Living to Ride
The photography of Brunel Johnson
Text by Lisa Der Weduwe | 21.01.22
Young people have always been drawn to two wheels and a whole lot of speed - whether it’s the 1950s Ton Up Boys trying to hit 100 miles per hour on the newly built North Circular or the teenagers uniting around the inner city Bike Life community today. And for as long as young people have taken to two wheels, the media has been there to demonise them. Headlines from the fifties wouldn’t be out of place on a cover today.
Ignored in these representations is the sense of community around motorcycle culture, of young people coming together through a shared passion of wheels. Saturdays spent dismantling and reassembling beat up bikes and building something of your own. Coming together for ride outs and showing off your latest tricks, it is a national movement that sees young people connecting .
Photographer Brunel Johnson was drawn to this passionate community. His work Living to Ride follows two groups of young people united by bike culture. He explains the series “aims to show the amount of time and effort people put into their bikes - from learning to rebuild engines off youtube, buying broken bikes, fixing them and selling them off for profit, the breakdowns, protecting their home from potential burglaries, practicing various stunts and more.”
“There is also a lot of unseen time, skill, dedication and finance that goes into the 30 minute ride before the police show up.”
The work builds an intimate portrait of the young people behind the headlines, whose voices and stories are drowned out by a media that is out to get them. In The Making Of A Biker Gang brothers Isaiah, Zhontai and Tation spend hours finetuning their bikes in the garden of their Milton Keynes home. Rebuilding their engines following Youtube tutorials, they put their bikes to the test on industrial wastelands, forests and suburban streets - often their rides are cut short by the police. Brunel documents the side that people don’t see; “There is also a lot of unseen time, skill, dedication and finance that goes into the 30 minute ride before the police show up.”
The South London collective Innercity Riderz follows a more well-known face of London’s motorcycle scene. Making a name for themselves with daring stunts, which has landed them features in most of London’s Drill and Rap music videos. Brunel’s work builds an evocative portrait of the collective, with striking black & white portraits alongside the stunts they’ve become known for. What shines through is the comradery built through a shared talent and passion for riding bikes and landing the biggest tricks.
Mark Wilsmore, who runs the legendary motorcycle spot the Ace Cafe, has seen generations of young people through it’s doors and can’t see the culture dying anytime soon. He’s seen the evolution from speed to tricks; “It's the young doing what they can with the technology at hand. Back in 1950-1960 the technology of the vehicle didn't allow that. Your tires have improved enormously. The quality of tires, the quality of suspension systems, the quality of brakes, the quality of gearboxes, everything's improved enormously. So you can do things which were impossible to do not that many years ago. And the whole thing of being young is, here I am, look what I can do.” He adds; “Typically, you want more and more of that drug, adrenaline and I don't see that changing into the future at all.”
With young people not turning away from motorcycles anytime soon, Brunel’s work offers us an opportunity to take a more nuanced approach to this enduring youth subculture. His photographs open up the space to consider the positive impact two wheels have and the dedication of the riders in a society that is often out to put them down.
Follow Brunel at @bruneljohnson or www.bruneljohnson.com
