Bike Kill is the best day of the year. It’s better than New Year’s, better than Christmas, it’s better than my birthday.
The annual block party was held, for the first time, indoors, inside a massive warehouse near the corner of Morgan and Knickerbocker avenues.
Now in its 13th year, this Bike Kill was well attended! Hundreds of people turned out to participate and spectate.
For the uninitiated, Bike Kill is a raucous, rowdy party surrounding a improvised track on which one can ride any of the custom-built “mutant bicycles” designed by our event’s hosts, the Black Label Bicycle Club. And then you get hit in the head with a dirty, dusty pita. And a firecracker explodes at your feet.
Some bands and DJs played, the atmosphere was amazing. But year after year, people return for the main event: tall bike jousting.
Two riders hurtle towards each other with full force, attacking with joisting sticks, flanked by a shoulder-to-shoulder crowd of drinking, drunk punks, burners, makers, shoegazers, photographers, and riders.
Explaining Bike Kill to someone who’s never been is difficult, and photos just don’t do it justice. I think that’s because of the event’s unadulterated lawlessness.
At Bike Kill, anything goes. Does that make it dangerous? Maybe a little.
But 13 years in, it’s only gotten bigger and more widely beloved with each iteration!
Personally, I relish the opportunity to ride crazy bicycles in an abandoned warehouse hellscape of anarchy.
I can only hope we do it again next year, and for years to come.
All photos by Andy Smith for Bushwick Daily.
