The New York Bike Week, which lasts 10 days, is a growing festival that revs up the city for the Brooklyn Invitational show and starts the week off right. Bike Week stumbles from the Invitational to the five day Motorcycle Film Festival, and finally the Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride, which closes out the week. With live music cranking up at 8 PM and going until the wee hours, the Invitational only lasts one day but it’s a long day. The Brooklyn Invitational brings in thousands of bikers and bike fans. Inside Root Studio, a fancy white walled rentable photo studio, 20 bikes are displayed. Admission into the studio is $10, however the crowd lines the streets for a free show. Vintage bikes, flat trackers, customs, Bob-jobs, choppers, and even bicycles line the streets. Some of the most familiar faces from Japan, Germany, and the UK, and the US bring in newly constructed bikes or come to just enjoy the convention itself.
Many of the bikes on display have already been featured in Cycle World. To name a few: the Revival Cycles J63, Roland Sands’ Pikes Peak Project 156, and the Ehinger Kraftrads Speedster. Traditional builders like Christian Sosa are pushing aesthetic boundaries in a quiet way. His Suavecito, displayed at Austin’s Handbuilt Show, is based on a vintage Indian Chief power plant and has handmade everything. This bike sat dead center in Root Studios with lots of hand carved elements making it feel very personal. The vintage machines sitting among the new customs made a clear statement by the inventors on the relationship between old and new bikes. Both were giving equal floor space, a nudge for new builders to learn their history, and the vintage to dig what is happening now.