LONDON scooter gangs have caught the attention of an international counterculture magazine which hails them as ‘underground superstars of the streets’ in this YouTube video.
The 20-minute video by the US-founded magazine and website Vice shows teenagers doing stand-up wheelies through traffic and with no helmets.
One sequence shows them doing stunts outside north London’s Ace Café, which has recently been threatened with closure over anti-social riding.
A presenter in the video say it’s ‘Kind of like a Mod revival except this time they’re wearing trackies and got man bags.’
We’re told the riders are part of a movement known as UK Bikelife and an online community known as UK Raise it Up, with their own Facebook page.
One rider, known as One Wheel Wavey, is described as an Instagram celebrity and seen wheelying with no helmet on a bike with no lights or number plate.
Also known simply as Wavey, he appears to admit to stealing motorcycles, saying: ‘We’d just find them [motorcycles]. We’d acquire them off the streets.’
He says his main victim was Pizza Hut. ‘We used to order a pizza to the top floor. Everyone would hide. Hear the bike pull up. He’d go upstairs. Come back down and we’re gone with the bike.’
He says: ‘When I’m wheelying, I’m just in my own world. Nothing can stop me. People will be next to me saying, “There’s police there.” You’re in your zone man, you just love it. Nothing matters.’
The video is one of a number showing scooters riders wheelying through busy traffic in London. Here’s another.
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