me, “You got a bike, you know your city, you got a lock, go make some money.”
Sam Turner: There was this guy who was standing in the elevator door, just holding it cuz he’s talking to his buddy. And there were people in the elevator with me, we all want to get somewhere, so I said, “HEY! Get in or get out!” He just stared me down, like, “You’ve got the balls to say that?” I said to the girl next to me, “Lets get off on the next floor.”
Marcus Garcia: WHOA!
Sam Turner: No! ‘Cause she was pissed off too. Then I pushed all of the buttons and said “Later,” and we got off. She was laughing.
Marcus Garcia: I remember wildin’ out in the 90’s like, “I’m raising babies on this shit!”
On The Bike Scene
Marcus Garcia: I grew up blue collar, and it just happened to be on a bike. That evolved into now, if you’ve got enough cheddar, you can get your Urban Outfitters kit, you can look like that messenger type and there are kids who come out of that who kill it, and they may become that next wave.
Sam Turner: You can hate on anything when it gets popular, but I just think it’s cool that more people are riding bikes.
Punchy: It was culture shock when I came out here! People have nice bikes! These are real bikers out here. Back home, we ghetto, running on rims!
Marcus Garcia: You see heads that are poor or maybe homeless, or even your kitchen fare. Riding around on a way too big stolen mountain bike with a buried seat post with the checkered pants… gotta get to work! The fact that I could make money just dicking around on my bike, to me, was an amazing thing.
Marcus Garcia: Chrome is some shit, Bart and Mark, they came into the mix in the late 80’s, early 90’s. If you were a Denver kid and you were about it, they’d hook you up! And they loved doing it.
Sam Turner: In case you don’t know, they sold it and they’re Mission Workshop now.
Marcus Garcia: Their bags killed it, they killed it, they were super supportive and they made us feel like champions. That was during the time when you could drop 50, 60 tags a day. You wanna roll the whip? Get it. “Awesome you called early, here’s these runs, do this!” Chrome was a good thing for the Denver scene, for sure.
Sam Turner: I counted the number of track bikes I’ve had, around 15.