The No Hand King

RALEIGH -- Everybody knows Rodney Hines.

He's the guy riding wheelies through Southeast Raleigh, hands in the air, balanced on the banana seat of a pink Huffy bike.

He's the guy who strings silver tinsel through the bike's spokes, clamps American flags to his rear wheel and turns circles around the Capitol -- shirtless, muscles cut like stone.

He's the No Hand King. You've seen him.

"Who hasn't?" asks Mike Phillips, who owns Men at Work Car Care downtown. "That guy can ride a wheelie through traffic. Everybody I know rides by Person Street and blows their horn."

At 41, the No Hand King is a curiosity that thousands pass every day driving in and out of Raleigh -- a roadside attraction on wheels, a smile at the end of the morning commute.

People drive by his dirty bungalow on South Person Street, see the flags flapping from his five bikes, watch him dart between cars.

But they don't see the intensity in Hines' eyes, the blazing, humorless focus that compels him to jump on a kids bike and ride a 6-mile wheelie to Crabtree Valley Mall.

When he promises to ride to California, 50 miles a day on one wheel, to support troops in Iraq, they don't realize he means it.

The No Hand King's devotion to wheelies appeared when he decided to discard his past. He grew up in Raleigh's worst projects. He never met his father. He stumbled into prison.

Behind bars one day, he thought: I don't smoke. I don't drink. I don't do drugs. What am I doing in here?

Hines found a mantra that gave his life purpose: Be the best in the world at one thing.

It took over his life.

It made him the No Hand King.

Serious about the ride

You would think the No Hand King would be fun to hang around, a childlike trickster who might do a guest appearance on "Sesame Street."

But he's not.

He never smiles. He boasts constantly, describing his skills in a way that grows more exaggerated the more time you spend listening. He can ride a wheelie for an hour, two hours, three hours, 50 miles, the length of the Tour de France.

Getting to California? Over the Rockies? No problem. He just needs spare tires, rims and a pair of bikes.

He rolls a fleet of 20-inch bikes out of his bungalow and into the dirt of his yard as if he were showing off a gun collection, his face stern.

"I got all these at Wal-Mart," he says, his voice deadpan.

His brother served in the Army during Desert Storm and spent each day watching his feet disappear under Saudi Arabian sand. So, the No Hand King figures, what could be harder than that? Not a 3,000-mile ride on one wheel.

He owns five bikes. A favorite bike is a 20-inch girls model, pink with "Slumber Party" painted on the frame. It catches people's eyes.

The No Hand King keeps a wrench in the purple purse attached to the frame. When he really wants to show off, he twists off the handlebars and rides Slumber Party like a unicycle.

You can see him downtown, turning circles around the George Washington statue on the Capitol grounds, still riding the same wheelie.

"I'm the real deal," he says. "I don't mess around. One guy today, his mouth was down to the ground when he saw me with no handlebars."

The No Hand King doesn't go into much detail about how he gets by.

He does odd jobs, replaces Freon in people's vehicle air conditioners, sells homemade DVDs of his performances, makes No Hand King T-shirts with his own silk screener. Neighbors say he also makes a bit of change by passing along copies of the martial arts movies he watches obsessively.