The record player leaned on a wall in a corner plays a song of an American artist from the Seventies, a really nice welcome for a pub which seems to come out from the crowded streets of Williamsburg. Indeed, Crank is inspired to the hipster wave that poured out in the whole Milan – especially in Isola neighbourhood – in the last years full of words like organic, sandwich, veggie and coffee to go. But if you look carefully you’ll see that here there’s really that overseas climate in the air and there’s nothing that gives the idea of being too artificial or forced: from the brick walls to the record player that can be used by all customers of the bar, passing by the vintage Chesterfield couch or the bikes, mostly. Right so! There’s no real hipster climate without some bikes in the air, that is quite literal in this case. Moreover, several models hanging from the walls are for sale.

Crank reveals itself to the world in the shape of an Organic Bikery, not a real workshop but a place where you can share the love for the two wheels and lifestyle. My friends in the area consider it a second home, they spend whole nights at the bar’s counter having Margaritas or Dirty Martinis until the barman refuses to serve them once again. You can have a good drink to Crank, there’s a good care for the mixtures and the drink list is always changing: one of the last issued went around the world with the most important cocktails of every continent revised in an original way. You can also eat there, from breakfast to dinner, with a selection of salads, sandwiches, soups and first courses of the day: because Crank beyond a bikery is also organic, don’t forget it. A cosy place, a bit living room of a house whose owners welcome you like old friends and don’t let you go. This is what happened to me and my friends and what will happen to you and your fixed gear bike.

Martina Di Iorio