To Live and Ride in LA

To Live and Ride in LA (2010), directed by David Rowe, is a 55 minute blast through the streets, alleys, highways and even velodromes of Los Angeles. Clearly inspired by Stacy Peralta's 2001 documentary Dogtown and Z Boys, which focused on the skateboard subculture of Southern California in the 70's and 80's, To Live focuses on the fixed gear bikes(no brakes) pedaled by young men and women at high rates of speed to reinforce a cultural attitude that the city of cars is also the city of wheels and anywhere the mechanical, gas fired ones can go, so can bicycles. But bikes can go where no cars dare, except in fantasy films like The Italian Job.

This new subculture identifies itself by bonding through riding contests, parties, bike demos, blasting individually through four lane traffic during rush hour, and late night jaunts that sometimes leads to the "liberation" of private property (velodromes) for the athletic tests laid out for all willing participants. It is this group bonding that is featured and enforces the idea that the city as constructed is a multiple use arena. Concrete streets and asphalt roads can easily be adapted to new uses and these fixed gear hammerheads utilize their athletic skill sets to affirm that you can live and move through a major car metropolis with two wheels and leg power and nothing more. This is classic eco adaptation. Watching the bikers go down to the storm drains runoffs that have been used in so many Hollywood films in the past 60 years is just one more example of adaptation and evolutionary acquisition of space.

David Rowe's strategy also focuses on the beauty of biking in urban areas, sometimes dangerous, but always energetic. There is scant narrative description and the film has a great soundtrack of contempo needledrop music to reinforce the multiple camera work that captures the riders at speed from both the ground and the air. This is a film that moves with the speeding bikers, many of them former or current bike messengers, whose motto revolves around disdain for cars, lights and traffic laws. You can't ride hard, fast or win if you play by the rules created for cars, they seem to say, joyously oblivious to the facts that their bikes have laws governing their movements as well.

The LA we see is always sunny, the nights always balmy, the riders only impeded by their own limits. The weather conspires to increase speed and attitude. One rider, after a hard night of riding and partying, wakes up outside an apartment house, his faithful steed locked to his leg by his Kryptonite lock. It's biking in a semi Edenic environment. For us bike crazies who blew around cities like New York and Chicago, this is the biggest difference. These gearheads in LA can do it 24/7/365. Biking in 30 degree weather, with snow and ice on the ground and gray looming clouds, the threat of snowflakes blurring vision, northern city bikers must look at these blurs with envy. Sunny Southern California is a natural space for fixed gear bikes, because the film claims the weather always conspires to promote speed through leg power in a city that is always thought of as a culture of cars and endless traffic on highways that never end.

Bicycle cultures in big cities revolve around the notion that some form of freedom exists, beyond cars, public transportation, walking or running. Bicycles are also used for work, but here the film only focuses on play. This subculture has adapted their physical challenges to new athletic events. After one crazed night time race, covering many miles and ending up in a celebratory finish, the announcer crows that there is no Lance Armstrong here. No one famous or endorsed can risk their lives like these nighttime riders are willing to do and it is this behavior that establishes both their passion and their outsider label. They tag the city with their peddle powered speed.