52mm Collective X New York City

I know most of you are going to open this and be all like 'woo video'....

which is all fine and dandy BUT I want you to read because its something I never did, an to be honest I wish I had!

Here we go then,

So I've been over in the greatest city on the planet we call earth, now i know i haven't been to every country, city or town on the earth but I'm telling you right now that "new York will forever be the place i am happiest".

Being back in NYC after a year or so of not being there was so uplifting! Instantly my creativity was buzzing, I literally couldn't control myself so I built the bike up, loaded my back pack and hit the NYC streets for my first experience of real traffic riding... I was not disappointed, maybe 5 blocks in and i had figured out the way the traffic flowed and how the junctions worked. Slipping through super tight gaps, high 5's for people calling waving down cabs (luckily they smiled after id stolen the high 5) riding through time square and past the flat iron building on 5th avenue, which happens to be my favourite building ever!

an to ice the cake, the sun was blazing between the buildings with beautiful blue skies and all the trees were super pretty spring colours. New York had me hooked again...

You see i find it hard to express my emotions unless it is through film or photographs, if you follow my instagram @52mmcollective i'm sure you'll have seen my day at Coney Island and my little blog video, anyways back to my original point I do struggle and this trip instead of shooting pictures after pictures and films I decided to spend my last day walking around with nothing but a pocket full of dollars and my eyes wide open. I walked in zig zags across the blocks reading the city like a giant book, taking in sounds, sights, smells an pretty much anything I could grasp. My reason for this was because i felt as if i needed to learn about the city and its wonderful cultures, rather then shooting pictures to just exploit through social medias (which yes I shot photographs at the race an Coney Island but they had purpose).

The 3 days previous to my giant book walk of NYC I spent getting lost on my bike in the streets, which i couldn't of been more excited for! That feeling of being lost wit a huge smile on your face cannot be beaten, trust me go see for yourselves! I started to learn the streets pretty well but it never stops that little sneaky surprise of getting completely lost all over again, keep those eyes peeled kids!

Malcolm my main slice in Brooklyn and fellow @paria.cc rider met me on the Friday and led me around Brooklyn with that same smile on his face as I had, so it must be New Yorks little vibe that keeps us smiling.... We rounded up a crew and adventured over to the Red Hook Pre party, arriving at that party was literally heaven! hundreds of track bikes, free beer, pizza and chocolate testing (because it was in a chocolate factory) yea I know right how damn cool!?

The whole weekend overtime i turned around or had a little ride I would see guys and girls who I've looked up to since I first bought a track bike, which i loved because they were all solid dudes with great outlooks on life which really got me pumped for the weekend ahead of us!

After the pre party I hooked up with a Brooklyn crew of messengers who took me along with them for a chill out by the dockside, which sadly was cut very short when we got chased off by the cops! it was a very eventful evening to be fair as I blew both tyres out on a street grating as we were 'evading' the cops, so a short time after stopping and slipping two new inner tubes in we was back out on the streets and hit up one of the best BBQ joints i have ever been to! DINO's that place is a god send, cannot thank the homies enough for that treat for sure!

So the Saturday was upon us! RACE DAY!

Basically I had to ride from Brooklyn all the way back into Manhattan which if you take a look on a map is a damn long way! anyways fun ride to say the least back to my hostel, freshened up and set off back to Brooklyn. Yet again I had a miss hap by sliding through my rear tyre and scaring a bunch of ladies eating breakfast outside a cafe when my tyre exploded.... repaired and ready to roll, i put the power down and raced back to the Red Hook Crit!

I met up with the crew of Brooklyn messengers again in 'booze corner' someone called it, which they wasn't wrong because the juice was flowing nicely under a blazing sun, AGAIN! I shot a tonne of portraits of the homies, general public walking around the race and obviously a few famous faces cropped up.

The races were super fun to watch, the vibes were drink beer an hype the riders up as they passed our section of the course! This carried on from 2pm till nearly midnight as you can imagine we got a little rowdy but all in good spirits. Being a part of the crew and riding around NYC, playing with traffic, drinking beer and filming/photographing really showed me that there is so much more to life, if you ever speak with me you'll know how much I believe in indulging in real life, seeing whats really out there for us BUT this really did open me up to a whole new world, a world I never knew I could be apart of... Until now.

So there we have it, I'm going to leave it at that. I've said what i feel should be said and if there is anything else you guys feel you need to know or see, GET OUT THERE you will not regret it!

Thanks for always being there to read my life in rambles, Dan.