Yes, it’s that time again. The Bicycle Film Festival starts today in Los Angeles. It seems like it was yesterday that we packed The Downtown Independent Theater with 2 sold out shows for To Live & Ride In LA. Now here we are a year later and we are just as excited as last year. Los Angeles is making another impact on this years festival with Warren Komers’ Wolfpack Hustle’s The Crash Race as well as a vignette on the outlandish behavior of Los Angelopes. Holy Fuck its going to be a good one!!!

Tonight’s kick off party ‘Bikes Rock’ is at El Cid. Hope to see you all there buying us drinks!

Ya’ll know we got a twitter? Well we do! You should subscribe to it, then twitter us, and we’ll tweet you back. Stay up-to-date on all of our happenings, THE DVD RELEASE!!! (6/21/11), races we sponsor, fun contests, great riding routes through LA, group rides we’ll be on, bars we’re chilling at, the list is endless! Plus we want to hear from you. What is happening in your city? Lets us know with tweet!

Fans that follow us on Twitter will get immediate updates and access to our Online Daily Newspaper! TRAFIK – Global Fixed Gear #FIXD. It’s the easiest way to keep up with every major Fixed-Gear blog out there without having to go each site individually. Makes life easier. Of course you should still link through to those sites so they get some love. Without Bike Blogs and social media sites, none of this coverage of what we do would be possible. We gotta give those guys the support they deserve, they keep the scene alive! Thanks for the support bloggers!

You can be a contributor too! Just use the #FIXD hashtag in your tweets or posts and you will be included in the next edition. It updates daily!

-TRAFIK

Thanks to everyone who made our first public screening of To Live & Ride in L.A. a success. The crowd braved long lines to catch the premiere of the feature film that everyone will be talking about. Both the 9pm and 11pm shows were sold out, standing room only at the late show.

It was a crazy night and LA represented like no other. Great to see the massive turnout and hear all the crowd reactions. Also cool to see Johnny Knoxville show up with his film “The Birth of Big Air”. If you didn’t get into the screening, there’s more to come. Stay tuned…

Special Thanks to TOLA, BEAVERBEAVS and DTLA’s FINEST for organizing the group rides and the alley-cat race.

Photos by Devon Tsuno, Mikey Wally & Rozano Johnson

Check out some of the pics from the night….

DEVON FLICKR

BEAVER FLICKR

MIKEY WALLY FLICKR

TRAFIK FLICKR

TRAFIK presents To Live & Ride in L.A. – PREMIERE EVENT

Close out the summer with a bang as all sides of L.A. come together for an EPIC PARTY and MOVIE PREMIERE. A night full of riding, racing, partying, and REPRESENTING L.A.!!!

Westside – Meet up at LA Brakeless @ 5pm for a massive GROUP RIDE to the Premiere. Hosted by BEAVERBEAVS and KEO.

WESTSIDE RIDE
www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=148365855181922

Eastside (Hollywood) – Meet up at Orange 20 @ 6pm for an equally massive GROUP RIDE to the Premiere. Hosted by TOLA.

EASTSIDE RIDE
www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=128290897217761

The first riders to show up at either spot with a “To Live & Ride L.A.” or TRAFIK sticker on their bike will win a pair of shoes from DVS – Your Choice! You can also win custom “To Live & Ride in L.A.” logo T’s designed by SWANK ONE. Each meetup will have its own shit planned so check out the individual Facebook events and show up early to get your pre-game on.

Once everyone arrives in Downtown, shit gets real with the 3rd Annual DTLA BFF ALLEY-CAT. If you haven’t raced yet this summer, this is the one to enter. Presented by DTLA’s Finest, this alley-cat is shaping up to be one of the biggest this year. Prizes by Velocity, Thomson, Rapha, DVS, and TRAFIK. Check the event page for more info.

DTLA Race will start and finish in front of the Downtown Independent Theater. 7:30pm Race start! Finish around 9, depending on how fast ya’ll are.

DTLA RACE
www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=145140645516844&ref=ts (Alleycat)

If you aren’t racing, there will be plenty of stuff to do for the tricksters on fat tires. TOLA will be running some contests in front of the theater, win yourself some shoes from DVS! Get your drink on, smoke if you got your card, and get ready for the premiere event of the summer!

9:30 PM – THE PREMIERE STARTS

Encore presentation at 11pm.

Afterparty will be held at the 6th St. Warehouse (with an indoor BMX ramp) w/ special guest Mat Hoffman.

There will be a bike valet, so your shit is safe, but make sure to buy your tickets online early. They are only holding 40 at the door on the night of.

TICKETS
www.brownpapertickets.com/event/124195 (buy tickets!!!)

Downtown Independent
251 S. Main St. 90012

Thanks for all your support LA! We are going to burn this motherfucker down!

-TRAFIK

Flyer designed by Mr. Quick

www.toliveandrideinla.com

The Official Trailer to the long anticipated feature film To Live & Ride in L.A. has been released! Watch in HD!

Check out the Official Movie Site at www.toliveandridinla.com for more info.

PREMIERING at the BFF, Friday September 3rd, 9:30 pm at the Downtown Independent. Get your tickets HERE before they sell out. There will be an 11pm encore presentation.

Keep checking back for info on the Premiere Event! There will be rides from all parts of L.A. and one of the biggest alley-cats of the year starting and finishing right in front of the theater.

Mark your calendars – FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 3rd!!!!

The time is upon us! It’s the film everyone has been waiting for – fucking finally! Make sure to buy your tiks online early, unless you want to camp out at the box office. Get em’ here!

Beers and Bruises: The 10th Annual Bicycle Film Festival

Hundreds of bikes lined up in front of The Anthology Film Archive in lower Manhattan on Sunday, June 20. Scores of passionate enthusiasts crouched on sidewalks or leaned against parked cars, sipping on sports drinks or browned-bagged cans of cheap beer. Most of these individuals were definitely cast from the same mold, lunatic outsiders with a unifying and intense passion for one thing- cycling.

The 10th annual Bicycle film festival was underway. For ten years now the BFF has celebrated all aspects of the cycling lifestyle through film, art, and music. Sunday night was to be the climax of this 4 day event, and we were going to be at its heart. Since Wednesday a multitude of short films and a few feature length pieces had been screened for enthusiastic audiences. These films encompassed all manners of subject matter, focus, and creative style ranging from Luminous Flow, a BMX short which focused on the interplay of color and movement during rider’s flatland maneuvers to We’ve Got it on Tape, a study of the sounds generated during bike polo. However the big one was Empire. The long awaited urban cycling spectacle was making its world debut tonight and we were going to be there to capture whatever was leading up to it.

Despite pounding hangovers we got an early start that morning. My photographer and I struggled up the Williamsburg Bridge in the overpowering humidity, pouring sweat but excited to be on our way to the event. Pausing for drinks before we took the high speed plunge into Manhattan, we decided the best way to cover this was as participants rather than observers. Big picture stories are sometimes hard to generate, given their non-specific nature so it was decided that we should attempt as best we could to capture the experience- the more social elements of the festival. We needed to get a feel for what type of people were there…and why.

We arrived as an all female alley cat race was concluding. It was a small race, maybe only 20 participants, but all those involved seemed to have had a great time. Instead of bragging about who beat who or smug, judgmental looks at other people’s rides, these girls were all sharing drinks, lighting each other’s cigarettes, and exchanging battle stories. One girl had apparently crashed into a pedestrian who hadn’t bothered to look before crossing the street. After she explained what happened to her friend who was bandaging up her bashed elbow and bloody shin he replied “Good! Teach that fucker a lesson.”

This attitude seemed to encapsulate exactly what was going on here. During this festival there was no real competition, and no real judgments being passed. The stereotypical bike-kid condescension was instead replaced by a feeling of loyalty and kinship. We are all out here risking our lives every day on the same streets, weaving through the same traffic, and dodging the same idiots in the cross walks; we suffer the same abuse at the hands of cops, pedestrians, and motorists alike, but we absolutely love every second of it. And here we all were, gathered not only to enjoy some entertaining films, or to collectively celebrate our passion for all things two-wheeled and chain-driven, but more importantly to reaffirm our convictions- to know that even though at times it seems like them against us, that the us in that equation is much larger and far more cohesive than one would think.

The crowd fluctuated during the afternoon, but swelled drastically around 7pm as the premiere of Empire drew closer. This was definitely not the spandex crowd, and by now there wasn’t a dérailleur in sight. Knots of sweaty fixed gear cyclists formed, all talking shop and laughing with each other in anticipation of what one man was calling “bike porn.” We wandered through the crowd drinking warm PBR out of a huge water bottle, taking pictures and scribbling notes- beginning to feel comfortable. We belonged here. These were our people. I ended up giving away my press ticket to a bike mechanic for fixing the slip in my rear cog with a home made chain-whip. Actually seeing the film was not as important to me as experiencing this camaraderie.

As the crowd filed in to see the premiere we mounted our bikes and pedaled off with no specific destination in mind, happy to have been a part of the Festival, but happier still just to be riding our bicycles. We were feeling that pure and most simple form of joy- the elation you get when the sun begins to set, turning the smog to orange and purple pastel smears and you’re half drunk; the cool wind mixing with the sounds of city traffic almost deafens you as you crank down to pass the taxi and make that light just before it turns red. You and your bike acting as one entity. Absolute control. Total freedom.

- Derek Prall, NYC

Victor and Ricardo threw an amazing even showcasing a race that our friends over at Take Over LA organized. That day i missed out on the race because of work, but watching it captured the tone of the race that started in Downtown Los Angeles. By the end, Matt Ruscgino took the win from Hern and Ricardo Mejia. Tony Z contributed the footage that was shown at the screening. The voices over were done tastefully and fully contributed nicely to showcase what was going through the racers heads. I hope this makes it in to this years BFF. Here are some stills from the screening.

-A.Boogie