fun with German TV.

I got a call from Barbara who handles press releases and media requests for Time's Up. They were on their way to Toronto for the CMWC and couldn't facilitate a last minute request for Public Television Germany. Apparently a crew was in town to make a short segment on the rise in popularity of fixed gears. Who better to represent this than the bike blog guy...me. I mean, I'm big in Germany, or soon will be. Yes, I am a big ham. Its all part of the game. Getting more people on bikes. Playing nice with the press.

So I meet up with the crew and we decided to shoot some riding around and an interview. I wanted to point them in the right direction, talk to local people and maybe even visit a bike shop or two. Unfortunatly a lot of people had left for Toronto, including King Kog, who I felt was the closest place and best representation of how this trend is blowing up into style and fashion.

The best part was slowing down impatient Brooklyn drivers as they shot out of a minivan interviewing me on why I liked a bike with no hand brakes.

Along the way we ran into Jack Crank who got some screen time. Jack was instrumental in getting my bike back.

shown here at the NYC bicycle film festival block party (I thanked him with a bottle of wine)


I saw Jack and a friend heading to work and yelled to them to come be German TV stars:



Eventually we headed over to NYC Bikes and talked with Richard who was very articulate about the whole scene.


They wanted a bicycle retailer to talk about who are these people buying track bikes and why? His basic attitude was like mine, brakes or no brakes...its complicated...as long as more people are buying and riding bikes...who cares.

Shooting outside of NYC bikes on Roebling.


Then they had me riding through red lights up the wrong way on Bedford Ave. Hmmm? Not necessarily the safest moves, but they assured me it looked good on video.

Their producer is sending me a copy on DVD. I hope some of my blog readers speak German, or maybe I don't.