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By VITTI Cycling

June 7^th, 2021

Bombing through the streets of lower Manhattan with photographer Henry Hung and cyclist Patrick Roldan.

We couldn’t be more pleased and proud to have had the chance to work with long time photographer and even more long time friend, collaborator, negroni drinker and conspirator Henry Hung for this series of images for our new Spring 2021 collection.

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Henry Hung is a photographer and filmmaker based out of NYC. This is of course not even a tiny piece of his story. It seems we can't remember a time when Henry was not part of this thing of ours. He has been a sounding board for every visual story we have told as well as a constant traveling companion and general source of grounding and inspiration over the years.

Henry works in a loose documentary style reminiscent of italian post war neorealism. He brings his unique style to this series of images creating a nonlinear photo story that puts us in the streets of NYC not as a voyeur but as a visceral participant in the moment. Through his unique vision he shows us the light and dark and grit and intent that is a hallmark of his work and cycling in NYC in general. He captures perfectly the very essence of the city he calls home. Henry has the unique ability to see things as they are and not as we want them to be, always managing to capture the romance and off moment that tells the truth of a story in a way that is meaningful and literary. He has worked tirelessly over the years to capture the perfect balance of movement and stillness and subtle gesture in all of his work. He brings that filmic approach and balance and light touch to these images for us in this series shot on the streets of New York City in lower Manhattan.

Henry also co-produced and co edited a bold and groundbreaking documentary film project about skateboard culture in New Orleans titled “Gnarleans”. He embedded himself with a crew of skateboarders following them through their lives in New Orleans documenting them in a way that is intimate and revealing. Truly one of the best films on skateboarding we have seen. We were lucky to have Henry shoot and craft our launch film “Ricordo di Liguria” and we are keeping him busy shooting and editing new film projects for us that we can’t wait to share.

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Patrick Roldan is equally a rare find, a printmaker and cyclist, a person who feels like part of our family from the very start. Patrick came to our attention through mutual friends, as is more often than not the case in this cycling life… Conversations that start with, “ Hey, you know (insert fast friends name here)? He/She is fast as hell and loves to ride, you should totally meet up and talk all things cycling.” That's how we got to know Patrick Roldan and after a minute on the phone with him we realized we had so much in common and he was such a genuinely authentic person that we needed to work on something special together. That special thing is this series of images that Henry made for us with Patrick in Lower Manhattan on our favorite New York city streets and the accompanying conversation.

This body of work, shot early in the morning through neighborhoods that give that part of the city it’s heart and soul are a perfect way to celebrate cycling in the city.

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Henry and Patrick recently sat down via zoom to have a conversation about all things related to cycling and art.

Henry: Tell us about yourself for the record.

Patrick: I grew up in Queens, New York, moved to Long Island and got a very New York centric field of view for how I grew up. Things turned to skateboarding, I played piano. I was pretty nerdy in school, but I ended up going to art school. I wanted to do something regarding design. Photography always caught my eye, printmaking, drawing. The aesthetic stuff, I felt really in tune with that.

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Henry: You ended up going to Art School in Boston?

Patrick: Yeah, when I was making my choices for where to go to school, I wanted a city feel, college feel and be close enough to home. The East coast has always felt like home. I was torn between Baltimore, New York and Boston. Since I already have family in Boston, I ended up going there. I think without Boston, I don't think I would've become a Cyclist. Even though I'm a Queens person, New York person through and through, Boston holds a special part of my heart. I think without Boston, I don't think I would've become a Cyclist. A lot of the passion for cycling came from there. A lot of struggles with cycling came from there.

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Henry: How did Boston inform your interest in cycling?

Patrick: At school, My studio mate had a fixed gear. My roommates had bikes and we all kind of started commuting to school that way. My dad saw that cycling was an interest of mine... I think he used to be a pro in the Philippines. He's told me he used to race and he worked at a shop and was sponsored by, I think, Look.

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Henry: Oh yeah?

Patrick: My dad gave me a bike to use, the bike that he actually bought in Cleveland or Chicago when he first moved to America and brought that back to New York, I crashed it a few times. There wasn't a lot of cycling presence in Boston...I guess it was really just the subculture more than roadie cycling culture. There's a lot of people who just ride fixed gears.

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Henry: It's about the machine.

Patrick: Yeah, exactly. You're definitely part of that machine, you as a person. There are a lot of factors as to what makes you tick. Plain and simple, I like going fast. I was a messenger, so being on time for all of my deliveries was crucial. I was doing that for measly dollar tips and getting a slice of pizza and a beer from the place that I was working for at the end of the day. I wanted to go fast and I wanted to learn how to ride, to like, feel the bike and ride like a pro. I came from skateboarding, so going really fast and looking good while doing it, having that kind of flow and style nailed.

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Henry: Yeah. I could tell when I was shooting you that it wasn't the bike that was giving you a ride, you were giving the bike a ride. You were seriously bending that thing around and you weren't even riding that hard either. So I can totally see that.

Henry: They have the same thing in common, right? Cycling and skateboarding, where the adrenaline really is the common link, right? It's always about raising your heartbeat and beating that traffic light or jumping down something.

Patrick: Yeah. I think the idea that you're putting your heart and soul and physical labor into the body to do something like a loop around a route, do that in a certain time, or do a certain trick, like over a curb, over a spot, over a bank. Yeah, that kind of stuff really resonates with me. I think that common thread between cycling and skateboarding is important. People actually have told me, they can tell I came from skateboarding in the streets to the way I ride my bike in the street. The way I throw the bike around, it's very much that same kind of energy.

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Henry: When you were in art school, you were getting into cycling. How was that affecting your art and your school, how was that working together?

Patrick: So much of my free time went thinking about where to ride. It pretty significantly derailed me my senior year, because I had gotten into an accident, like a pretty bad one. I was supposed to be going to New York to show my portfolio to print studios and see exhibitions of student work. I guess I should explain the story of my teeth... October 25th, I was going to my girlfriend's house after having a beer at a bar in Mission Hill it was not my typical route home… I feel like I should have done my typical route home instead, like in hindsight. There was like a motorcade of motorcycles all in high viz. This guy just wasn't paying attention to the road, and was looking at the cops instead of oncoming traffic. We both had a green light and he went.. boom. I went right over his hood and just braced for impact, no brakes. I just ate it, like popped my teeth out, lost my glasses and had a busted up face.

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Henry: Dang.

Patrick: I called my father and I was just like, "Hey dude, I actually got into a real, real accident this time." And he was like, "Oh shit." I said, "Don't tell Mom." I sent him a picture and he was like, "Oh crap. That's not good." I had, as any Boston college student would, I had some weed in my bag, called an Uber. Uber was like, 'Oh man, hell nah, I'm not going to make you pay for this trip." So I rolled him a joint in the backseat and I gave it to him and I was like, "Thank you for the ride." And he was like, "Are you okay, man?"

Henry: Dude, that's crazy.

Patrick: I have a shot of me with just bleeding teeth, like smiling. Just like…

Henry: Oh my god.

Patrick: Obviously, I have teeth.

Henry: You've got to send me that photo. I want to see that.

Patrick: Let's see. Can I find that? It's pretty gruesome.

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Henry: So just to back up a little bit. So your family's from Singapore?

Patrick: No, Philippines.

Henry: One of the things that we talked about was we're both first gen. That kind of brings a lot of baggage, I feel like. Did your parents meet here in the states?

Patrick: My parents met in the Philippines. My dad came to America in '86, I think if I remember correctly, and got a job. One of his older brothers bought an apartment for our grandparents, where I grew up in Elmhurst. That ended up being the jumping point for a lot of my family. My parents met earlier in the eighties or seventies or something. My dad came from a pretty rich family and my mom was dirt poor. But because of dictatorships or martial law or whatever you want to call it, terrible politicians, my entire family lost its money on my dad's side.

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Henry: You said that your dad rode for Look back in the day. Did growing up with him being an avid cyclist, did that also inform your interest in cycling, or did he keep that separate from you?

Patrick: I think it was more my cousin who gave me an initial interest in the sport. He brought home a Cannondale CAAD9 that he bought from Sid's in the city.

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Henry: I feel like in my experience and a lot of Asian American experiences, when you're first gen, your parents want you to go into something that's going to make a lot of money… that there's a lot of security in the future. My parents wanted me to be a doctor, and I was like, "Nah, fuck that."

Patrick: There's definitely a lot of that plaguing our relationship still probably. I'm starting to see results from with being in the bike industry as deep as I am. Obviously, I work for a shop and I'm riding with some pretty important people in the city and I'm making all these connections, and they can start to see why what I did was okay. There's still choices that I think I would've done over, but you can't really lament over those things. You gotta keep moving forward, and trying to find the next best thing, and finding comfort in where you are.My mom told me once that she thought I should be a masseuse, because I have big hands. I'm like umm, "Okay, sure."

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Henry: It's really about the people you surround yourself with, and what you aspire to be. Because those are people that are going to be the most inspiring and influential. To flash forward to now, what does your future hold? What do you see yourself doing in the cycling world?

Patrick: I don't know. I think I want to return to having a focus in my life on aesthetic choices and design choices. I want to see what opportunities come up for me in the future as far as working on kits, working on posters for people, seeing if I can consult on builds, and making choices for paints. Maybe being a frame painter. There's a lot of opportunity I was pretty dead set on moving to the West coast. I’m east coast through and through. Personality wise, the way I live my life is very efficient, fast paced, one thing at a time, but everything at the same time. That's very much so an East coast hustle mentality. The West coast is calling me, and I think that's going to happen at some point, and that's probably one of the only things I have decided about my future at least.

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Henry: The day that we shot, You talked about how your art has changed, and how that evolves. I feel like that's synonymous with just life in general and also, your work life, and what your future is. I found that when we were just roaming around New York, and we were shooting loosely in a more documentary style, it was similar to that, just taking opportunities as they came. We just walked around. I didn't really even have a plan, I just was like let's just walk around, and anything that looks cool, stop and shoot. Do you feel like that type of process is something you naturally fell into that as we were shooting?

Patrick: Yeah, for sure. I really enjoyed working with you obviously. And I think a lot of the choices that you made for which intersection or which quarter, that kind of stuff. I was thinking this would be a cool shot, too. There were a lot of moments where we had that synchronicity I suppose. In that aspect, it was super easy. I guess the way I approach a canvas, or a sheet of paper, you always gotta start somewhere. Just make a mark, and see where it takes you.

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Henry: Like trial and error, yeah. I found in a lot of cases, I'd be on one side of the street, and I'd shoot you riding by, and then I'd be like, "It's just not really working in this angle." And I'd cross the street and be like, "Oh yeah, there it is. This is where I need to be." And I felt like that just happened over and over again throughout the day. It's funny when I was editing through the photos, I could see my thought process of that. In the beginning of that sequence, I was like, "Yeah, these pictures aren't really working", then I'd get to the next part of that sequence like, "Oh yeah, this is the angle." you can tell that we were just flowing together. You know what I mean? You could tell that we were having a good time. Also we had conversations like we're having now. They weren't just about cycling, but they were about other things. Because you're not just a cyclist, you're also a complex person, and you have other things that interest you.

Patrick: Yeah. I saw the wheels turning for you a lot of times when I would loop back around, and I would ask if you wanted me to do something, and you were like, "I was just about to ask you to do that." Through that trial and error process, within the first couple places that we stopped at, we started to feel each other out, which, again, is a testament to you as a photographer That you knew that there was something that you wanted, and you were going to find it. That's important that we both have the patience to do that for so many different spots. There's always going to be something that catches your eye without you knowing. I feel like that was also prominent in the way that we approached certain areas to shoot. Like Doyers Street, a lot of the photos that are on the website came from that section of town, the conversations that we were having about that. You enlightening me about some of the history of gang war in that part of the town, and that brought up a TV show that I've been watching. And it felt like we had known each other for years.

Henry: Yeah, totally.

Patrick: And the fact that we were bouncing off of each other, and it didn't have to do with the shoot. We didn't have to think about the shoot, we just did it.

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Henry: It was very comfortable. It wasn't stressful or anything.

Patrick: No. we got what we were aiming to get in a lot of cases. At the same time I like that they're a surprise every time I see a new one."Oh, that's cool. I remember when that one was” You had the wherewithal to shoot that when I was crossing with that old man. And the conversations that we had later about AAPI experiences in this country and stuff. That was pretty prominent for me. I thought that was a little nod to that at least.

Henry: Yeah, for sure.

Patrick: In my thinking I guess.

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Henry: Yeah, and that's something that we unfortunately share is those types of experiences with hate these days. But it's important to talk about that stuff, especially with one another. Not just outside people, because there's also a mental health issue that revolves around that.

Patrick: Yeah, for sure It's just crazy that we still have to address these kinds of things. You would think by now people would learn, people would know better, but it is an important conversation to have. Even amongst ourselves, our communities. You never know when that kind of ignorance can affect us directly.

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Henry: I'll be honest, when we were shooting that day, I was conscious of that just because of when you zoom scroll through social media, and you follow certain accounts, that's just all they talk about. And so, that day we were shooting, that was something that I just tried to be aware of, and also be aware of our surroundings. Okay, we're in this spot, and anybody could really just roll up on us if we're not paying attention.

Patrick: Yeah, for sure. In some ways, I felt comfort, in others, not so much.It just made me a little uneasy that was constantly in the backdrop. At least the elderly Asian population is being protected from random acts of violence, the random acts of hate. Chinatown and some of those areas, there was a certain level of comfort and healing that we were at home amongst other people who visually look like us. But yeah, it was strange. In China and most parts of Asia, there are so many people who ride bikes, that's the biggest mode of transportation for the Chinese. There are so many Chinese artists who make work about bicycles.It was nice that we shot there. It was nice that we spent a lot of time there, because it had been a long time since I had been to Chinatown since the pandemic.

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Henry: All right, man. I think we ran a little bit over an hour. It was good talking to you. Well, I'll let you go.

Patrick: Good talking to you, too, man. Good to see you, even though virtually. Later.

Henry: Later, Patrick.

To see more of Henry's work go to his website.

To see Patrick's printmaking and artwork go to his website.

© 2026 VITTI Cycling

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