Bike up knives down

I can now add Bikestormz to the list of beautiful communities of shared passion I've been blessed with being a part of.

I took my two 3-year-olds down to Southwark Park on Saturday, where hundreds, maybe thousands of young folk from various backgrounds came together, on bikes, to celebrate their culture.

No matter how the media makes you feel about young people in tracksuits on bikes, the energy was completely positive. Sponsors, wheelies, competitions, food, stunts. A lot of laughter, a lot of fast bikes to navigate with a clunky double pram.

I wanted my kids to feel that buzz. To see all those people.

To think this began when Mac Ferrari took an interest in the handful of kids on BMX and mountain bikes who came to watch the dirtbikes at Brimsdown track is phenomenal.

He wanted to support them, to use their love of bikes to start a movement in the hope that they might avoid the traps he had fallen into. Mac, for a time, got caught up in gang culture. He lost loved ones in the most unthinkable circumstances.

It's easy to write young people who are lost off as bad apples. But early lives without kindness, guidance, or positive role models set people on a course that might need correcting. It doesn't take a lot once they are considered unfortunate human beings, victims of circumstances they did not choose, and not statistics to crack down on. Put those missing basic human requirements in place, and they will flourish, because the trials of their early lives tend to instill qualities that those of us who had a better starting hand might not have acquired.

It's a long episode, but the who story is on The Creative Condition Podcast episode 197.

I add this to the rest of the nerdy gatherings I love to see and in some cases be a part of:

Peering through the window of Warhammer.

The weight of clashing opinions at book club.

Heated debates over kerning in design circles.

The unspoken 'most meta' t-shirt competition at pro wrestling events

Stories shared by friends who make dedicated trips to watch combine harvesters at work.

While researching the 'social creatures' chapter of The Creative Condition, I read that lacking positive relationships is as bad for human physical health as excessive smoking or drinking.

We are social creatures. We can feel the truth of that, can't we? The high of time spent with others whose company we enjoy. The wars we fight in our heads if we spend too much time alone. The drain of the company of the wrong people.

Bikestormz is a perfect example of the equalising effect of a simple core object of affection. As we talked, Mac expressed a love of the fact that in some instances, he rode for six months with people he knew nothing about, because the bike was everything.

He wanted those who had never left their estate to use the bike to experience more, then come back and tell the stories so that others might.

That's why we humans are so ravenous for stories, isn't it?

You can see Adam's photography here.

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