Playdate Bike Club Easy-riding two-wheelers from an OG NYC bouncer

If you've ever wondered what bouncers do when they're not bouncing, it's definitely reading Nietzsche. But also making sick bikes, if you're former Tunnel and Limelight B&T-repeller Andre Gonzalez, who 10yrs ago hand-built a custom singlespeed with sweet high-rise handlebars in his Hell’s Kitchen apartment before being barraged by demands for cruisers from the people he actually let into clubs, who he took on group rides he very-not-creepily referred to as “playdates”.

After a decade building a clandestine army on wheels, PBC handed out prototypes to downtown types and fashion luminary/ old chick Anna Wintour before finally producing an eight-deep line of downsize-frame/upright-handlebar “East Coast High Riders” that enable you to see over traffic by rolling “upright, not uptight”, even though good posture generally means you're a huge tight-assed loser. Frames come in four colorways including the self-described Black Beauty and the sky-blue Gentleman Jim, and all're mounted with Dre’s trademark chrome ape-hangers, polished cranks, and retro banana seats, which beat the hell out of those seedless grape ones everyone had in the '80s.

A line of three-speed beauties is in the works, and there's always the option of PBC’s by-appointment customization process, which unlocks possibilities from swoopy beach-cruiser frames to deep-dish colored rims and camo paint jobs that will make you look like an Übermensch if the bouncer at Marquee has ever seen one.