamorizing video, you would know what 'Dafuck…
As you seem to be the only one who knows what the fuck you're on about, do you care to enlighten the rest of us?
It's just kids having some fun and being a little wacky you pompous tool
Yeah, Nah. It's cyclists being total arseholes. If that was car drivers carrying around like that, buzzing into oncoming traffic, causing them to brake hard, bouncing off fenders then this would be a very different take. These guys ARE the bane of other cyclists. There's no problem with them taking their skills off the streets and onto a skate park, or storm drain, or some such other venue, but doing this on the highways is just all kind of fucked up, my nigger (to use the appropriate vernacular). A grade assholes.
If 'that was car drivers carrying around like that':
1) the risk to other people besides themselves would be huge, whereas the people likely to come a cropper here are the stuntmen. Vastly different.
2) We wouldn't be saying that those drivers are the bane of other drivers, using collective responsibility, that sort of thing (eg. we DON'T for street racing drivers etc). So why do it with cyclists?
I'm not absolving cyclists of behaving like dicks, or saying that they can't actually be accused of that because they're more vulnerable.
But vulnerability adds a different dimension to antisocial behaviour. And there is a double-standard when it comes to collective responsibility, only letting other cyclists down etc - it doesn't apply to drivers and pedestrians, so why apply it to cyclists?
Vulnerability isn't just restricted to the phyiscal outcome of an event.
You've lost me a bit there. Are you alluding to other outcomes (mental, emotional....) from this kind of behaviour? Recurs alluded to something potentially a bit more sinister but in the absence of any follow-up, the video is all we have to go on...
Yeah I'm sure if a bunch of lads were loafing down my road, bouncing their bikes off my car, it'd be a bit intimidating.
But they're not just beating the cars with their fists or random metal. And they're not dragging people out of cars and assaulting them. Society as a whole has become way too precious about the metal boxes people buy to, by-and-large, use as single or zero occupancy street furniture, yet still manage to be used to kill 5 people each day in the UK alone. Or a Hiroshima each month worldwide. What's the real anti-social behaviour?
There might be a risk to a bit of metal. The risk of one of these kids landing on their heads or going under a vehicle still has them claim the 'vulnerable' label in my book.
And there's skill here that's taken real discipline to build up, and it looks good, it looks fun, and it's a healthier use of those streets than a bunch of commuters going nowhere while their arteries fur and their cars poison the air.
I think society, not these kids, needs to grow up a bit.
They'll get told off if they're not careful.
Great piece of film.
Looks like a close pass?
Surely "Bane of the NYPD" is actually a tough Irish-Italian-Polish cop that shows these punks that a real man rides a Harley?
Word.
MAD SKILLZ YO!
My reaction to these things is a mixture of disgust and jealousy ,)
Lucas Brunelle will be pissed. He's the Orson Welles of dicking about on a bike in an urban environment and filming it. Or maybe the D. W. Griffith.