This post is about Terry Barentsen’s Hotline videos.
Terry Barentsen is an NYC-based bike rider-creative who makes incredible mobile videos about urban biking and the associated lifestyle – and much more his YouTube channel is very popular and rightfully so. Terry’s content is crisp, inspiring, professional and highly engaging.
My favorite videos are the Hotline series, where Terry rides behind a local rider (who is miked up) and then follows them as they ride around their local area – which is usually a densely populated city.
These clips are incredible to watch. It is exciting watching highly skilled (mostly fixie) riders zooming dangerously around New York, Mexico City, Moscow, San Francisco, Rome, Tokyo or where ever.
Below is a 100-word worlding I wrote about the Hotline videos:
Worlding: Lessons from Hotlining
Research lessons from Terry Barentsen’s hyper-urban street bike riding Hotline videos. Fear and excitement comingle. Bodies, bikes, cities, noises, skills, congestions, objects, demands and decisions. Moving intuitively. Operating on feel and precognition. Bravery shoves perilousness into oncoming traffic. Constant(ly) urgent flow(s). Giving red lights, erratic vehicles and law-abiding pedestrians the finger. Always pushing and scanning just ahead(s). Whistles, shouts and drag-hitches on cab doors. Scaring yourself and others. (con)Sensual (re)Activity. Instances of recovery and realisation. Extreme moments of confluence. Getting to where you need to be, faster. One long, unedited, continuous journey of think-ride-living in the middle.
Getting into Hotlining
Although mostly located in the US, Terry travels widely and I really appreciate the broad range of diverse people, places and bike styles he showcases – he genuinely includes everyone – and they are all equally exciting to watch for different reasons.
The sometimes included daggy 1970s Hotline intro is hilarious.
You don’t need to be a bike rider to appreciate a Hotline.
Zipping down streets, over embankments, skidding between cars, dodging walkers, jumping barriers, crossing lines and managing fasts speeds, traffic, built environs and themselves the whole time. Unreal!
Watching fixie riders is exhilarating: their skill, grace and bravery is incredible – and definitely not always legal. I find myself mesmerized as I watch how they hold speed, what lines they chose to take, the snap decisions they need to make and how the city lives, breathes and orientates around everything that moves – it is literally poetry in motion.
I’m a Hotline fan for many reasons, least of all because it is highly original content, beautifully produced videography, celebrates ALL kids of bikers and bike riding, takes in all the sensory surrounds, is inclusive, positive, exciting and creative, and is exclusively focused on the embodied, moving POV of the riders in situ.
I also really appreciate that most of these videos are one-shot non-edited footage – raw as!
And I love that the whole series is about celebrating all different types of riders (and not just focused on Terry himself) – how refreshing!
Some of the Hotlines, have cool Jazz or World Music tunes overlayed, other times there is no music, sometimes both. I dig being able to hear the rider breathing and talking as they whip and whizz and ride. The quality ASMR immersion of the ride helps better appreciate the dynamicism and noise of the riding activity and surrounding vibrancy: honking, braking, music blaring, road crossing beeps, pedestrians talking, snippets of conversations, natural sounds of wheels on surfaces, bus engines ….and all the while being able to ride-with a rider-bike-environs assemblage.
As well as the Hotline videos, Terry’s channel also has HEAPS of other associated bikey-interest content, like video diaries, tech info and explanations, bike checks, special bike styles/models (fixies, road, track, singlespeeds, MTB), ‘How to’s, night rides, ride-alongs, meet the rider/interviews, event, rides and site visitations, a series called ‘chasing strangers’. There’s also a few tech-specific video playlists like the 4K series, stills, 360s and a few unspecified off-cuts, rough-cuts and ‘shorts’ that always have something a little left of center.
So if you haven’t already seen the Hotlines, series, I highly recommend on your next tea break to go and check out a few different Hotline rides – I guarantee… you will not be disappointed!
Below are a few to get you started…
Happy Hotlining!
I stumbled upon a video of Mr Barentsen’s of a ride through Tokyo with several others in a manner that was highly inconsiderate and presented serious danger to pedestrians. The video is called “Tokyo Drift”.
It strikes me as short sighted that Mr Bartensen is described on your site as “inspiring, professional” when what’s shown is anything but. I’m a road cyclist and medical doctor and found it horrible to watch so many instances where pedestrians were nearly hit.
Mr Bartensen and his team’s appeared to me as entitled, uncivil and abelist, in that these types of near miss encounters decrease (especially older) pedestrian’s levels of confidence on the street thereby limiting their community access and quality of life.
Adam from Sydney
Hi Adam. Yes, I can see your point. I find it harrowing to watch these clips for many of the reasons you point out and agree this kind of riding is incredibly dangerous for all involved. The implications for pedestrians are a major issue. The comments section for Terry’s videos show many people voicing the same concerns you do – and these are very important conversations to be having.