Clemintine Courier

A good friend of mine Josh Rovner is owner at Clementine Courier, a few months back he asked me to shoot for his company's website. After brainstorming, Josh decided that he wanted a grainy, film, textured approach to the images rather than a traditional digital approach. "I want a site that will stand out and I want you to shoot it". Well, the site is live and it was a pleasure and honor to help execute my friends vision for a really rad messenger company. Please take the time to look through the site and if you ever need anything delivered in NYC be sure to hit up Clementine Courier. http://clementinecourier.com/

Below are some extras from the portraits and rider bio's section of the new site that did not make it to the site.These are a few snap shots on the bike while riding around with the crew.  I shot with Fuji Provia on my Contax T-2 and pushed a stop or two depending on the light. Click on image for full size.

Paublo is a good buddy of mine, we used to race a lot of ally cats together and compete in track bike messenger contest, sprints, skids and trackstand.

Chris Lee, one hell of a guy, from Austin Texas, messenger, photographer and my teammate in cyclocross.

Cooper grew up in NYC and is a really rad photographer as well. I first met him when he was 16 racing ally cats, my first impression was who the hell is this kid on a track bike racing. Well, now he's a good friend and teammate in cyclocross.

Eric is a solid smooth messenger, he was bouncing around SOHO when I shot this, routing is defiantly key messengering and he has it down.

JP is a solid guy and defiantly an asset to Clementine

Josh is a character while still remaining professional at all times, he means business on and off of the bike. Moving up in the local road race scene and ally cat events he's also traveled all over the globe racing his bike. He's very focused and quite possibly one of the funniest, most positive guy's I know. 

Hiromi is an active messenger who wants to be a firefighter, he also is a rad designer, be sure to check out his project BODA BODA   for race events and clever takes on traditional NYC icons.

Geri is a talented rider, artist and cyclocross teammate, from Greece raised in Queens fast as hell and hilarious.

Harrison was raised upstate and is a really funny dude. I first met him in King Kog, I sold him a signed Eddy Merckx frame, he keeps his life classy both on and off of the bike.

Andy is fast and funny as hell, the type of guy who doesn't race but will still wake up way too early in the morning to come support you racing.

Donnie is from Texas and grew up racing motorcycles, he recently joined our cyclocross team and is applying skills from messengering and moto racing to get some impressive results. He also knows a joke or two, stoked to have him on board!

Cheers to all the guys for letting me ride around and stick cameras in your faces, it's a pleasure to know all of you both on and off of the bike after all these years.

I'm back

After taking a break for a year from this blog, I've decided to continue this project. First, let me explain the name as I've heard and read some pretty negative comments regarding it. When I was a kid, my grandmother used to give me money for milk at school, I never spent it on milk, I saved up and bought other things, such as skateboard stickers, cassette tapes an well, candy. As a pre teen I had 2 paper routes, again, I saved my money and bought BMX bikes and skateboards. So the idea with this project that I had in mind when I started "Milk Money"was growing up with humble beginnings I learned the value of hard work and saving up to accomplish goals. With that said I find shooting film to be the same principle, taking your time, saving up and executing ideas and concepts. I'll continue to show bike oriented content on this blog, if you follow or know of my other work please check it out here:  http://photosbywilis.tumblr.com/ Just a simple tumblr showing my film work, some of the work might cross over.  So, thats the scoop, welcome back and enjoy some images as a re introduction.

I recently was in France with NYC Velo, shooting and riding. This day we rode to Italy and back, clocking in 92km and around 3400 meters.

Here is Brett, a good buddy and co worker of mine, shredding on our memorial day ride.

Mike from Mash was kind enough to trade me this Landshark SSCX frame and some bits for my old Daccordi track bike. Thanks again Mike!

Finally, here is a good friend and mentor Bryan from Bicycle Revolutions we were in Ogden Utah together for a QBP event and managed to get some miles in together.


That's it for now as I have to wake up early to hit a cross race (more on that later). A lot has changed in  a year and change but a lot has stayed the same just progressed and I'm happy to be back, check the links, click on the photos to enjoy full size,check Wilis  and get out there and shred.

My iphone pics of my bikes

I've been building, collecting, trading and selling cycles since my early messenger days, while my messenger days have since past I've continued the passion into my now 30's and into my profession. I try and document the process as much as possible, mainly to look back on when I'm older. The past few years while shooting my projects or out on rides and working I usually take a quick shot on my iPhone, below is a photo dump from my current phone to clear some memory. If you follow my Instagram  you'll recognize a few of these bikes. I've sold a few but still have most of these, there are also a few more in the works. 

My Colnago C-40 team Mapei on the GW bridge.

Cunningham Park on my Colnago Cross bike.

My old work bike setup.

My current track bike, I ride this almost everyday.

I try and hit Cunninham Park on my cross bike once a week.

Me this Winter on top of Bear Mountain

I'm working on restoring and collecting bits for this bike.

Can't wait to put some miles on this bike, not a fan of "wall hangers".

Last week I picked up a pair of the 5 pivot Deltas

Daily ride, coming back from a dinner.

Came out from the P.O. to find this trick bike locked by me, interesting to see how things have developed.

Detail of my bikes hanging at my house, the photo in the back is me on my old MTB in 02 in Seattle.

This is from my buddy Jake Rickers' book, we went and rode Mercer Island loop while I was visiting Seattle a few years back riding my friend Nick's road bike.

I finally found a front matching hub, people lace these radial and ride em on the street then more often or not the flange breaks so oddly enough the front are harder to find. 

My buddy John Watson shot this a couple of winters ago.

Overhauling for a new build.

Built up my dream wheel set, 12 years later...

 A little cheesy but had to do it.

An old work bike that I ended up selling to a friend, he later spray painted the frame flat brown, I fully support this, reminds me of Esher in Philly.

This was the maiden voyage of my Colnago C-40 team Mapei, my favorite road bike to date. I was pretty stoked to find a 1" ti Grammo stem for this build. I still have the original ITM stem as well.

My last work bike.

My first carbon road bike.

My ode to SF in 2000 bike.

Brought it to SF this was Paradise loop across the Golden Gate bridge.

A way to small Landshark I built up, a little to hype for my taste but it was super fun to ride.

I've had this bike the longest out of the group, I used to messenger and deliver the goods on this bike.

Jason from Affinity hooked me up with this one off Kissena, the color was for Ralph Lauren for his pop up mansion uptown, I prefer a classic steel track bike but this was fast as hell.

My ex girlfriend had a Landshark track bike with a similar paint job so we got this. I ended up trading it for a track tandem bike.

Monster Truck of bikes

C-40

Work bike

C-40 on Bear mountain

My current race bike

I built up a period correct Daccordi TT bike for the haters that were judging my red Daccordi

The current state of this bike.

Again, a matching paint scheme and same frame builder...

My race bike.

My 50th before tearing it down.

Current race bike

Cross training

Race bike

Training ride

Day drinking on the bridge.

More cross training.

Home stash

A friend borrowed my Merckx

Home stash

I use this car wash to wash my bikes.

My Track tandem

So worth the trade

While waiting for the matching hub I threw this Zipp wheel on, light as hell but not the wheel for this bike.

Work bike during downtime...

Coming back from a training ride to work.

Zipp meets Litespeed

Current and final track setup.



So, there is most of my current/past stable and short explanations of crappy Iphone photos. A lot of new projects are in the works so stay tuned for better quality photos of these and more bikes coming...