TEAM LEVEL UP

LEVELUP Team LEVELUP Team

We are Team Level Up!

Alec Derita 25 and Alex Pietrucha 23, a tandem motorcycle team from New Jersey. We both ride Kawasaki ZX6R’s, pushing ourselves and the bikes to the limits. For 3 years now we have been a couple that is constantly growing on and off of the bikes. You might hear us say “Level Up!” since that is our motto. Every time we swing our leg over the bike, it’s time to push and be better than we were the last time we rode.

Alec started riding more seriously at the age of 10, riding dirt bikes and quads for fun. He taught himself how to wheelie in 2017, not knowing where it would take him! At fi rst Alec wheelied dirt bikes, so his initial style comes from that, but he was later able to take those skills and his style to stunt bikes. Being in the lot every weekend for about 3 years now has taught him to be a well-rounded rider, pushing himself to try new things every week.

Alex, also known as Troosh, got her fi rst bike in March of 2019, not even having a thought of where her DRZ 400 would take her! A little less than a year later, Alec started teaching her how to wheelie on a mini bike. In about a month she was scraping her DRZ in the lot! All we knew is that she wasn’t accepting failure, and that’s what motivated her to be a great rider. She quickly progressed to bigger bikes, landing on her ZX6R that she has learned circles and drifts on since then. We have both suff ered from injuries over the years but nothing can stop us from getting back onto the bikes! Bike life is in our blood. We started doing basic tandems soon after we met, but weren’t too serious about it until about a year and a half later, when we realized we actually had some potential! We started with the easy stuff , and went right into Alex trying to stand on the bars backwards. With lots of falls and a whole lot of adrenaline, we were hooked, tandems became our thing. Some of the tricks we do are harder than others, and we both have our opinion on which tricks are our favorites. One day Alex said “clutch up with me on the front of your bike.” We all thought she might have lost her mind, but no more than 5 minutes later she was sitting on top of the bike in a wheelie, then climbing down face fi rst in between Alec and the bike landing in our upside-down trick. We have both agreed that Alex is the crazier one, sometimes it takes Alec a little more convincing to try out a new trick.

We didn’t know the fi rst time we met that this is where we’d be 3 years later, but also didn’t realize how strong of a foundation bikes would give us to grow on. We perform stunt shows all over the country together now, and we love being able to show crowds something they have never seen before! We run our own business while having a YouTube and full-time jobs, both currently being electricians, but pretty much everything we do is together. Team work makes the dream work!

Riding has taught us a lot over the years. It has given us something to look forward to after a hard week of work, a goal to reach towards no matter how hard it is. That no matter how many times you fall you get back up and try again. You are truly only as strong as the person you decide to be with, so you might as well both be pretty damn strong. Fear will be the number one thing that holds you back in riding, but building the skills to get past that fear is key. Start slow, grow from there. Our biggest lesson learned is communication. Most days we act and move like one person, we can do our craziest tricks without saying a word, but we built that from hours of practice and talking out what we want to do next and where we want to be. For us this is just the start, we have some insane goals and tricks that we will accomplish. No matter what you do, LEVEL UP!

Instagram:

@alecderita, @alextroosh, @team.level.up

YouTube:

Level Up Stunt Team