![]() T he rise of social media has birthed a clutch of hashtags (#bikesbringbonds #wheelsupgunsdown #bikelife). Pausing briefly on the Baltimore block where he used to hustle, Jules “Beeper” Perry keeps an eye out for the police. ![]() ![]() Dawayne “Wheelie Wayne” Davis’s efforts to get a feasibility study for a bike park funded in Baltimore lost steam after he agreed to community service after being accused of running a “chop shop” full of stolen vehicles parts out of his basement (he claims he had titles to all but one of them and supporters in the community view him as a leader in advancing the sport legally, and helping up-and-coming riders). While Baltimore has unsuccessfully put itself forward to host Amazon’s headquarters, embraced Elon Musk’s levitating high-speed transport system, Hyperloop, and offered generous development deals to Under Armour founder Kevin Plank, the idea of a dirt bike park is yet to gain traction. Cleveland has come closest to giving it a try, earmarking $2.3m for a dirt bike track with an eye to getting riders off the streets – but it is struggling to find a venue. In New York, “Al Capone” has floated the idea of a designated bike park. Masked to protect his identity, a WildOut Wheelie Boy waits for the pack to arrive.It has also found eight handguns and dished out in excess of 50 arrests and warrants. A year-long hunt saw more than 1,000 bikes seized in New York City, and in Britain Merseyside police released video of hundreds of seized dirt bikes and ATVs being crushed.īaltimore’s Dirt Bike Task Force – which former police commissioner Kevin Davis launched in 2016 calling riders “gun-toting criminals” – has seized more than 400 dirt bikes. In Washington, DC, authorities released photos of 245 wanted dirt bike and all-terrain vehicle – or quad bike – riders, while New Haven, Connecticut upped the ante by hitting riders with fines and reckless endangerment charges. Police crackdowns, though, are the most common response in cities around the world. Riders acknowledge a rebellious element – magnified by already-fraught relations between minorities and police in inner-city communities – but many challenge the claim that clashing with cops is an end itself. Many riders challenge the notion that clashing with cops is an end in itself.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |