The 2005 documentary B.I.K.E. follows Anthony (Tony) Howard in his quest to join the Black Label Bicycle Club. For those unfamiliar, Black Label is a super elitist bike club started in 1992 by Jacob Houle and Per Hanson as the “Hard Times Bike Club” in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The club has grown to include a chapter in New York, Reno, Nevada, Austin, Texas and a nomad chapter loosely based out of New Orleans known as “Nowhere”. Black Label members seemingly detest consumerism, cars and corporate power. However, I found it odd that in the movie the New York chapter took a road trip in a Mercedes wagon and a Land Rover Discovery, make of that what you will.

Tall-bikes and jousting are noted as the culture basis of the film and even Black Label to an extent but it seems more elitism and cliques are what take center stage, and understandably so. Over all, B.I.K.E. is a fucking train wreck of a film which in all actuality reflects the main character perfectly. Everything slows down midway through with Tony totally losing his shit and then finally picks up speed again for him to make a great comeback.

While I’ll try not to spoil the ending too much, it was nice to see Black Label get their asses handed to them at their own party in a final jousting match to which they shut down as soon as possible. B.I.K.E. is full of drugs and violence with some brief nudity thrown in for good measure and surprisingly enough, makes for an enjoyable couple of hours. If you’re interested in watching people ride bikes, get pummeled, drunk and high then you’ll likely enjoy this one.

You can find it online at bike-films.com