Surf Video Review: “Bicycle Trip”
No peak-action German Surf Porn Here. If you like Surfer Magazine staff photographer Patrick “Zee German” Trefz’s non-vanity, pulled back black-and-white images and retro rustic color pictures, then you will be happy to know that Trefz has taken the inevitable leap into motion picture. Starting with his limited edition short film (and I mean short), “Bicycle Trip”, following with the recently released “Thread”.
It is my personal belief that if Mr. Trefz was in hell, the demon of the underworld we commonalty know as “The Devil” would force him to make a slash bash, spray in your face, quick clip, high-paced aerial surfing circus showdown movie… shot ALL in High Definition. This description (for those of you who do not fancy that sort of surf film) is quite the opposite of what Trefz has made.
Let’s start with Bicycle Trip. No its not a movie about mashing around on a fixy bike, it’s a surf film starring Peter Garaway, a goofy foot shred-stick wave rider who pedals around on his rusty old bike through the various beauties of northern California (more specifically, Santa Cruz), all the wile holding a legitimate back-in-the-hey-day single fin sled.
The film is a creative assortment of cartoons, landscape and surfing that expresses the authenticity of surfing Santa Cruz California. Bicycle Trip is defiantly a nighttime surf flick, pre-nodding out after a hardy meal and a few dark thick beers. The film is only a short fourteen-minutes long. I would have liked the movie to be a little longer, maybe a running time of twenty-five-minutes, which could have been filled up with more surfing. I felt that the surfing was good, humble and easy to relate to but it was a teaser and I wanted more. Maybe that’s what Trefz was going for. Still the movie was well done and it left me feeling calm and creative.
The line-up in this 16mm short is fifteen SC (Santa Cruz) surfers, two Currens and one Machado. Directed and produced by Patrick Trefz, Shot by Roman “NIYM” Bellisario with additional footage by Josh Pomer, Graham Nash, and Syrus Sutton. The packaging is super sweet and totally worth mentioning. When you purchase your copy of “Bicycle Trip” it comes in a wooden box that you could later store your super secret treasures in. In side the box is a little book showing images of the making of the film and finally the DVD. Interestingly enough the movie is self-distributed by Patrick Trefz himself. If you want the movie you have to go to his website, www.patricktrefz.com and buy it there. There were only five hundred made so get it wile you can.
