-I will admit that I am a fair-weather cyclist,
and I was way more into building my bike
and making it look cool than I was actually riding it.
But for many people,
especially those in our episode today,
cycling is so much more than a hobby.
It's a way of life.
Come here. I want you to say that last part.
-I'm Erin Cantelo, and this is "SubCultures."
-Can you do it, like, more smiley?
-[ Grumbles ]
-[ Laughs ]
!!musiC@!!!musiC@!
-If I was gonna define myself in one word,
I guess, yeah, I would use a "cyclist."
Just general lover of bicycles.
Babe, I love you. I love you, baby.
I own five bikes,
and they all have their own personalities and names.
This is Garfield. 'Murica. The Universe.
I'm in a serious relationship with this bike.
I'm never gonna be, like, the same.
I do this because it's fun, because it makes me feel alive.
I got into bikes via my dad, actually.
You know, as a kid,
you're kind of influenced through your parents.
You grow up in a certain neighborhood,
and being able to, like -- In, like, 15 minutes,
be in a completely different place,
that really introduced me to L.A., you know,
in a different way than I'd seen before.
I felt really limited, and now I could, you know,
venture off and do my own kind of thing.
I work at Orange 20 Bicycles.
I get to talk bike all day.
Those are, like -- They go on the top two.
Yeah, so, it would, like, lay like that.
-Oh, okay. -Yeah.
I feel what, like, really kept me around
was more the culture behind it.
That kind of really drives me to stay
because I found people who are on the same
kind of wavelength as me, you know?
[ Telephone ringing ]
Orange 20.
-What I like about riding is that you get to go anywhere --
anywhere you want, you know?
You don't have any limits.
Go as far as you want. You can go as long as you want.
All in a day's work. [ Chuckles ]
-What got me into riding is my friend.
He actually brought a fixed-gear to my house.
And within six months of riding,
got started learning a lot and just kept progressing.
-Fixed-gears are, I feel like, the gateway drug to cycling.
So simple. Definitely easy to get into.
I mean, I started off on a fixed-gear myself.
-Fixed-geared bikes is pretty much a direct gear.
There's no coasting, which makes it really hard
to time your tricks right.
So that's what kind of gives it the challenge.
People who are introduced newly to the sport --
What they find cool about it is that we can actually,
like, ride backwards.
You know, it's a freestyle sport,
so you kind of get to do your own thing.
You know, there's no direct way that you have to do it.
So it's kind of freeing in a way
to be able to express yourself on a bike, I guess.
-I knew that if you were fast and you rode in L.A.,
you were interested in Wolfpack Hustle.
They're pretty much the top dog.
If you really want to prove yourself as far as,
like, fast cyclists, that's where you would go.
It's basically a ride ranging from 30 to 70 miles a night.
L.A.'s a car city. It really is.
At night, we kind of, like, take it over for our own.
It's pretty amazing.
It doesn't really matter who you are or where you come from.
If you can ride and you can ride well,
that's all that really matters.
My first Wolfpack Hustle ride did not go as good as I planned.
I definitely -- I got dropped, and I got dropped hard.
You know, you're going your hardest.
You're going your max.
And no matter what you do,
you're slowly just drifting back,
and you're getting dropped from the main group.
You know, there's not much you can do,
you know, other than come back next week
with a little bit stronger legs.
-I feel like I belong in the fixed-gear family.
All our riders from the shop, you know, we get together
and we ride and we're always pushing each other
to go further, jumping on another stair set
that's a little bit bigger, a little bit bigger
or try something, you know, a little bit higher.
We're always pushing each other,
feeding off our tricks and stuff like that.
-It gets crazy where --
Before, I didn't know how to do anything,
and now I have, like, a full bag of tricks.
It's just awesome to see what I could do now,
compared to before.
-There's people who are always gonna be faster than you,
no matter what you do.
It's also -- It's tough.
You have to put the time in and it takes a lot of effort.
And there's points where you're really just down
about, like, riding all week.
You definitely have to be a little bit different
to be a bike rider in L.A.
There's a lot of aggressive people out there.
I was clipped pretty hard.
I was ahead of him, and then he, like, turned into me
and, like, basically ran my bike over,
and I, like, went over the hood, into the sidewalk.
Yeah, I cracked my helmet,
and I just had road rash on my face and my arms.
And my bike was totaled.
He just drove off, too, which was the worst part.
To push yourself and then see the progress that you've made,
I feel like for me, it's truly fulfilling.
If you just, like, spend the time,
you put the work in, you can see your progress
when you're excelling past people
who've been in the game maybe even longer than you.
If it was just me on my own,
I probably wouldn't enjoy it as much.
it changed me, who I am, and how I act.
It shaped me into a better person.
I want cycling to be part of my life forever.