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.

Fuck You, That's Why

RIP DBZ

BMXBoard will not be the same.

Falling into the iPhoto hole...

I am off of work all week, it's raining, and boredom is now here. I found myself scouring the archives for no good reason and I stopped when I saw her:



My god. That bike. Shoo wee. I was told by someone that I post too many pictures of bike stuff. NO SHIT. But back to this bike...33 tooth T-1 sprocket, Fly rims, 2007 SFA in that green that I coveted for so long...damn. That was a sight. I still have the frame and I think about putting it back together at least once a week.

A Flashback Friday of sorts

Back in January, almost a year ago, I fell. At Ray's Bike Park in Cleveland, OH, we were gonna go get something to eat. I uttered the words I never, ever should have spoken..."One more run." I wanted one more go in the Rhythm Room, and so I dropped in, over shot the first jump a little which killed my speed and I tried to muscle it over the next one. I didn't have enough and I felt the lawn dart coming, so I tried to eject. I went straight to my right shoulder, shearing the AC joint from the clavicle (my doctor would relate that I basically ripped my arm off of my body) and was face down on the ground while I tried to figure out what to do. Shoulder surgery ain't nothing to fuck with, and it was a pretty gnarly road from being cut on in February to being able to pedal a bike in May, but I pushed hard to get there.



That was my arrival in the driveway after my first pedal around the block. That was happiness. I cannot overstate how happy BMX has made me, despite the pain it has inflicted upon my body. Two ACL replacements, multiple broken toes, a cracked rib, 4 concussions, and then the shoulder...hoo child. But I love it because...I dunno. It's just a blast to ride a bike and hear that cassette hub clicking. Except for that Profile Elite...that's too much. Shew. Wee.

Here for a good time. Not a long time.

You ever try to get dressed in the morning...

and realize that you hate all of your clothes? Like, in that moment...you hate all of it. No? It's just me? Hmmm. Well, I am pretty sure that I tried on all 184 of my t-shirts this morning. I think it is winter that does this to me, which is yet another reason to hate it and pine for the return of warmer temperatures. 

At any rate, last night I was going through my Texas Toast pictures again, as I am wont to do because I need something to take my mind off of shitty weather, and I saw this pic of Sean Sexton...

I cropped it a little, sharpened it a touch, and it turned into something I liked. So, think of this as a Throwback Thursday...throwing back to sweating in the Texas sun while standing in a field watching BMX happen on an asphalt pad. 

Yew. 

YOU MISS 100 PERCENT OF THE SHOTS YOU DON'T TAKE.

That makes no sense. Allegedly, Michael Jordan said that. And Kobe heard him and was all, "SHIT. I GOT THIS." But really, if you don't take the shot, it isn't a miss. It's just nothing, man. Maybe a pump fake? Or a bounce pass to the guy on the wing who is better than you? Who knows? What I do know is that I missed on this pic of T-Fred. Sorry man. The good one is hanging on the wall at Old City Java, but I liked the angle on this one much better. But that tire...Tyler wasn't having it. I'd take it, because I am old and nearly dead, so these days I'll take anything. Except for a bow-legged footjam on a quarter. I fucking hate those.

Mic check. One, two. One. TWO.

We're getting the band back together. This should go swimmingly.




BMX IS BACK RAIL FUFANUS.

STAND BY.

Would you trust this man to organize a BMX contest?

Someone did. Well, by someone I mean Harper's Bike Shop. They put on the first (mostly) BMX jam since the late 90's. And if you measure success by black eyes received in a product toss and/or Sprocket Gobbler playing live during runs, then this thing was a bonafide hit. 

Nate DiClaudio got second place in the division that mattered, and did so partly because of his use of the front brake. Neither of these photos have anything to do with that. 

Aforementioned product toss. Shooooo weeeee. Kids will kill for some old issues of Dig.

This kid spoke no English, which made signing the waiver an adventure, but it is a really, really good thing he did sign it. This did not end well. NO FLYOUTS.

Jon Harter overcame a dislocated shoulder and being a ginger to pull some cool shit. This is not all that cool, but pictures of manuals don't look like anything, you know?

Jake Hicks came to town and won the damn thing. Dude rides fast, doesn't pedal in the bowl, and told me that he got a grown up job. As a grown up, I can attest to the sorrow that I feel for people that get those.

 

Seal has been broken.

This was the first BMX shot I took with the D7000. I was watching Jon ride the bowl and saw him boost a few that looked pretty good. I grabbed my camera and literally ran over to that side of the bowl to see if I could get one.

"Man, this better end up on DixieBMX or your instagram or something."

OH, IT WILL, JON. IT WILL.


Then there is this. This is one of the first BMX shots, period, taken with the D7000. Snapped by Mica, it is me doing one of the only tricks I felt comfortable doing on the mini at Sixth Ave. Who knew that waxing masonite was a thing? Anyways, I have this issue with disasters wherein I air as high as I can and then land in the disaster position because years ago I just assumed that is how Taj would do it. I never changed that line of thinking.

GET WELL SOON, GATOR.

Not the murderous skater. I am talking about Burt Reynolds. I read this morning that he had been admitted to an ICU, and Mica went on to insist that he was going to die.

Me: Burt Reynolds is in the hospital!
Her: He's gonna die.
Me: He is suffering from severe dehydration.
Her: Oh, he OD'd on drugs. He's gonna die.
Me: It seems that he has been suffering from a harsh strain of the flu that has been going around.
Her: Oh, he's totally going to die.
Me: He is expected to make a full recovery.
Her: Oh. Did you just make that last part up?

Burt Reynolds was the first regular dude that I wanted to be like. Han Solo is not a regular dude. He is a space pirate. Burt Reynolds planted the idea in my head that I could bootleg shitty beer with friends while driving a Pontiac made muscle car for a living. A LIVING! Damn, being a boy is awesome.

With that in mind, I have some photos from Burt's state. More Banned action!

Hoang Tran. I think I heard someone say, "Damn, that Asian girl shreds!" DON'T SHOOT THE MESSENGER!


Daddy in waiting Colt Fake. I think I gave good advice during the "what is having a kid like?" talk. IT IS LIKE HAVING A DOG. Until they start talking. Then it all shits the bed.


Brien Kielb doing an opposite table. Just kidding. This is a regular table. It's a good one, he's just gonna give me shit for posting another picture of him doing a table. I think I have 8 more of these.


Ryan Hoey swinging the leg on the big set of jumps. It would be an honor to get full body cavity searched by this member of NYC's finest.

Tired of sitting.

This one has been in the chute for a while now. I actually used it in my showing last year at Old City Java, and it currently hangs on my wall. I was proud of it...while Joe Simon raced around to get the lights set up for the Empire "Smoke the Bowl" edit, I snapped a shot of a warming up Matt Roe. I knew it when I hit the shutter release...it felt good.


This is a little more recent. Trey Jones alley-oop 270 over the hip at Banned In The Backyard.


Cool story.

More Banned.

I had been sitting on these in case they got used for a write up, but the article is going in a different direction, so...I'll throw them up here. When I was a younger man, I used to do zines and shot almost everything on a Kodak 110. That thing produced some nice images for me right up until it met its end when I tried to drop in on a legit vert ramp for the first time at the tender age of 13. My camera rested in my trusty plaid G&S hip pack, and when I did the drop and went straight to the flat bottom, I landed on the camera. Smashed to pieces. I was fairly gutted, because I figured my mom was going to flay my skin off with hot brands of iron for breaking the camera. As it turned out, she had bought me a Pentax K1000 for Christmas that year, so things shook out okay. "Don't fall on this one." Good advice.

Anyways, the pictures. Yes, so this pretty much summed up the entire weekend. This is BMX. This is what it is about, what we do, and why we do it.


Another "summation of the weekend" sort of shot. Davis James of Finnfotography.com tables against the stars and bars.


Eric Hennessey rode so rad the whole day. This was my first time getting to see him ride in person and it was, as they say, a treat. Dude is so fast and so in control.


I am running out of Da Boza photos. This saddens me.


Banned in the Backyard jam. In Florida. Fire, beer, hallucinogens, bbq, loose women AND DREW BEZANSON BACKFLIPPING A FUCKING MONSTER TRUCK.

Kentucky keeps us apart.

Ohio and Tennessee are separated by the absolute hell hole known as the Commonwealth of Kentucky. I am not 100% sure what it means to be a commonwealth state, but I am sure it is something stupid, because Kentucky sucks. I could look it up, but I am gonna just talk about these guys from Ohio for a moment. They came down to scoop me up for a trip to Florida, but before they did, they rode the local Knoxville skatepark. I have nothing bad to say about any of these men, except for Kyle. That long legged dick crushed me in the back seat on the way down.

Tyler Pollari, tire slide in the pool where bikes are not allowed. Interestingly, that was not a rule made by the city, it was made by the local gnargoyles. Almost no one rides it anymore. The paint-stenciled sign prohibiting bikes has almost totally faded.

Kyle and his long-ass legs in the same bowl. I hear that they call him "One-hitter Kyle" because he was such a prolific pitcher in his high school days.

Johnny Del Balso lives that Dew Tour life. He's about it. Don't let him fool you. I watched him in an edit recently and he did a flair. Only Dew Tour bros do flairs. 

I got a new camera (D7000) so maybe I will give video a try. As soon as winter stops being a bipolar weirdo, we'll holler. 

An unexpected day off.

My son has had the flu for the past three days. This morning, I had figured that he would be well enough to go to school, but as it goes, he had a 100.2 temp, so I called my mom to see if she could watch him. She has the flu. Welp. A quick call to the boss to let him know that I am burning a vacation day and here I am, back at the pile of photos from the trip. Instead of writing out this meandering story of things, I thought it might work to take the "lazy writer's way out" and just list some observations...

-Four dudes, four bikes, and four dude's gear inside of a VW for 10 hours? Not the easiest. We made it work thanks to Yoshi and Instagram.

-Redbull Dave is 50 years old. I am out of excuses.

-Crandall is a bully.

-I had never met nor interacted with Johnny Del Balso. Dude is sweet and is a ripper.

-Brien's tile floor sucks.

-Phil talks like a white guy imitating a black guy doing an impression of a white guy.

-Florida is somewhat depressing.

-It is amazing/frightening how quickly the things we keep in our homes go up in flames.

-Ladies love the beard.

-Swimming in a natural spring, outside, in the month of December rules.

-Trey Jones is better on a bike than people realize.

-Dane Wild wears a Red Line shirt on purpose. Also I think he actually desires to be old.

-Tyler's little brother lives in a bad part of town. How bad? The burning bodies of two kids were found on a bike trail near his apartment.

-Kyle Iwanicki was the only member of "getlaidboyz", as well as the only person to lose to me on both arms while arm wrestling.

-I hate sleeping on the ground.

-KONA KONA KONA

-Mike Cottle has angry fun.

-I need a new front hub.

PICTURES!!!!!!


Tabletorp from BKFBM.


Trey Jones leaving jaws agape.


Dabozzle at Maitland tranny banks.


Typoll/Jerry Reed at the same place.


When we got there, Del Balso said, "I wanna see Mickey Marshall ride these." YOU HAVE TWO WISHES LEFT, BRO.


Kyle I still pissin'...

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.