I Just Joined a Cult

London 2019

I’ve joined a cult… I signed no contact, and received no membership, but I’m definitely in. The strange thing is that, as you’re absorbed, you don’t notice it happening. It’s as if your focus has been on something up-ahead, whilst the net has been pulled-in tight behind you. And once you realise what’s happened, it’s already too late, because now …now you’re one of them.

Here’s how it works: You ride into town on a balmy summer’s evening. You’ve worked an early shift-pattern, so as to get the jump on the rush-hour traffic, but for you the traffic doesn’t really exist. You glide past car-drivers stuck in tailbacks at Marylebone, along the bus-lane at Regents Park, into the underpass at Warren Street, through the perma-jam at Kings Cross, and up the hill to Islington. Ahead of you, a gaggle of mopeds scatter at the blip of your throttle, and the bark of your cans.

Office-boys in their sweat-patched Burton suits step backwards onto the kerb, thinking better of it. They’ll let you pass before crossing the road.

Hip wine-bars and ethno-eateries line the streets, where once there were just white-people and bed-sits. You wind your way north, and surf the wave of gentrification, past houses you’d previously never wanted  to rent, and into which now, you could never afford to buy.

You now scythe through the heart of Stoke Newington and wonder why you always associate the place with Marxist-lesbians, and who-on-earth ever put that sh#t into your head. You glide past a couple of high street banks, and give them a double-take, questioning if it was at that branch, where The Fig had paid-off his white powder debt; as getaway guy for Hannibal-the-Cannibal.

Onwards, past the greengrocer, the chicken shop, and that place that gives good shawarma. Hang a right by the town-hall, and soon you're there: a cobble-stone courtyard, and some renovated stables; that are now laid-over to painters, fashion designers, and vintage-vinyl traders.

An assortment of tables populate The Yard, and a group of too on-trend-to-bend twenty-somethings crowd-round each one, sipping afro-vegan retro-beer. And then... then you see it, a white boss-eyed custom, that may have once been a Suzuki 600. You look at the bike, and then over to the hipsters, and then back at the bike again. For some reason, calling out to them: “Whose bike is this?” comes to mind, and a Danish-looking bloke puts-up his hand.

“Some guy sold it you, for a suspiciously-low price, right ?” You add, with menace.

“Erm... yes… is there a problem?” he says, as he walks over to you. His crowd of friends now silent. And because you used to be eccentric, and because now you're worse, you follow with:

“This bike was sold to you by a bloke, who punched-me, in the face."

His friends are now even silent-er. There is an awkward pause. The Danish guy is speechless.

“I’m guessing you know Meatball then ?” I add, with a smirk slowly creeping across my face

“Erm yes, you are knowing Meatballs also?” He is, with words in the wrong order, replying.

“Sure, I spar with him at the gym on a Monday night. Lovely guy, but waaaay too hairy…”

The Danish man laughs out-loud, and his friends too. The ice is broken. Suddenly he’s introducing himself as ‘Yaaarik’ and then his girlfriend comes over to say ‘hello’, and to offer an invite to a Club Night she’s putting-on next week, where you play darts for prize-money, but where the prize money is meat.

Yaaarik has come to drink beer with Adam, the owner of The Yard; a specialist retailer of British biker-gear, that’s made in Portugal. You on the other-hand have dropped-in to meet Terry, who is running a series of workshops on re-wiring resto-mods, and suddenly, you’re all friends.

It’s like that old pub game: ‘Seven Degrees of Kevin Bacon’, but where every second person in the crowd is Kevin Bacon. Everyone is really (really) connected. You’ve never met this Meat-Dart woman before, but she was also at the mellee  last weekend, and Terry himself knows ZZ, who gave you that complimentary ticket to the mellee (due to the fact that, a fortnight earlier, whilst mooching-along the Kyle of Tongue, you’d picked-up one of her Germans from *in a ditch* and *under a bike*). It’s a definite club. But what is it called? ...I’m not sure, but I’m definately on-board.

It’s mainly in London, but also worldwide. For the most part it’s male, but with a fearsome-love of geared-bike girls. One could mistake it for cliquey but it really just sticky; a natural evolution of ‘The Nod’ that all bikers give each other when passing on the road - something that no car-driver has ever heard of.

Everybody seems to know everyone else, or if they don’t know them directly, then they’re mates with one of the guys who he hangs-out with.