A thing I like.

This picture.

I am not doing a trick. I am winding up for a run at the hip in the bowl. This was in 2008, after I had taken my first trip to Austin and saw in person what was possible if only I could stop being a baby boy. The park got built in Knoxville and I finally made myself drop in on something with transition. It took a minute, but getting past that got my foot in the door. Figure-eight carves in the bowl while I got comfortable came next, followed later on by my friend Brien explaining that it doesn't count if you pedal in the bowl (PUMP. PUMP. PUMP.), but this...this was me beginning to figure it out at the age of 33...some six years ago. I was a late, LAAAAAATE bloomer, but I still have fun on my bike. I'll be 40 sooner rather than later, but this picture is a nice reminder that I have come a long way later in life than most who ride a BMX.

I still have fun.

A perusal through the ol' Flickr account...

and I come across this photo of me riding a ditch in Knoxville that I have ridden since I was 12 years old. 27 years later...

I remember the first summer that I spent as a skater. School had just gotten out and I woke up one morning, determined to get myself to this ditch by the BP (it was a Gulf, then...this is 1987). My sisters were preoccupied with something, so I got dressed, packed a sandwich and a can of Pepsi, and left my house. I had to cross 2 major highways in Knoxville to get there, and at the time it did not even occur to me that 12 year boys were not supposed to do such things. I guess I was being spied upon, because someone called my dad and told him that I was seen running across Kingston Pike. So when he got home that night, I got yelled at and told that I was making my parents look bad.

That said, there is no fucking way on earth that I could even imagine one of my kids doing this.

If I may be so bold...

I know I posted this on the Instagram, but that's there and this is here. This is me. This is me riding my bike and doing a maneuver that I find both challenging and rewarding. 

That's my tongue sticking out, because that is how I concentrate. It is a genetic trait that I have passed on to my son. This heartens me, because when I am dead and my ashes are thrown into some woods that are convenient for my surviving family members, I will scatter knowing that there is a little goblin out there that wags that sucker just like me. Though hopefully he'll be doing something more lucrative in the process. 

   

Ollies and the infinite slickness.

A small jaunt up to Ollie's skatepark in Northern Kentucky, or Southern Ohio, resulted in some gnarly swellbow for your's truly. Early in the session I slid out on a footplant and nicked my elbow just a touch, but it was enough to fill it with fluid and cause some lateral instability. I kept riding, because I came all this way, but yeah...it hurt. At any rate, I also snapped some pictures of the proceedings, and let me tell you, Frank has this place dialed. Watching him ride this ramp is akin to watching the UM ride T-1 from a "he knows every inch of this thing" perspective.



And unlike my incorrect assumption that everyone that has dreadlocks knows each other, everyone from Ohio in the BMX scene does know each other...they all connect via the various indoor parks that served them in the shitty winters in that godforsaken state. Nathan and Frank had met before. Was it Section 8? Chenga? Did they bang the same girls at some point? PROBABLY.

Nathan said he came for the vert wall.

Happy New Year: 2015 Edition

My resolution? Stop being a pussy. I understand that implies things that my feminist wife would not agree with, but she reads this about as much as anyone else does, so I feel safe. What does that entail, "not being a pussy"?

For starters, going higher than this-



So for 2015, I am committed to seeing my old ass go at least three feet above the coping. Four would be nice. Five would be zzzzzzzzzzzzick.

I'll shoot for three.