BMXBoard gets Banned.

The original plan had me flying to Orlando and getting picked up by Brien from the airport. Then, Typoll mentioned in a Tweet that he, Travpoll, and Jeffy were going and were going to stop in Knoxville and kidnap me. So the nebulous plan evolved into just riding down with a group of Ohio dudes. Then Jeffy, to the shock of no one, backed out. Then Travis. In stepped Kyle Iwanicki and Johnny Del Balso. They arrived in Knoxville on Wednesday night, went and saw a killer cello/metal show, and the next morning we were on the way to Florida. The first stop was in Jacksonville at the Kona park. That night we took a few tentative runs, as we only had around an hour to ride. After that, Redbull Dave let us set up camp in the yard across the street from Kona. Some charred Van Homan made s'mores, some Steve Crandall crafted insults, and some beers sent us to our tents with a oddly full belly and thoughts about getting back into that park in the morning to slay some concrete dragons. Brien Kielb arrived in the morning to join in the festivities.



Brien wanted a pic of a skid over a particular sticker in this bowl. Later, details emerged that sort of changed things...but not really.



Kyle called this out early on. The best part of this set up is the fact that the halfpipe is concrete and essentially made of cinder blocks.



BOMBS AWAY.





Tyler Pollari, when not unbuttoning his various Hawaiian shirts, put in work in every part of the park.

Mickey Marshall asked me if I was from Tennessee, asked if I knew Tim Lewis (I do!) and was comfortable with the fact that they are twins/dopplegangers.



Then he blasted the shit outta this concrete kinked quarter at the end of the snake run.

Incidentally, the snake run was the most delightful thing that my tires have ever trod upon. I could ride that every day for the rest of my life and I would be most happy.

This was all followed by heading out to Orlando/Apopka for the Banned in the Backyard Jam, which I don't think I can properly sum up right now. I have other photos, so when I get it together, I will write something else about it.



Mark Mulville roasted all day long. All day.



Officer Hoey. This was my first time meeting this dude and he was just as rad as you'd expect a cop from NYC that rides to be. Also managed to roach the tires in his Dodge Charger rental and the look on his face was parts smug and stoked 16-year-old.



Brien Kielb can do table tops. This was not one of them. I have a few pics from the jam of him doing them, but I am trying to stay on his good side for a moment. Nothing but love, dude.

Running on and/or with fumes.

I am not going to Texas Toast. I may shut my Twitter feed off for a week...just don't want to hear about what I am missing. Maybe that is karma for teasing BKFBM for not being there last year. The FBM crew are going to Texas Toast. On their way, they made a now customary stop in Knoxville to say hi, sell some shit and ride the park. Mica calls me an anglophile, and I probably am in some measure, so Tom Blyth was in some danger of me asking to pose with a tin of beans for a photo. We settled for this instead. Before he did this, he declared ownership of this hip. 

I think this was my first time meeting Zac Costa, though I have viewed several of his clips via the magic of BMXboard threads. 

Kenny Horton is always a treat to hang out with and has a pretty sweet feeling prototype frame under him. He's also one of the most generous people I have seen with regards to his sushi and hummus. 

Have fun in Texas, dudes. I hope you don't get too high from the fumes. 

I missed the entire month of July.

I have no real reason for it. I rode. I did things. I took no pictures. August has shaped up that way, too. Just living. Doing things and not worrying about setting up for a shot.

That said, I really want to shoot some photos. But, life as a 37-year-old father does not lend itself to the photographer's lifestyle. That is my reality. Work, school for my kids, school for me, dogs, cat, chickens...all of it just takes up chunks of time that I can't easily overcome.

But I want to.

I want to take pictures. I have film. I have digital capacity.

I have desire.

Increasingly, I ride alone. That is the way it goes when you are older. Your windows of time for riding shrink...and they do not line up with the windows of time for others. It happens. I was bummed for a while about it, but as time as gone on, it gets taken in stride. At least riding is an option.

Now, if someone could fix bmxboard, that'd be something.

I wanna write a review of Bad Idea so baaaaaddddd...

But I am gonna wait.

But just know this...it's really good. Like, I find myself wanting to live in certain clips in this video.

Because I love my friend Brien, that is all I will say.

KOREYSAYSHI

Korey Kryder and Joel Barnett came through town a few weeks back while on an adventure to get Joel to Nashville (it's the new mini-Austin!) and while Korey is actually a real life published photographer, I tried to step up and grab some shots of Joel. Now, when compared to what Korey shot, I am lacking for sure, but...I gave it a go. Having a dude like Joel to shoot with on a regular basis has to be a treat, so enjoy, Andrew White.

This one is with my 50mm. No flash or anything. Just trying to get a shot.


This was with Korey's 10.5mm fish. Yeah, I want one.


Anyways, sweet dudes for sure, and my hope is to make it over to Nashville to say hi and let Mica do some American Apparel shopping.

But seriously, that peach beer was awful.

Hollerrrrrrrrrrr.

NEW SPOT.

It goes like this. If you tell me about a wallride, I will go. I love riding them and being able to charge at a bank and launch into it. This place had all of that. Thanks to Tim Lewis for finding it and taking us. WILL BE GOING BACK FOR SURE.

Jon Harter liked it, too.

Try, try again.

Getting a photo CD from Walgreens is nice and easy, but I feel like I should be able to use this scanner better than I have been. This is a shot I took of Matt Green that I had posted already, but this one is scanned from my negative, so I wanted to see if there was a difference. I think there is, but then again I am sort of biased.

Also, really stoked to read the Garrett Reynolds interview where he makes mention of the five-pound-frame issue and how lighter than that can cause problems. I hope the pendulum stabilizes a bit after swinging back to a reasonable weight for a frame. 

The Albion is really killing it right now. The only thing really holding it up is the writing style of Steve Bancroft. But even then I think there is an air of "what the fuck is that dude gonna write this issue that will be over the line?" So maybe that is working; British tabloid style, as it were. 

Any ways, the rain has let up and the sun is shining just a bit. Let's go see what's up...