The Albion Issue 3 by The Albion BMX Magazine

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Contents — Issue Three, August ‘11 18

Tim Leighton Boyce Classic photos from the early 80’s

Ricky Feather Discusses the perils of framebuilding.

Oh Sombra! Eclat take on the heat of Atlanta.

Hell on Wheels Jeff Stewart interviews two very different BMX prodigys

K Town Eight days in the former Soviet Union

Ruben Alcantara Ortiz An unofficial biography of one of BMX’s true inovators

Martin ‘Cookie’ Cook “You don’t want to see me do a turndown”

136

Moliterno What makes Standard Bykes tick.

26 28 36 108 122 126 132

Artifacts: BMX Video Games Soapbox: Will Jackson Colts: Jamie Mckechnie Strays Scaphoids Quitters: Chad Muska Video Days: Joe Rich

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From Waterloo to you We started to put issue three together after one meeting at “The Hole in the Wall” pub outside Waterloo train station in London, in early June. It’s not a pretty pub, nor is the food of particularly high standard, other than just being pub grub. Being literally 50m away from the station it’s not quiet either, nor particularly clean and the patrons all looked like they’d not be in here at the same time tomorrow.We all felt at home, but we had no plan that one could tangibly call a magazine. So we got the beers, chips and pickled onions in and got our heads down. Since that day we’ve been haunted by our own shortcomings, sloppy organization, badly timed trips, inability to think beyond the end of our tongues, poor communication, fear and panic. Fortunately as twins to those horrors that are birthed from the very thought of us trying to make a magazine, we were blown by those kind winds of the Norns, safely away from the rocks, as the siren beckoned us with sweet nothings to a shattering demise on trying to bring this magazine to you as we intended it. Lady Luck we did ride, and ridden hard we were in return, but those rocks we did not hit and she did sing real pretty.

Masthead

And so as the fates would have it, we have, from that first meeting in the Hole at Waterloo, to the magazine now in your hands and to your eyes reading these words that paint pictures in your mind, that make you feel they way you do, eventually finished what we set out to do. Jeff Stewart and Olly Olsen are on board with full features and pleased as punch we are with their contributions - the sticks weren’t used once. If we have learned something from this issue it’s this. The words are stolen from the late and truly great William Burroughs. Cheat your landlord if you can and must but do not try to shortchange the muse. It cannot be done.You can’t fake quality anymore than you can fake a good meal. Here’s number three, for Her…

Editor Daniel Benson benson@thealbion.cc

Contributors Rhys Coren, Joe Cox, Ross Teperek, Olly Olsen, Jeff Stewart, Chris Hilll Scott, Will Jackson, Sandy Carson, Cory Beal and Scott Barker.

Publisher Tim March tim@thealbion.cc

Thanks James Nerwick, Dub Jack, Paul Robinson, Chris McArdle, Timeel Lewis, James Singham, Chad Muska, Tim Leighton Boyce, Ricky Feather and Amy Silvester.

Associate Editor George Marshall george@thealbion.cc Associate Editor Steve Bancroft banners@thealbion.cc Art Director Robert Loeber rob@thealbion.cc

Distribution The Albion BMX Magazine is avalible at all good bikes shops in the UK. See thealbion.cc for more details. Contact Inquiries: info@thealbion.cc Advertising: ads@thealbion.cc Mailing List: maillist@thealbion.cc Subscriptions: subs@thealbion.cc Editorial: editorial@thealbion.cc Competitions: comps@thealbion.cc

Logo and icons designed by Ross Teperek. This issue is typeset using the Plantin font family, designed by Frank Hinman Pierpont in 1913. Albion Didot was designed exclusively for this publication by Robert Loeber. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted in any form without premisson from the publisher. The publisher cannot accept responibilty for errors in articles, advertisments or unsolicated manuscripts. The opinions and words of authors do not necessarily represent those of the publisher.

Departure — Drew Bezanson climbs a mountain. “I’m not pissed off at Drew, I’m piss off at the person who took him there”. Those were the words of Jason Phelan after being told that Drew Bezanson had conquered the South Bank wall ride to me – ‘the person who took him there’. Sat beside the most heavily hit and famous spot in the UK, London’s South Bank wall ride has been stared at and talked about for years. Like a mountain it has stood as a challenge and a race to the 14

summit has kept chins wagging. Phelan has a right to feel upset. He was the first to make an ascent into the unknown, he took the risk, successfully made it to the top and planted his flag on the summit. However like many ill-fated mountaineers, the descent was his downfall and his hopes of claiming the prize were left frozen dead on the slopes. Ever since Phelan’s first attempt, many riders have stood at the base, looked up, measured up,

Photography by GEORGE MARSHALL shook their heads and turned back. Riders the calibre of Kye Forte and local South Bank legend Joe Fox have openly announced they wanted to make a bid for the glorious summit as well as countless other riders more secretive of their aspirations. Time has passed and nothing has happened. Long over a year after Phelan’s first ascent, Drew Bezanson flew over from the cold shores of Nova Scotia, Canada and claimed the summit, second

try. When he landed a middle-aged tourist screamed as if she’d just witnessed a sudden car accident. She was right to scream, even from the sidelines it was terrifying. The size of the gap is nothing but epic, once he landed all the riders present was left smiling with wonder on their faces, shaking their heads in puzzled amazement. It was a moment of BMX history, long to be remembered… and I’m glad I took him there. 15

Tim Leighton Boyce BACK TO YOUR FUTURE. If you will, allow me to take you back to your future. This is a tale about a gentleman who has influenced generations of skateboarders and BMX riders. His BMX work spans from the early to late 80’s, his skate stuff goes back way longer. He did it humbly, never once stepping into the spotlight, and he did it with a burning desire to document some addiction he has to the nature of movement. In doing so he just let the riders get on with what they had to say through their riding, whilst letting them see what he was feeling on film. Tim Leighton Boyce was the riders’ photographer. For anyone involved in either skating or BMX a decade or two ago, Tim’s love for photography and self effacing manner managed to keep a legitimate foot in both camps whilst managing to virtually single-handedly revive a dying skateboard movement. Then when skating did eventually recede once more, he magically sidestepped through a door into BMX photography. Once in it up to his eyes with BMX, he made himself as equally loved and respected as he had with his first love. For that grace we have skateboarding to thank… and probably his mum and dad. Without it Tim Leighton Boyce would never have been able to document the UK BMX movement for the next six years of his life in the extraordinary way in which he did. His work was prolific in UK BMX magazines like Action Bike and then RAD during the 80’s. You would find him eagerly travelling the UK, searching out “that” photograph and “that” story, regardless of whether you were “Johnny Rad” or a “nibbler with attitude.” He wouldn’t exclude one for the other. He wanted to show and record it all. This collection of shots from the early 80’s are just a small snapshot of a body of work that mines deeper and climbs higher than one could ever imagine. We hope that you like them, we do. * Due to a restricted timeframe we couldn’t accurately date all of TLB’s shots here. They are all from the Action Bike Era. If you know dates feel free to drop us a line so we can put it right in our heads and for the record. They are R.A.D. Words by TIM MARCH Photography by TIM LEIGHTON BOYCE

(left) GLYN ‘JERRY LEE’ LEWIS, the killer. Gillingham Bowl ‘84* (top) BMX Airshow ‘85 (bottom) Livi ‘80/’81 21

CURB DOGS, Southbank ‘84

DAVE VANDERSPEK, The Vanderoll ‘84 Southbank 23

STUPPLE Rom ‘83

Artifacts The confusing world of BMX video games

For my first year at university, for both my coursework and critical studies essay, I got a third. But for Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX 2 on the Playstaion 2, I got mother-fucking- first-class-honours. I excelled in the areas of barspin trickery, in-down 360’s at Woodward and long manuals that looked like the rider was suspended in animation mid poo. I was literally able to sit on the ‘freeride’ mode for hour-upon-hour (once I’d unlocked everything and everywhere and made Joey Garcia’s stats go through the roof, obviously), passing over the controller every five minutes to a co-gamer and getting the kettle on every three or four pass overs. The morning ritual of my first proper house at University (which was with the editor of this magazine, who for the record was completely incapable of the most basic of trick combos due to his short arms) saw people slowly emerging from their rooms around mid-morning, then heading directly into the living room area where either Animal 1 was shoved in the VHS player or the PS2 got loaded up with a quick Medal of Honour European Assault entrée prior to a hefty Dave Mirra 2 session. A break for beans on toast and Neighbours, then a brief cruise around the best skatepark in the world (Dean Lane, Bristol, UK) for a short while before getting back to the comfort of the virtual BMX world with a two litre bottle of Blackout cider in anticipation for some Vodka Redbull promotions night at the local discotheque. Now, for the Playstation 2-Plus generation, there hasn’t really been anything since DMFBMX2. A short sharp spree of games in the early part of this current millennium saw releases from TJ Lavin and a few from Mat Hoffman (no one ever seemed to talk about the fact every rider was goofy and did bow-legged tables?), a token bit on Grand Theft Auto, as well as the BMX XXX game. Unlike the plankboarders, that’s kind of been it. They got Tony Hawk after Tony Hawk and the EA Skate series, which shits on real life it’s so good. Can you imagine being told in 2001 that there would one day be a realistic sports game that required actually developing controller technique and having to actually learn tricks? Mind blowing.

It hasn’t always been doom and gloom on the BMX gameplay front. Back in the 1980s, BMX was more popular than Sergio Tacchini tracksuits, cocaine, and Yarbrough and the Peoples. Back when video games came out on cassette tape and loading times were somewhere in the region of 10/15 minutes, kids were tapping away on their Sinclair ZX Spectrums and Commodore 64’s to BMX video games long before most of you were born. Hell, I was born the same year as Mastertronic’s BMX Racers game. On the Sinclair ZX Spectrum alone, between the years 1983 and 1989, you had BMX Freestyle, BMX Kidz, BMX Jungle Bike, BMX Ninja, BMX Racers, BMX Rider, the BMX Simulator trilogy (BMX Simulator, Simulator 2 and Pro Simulator) and Lllainlan Software’s BMX Trials. Then, on the Sega Master system and NES we had California Games. On this particular game I’d usually choose to be on the Santa Cruz team and after a little warm up on the hacky sack and Frisbee, get straight down to the hardest BMX racing game ever. Now aged 28 I found a California Games simulator online for my Macbook Pro. Several generations later and with an unquantifiable increase in computer capability, in an hour of trying I managed to reach the finishing line just once. And, on that very un-monumental occasion when I reached the end after creeping along at virtual walking pace, I flopped off the finish line, onto my head and died as an eagle flew by laughing at me. How the hell did I ever manage it whilst I was ten? What we need is for some hotshot to come out and endorse some new mind blowing EA Skate alternative. It could be a Nigel Sylvester New York street game, scouring the streets looking for perfect grind set-ups, dodging the 5-0 whilst keeping stocked up on Arizona Iced Tea. Maybe even a Banned 4 game where you navigate a complex system of rooftops and blowjobs. Who knows, the possibilities are endless. But, one thing is for sure, that nerdy desire to play computer games is still bubbling away in this here rider, and I’d really quite like to look at Shanaze’s virtual bum as I play Shanaze Reade’s 2012 Olympic Dream on some insane console of the future.

Words and Images by RHYS COREN

Soapbox Will Jackson talks about the effect that his 2004 Wethepeople section had on his riding after the apparent ‘trick plagiarism’ of Joe Cox’s 2002 NSF section.

In the spring of 2004, Thomas Fritcher, the filmer/ editor of the in-progress Wethepeople video ‘etc’, came over to the UK to film. Among other places, I took him to Sheffield where we met up with Joe Cox and were taken around some of the now classic Sheffield spots including the Ponds Forge rails where I ran through my limited repertoire of rail tricks. When the video came out later in 2004, the latter part of my section involved a ‘montage’ of the Ponds Forge rail session and this section incited a shit-storm of bile aimed in my direction. The reason for this was relatively simple. Joe had had a section in the NSF 2 video in 2002 in which he had an almost identical montage of tricks on the same rail filmed in the same way. This was clearly enough to have me charged with a serious count of plagiarism. In my defence, I had no involvement with the editing of the section; Thomas was in charge of filming and editing (done in Cologne) and in his defence he hadn’t seen Joe’s section. These details were seemingly irrelevant. The fact that the section (or part of it) mirrored Joe’s so closely was evidence enough of my guilt. Once the video was out I received ferocious condemnation in print and phone calls at various times of day and night to castigate me for ripping off Joe’s section, and on more than one occasion to tell me how I should die for my sins. None of the callers were polite or brave enough to leave their name but it was clear it wasn’t Joe. I was told that he wasn’t happy with the section and in that case I was genuinely sorry I had upset/pissed off someone who I had

previously enjoyed travelling and riding with. Those who did call were later revealed to include some reasonably well known riders and magazine contributors whose indignation was without question, even if their maturity was. I reacted to this at the time, as I do now, in two opposing ways. In the first instance I was genuinely shocked by the reaction following what was clearly (or so I thought) not an intentional gesture. On the other hand, while I didn’t enjoy the response and still regret that it tainted my involvement with the BMX scene in the part of the country in which I grew up and have a real affinity with, I know BMX is, in a roundabout way, always better off for having people in it that feel so strongly about it. The time of filming that section was an expressly political time in the UK BMX scene. While there was often a lack of coherent political expression, things were being done in the name of BMX that were critical and sought to re-imagine BMX outside of the visions of industry and media elites. I think, in some sense, the reaction I received was a symptom of that time in which people felt so strongly about BMX and sought to defend it against those out to wreck it. For a number of people, as a result of that section, I fell on the wrong side of that distinction. I do regret the unintended grief it caused, but what I regret most is that those people who felt so strongly about it could only summon the will to shout things anonymously down the phone in the middle of the night. Maybe that’s why that era of DIY, politically charged BMX is seemingly a relic of the past.

Words by WILL JACKSON Photography by JOE COX

PHOTO: JEFF Z

DREW BEZANSON

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Ricky Feather The Perils of Frame Building

Ricky Feather discusses making bicycle frames, stepping down from the United pro team, cooling off with riding (but not quitting!) and the fact that Feather Cycles isn’t just a fixie company. Read on to find out how the newlywed from Rotherham moved from the factories of the North to become a bespoke frame builder in picturesque York. Albion: Last time we saw each other was at the United premiere down in London. I got the impression that you wished you’d gotten some stuff for the video. Do you still feel like that? Ricky: Oh yeah, definitely. I wish I’d been on some of those trips. It was kinda weird. Dean [Hearne] rang me asking me what my plans were, like weather or not I was still planning on riding full on, but it had been so long that I’d done anything that it was sort of out of the question, do you know what I mean? A: Like you weren’t riding to your best? R: Yeah, they’d already done a few trips, trips that I would’ve loved to go on. Then when it came to it, I’d spent so long not doing anything, or riding good, or going on trips, that I didn’t feel like I’d be up to it. A: Was it making bikes that took the focus away from riding or something else? R: It was making bikes… Well mainly, when I was living in Leeds I was working 40 and 50 hour weeks in factories, so I didn’t have much time to ride at all. The only time I would’ve been able to ride was on trips. But like I said before, because I hadn’t been able to ride much because of work, I didn’t feel up to scratch, so I didn’t want to waste anyone’s time by going along. At the same time, I would’ve killed to go on these trips, so when Dean called to ask what my plans were, it was a pretty hard

decision to make. A: Was Dean calling about filming for the video [This is United]? R: Yeah, it’d been a long time since I’d been on any trips before that. It kinda just died off. I did that Props Megatour and that was the last trip I did. A: So were you making frames by then, when Dean called? R: Yeah, I was about five or six months into it. I was just setting up and trying to get myself established. The first year was super full on, just trying to get stuff done to get my name out. I was in here all the time, so I wasn’t riding at all really… A: But for the record you haven’t quit! R: No! [laughs] I’d never quit! I would never say that I’d quit. I just love riding bikes really. Whether that’s going on a long bike ride or riding BMX. A: So what made you get into this then? I’ve known you for years now and it was a surprise to hear that you’d started making bike frames. R: I’ll show you actually…. I saw this magazine. I was bored as fuck working in factories. I was thinking ‘What the fuck am I going to do? I’ve got to get out of factories.’ I initially thought about going into photography assisting, but it was a bit too late to get into all that, as I didn’t know my way around computers too well. So, Adi

Words and Photography by DANIEL BENSON

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[Hogan] brought this magazine back one day and there was this interview with this young guy, Jordan Hufnagel - he used to BMX as well actually - all about making custom made frames over in America. After I read it I was like ‘Right, that’s it, this is what I want to do.’ A: Just like that? R: Pretty much, yeah. I quit my job to go to New York for a month with Kayti [Ricky’s wife] and I had no idea what to do when I got back. I knew that this was something that I wanted to do, but I had nowhere to work, no tools. If you want to go and get a commercial workspace it’s out of the question, it’s too expensive. When we got back, Kayti had a word with her dad and he let me work from his old garage. If it wasn’t for this place, there’s no way I could do it. A: You need them lucky breaks sometimes…. R: I never take it for granted. I feel lucky as shit every time I’m in here. If it weren’t for Kayti and her family, I’d probably still be in a factory somewhere. A: Maybe back in Rotherham! R: Ha! I don’t think I could end up back there. A: What sort of bikes is it that you make mainly? R: Track bikes mainly. Fixed gear bikes. It’s pretty funny actually; when I first started people would come up

to me and say ‘how’s your fixie company?’ But it was never like that, I never intended to make just track and fixed wheel bikes. I just wanted to make custom bikes; I wanted everyone to be different. It used to really piss me off when people asked me that, as it’s obvious they were saying it to take the piss. I’m not a fixie company, I just want to make bikes and I’ll make anything. A single speed mountain bike… A: Or a BMX… R: A BMX, yeah, if that’s what they want. A: Have you made a BMX yet? R: I’m going to make one for a show next year, but I’ll probably just make it for myself, so I can ride it. It’s like I said to you earlier though about the pricing, the tubing is so expensive. A: You don’t think BMXers would pay it? R: It’s not that BMXers wouldn’t pay it, because I’m sure they’re people out there who would like a custom made frame. But I almost think that if you’re spending a thousand quid on a frame or whatever, you don’t want to be chucking it down stairs. I want to make bikes that people respect and can keep for the rest of their lives, because it’s a lot of money and they are expensive. So you do want something beautiful out of it at the end of

Rider: Felix Kirch - Pic: Patrick Wohnsiedler

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34 the day. It’s got to be a keeper. A: I could see a market in BMX but I don’t think you’d get that level of respect for the bike. R: It almost doesn’t interest me as much, making BMX’s… I mean it does, as I’m going to make one for myself. I think people would get it, but the thing with BMX is everyone is really young still, so nobody has got any money. The only people who could afford it are probably some old schoolers getting back into it. A: So it’s never going to get used right? R: Yeah, and there’s only so much you can do with a BMX, the geometry is kind of set now and it works well. With the other bikes every thing changes every time. I had a customer with a bad back, so I changed the geometry to make it easier for him. A: Did you go into all this blind then? R: Kind of. I had a grasp on what I wanted to do but not a solid idea. All I knew that I wanted to do was make custom bikes and everyone to be different. A: Did you get help from anyone back in the beginning? Are there many other people doing this? R: There’s a lot of frame builders in the UK, but a lot of them are older and on the verge of retirement. So there are only a handful of new people doing it who are still passionate about it. A lot of the old people didn’t want to know when I asked questions, they didn’t give a shit. I taught myself most of it to be honest. I had a welding background, but braising was new to me. The lugs especially, they’re all joined using silver. I didn’t really get any help at all, building wise. I’ve got a book, the frame builders manual, that’s about this thick [makes a gap of a good 20cm with his hands] and that’s got everything you need to know about making frames. A: I’m backtracking a bit here, but going back to what you said about the hostility you got from some BMXers about building fixie frames and the general hostility towards fixed gear… R: It’s a totally different thing really. I think BMXers are generally hating on the trick side of fixed wheel riding, which to be honest with you, I’m not that into. But if

you’re into it, you’re into it. It doesn’t bother me. A: Do you think you were getting a backlash from that? R: I think so, yeah. But I think it’s the fixed wheel thing in general and all the posers who ride around on them, but they are practical bikes if you live in a flat city. They’re quick off the mark, real simple and they never break. If you’re commuting on a bike every day with gears, brakes and all that other stuff, there’s obviously more to go wrong. A: Do you miss BMX at all? Like when you look at the United team, do you ever wish you stuck at it and stayed on the pro team? R: Erm… I don’t know. It’s weird, when I was working loads and not riding as much. I stopped watching videos and magazines because I was kinda gutted I wasn’t doing it. Like I stopped going on the United site, because I’d see all these amazing trips everyone had been on and I just didn’t want to know, I just felt gutted. Places like Hawaii, South Africa and Australia, all places I’d love to go and I thought that maybe if I’d kept riding all the time, I might have had the chance to go to these places. I stopped looking at BMX in general as I’d see everyone shredding and I knew I sort of wasn’t up to it anymore. A: If you would’ve kept up with it though, I’m sure you’d still be on the pro team R: Erm, I’d like to think I could still go on trips and all that. But even two years ago my knees started giving me problems – they make a weird grinding noise now- If I’d kept riding full on for another two years I’m pretty sure my knees would be totally fucked by now. A: I think that’s about it man. How many frames have you made so far? R: Erm, I think that one over there will be my 40th. A: And how much do they cost? R: Well… It depends… That one, once it’s chrome plated and painted that one will be about 1400 quid. A: There’s no way a BMXer would pay that is there? R: Exactly! [Laughs]

Colts: Jamie Mckechnie Fresh from losing his job, ‘South London’s secret weapon’ talks about life in Peckham and the possibility of one day having a spoke sponsor.

It’s not uncommon, given the size of London, that good riders go unnoticed. Ten million people on a working day, come in and out of the capital. Born and Bred in Peckham – an area of London famous for it’s spring water and Trotters Independent Traders - Jamie Mckechine is one of these ten million and also one of the talented riders that slipped under the radar. Ok, basic stuff. Name and Number? Jamie Mckechnie… Number two. So how did you loose your job yesterday? Because I didn’t fackin’ fill in one signature and one date. Instant dismissal. I was livid… But my days balance up y’know. I’m not jokin.’ I got in that morning and everything was sick, then some guy just smashed this banger out on me. Immediate dismissal because I’d fucked up. I went down Southbank because I was pissed off, then I got a text from Benson asking if I wanted to go and shoot some pictures. Did a curved rail in the

wet that I was well happy about, but I still ain’t got a job. [laughs] So if any of you guys are looking for a pro rider… Erm… I can afford bike parts. I need some travel budget! Come on then, try and sell yourself. Nah, fack that man. If I can get some free spokes and a bit of travel money I’d be happy. Maybe some shoes… My boy Vince [Mayne] just got hooked by Macneil and Vans. I don’t care much for Macneil but Vans man… [James Singam] What happened with your accident?

Words by DANIEL BENSON, JAMES SINGAM and TIMEEL LEWIS Photography by CHRIS HILL-SCOTT and DANIEL BENSON

(left) Opposite downside whip, Highbury.

Nah man, lets leave that out. I’ll get too emotional… [Timeel ‘Teddy’ Lewis] Have you not read The Albion! [Laughs] It’s all about emotions! I can’t really read. [James Singam] What’s it like been the only white guy in Peckham? Do you think that makes you a boss? [Laughs] Listen man! This is what to do if you’re a white guy in Peckham – get a bike so you can ride 100mph to work or wherever and back. [Singam] How can you afford to live in that mansion? Mansion?! Listen man… [Teddy] You’ve got a balcony and… It’s a ghetto mansion Mate, I ain’t even got a garden. Look at you lot makin’ out like Peckham ain’t rough. I get offered crack every day. You should be taking that if you’re getting an interview in the mag. So how come I’ve never seen you ride before? [Singam] He’s South London’s secret weapon. [Laughs] South London’s secret weapon! I like that. I’ve been going to Southbank for years man, years. I dunno, you guys know what I’m like; I don’t follow BMX at

all really. I don’t care about sponsors and who’s done what…. But I would like some spokes. Maybe I could get on DT Swiss? So are you actually from Peckham? Yeah… Born and bred… Yeah, well I moved out of here for a few years. Where to? Catford. [Laughs – Its just down the road and rougher than Peckham]. I got into riding when I was there, started going down Southbank and met up with these arseholes, then moved back to Peckham. [Teddy] Why do you learn stuff so easy? Because I ride with Vince Mayne. Fuck, you know what that guy’s like don’t you. Got no style whatsoever but can do whatever he wants. [Laughs] Erm, ok… You got any thanks, maybe? Ok, I’ll mention my heros. Nyquist, Vince Mayne, Dangerous Ryan, he’s your boy. Got to mention the DLC… What’s that then, some sort of gang? Yeah man, its me, Vince, Ryan, Ritchie Page, Ollie. Luke Palmer from Brighton has a HDLC tattoo – honorary Downham Local Crew! I’m gonna get a wolf, with DLC dog tags, howling up at the moon. That’d be beast.

OH, SOMBRA ECLAT IN ATLANTA Shane Weston, Ashley Charles, Darryl Tocco, Chester Blacksmith, Sean Burns and Iz Pulido I’m not good with the heat, I’m no good with the cold either, in fact I hate the cold, would much rather be hot. In Atlanta though, the heat reached extremes, and I’m no good with anything extreme either. Wakeboarding, street luge, not a fan, both unashamedly extreme. The heat was pushing 100 °F during the Eclat team’s sojourn in the south, and there was very little to do about it other than get on with the job at hand. Words and Photography by DANIEL BENSON

(previous page) SHANE WESTON, suicide fakie (above) DARRYL TOCCO, Over pegs to barspin. 42

CHESTER BLACKSMITH, Multi-kink rail.

’m not finished talking about the heat just yet, I feel that to set the scene of the photographs a little better, you need to feel more about the oppressive temperatures that the team dealt with. A picture can’t speak of heat easily. The strange decision by most of the guys not to wear shorts only confuses matters further, but please believe me, it was hot. We were staying in downtown Atlanta, beneath the dizzying heights of the Hilton and the Marriot, in the Motel 6. Our two rooms faced back onto the I-75. I’m always amazed at how wide American roads are. Our room once had a balcony but it had since been bricked up, probably due to the proximity of the road, and the extra space made room for a microwave. The banality of it amused me, but let’s not take anything away from Motel 6. Its location was ideal, it was clean and the staff were always pleasant. People in the south seemed pleasant by default. Even when Sean said to a waitress that we were in a band called the ‘Buttfuckers’ she didn’t bite and maintained cordial. Downtown seemed only a stone’s throw wide. The rest of the city spread out under a canopy of trees. At night it was empty, spare the usual hobos that stutter around. Atlanta had more homeless people than anywhere I remember. The warm evenings mean people sleep where they fall. Congregations meet up in parking lots, pass out, fight and mutter to each other like zombies. It reminds me of something that Kerouac wrote about the hobos in a short story: “In America camping is considered a healthy sport for Boy Scouts but a crime for mature men who have made it their vocation. – Poverty is considered a virtue among the monks of civilized nations – in America you spend a night in the calaboose if you’re caught short without your vagrancy change.” But Kerouac’s flame of romanticism was well and truly out, down here in the South. Crack and Meth have become their vocation, not the Whitmanesque life of the great outdoors… I suppose it’s the same everywhere… And a story for another time. We met some interesting characters in Atlanta. Shane had made contact with a guy called Talem, who was local to the city. He’s the sort of guy you hope to hook up with when you turn up at a town. He knew the spots to ride, but better than that he knew where to drink. Granted, Atlanta did turn out to be dull on that part, Talem even said so himself, but it wasn’t through a lack of trying. One night towards the end of the trip, we all ended up way out of town, in a truck stop bar with karaoke that served booze late. The place was packed, the first busy bar we’d been in. It was a weird scene – hipster kids mixed with truckers and toothless yokels. Darryl asked, “What the fuck is this place?!” with a bermused look. I don’t think places like this exist on either the east or west coast. “At least it’s busy”, I answered. What I was really thinking was how much it reminded me of England and the working men’s clubs and social clubs I grew up in as a kid. Rows of long, long tables filled with drunk men and women chain smoking cigarettes, and drinking beer whilst some poor fool (which would be me, later) sings their heart out to some song of better times remembered. Yep, this was England alright. Another guy we met goes by the name of Chad. Chad ran the local bike shop, 1101 BMX. Sean had met him on the first day, as his flight had arrived early in the morning and he’d been nice enough to show Sean around town.

Chad proceeded to take Sean to the biggest gaps in the city, stating that he had got a camera if he wanted to start filming. Chad also slipped in, between sentences, that he had in fact killed a man at some point during his past. When Sean recalled the story to us back at Motel 6 once we were all together, the story painted a strange picture of this guy we’d be meeting later in the week. Sean insisted he was a rad guy, if not a little fried. Later in the trip, on the last night, to be exact, Chad would end up smashing pint glasses and causing a scene in his local bar. This got us all a bit freaked out, as we were sober and Chad was very much drunk. We left the bar and… Sort of ran away a bit. I feel bad for leaving Chad like that, but we were all up early in the morning to leave and were in no mood to try and calm down a possible murderer whose drunken ramblings were that of a crazy man. Most mornings we would walk up through the cavernous interior of the Marriot Hotel to the Peachtree Mall food court, along walkways, corridors, and lobbies that provided a rarefied atmosphere to the heat outside. Movies like Bladerunner and Total Recall were based on non-places like this. The company of good people - which I must say included everyone on this trip – provided a muffler to the dismal reality of the place. It felt strange going there daily. The architecture made me feel funny, how one space was brutishly joined to the next via a walkway or corridor, just so people could avoid the weather outside. The convention centre, at the bottom of the hotel, had been hosting a homosexual line-dancing summit for the duration of our stay. I kid you not - this is not made up. I’ve made up entire articles for Ride UK in the past, just for the hope of getting some laughs out of it, but this is America and much, much stranger things have happened in this peculiar country for me to be making tame occurrences like this up. Riding in the heat was a chore. Sitting in the heat was a chore. Nobody moaned about it once though. It was nice to see that level of professionalism, without being too unrealistic with how much to ride each day. At some point, everyone had to spend a good while trying something under the weight of the sun. It really did feel heavy on you. I think Sean might have escaped battling with anything for too long. I think there’s a misconception with Burns that he’s some loose cannon. He’s far from that, everything he does is considered and thought out. It’s a pleasure to watch. For some time now, I’ve noticed on Burn’s sections, that he has the ultimate technique for absorbing drops. I can’t quite work out how well he takes some of the drops he does. Go back now and put his section from ‘Surfing for the Ugly Broads’ or ‘Dead Bang’ on… Actually go and have a look at this. See how his head never rattles around between his arms, never knees himself in the face? No head-banging whatsoever. The guy is the alltime master at doing drops on a BMX, hands down. One day I put the question out there to the team, ‘In total, how far do you reckon Sean has dropped, when you add all his drops together?’ Darryl reasoned, ‘He probably drops off a one storey roof, on average, once a week.’ So, lets do some math on this one: Sean is 27, he probably started riding at about 15, so that’s 12 years riding in total. Lets half that, as I doubt Sean got into drops as soon as he started riding, and say that Sean has been dropping off one roof per week, for six years. So, that makes a grand total of 312 storeys worth of drops. Let’s put that in perspective – the World Trade Center was 110 stories high, so Sean has roughly fallen three times the height of the World Trade Center in six years. That’s about 1,300m in total. Surely that’s some sort of record? 45

(left) SHANE WESTON, Downside whip (above) IZ PULIDO, Opposite smith

“ SEAN HAS

ROUGHLY FALLEN THREE TIMES THE HEIGHT OF THE WORLD TRADE CENTER IN SIX YEARS

”

SEAN BURNS, Manual tap to gap.

ASHLEY CHARLES, Icepick through tight gap

PLUMA FORK: 100 % seamless 4130 CrMo • 2020 heat treated • butted • ﬂuted steerer tube with built-in integrated fork race • 10 mm dropouts with perfect peg shape • tapered fork legs for better weight • w/o U-Pivots • color: black, white or silver • 860 g ( 1.895 lbs) PLUMA BAR: multi butted • heat treated • made of Mugen (lighter and stronger than 4130 CrMo) • backsweep: 11° • upsweep: 6° • height: 8.25“ • width: 28" • color: black or silver • 644g (1.42 lbs)

W W W . K H E B I K E S . C O M

Hell On Wheels BOOK 1: THE BOY IN THE BUBBLE

Steve Bancroft sits outside of door number ten in terminal one of the San Francisco airport. It’s pushing midnight. I pass the people waiting there and scan the sidewalk. He’d made a comment that he was the “hippy-ish looking guy” in his text message. I see him now, clearly British. I don’t know how it projects itself, but it’s not hard to spot an Englishman in a crowd. Something about the eyes and the attitude. Or maybe it’s an abstract sense born to me, but it’s clearly Bancroft. He throws his shit in the back of the van and we’re sitting in a British Pub in San Mateo. He looks around, “Quite British, actually.” I look over his beanie to the street. What a fucking year. I run down the list in my mind: Book tour, incarceration, the death of my dog Meg, two novels written, bouncing across the country, and now sitting across from Bancroft in a bar while my knee throbs from an old injury re-activated during yesterday’s session. Bancroft lifts his beer and drains a respectable amount, “Gotta piss, mate.”

Words by JEFF STEWART Photography by STEVE BANCROFT

is reflection cuts a right into the pisser. I’m watching the bar from the window. No one is in there but us. It’s been since 2006 that I’ve written for BMX. I ducked out after the McCoy story in Ride UK, back before the Nobles let it go. In the years between, I have had decent success as an author with three titles available, and things are good tonight. Been riding a lot of flatland, working out a bit and eating better these days, as well as being picked up by a PR firm to promote my work. Aside from being broke, I am a rich man. Bancroft sits across from me and we talk shop. He’s got a good sense about him. It’s late and he’s been awake for nearly a day but he’s keeping pace. I feel bad that he can’t stay on the couch, but the space he would have with three dogs around him and the girl getting ready for work in the early morning, he would be fucking miserable. We drink a few and head out. There’s a solar paneling convention in town, as it turns out, and all the hotels are booked but one. It’s seedy and dismal. Bancroft checks in and I head back to the apartment. In bed she rolls over and scratches my shoulder, “How’s your friend?” “British.” She laughs and falls asleep. My dog leaps over her two and curls up behind my knees. I check my phone and pass out. Coffee. Motherfucking coffee. Without it I would die. Not only the addiction, but the ritual, the black shimmer rippled by almond milk, the scoop of brown sugar melting below the surface, my bloodshot eyes looking down on it from above the surface, mouthing the words to a Dinosaur Jr. song while I stir it and take in its smell. I feel the pain of everyone, then I feel nothing… I take my first hit, let the coursing run, and my phone rings. It’s a 252 number. Nyquist. He gives me the address, I let the dogs out then scoop up Bancroft. We’d passed some deer in the neighborhood walking the streets. A doe and her fawn, casually grazing the yards. I pull over and shoot some phone pics. Almost absurd for me to be so close to a deer. I put my hand out and make kissing sounds, “Come here, girl, come here…” She looks at my empty hand and brushes me off, gallops up the street with her fawn in tow. I walk back to the van and we’re pulling up to Nyquist’s place where the street ends. We go through the introductions, load the gear and get into his car. I use the drive down the freeway to Santa Cruz to get a read on him for the interview. So far it’s blank, which is worrisome. I’ll start here by saying he’s a nice guy. I am not interviewing him until the next day, so I really have no reason to be here. But I want to tag along and feel it out. It’s a big interview, after all. The whole layout is good. Travel the west coast with Bancroft doing stories for The Albion. Nyquist is the first in a series of big names, or big to me. Wilkerson’s on the roster next, which is fucking great. I’m talking to Nyquist and seeing where my gauge will be for this interview. I talk about everything from sex to death to travel to home life, music and movies, about people in BMX, trying to see what makes him tick. He’s so calm, collected, polite and respectful about everything. If he has nothing good to say then he won’t say anything, and that’s a fucking pitfall for a good interview. This isn’t my first rodeo, so to speak, and I can tell this interview is going to be either really short or really fucking boring. I’m standing by the post office trails in Santa Cruz watching Nyquist while Steve shoots him. I’m talking to Wilkerson who’s called me from the 2Hip landline because he’s lost his phone while being drunk in New York City the week before. We talk with Nyquist in my peripheral vision, repeatedly blasting suicides for Bancroft’s lens. It’s hot today, but a perfect hot. The sun and the dirt, the slight breeze and the shitty houses across the street all wax together easily. We hang up and I watch Nyquist blast the trails. The plan today is to leave here for the Freedom 40 trails off in the woods of Santa Cruz, then back to San Jose where Bancroft is going to get a room near Nyquist’s so they can ride San Jose the next day, then head to Fresno on Friday to ride the park there, while I meet Wilkerson for an interview back in Santa Cruz to get a jump on things. Bancroft thinks it’s a good idea to line up a Cory Nastazio interview for later next week. I walk toward the road where there’s a signal

and he answers. “Cory. Jeff with The Albion. Let’s do a Nastazio story.” “Fuck yes, man. When?” “Sometime soon. Let’s talk in the week.” “Well, I have some Playboy girls headed over for a photo shoot tomorrow night.” “Sounds rough, motherfucker.” “Just got the call. I haven’t even told my girl about it. She’s flying to Florida tomorrow for a modeling shoot. Don’t want her to stress on it. I don’t know what to do here.” I’m ready to hang up on him. I watch Nyquist blast a no-footed can can and look back to the road, “Tell her ‘I’m doing it for us.’” He laughs, “You know I’m gonna say that.” We hang up and I walk back to the dirt. While Nyquist and the Freedom 40 crew rode their trails, we took Nyquist’s hybrid to the country grocery store where we bought a few more supplies for the barbeque, namely cheesy Bavarian sausage. I’d never driven a hybrid. It ran more on a sensor than an engine. I turned right onto Freedom and looked at Bancroft, “Why is it that the top American pros are so fucking short? McCoy, Mirra, Nyquist. Like totally loaded, hot wives, huge houses and shit. But totally fucking short.” He nods, “It’s like they’re having a go at you, isn’t it?” “It really is. I mean, I’m happy for them, but I’d rather be poor and tall than short and rich.” “I hear you, mate. Same here, same fucking here.” We see another store and pull off. I don’t feel like going back to the trails just yet. We sit outside and drink our sodas. Bancroft stares at me with a half-smile, “What are you thinking?” “How the fuck I am going to approach this interview tomorrow.” He laughs, “I know. It’s occurred to me also. I don’t envy you.” “To be fair, I haven’t hit record yet. He could surprise me. I like surprises.” The cross signs catch my eye: Freedom Road and White Road. I walk over and take a phone pic. Back in the car I’m turning right into the trails, “Maybe it’s their centre of gravity. You know, a lower centre of gravity. Shorter people have a lower centre of gravity in general.” The trail day is good. Been long, Bancroft gets the tree shot at sunset that he wanted, Nyquist’s place is in the

rearview and we’re in downtown almost 24 hours from the last hotel check-in, only this time in San Jose. He checks in, we load his things and I’m back on the freeway. The next day I have free, as Nyquist is picking up Bancroft and they’re riding two local parks, then I am meeting them at the tables in Whole Foods for Nyquist’s interview. Sitting here in Long Beach now, it is a blur between driving home and hitting record across from Nyquist. Odds are I’d spent the day sleeping in then walking the dogs, fucking around on-line and waiting for the call from Nyquist, where there is an hour or two set aside then a potential dusk session at Cunningham Lake skatepark. Bancroft is on his laptop at the table with us, looking over the day’s photos. I check the voice levels and start off by bringing up the fact that he’s been good at staying out of trouble or controversy of any kind, for the most part. He looks at the recorder: RYAN NYQUIST “If someone has a point to make or a declaration or something, I feel like I’m at a point in my life where I don’t really have anything like that. Almost like life’s too short to be bitter about stuff and take things personally. I’m in a great position in my life, where I have a beautiful wife and two young boys and an amazing career doing something I love, so for me it would be like knit picking something that’s already way better than I could have imagined, you know?” No I don’t know. In fact, I couldn’t be any fucking further from knowing. I think it’s great that he’s got it all figured out, I really do, but I can’t see a real interview here. Yes, burst onto the scene in 1996, go pro immediately, good enough to instantly establish himself as one of the best

park riders, even today shining through it all remaining a true trick ferret, in the purest form of the phrase, let’s call it an accolade. I am looking at Bancroft for help. He asks Nyquist something about how he still does actual tricks in his riding, about if he thinks the kids that are just flowing the trails and not doing tricks are missing out. For a second I am grateful for the interjection, but Nyquist comes back with a digestible as-long-as-they’re- happy-and-having-fun reply. This is a first for me. When Tim March contacted me and asked me to write for The Albion I accepted without pause, due to Tim’s name and the magazine’s buzz. Wasn’t even a thought to say no. But here I am in front of one of the most prominent riders alive and he’s so fucking clean he squeaks when he blinks. I can’t be rude here, because I respect the longevity, even the caution, if he’s actually using it divisively. I just can’t fathom being this goddamned happy. I nod, “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it, eh?” “Exactly!” It’s a conundrum. It is virtually impossible not to like and even envy Nyquist on a few levels. He’s been in my head for a day now. Bancroft keeps telling me that I need to keep in mind that the story is also open for riders who don’t know all the history of BMX, to “Give the facts on Nyquist, and not get insane on the Wilkerson interview, as the kids might not know who he is, Ryan is currently still on top and…” I get it. But the kids are still alright. They want blood and bone as much as the next vibrant, intelligent person. They want substance. Google the motherfucker for stats. I watch a girl walk by our table. Her body is flawless in her yoga pants. Nyquist follows my stare. He shrugs quickly and looks into his hands, “Yeah, not so good from the front, though. I saw her when we first came in.”

A flicker. The wick dances in all the happy darkness. A chink in his little armor, maybe. I raise an eyebrow at the recorder and ask him about any type of X-treme groupie girls, any type of dirt at all. He deflects it perfectly. Yet I can’t find a reason to be upset. I can’t help but like him. It’s disturbing. I peer through it and nod to him, “Ever bought a hooker?” “Nope.” I stare at him. He looks off over my shoulder and to the recorder, “I actually had an opportunity to get a massage down in San Diego. I was with a bunch of dudes. Can’t name names because you never know their situations now, but they hired a masseuse, and I came into the room and they asked if I wanted a massage and the lady said ‘Therapeutic or release?’ –and I ask her what the difference is.” “You’re fucking kidding me.” “I was young, dude.” Bancroft laughs. Nyquists looks at me, “So I say, ‘release like in tension?’” He shakes his head and does the hand and wrist motion, “She said, ‘you know, release.’ And I said, ‘I’ll take the therapeutic.’” “Was she ugly?” “No, but there was a bunch of dudes in the room.” “But you would have otherwise right?” “No, I was 17, and I was like ‘I don’t know you or who you are so I’ll just take the therapeutic.’ I didn’t really think any of that was possible. I mean I was a pretty sheltered kid, so…” We break up laughing. He shakes his head and nods at us, “And of course everybody else took the release.” “It’s a hand,” I say, “just a hand. Looking back now would you have gone full-release?”

“Probably not.” “What about now, like say no wife or kids existed, and it was Jessica Alba.” “I don’t think so.” “I’m calling bullshit.” “I’m serious. Look, you just said it’s a hand, so if it was a dude’s hand would you do it?” “No. But it’s not a dude’s hand, is it? It’s Jessica Alba’s hand.” “I think I just have a line, like a moral line. I think something like that’s semi-borderline, but it’s still on the other side of it. –To where I just wouldn’t do it.” I look at Bancroft and out to the parking lot. The hardbody is walking to her car. Front be damned. We talk some more about life, about the risks and rewards of riding, about seeing the leg bones of John Peacy in Virginia Beach and how it made him cringe for weeks when he thought about it. But even when discussing the tragedies in BMX, Nyquist remained gracefully reserved, even toward the ones close to him, which I might pawn off to admirable stoicism. Everything about him is encased in what Bancroft would later name The Bubble. The interview goes on and Nyquist heads home. We find a bar and order some beers. We drink and talk about the day. I nod, “How good was it to watch that dude ride all day?” “Amazing, man. He’s got this robot consistency, like a timeless style, not in the great sense, just unchanged, you know?” We order two more. The phrase the other side of the line keeps coming to mind, and I keep picturing Wilkerson. I don’t think I could feature two more opposite people for this part of the Bancroft trip. He takes a long drink then stares into his beer, “It’s mind blowing, mate.”

“What is?” “Nyquist. He was one of the first to go super high on small non-vert ramps, as well as go like ten feet over a spine. It takes a really special rider to not rely on character and still be a crowd favourite. I mean, think about it. That is the sign of a truly great rider. No support from anywhere else but his riding, continued progressing on an obvious path, didn’t he? And although the results are predictable, they are still mind blowing.” “Well said. I’m still wrapping my mind around the paradox. Like the most boring and polite motherfucker, yet I wouldn’t object to hanging out with him again. I don’t fucking get it. Makes you wonder what it’s like at home with those people. Like a wrestling mask and a strap-on under the bed, some candle wax and pentagram bed sheets.” My phone rings. Nyquist. I hand it to Bancroft. The night session is on. I drop him off at the hotel and head back to the apartment. She’s made a late dinner. We eat and I think about Bancroft, on the road to Fresno with Nyquist in the morning. It’s a few hours to there. I pass out fast, wake up to Wilkerson’s call, when we lock down a bar to meet up in for later that night while I make my coffee. We agree to a place and time, The Parrish House in Santa Cruz at 8:30. I hang up and listen to the Nyquist interview. I email Tim and tell him there’s no interview here. Nyquist is just too fucking nice. Within an hour I get a reply: “Look, there’s an angle there… you don’t whip him down, you spread the Nyquist sparkle around…look at the reflection, the depth, the influences, pains, losses, spread the paint all over the canvas…if you can’t get him to paint with you, paint it on your own.”

Way ahead of him. I did all that. I brought up the pain, losses, influences and so on. Nothing ink worthy, beyond a totally analogue interview that has no fucking place here. My phone rings. Bancroft. He says the Fresno park is the best park he’s ever seen. I tell him I’ve lined up the Wilkerson interview for tonight. “Ah, man… I want to be there for that.” “He wants to take you to a pool in Santa Cruz tomorrow then to Cunningham.” “Good.” He tells me he’s going to get in late and that he’s staying at Nyquist’s that night. We hang up. My girl has had the day off and she’s buzzing around town, getting things lined up for a marathon she’s running in Napa Valley. Since I am leaving for Long Beach after Saturday, she’s boarding her dogs then picking up her friends from Dallas at the airport. I take off to meet Wilkerson before she gets back.

“

BUT IT’S NOT A DUDE’S HAND, IS IT? IT’S JESSICA ALBA’S HAND!

I pull up next to the pub. Last time I was here was with my writer buddy, David Burdett, his girl, my girl, his girl’s friend with whom they were visiting, and we became so fucking drunk that none of us were right for a week, literally. That was about five months ago, and I haven’t been drunk since, solely because of that night. It was a stop sign. I walk in and look around, walk out and my phone rings. “I was there, and didn’t see you so I went to Safeway.” “I’m here now. I’ll meet you on the street.” I round the corner and see him, and we stop and talk for a bit. He’s wearing a cowboy hat over long, matted hair and a pair of chef’s pants. We go inside, sit down and he wanders off, returns with two ciders and smiles from across the table.

”

RON WILKERSON “Why Santa Cruz?” “I moved here probably ten years ago. My daughters lived with me in downtown San Francisco. They were full-on city chicks, like waking me up every day to get on the 19 to go to school, two of like five white kids in the whole school, and I wanted to give them a different experience. I like the trees here, a lot of good energy.” “All grown now, huh? Insane?” “Tiffany’s 21 and Erica’s 23.” “Holy shit.” “Yeah.” “They’re both so rad. They’ve been around BMXers their whole lives so you can’t get anything past them. They know what’s up.” “Are you still friends with the ex?” “After we split up she got involved with crystal [meth] and after this hellish divorce, the hell I went through, I ended up with full custody of them because she was doing crystal and she’s who knows where...” “She’s MIA, huh?” “You know, you talk to people, and you think, this person’s done too many drugs. That’s how she is now. Yeah, it’s crazy. But that was another life ago, completely for me. I have the benefit of having two lives in one.” Married again at 45, to Vanessa, they own the Samba Rock Café in Santa Cruz, an acai berry based menu. He met her in Brazil while shooting a video. I ask about his 30 acres of property in Costa Rica. “It’s like the purest form of natural energy on the earth. The place is alive. The jungle. I thought I knew nature, but I remember being in the middle of the jungle and I thought, shit, I could be downtown somewhere, there’s stuff going down around you at all times, like sticks breaking over here, crazy weird sounds you’ve never heard before over there, bushes ruffling… anything grows there. Birds’ll take a seed and eat half of it, take it up to a tree, leave it there and it’ll start growing from the tree down. “ Wilkerson leans back and looks at the table. He smiles at the recorder and starts talking about what he refers to as the black time of BMX, namely back in 1991, “BMX was dead. I had a job bussing tables downtown. It was cool. I had to get a job-job, never had one before. After I left Haro and BMX was dead I was just standing there

“

SEE, MY VIEW IS RELIGION IS A HOSPITAL FOR THE SICK

”

holding my cock, like what now?” There’s always been a level of obscurity to Wilkerson. Since his famed crash in Wichita 1988, the nothing air straight to face, where he suffered unbelievable head trauma and coma, many have said that he’s never been the same. I don’t buy it. I’m starting to unravel it completely. I think he likes to come off as spacey or aloof, but he’s not, he’s actually quite the opposite if you really observe him. I ask him about his life now, his company and the fact that 2Hip is still moving along. 60

“I still feel pretty obscure. After being a top pro for so many years, traveling the world and so on, after I stopped being a pro, it was like a major transition. A lot of people are suicides after a change like that, like after being a top pro, making millions of dollars, seeing the world, then not doing any of it, it’s a major change. So I just kind of went inside. I mean, I always rode, I can’t imagine not riding, you know? It just changed to fully riding for myself, everything was for myself for once. I still had my own company, but even it was kind of underground, obscure. I was even doing my company for myself. Which is kind of stupid because if you want to have a successful company then you also have to have it out there for others.” “It helps.” He laughs, “I know. But I was really not wanting to be trendy, to make parts that were my own ideas.” “But that wasn’t lost on everyone. Clay Brown, I think, in Denver complimented you during a 2002 interview, remarking about how you would be at a convention, next to a monster company with a shack-like tent, shoulder to shoulder pushing your shit. It’s always been admired by those in the know. For as fucking crazy as you appear to be, you always have a foot in the door.” “I have a goal to grow my company of course, but on my own terms. I started my company also wanting to learn graphic design. I wanted learn all of it, ads and so on. It went on from there.” “How bad did the wreck in Wichita fuck you up? Lasting damage today? “ “No. I had a bleeding in the brain, you know, a hematoma. That was actually one of the best things that ever happened to me. One of the best things in my life. Going through that and almost dying, then coming back you realize what’s important. All the stuff you thought about before as important, no, it’s not important. Like I was raised religious and all this crap, then going into a coma for five days, I had to relearn everything all over again. It’s like I crashed, then I was better,” he laughs. “Back then McCoy told me he’d heard you had to learn how to eat and talk again.” “I don’t remember that. All the stuff in the middle I don’t remember. There was no pain. I was in the coma. When I woke up I didn’t even recognize my mom in the hospital. For three months I was in and out of that. Reconnecting neurons and all that. I didn’t even know what I did for a living.” I drain the cider. He looks around the bar and nods to me, “I didn’t even know what I did for a living. I was hanging out with Eddy Roman at the time. We were watching TV in my living room in my second house, overlooking the ocean, with a pool and the Jacuzzi and all that, and one of those cheesy college commercials about making your own living comes on and I look at him and say, ‘What do I do for a living?’ and he says, ‘What? You’re a top pro BMX rider. You travel the world doing shows and contests.’ And I said, ‘Really? I get paid to ride my bike?’ I remember that vividly.” “When was the first time you rode after that?” “Also with Eddy. We went down to the Enchanted Ramp at my other house and I was scared just rolling down the rollin. That was scary. Like doing six inch airs was frightening. Learning tricks, most of it’s in your mind so I knew that I had done it before, so I re-learned things pretty quickly. There was a long time there, but people were asking me if I had quit riding or if I would, and I was like, ‘There’s no way. It wasn’t even an option. Never even a thought.” “What’s the last trick you learned?” “I just rode trails for the first time last week.” “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I started riding BMX, you know, dirt, back before there was such a thing as trails, that was when it was downhill to jump to flat ground. You’d do all your tricks and be sure you’d grab back on before you landed so you could land back wheel first so you wouldn’t land too hard. That was my dirt jumping. But last week was Chad Harrington’s trails. It was amazing. So many good trails in Santa Cruz.” “Did you complete them?” “I didn’t do the whole thing. I did the first half. It was fun, I did some big stuff.” “You’ve said you grew up religiously.” He laughs, “Mormon.” “Fuck, man. Sickening.” “I know. See, my view is religion is a hospital for the sick. And if it can help people get better that’s great. But a lot people stay in the hospital, they get used to people taking care of them. For me, I appreciate the stuff I learned growing up, but the older I get, the more I despise religion. I don’t hate it, I just despise it.” “Likewise.” We go back into a conversation about appreciating life, about the brink of death bringing to light what’s important. I tell him I understand. His brow furrows, “How so?” “No need to get into it. Trust me, though.” “Bullshit. I’m telling you all this stuff. What is it?” I tell him what happened to me last year with a psychotic reader. I don’t get the inevitable wide-eyed shock, I get a nod, “Something like that happened to me in New York City about five years ago.” “What was it? “We were going out that night. I always like to bring my team to the city. There’s always a couple of virgins in the group, guys who’ve never been to the city. I remember the first time I ever went to the city how rad it was, so I like to take people there. So anyway, we go out. Great night, great 62

energy. We’re in a packed out bar in SoHo, we walk in, we hang out for a minute, I start talking to these two girls, and five minutes later I leave with the two girls. These guys just watch me leave with them. We go back to their hotel room, like The Hyatt or some shit, on 42nd, and we’re all three doing things.” There’s a pause. Then a long one. I shrug, “Doing things. Doing things like what? Come on.” “You know, things you do with girls.” “Oral, vaginal, anal…” “Yeah, all of that.” “Good. No need to hold back.” He laughs, “Yeah. Then I was with one, then the other, then we go to sleep, then it’s like seven in the morning and one of them was like, ‘You should go, you should go’ and I told her I needed to sleep for a few hours then I would leave. Then this girl called the hotel security and said I forced myself upon them, so I’m like, ‘Okay, I’m outta here’ and I leave, but I’m met by hotel security at the elevator and then the cops come, I get arrested-” “Where were they from?” “They were there from Georgia or something, like a vacation. So, I go to jail, I’m in fucking jail, and I’m stressing. They’re talking about charges against me. Well, you know. You know how heavy that is. Felony crimes and I’m like what the fuck… And one of the cops that worked there, he’s like ‘What’s your name?’ -and I told him and he says, ‘THE Ron Wilkerson, BMX Ron Wilkerson?’ He was stoked, he gave me his cell phone to call my girl in California at the time. I’m like ‘I’m in jail…’” “Did you tell her why?” “I’m sure I did.” “She must have been thrilled.” “She knew me, she knew how things went. So I give the guy his phone back. It’s morning by then, so it’s really early back in California and they pull me out of the cell and inter-

view me. And I have to tell the WHOLE story. I’m sure the guy got some pornographic thrill from all of it, me telling my story.” “I’m sure. They all do. Fucking scumbags.” “Yeah, like EXACTLY what I’m doing with these girls, like, ‘then I turned the other one over, stuck it in her ass, blah blah blah, every single detail. Like THAT’S what happened. Then they got the girls and it turned out perfectly because they had to miss their flight. They had no idea the shit they started. They had to get interviewed, the cops called their parents in Georgia and shit, then in the end it was like one or two in the afternoon they’re letting me go, and I’m walking with these guys and they’re taking me to another precinct, like the 5th precinct or some shit. It’s over by Chinatown. But on the way there they’re just checking out girls, like look at that one, holy shit look at that one… Like that’s what they do, drive around and check out chicks, and then we get to the other precinct. It’s like a movie. But we go into a Chinese restaurant. I sit down with them, they buy me lunch and then say ‘Okay, you can go.’ Fuckers.” “Why do you think those girls did that?” “No idea. You can’t figure out girls. Who knows, young, not from the city, from Buckwheat, Georgia or whatever.” “Fuck, man. Glad we’re both here.” “Well, it was nothing compared to what you had to deal with, but still.” I ask him about what happened in the city when he was handcuffed to a pole. I’d heard a few versions of it throughout the last decade, like a group of local riders got him drunk, handcuffed him to a pole, shaved his head and left him naked there. He shakes his head, “Well nothing naked or anything. But that’s the kind of people they were, to make up stories like that to feel cool.” “So what happened?” “It was one of those fucked things. No reason for it at all. It was another best night in New York ever, like a great night,

free tickets to Rocket From The Crypt at Coney Island High, and like three other shows and afterward my friends are spinning at this bar right nearby. Best night ever. I’m drinking Ja ger all night, I’m trashed. We close that bar, go to an after-hours bar, I’m drunk as hell, walking along with these guys and they’re filming me talking mad shit about things because that was during the black years of BMX when it was dead, and I was talking shit about bad attitudes and whatnot, and we get to this other bar and I walk in and someone hand’s me some Jager and I’m thinking that I need to get something in my stomach, then I start running to get some food at the market, get my carrot cake or whatever, I walk out, then these guys who I thought were my friends, who were telling me how cool I was, just handcuff me to a pole, like one of my hands and all of a sudden I feel my hair get yanked back. They pulled one dread straight out of my head, like a one inch patch out of my head, then cut another off, then walked around and throw some dreads on the ground, not all of them but some of them and one guy’s taping it and one says, ‘Haircut time for Ron Wilkerson.’ -Fuck, man. It was assault. So they left and I called up to a window of a guy who had been yelling at them before that, and when he heard me he came down and got me out of it.” “You know who they are?” “I don’t care. Those guys don’t even deserve the credit of me knowing who they are. Trash. I mean, what kind of person would be such a coward and a fuckin’ pussy to handcuff someone to a pole in the middle of the night with four other dudes and assault him then go away and think that they’re cool? What kind of fucked up person would do that? It was gnarly. It was a gnarly, gnarly experience.” “You’ve had a lot of those.” “That’s why I wrote a book.” “What’s it called?” “If You Don’t Crash You’re Not Trying Hard Enough.” I hope it’s a tentative title. The night is going strong and the 63

bar is full. We start talking about the current state of BMX, the trends, the lack of seat posts and so on. He rolls his eyes, “It’s like the whole handlebar thing. When I first started riding handlebars were real big, then everyone liked them really small, it was really trendy, now they’re big and huge again. BMX is just trendy, trendy as fuck. But I don’t pay attention to those trends, If I did I wouldn’t ride anymore. I’d be out with the trends.” “But you own a bike company…” “I do things my way. Of course you have to keep an eye on what’s current. But still.” I bring up Kevin Jones, who once rode for Wilkerson Airlines, which was blended all into 2Hip eventually. He smiles, “That dude IS BMX. I’d have flatlanders who wouldn’t ride at shows if the parking lot wasn’t fucking perfect, and here’s Kevin Jones on tour busting out ALL his tricks on any surface, and pulling them. That dude’s awesome. He’s a true individual. He’s true BMX. Not that any of these kiddies nowadays know what real BMX is.” I lean back and look around the bar. Two ciders have reappeared and he takes a drink. I ask him what that meant exactly. “Because it’s popular. I live my life for BMX, like how it started. In the beginning of BMX you got into it because it was cool and unique and different, and people made fun of you for riding these little bikes but you knew how cool it was so you didn’t care. You’d meet a few select riders and you’d bond because you were each doing something different and you knew how cool it was. Nowadays guys start riding because it’s the cool thing to do, and they do it because it’s popular, and they want to fit in and they want to be cool so they ride BMX. Fuck that. That is the exact opposite reason why it started. But that’s why, to answer your question. It’s mutating into a giant trend factory, and you have to do exactly what the trend is or you’re nothing.” The conversation switches to money, and the companies who are still around. He smiles, “Chris Moeller. You know the guy has a million dollars cash sitting in his bank right now, amongst everything else. You know it. He’s a smart businessman, he’ll pull it off, he’ll be able to look like the cool, hardcore punk guy but he’s got serious, fat money that you couldn’t even dream of having.” He breaks out laughing. I nod. “He has good product. He really does. The Intrikat bars and frame are seriously good.” “He’s a good businessman,” he drinks his beer, “not me.” “Do you have a favorite rider today, a current rider?” “Dennis Enarson. That dude’s fucking rad.” He checks his phone, and goes into the wreck of his employee, Chad Miller, who has recently crashed in the public park in Santa Cruz and broken every bone in his face. He was airlifted to Stanford. Wilkerson looks at me, “He called me first, and told me how stoked he was on life, to be alive. I think if every person could have the experience of almost dying, the world would be a different place. Like all the shit that’s been wrong with me, compound fractures, staph infections, now I’m fucking stoked. I walk up stairs and I’m like fuck yes, I’m walking up the stairs,” he laughs, “every day I close the door to 2Hip and I’m riding away fucking laughing. So good to be alive.” Outside I’m looking at my van. Such a faithful animal. I smile proudly. Wilkerson is staring off across the street. The burning tire smell of weed is thick out there. It’s close to one in the morning. People are stumbling in and out of the bar. It’s a good night out, a perfect summer night in Santa Cruz. I’m thinking about the ocean, the shores of Australia and the idea that in contrast to the entire scheme of things, I feel pretty fucking good about where we’re standing. I 64

look at him, “You know, in my whole life I’ve never done real drugs. I mean, I’ve smoked weed and hash here and there, but that’s it. I’ve never bought it or owned it.” He laughs, “No way.” “It’s true.” “I’m envious. I’ve done pretty much everything.” “Any addictions?” “Fuck no. That’s something I’m absolutely against. Addiction. Drug abuse. People abuse drugs, in the wrong way. You don’t take a drug to get high or party. You do it to expand yourself, to learn things, to get that experience. Abuse is when you just do them to do them, be it from addiction or just boredom or just for the sake of doing them.” “I like my coffee.” “Fuck all that. When I hear or see people hooked on that shit I’m like fuck you, you need a chemical to get your day and life started, like you can’t be alive until you ingest a chemical?” I nod in agreement, then start counting the hours until morning, when I will again hold that hot, shimmering cup of crack. I don’t fucking care. We talk a while longer, then I’m in bed and up in the morning, my girl gone for the weekend with her dogs gone, and it’s just Chico and me, playing music and getting things done around the place. I have to pick up Bancroft at Nyquist’s, then take him to Santa Cruz for the day of shooting Wilkerson. I find myself hanging up with Windy Osborn, with whom I am interviewing at Ron’s café while Bancroft goes to work. It’s a nice curve in my day, actually. Windy Osborn… Hello, Windy Osborn… WITH REGARD TO THE BUBBLE I pick up Bancroft from Nyquist’s driveway. They’d spent the day in Fresno then Bancroft stayed the night in Nyquist’s guest room, awakening to look out of the glass windows to see an expansive vista of jade green valley. We pulled away, Bancroft silent until the freeway, when he looks at me, eyes glazed, and I look back to him, while he stares back to the road, “I need a beer and a fucking cigarette, mate. I really do.” “You been converted to the light?” He shakes his head, “Fuck, mate, such a weird thing. Here I am in one of the best skateparks I’ve ever seen, riding with Ryan Nyquist, fucking Nyquist of all people, and I get fucking bored, and pedal off. Then some Afro Caribbean gentlemen in Fresno freaked me out and I had to return to The Bubble, where it’s safe.” I laugh, “I remember. It’s fucking with me as well. I have no idea how I am going to approach this interview. I mean, I want my debut in this magazine to be formidable in a sense, like make the readers want to see more of me, but I can’t think of a way to write this. He’s too clean, he’s too nice, too sincere of a being.” “It’s fucking perplexing, isn’t it?” I flash back to the post office trails. I’m on my shoulder in the dirt taking a picture of a butterfly who is just sitting there watching me. He’s orange and black and really mellow. Must be the air there. I am up close on him clicking away. I begin to wonder if he’s dead, then Nyquist rolls up and he flies off. Nyquist stops and watches him, “Ah, sorry man. Did you get him?” “I think so.” He’s still in my head. We drive south toward Santa Cruz. I am grinning at the road. Bancroft looks at me, “What?” “The Bubble?” “Yeah, man. Like this sphere around him, right? Totally

“ PINNACLES

REACHED BY OTHERS ARE ALWAYS SUBJECT TO RIDICULE BY THOSE STILL WORKING UPWARD

”

protected by goodness and justice. His fucking life radiates good health.” “I know what you mean. There’s a cleanness to it, an overall gleam of cleanliness.” He laughs. Both of us watch the road. It’s impossible not to respect Nyquist and his riding and all that he’s accomplished and still accomplishes. Hell, even his personality is something to behold, it really is. A totally likable and even funny person, yet reserved and careful - a sober life of the general party, but still really fucking hard to feature with words on a gritty, real-life level. What could be read as anger or insult is really frustration. But that’s how it is. Can’t have all of it all of the time. Wilkerson calls and asks how far out we are. I tell him that 17 south is a parking lot. Nyquist had texted me a warning that there might be beach traffic, and he was right, of course. I tell Bancroft that Nyquist called

it and he laughs. But I think about it while I drive. Pinnacles reached by others are always subject to ridicule by those still working upward, cracking on and learning what to do and what not to do, if stopping on the same platform one day. At the moment, we’re in the US, on the freeway heading to Santa Cruz, then to Los Angeles, then deep into the Mojave desert then who knows where, while Nyquist plays with his children in his fortress, while Wilkerson sips some acai berry drink with his hot Brazilian wife in their café, while in the desert a lizard shits on a rock and across the country some junkie passes out under a car trying to stay out of the heat. Fuck it.

K Town

Words and Photography by GEORGE MARSHALL

Eight days in the former Soviet Union. Farren Downes, Greg Illingworth, Jason Phelan, Lloyd Wright, Paul Ryan and Pete Sawyer.

hy are you coming to the Ukraine?” Asks a friendly woman beside me on flight number PSO57 to Kiev. “I’m just going on holiday” I reply with a yawn, holding back the full intent of my plans for the next eight days. To my ears her strong accent sounds Russian, her hair is peroxide blonde, she has dense make up and a golden leather jacket that completes her look of Soviet chic. She stares at me with big blue eyes expecting a more in depth answer. “We’re going on holiday to Chernobyl” I admit, feeling childish. She looks puzzled, not at my English but at my plans. “Why you go to this place? I think you get sick. It is a bad place… I think you don’t want to go there” she says smiling through thick red lipstick. Left untouched since the nuclear disaster in 1986, Chernobyl was reopened to the public earlier this year as an apocalyptic tourist attraction. “I think you cannot go there, it is closed as they rebuild it for tourists.” As she tells me I hang my head in disappointment. Just days before the flight we’d heard the same bad news of Chernobyl’s (re)closure, but I optimistically held hopes of entering the neighbouring city of Prypiat abandoned and untouched since the first alarm sounded 25 years ago, but those hopes are dying by the minute. Sat on the airplane, I finally have admit to myself our dark wish of making it beyond the haunting gates of Chernobyl is not going to happen – the paranoid months ahead of hunting my testicles for lumps in front of the mirror are put on hold. We arrive at the President Hotel in Kiev and Chernobyl’s closure is confirmed at check in by an attractive receptionist, once again with blonde hair and dense make-up. Frustrated by the news I look around at this, my home for next week. The bright entrance hall is fitting of any European five star hotel. A crystal chandelier hangs beside a fountain sunk into the polished marble floor, a far cry from the decaying ghost town of the Soviet Union I crave to take photos of. Successful looking men in linen suits and designer shirts sit on white leather chairs punching above their weight beside beautiful women. Every detail

of the entrance hall tells me I am rich and I should spend lots of money here. The ventilation hole in the crotch of my cut off denim shorts and the empty MacDonald’s coffee card in my tattered wallet reminds me of the truth. In strides Peter Sawyer across the marble floor, proudly out of place and pushing a brass trolley piled up with bike bags, quickly followed by a toy like bell boy in a burgundy blazer with needless gold buttons and tassels looking bullied and hijacked. After checking in, the bellboy reclaims his ownership of the baggage trolley and accompanies us from the five star entrance hall to some one star rooms. The bellboy unloads our heavy bike bags and hovers by the door, seemingly expecting a slick transaction of tipping etiquette. I give him a thumbs-up, thank him and close the door with an embarrassed grin. In contrast to the entrance hall and hotel’s exterior the bedroom is basic, two single beds for Farren Downes and myself, both with the leopard print bed sheets that are laced with bed lice. Each and every morning for the next week would start with a scratch and squeeze of a new pattern of bites and red lumps. The hotel has a small swimming pool, gym and sauna. The gym is full of shining white and chrome weight machines, and the walls are lined with mirrors. One wall of mirrors is hidden by an array of laminated anatomical diagrams of great Soviet body builders, flexing and grinning. The giant weights on the bench press are as uninviting as the smiles on the body builder’s faces in the posters. I decide to stick to the pool. On the second morning I enjoy the small pool alone for a couple of minutes before a bronzed and obese middle-aged man enters the bath sized pool. The day before it had been an equally uninvited 10-year-old girl. The man is tanned, fat, wearing a tight pair of black trunks, with shaved grey hair in contrast to a set of thick big black eyebrows. As he enters the pool the water level leaps. I exit the cold water, for the solitude and heat of the sauna. Within only minutes of short-lived privacy the door opens and the same man reverses into

GREG ILLINGWORTH, Nose manual.

the sauna like a wide load lorry, parking his mass beside me, almost sitting in my lap. We sit side-by-side, cooking and sweating. Now at close quarters I realise he has more hair anywhere on his back than I do on my face. He also has a faded military tattoo on his arm. This man has stories, he’s was probably a comrade of the Red Army, and like our hotel he’s a relic of the Soviet Union. The view of an empty shower cubicle from sauna’s glass door becomes occupied by yet another man, again fat and this time naked, I take this as my cue to leave. Aside from the bed bugs, body building and sweating beside fat hairy war criminals, the President Hotel of Kiev offers other services less likely to be in the brochure. On our first night it took only a few steps into the hotel’s bar to realize the biggest seller on the menu is not a cup of Cappuccino Royale or even the local Ukrainian wheat beer: it’s classy European sex. As you walk into the hotel bar multiple attractive women instantly turn or look up with a suggestive smile, lock eye contact then instantly turn away, uninterested and seemingly annoyed by your lack of a gold watch, suit and grey hair. In the evenings we’d sit in the luxury bar in blood stained shorts, T-shirts and caps, with scabby shins and elbows. We’d sit and observe the ritual between the glamorous hookers and their suited clients. We slowly learnt about the payment of a fee from the prostitutes to the bar, clocked the prostitute’s regular trips to the toilet every half hour followed by a couple minutes of intense nose scratching af72

ter. We became friends with the ‘Madame’, the queen prostitute, who by her own admission was ‘too old for this game.’ The prostitutes would sit with the gentleman and entice them. It wasn’t uncommon to see an entire left breast hanging out of a dress if necessary to seal an agreement. As BMXer’s covered in sweat and mosquito bites, we were all just profitless boys in their eyes, staring, farting and burping. All of us that is but one. Our South African companion Greg Illingworth, with his hair like the mane of lion and accompanied by charming confidence, broke that trend with ease. The first night we chatted to the prostitutes one took a shine to Greg and offered him a discount rate of $50 for the night, just to cover her bar fee. Being a committed boyfriend, Greg was flattered but declined the offer. Over the coming evenings, the same prostitute, often lonely not receiving that profitable nod from a fat punter, would join us to spend time with Greg. She’d sit at his side, invading his personal space. Whereas others in the group were uncomfortable sitting next to this business woman and were soon seen and heard leaping up shouting “I’m recoiling about the STD’s about to be inserted in me” at a mere stroke of their hair by one of these women of trade. Contrary to this was Greg, who was completely at ease and had total respect for the prostitute. With an age gap of a staggering 23 years between them, Greg and the woman were closer to mother and son than anything

FARREN DOWNES, Pegs hop over. 73

GREG ILLINGWORTH, Full pipe foot plant.

“

It was a week of running across train tracks, riding epic full pipes under bridges and hitching lifts on the back of trucks

”

else. On the quieter nights, the two would stay up until sunrise sharing secrets, packs of fags and watching Madonna videos on youtube – they were misfit soul mates, but nothing more. On the first day Chris McArdle and Jason were first to leave the entertaining confines of our hotel/brothel, in search of a pump. Kiev is not a bicycle friendly city. Possibly due to the potholes in roads, the extreme cold of winter or extreme heat of summer, or countless steep hills, cyclists here are rare, and bicycle shops are rarer still. After several miles of walking in the heat, Chris and Jason walk into Velomarket bike shop. “Jason Phelan!… I cannot believe my eyes” says a tall skinhead shop worker wearing an Animal bikes T-shirt, in an excited Ukrainian accent. This was Victor, a local rider and now the happiest man in Kiev. “All my dreams have come true.” Victor announces after having his photo taken with his hero. Chris tells Victor of our plans to ride his city for the next week. “OK.Yes. I can show you many spots. But wait.You should have a brought Scott Ditchburn? Where is Scott Ditchburn?” Asks Victor.

With Victor leading the way, for the next week we rode the streets of Kiev. We quickly settled in and felt relaxed on the Kiev streets and back alleys. To my surprise the city centre is clean and very westernized, not dissimilar to any other any other major European city. The older building’s have communist era grandeur but ironically now house the likes of Starbucks, TGI Fridays, MacDonald’s or are covered entirely by huge Harry Potter Movie posters. Glimpses of Kiev’s Soviet past can found in the Golden Hammer and Sickle crests on the top of the buildings, Communist statues sit as the centre pieces of squares and parks, and the roads are jammed up by an army of Lada’s. In between the rundown Lada’s and rusty buses packed with fanning passengers, air conditioned Ferrari’s and Porsches being driven by new wealth dodge through the traffic. In Kiev the super rich and super poor live side by side. The main streets are lined with eldery women selling blueberries and raspberries in plastic cups for pennies to business executives and bankers. Beneath the domed, gold leaf rooftops and only yards from the main streets of Mercedes dealerships and Rolex watches, the back alleys hide an underworld of poverty and desperate 75

LLOYD WRIGHT, 180 barspin hop over a wall.

PETE SAWYER, Downside whip.

people with hard, sun baked skin and crippled mutated limbs. These people’s lives revolve around Vodka and they survive on a diet of begging and apricots that grow fresh on the trees. One evening a begger approaches us. Recognizing him from a late night of singing Nirvana songs in a square till 7am, Jason says hello. He is Russian, speaks English and pleads for money whilst telling us the troubles of his life. “If I give you money will you spend it on Vodka” Asks Jason, looking genuinely concerned. “No, no. I go to sleep, I need money for the hostel.” Jason reaches into his wallet and hands the man a wedge of notes. “He better bloody spend it on a bed, better that than sleeping on the streets”, Jason says after. Despite the

poverty, we always felt safe and never once felt under threat. Even whilst riding a derelict velodrome that was being squatted by a community of desperate people, we never were at risk of being robbed despite having thousands of pounds of camera gear openly on display. The only people we feared and avoided were the police. If you’re a tourist the police can demand money on the spot for little or no reason, abusing their power and clinging on to their tradition of corruption and exploitation. Simply not having your passport on you is enough to be driven to the police station in a packed 4x4, as Greg and Chris found out. At the police station both were made to pay $20 for the expe-

rience, although Chris received $10 change and a lift back to the hotel in a police car. Other than the Police Taxi service and the local riders, the people of Kiev generally weren’t very friendly or towards us. Few people replied to the constant ‘hellos’ from Lloyd and Pete. The local people seemed to think we were American, with whom they seem to have a love hate relationship. American culture is Kiev’s guilty pleasure. The anti American cold war mindset is no match for the invasive delights of Beyonce, KFC and Brad Pitt’s beard. After meeting the local riders it obvious where Ukrainian riders get their biggest influence. “We have a big scene of about 200 77

JASON PHELAN, Ledge ride. 78

“ JASON

PHELAN!… I CANNOT BELIEVE MY EYES

”

PAUL RYAN, Tailwhip gap.

riders. Every rider here loves Animal and Skavenger. Everybody rides with no brakes and three or four pegs.” Victor tells me, as we witness later that evening as we cruise the streets in a mass group riding of 30+ riders. I look around at the locals, every single one has at least one Animal logo either on their bike, clothes or even skin. I approach a rider with an Animal logo tattooed on his fore80

arm beside a word written in Russian. I point to it and ask him what it means. “This? It says ‘K-town’… it means here, Kiev, this is K-town”. For the entire week we endured long days riding in the intense summer heat, covering twenty miles or more a day either following Victor or our instincts alone on the streets of K-town. It was a week of running

across train tracks, riding epic full pipes under bridges, jumping train station barriers, hitching lifts on the back of trucks, lighting fires on the banks of the river Dniepe and being shouted at by skinhead security guards in blue and grey urban camouflage. All such memories deserve to last a lifetime. K-town had been good to us. Chernobyl can wait till next year.

Ruben Alcantara Ortiz AN UNOFFICIAL BIOGRAPHY

There are three of us sat around a sturdy oak table in the sun-kissed airy living room. A chocolate cake decorated with almonds is sat in the centre and the smell of freshly brewed coffee floats about gently on the warm sea breeze seeping in through the open window. It’s early June in rural Northern Spain and the fields surrounding Ruben’s newly finished summerhouse are rich with vegetation. The modestly sized structure is of a traditional design with an immaculate modern finish. The house is perched at the summit of a sharp hill and down from the front windows a lush green valley meanders all the way to a flawless sapphire ocean. And it’s here, where the sparkling blue sea meets the floor of the valley, that Ruben spends most of his summer. Enticed by the empty and unspoilt environment it’s the perfect sanctuary away from the intense heat of his hometown and the relentless pressure of the BMX industry. A mystical place with a fairytale quality. A quietly enchanted place to sit in peace. A perfect place to sit and reflect on the remarkable career of Senior Ruben Alcantara Ortiz. Ruben walks slowly over from the kitchen with a tray of steaming hot coffees to join us at the table. Next to the cake a Dictaphone sits poised with anticipation. There’s a story behind this beautiful house. There’s a story behind the chilled lines and simple stylish riding on these pages. And it goes without saying that there’s a story behind one of the world’s most magically creative and infectiously influential BMX Gods.

Words by STEVE BANCROFT Photography by GUIRI and STEVE BANCROFT

84 This unofficial biography was pieced together after a two-week stay by the author at Ruben’s summer retreat. Sources include: various conversations during surf and riding sessions, a recorded interview, the authors own experiences, Ruben’s life long friend Guiri, Joe Rich and Todd “The Wildman” Lyons.

nce upon a time there was a small brown boy called Ruben. Born to a humble working class family in Southern Spain there wasn’t much money around during his early childhood and often it was a struggle to make ends meet. Although times were hard young Ruben was a happy and healthy child, whose only characteristic of real significance was his obsession with eating stale bread. Apart from that one oddity, he spent his formative years running around Malaga causing trouble with a close group of neighbourhood friends. At the time most families in the town kept chickens and with money tight the only food afforded these essential egg-laying machines was old dry bread. His comrades were quick to pick up on this unfortunate similarity and Ruben earned himself the rather unspectacular nickname of ‘El Pollo’- The Chicken. The name stuck and things remained much the same until his ninth birthday, when, along with the usual presents of old bread and egg boxes, El Pollo received his first bicycle. It was one of those crazy looking bikes that kids had in the early 80’s, a cross between a Raleigh Grifter and a BMX with many reflectors and much fake suspension. The kooky looks just added to it’s charm; the arrival of the bicycle was to be a turning point in this young chicken’s life. Now, instead of flying around the streets causing mischief on foot, he was rolling on rubber. From then on the power of bikes grabbed hold of his gang of tearaways and the unlimited potential for exploration and excitement saw them switch to a life of two wheels. By his 12th birthday his pedal passion was burning brighter than ever and it was in celebration of this year that he was presented with a brand new ride - a bike far more similar to what was considered a BMX back then. Cruising the dry dusty streets was no longer limited to riding fast and popping the occasional wheelie, now with this new machine it was possible to jump the stairs and hop the trashcans too. Back then Malaga was just a small town, Ruben and his friends knew nothing of the sport of BMX and were oblivious to the progress of bike riding that was happening in nearby Europe and over the Atlantic. Bike riding was all improvised, there was no one too look up to and no one to follow, they were in uncharted territory and making it up as they went along. When he was 15 Ruben’s tight knit group of friends had formed a fully fledged gang, The MBM (The Mafia Bikers of Malaga) and now, armed with a name and identity, they began to explore further afield to all corners of the city and beyond. It was on one of these early explorations that they encountered the ‘tourists’. Two flatlanders from Germany were travelling around Spain and happened to cross paths with the MBM. Intrigued by the shiny bikes and spinning trickery they sat and watched for hours before attempting the foreign moves for themselves. It was through these ‘tourists’ that Ruben met other riders in Malaga and by the time he was 16 a scene was developing and more outside influences were reaching this hungry gang of misfits. At this age, af-

ter riding his version of BMX for seven years, Ruben saw his first magazine. Blown away by what was in front of him it was immediately obvious what he needed to do – he needed to ride ramps – he needed to air quarter pipes and jump box jumps. The energy from the curiosity engulfed him and after the arrival of those first magazines and the first BMX VHS, jumping stairs and riding flatland just didn’t cut the mustard any more. He wanted to ride like the stars of that first VHS, the stars of the mighty Freestylin’ USA – Dave Volker, Eddie Roman and Brian Blyther, all blasting airs under the cloudless Californian skies. But with money tight and no up-to-date BMX products available, it was again left to improvisation and resourcefulness to keep the wheels of progress moving forward. Box jumps were fashioned from whatever wood could be scraped together and bike parts were kept alive through re-welding and some brave artful dodging. Such was the need to replace broken bike parts Ruben resorted to an activity that hung its toes over the edge of the word theft. There was a communal area for bikes in the block where he lived so late at night he’d tip-toe in and get to work swapping components. He swiped cranks off random bikes, replacing them with his own bent set. He switched bars, he’d switch pedals and he’d switch wheels. Always considerate enough to keep the donor bike riding, he’d work late into the night with crappy tools and stripped threads. It was still a risky activity that nearly had him caught on numerous occasions, but fuelled by the insatiable longing to ride, it was a risk he was willing to take. In his late teens Ruben was traveling more and more. They’d drive hours on end just to ride a sketchy mini ramp and on one occasion, after hearing some US Pros were visiting Madrid, they hopped in the car and made the mammoth drive to the capital. Upon arrival at the concrete skatepark they were confronted by Canadians Jay Miron and Dave Osato. The two shiny Schwinn Pros were filming for the now seminal VHS tape, American Muscle. They were doing tricks that Ruben had never seen before. Ever eager to meet new people and learn more on his bike he dropped right in to the unfamiliar bowls and joined the session. Having never before witnessed riding of this calibre, the resulting scenario caused some initial confusion – Jay and Dave would be shredding the bowls and as soon as they popped out onto the deck, the ever-keen Ruben would drop in and do exactly the same tricks he’d just seen. Situations like this can be awkward and at first Jay and Dave thought they were getting comped out and didn’t appreciate Ruben’s overly competitive attitude. Never one to shy away from confrontation, Jay admitted it nearly got ugly. Ruben had never seen any of the tricks before and he had no intention of one-upping anyone, all he wanted to do was join in the session and learn some new tricks. The innocence of his actions and his ability to pull most of their hardest tricks within a few goes was the catalyst of a long mutual friendship between The Canadian Beast and Mr Alcantara.

Aged 19 and in line with Spanish law at the time, Ruben had to undertake a year of compulsory military service. Never one to shy away form a new experience Ruben embraced the opportunity and chose to be posted on a base in a nearby town. Signing up to a nation’s Military – even if only for a year – is one of the most serious signatures you can undertake. In doing so, you’re effectively waiving all of your rights. Any behaviour that breaks the strict protocol is liable to severe punishment. With that in mind, Ruben signed on the dotted line and proceeded to break some of the most fundamental rules by bringing along his bike and a loud stereo system. Bringing his BMX was the craziest thing the other recruits had seen, but Ruben liked his bike and with a desire burning as strong as his, he couldn’t tolerate a year without it. During his time on base he was made to stand on guard duty, with long shifts lasting into the small hours of the morning. There was a post at the far side of the base that no one ever wanted – pitch black and miles from anywhere – it was the short straw of posts. Cadets weren’t allowed to take anything at all out there - no Walkman, no entertainment, nothing. Ruben took the post gladly every time it came up. He’d head out there with his bike, his stereo, bags of candy and his tools, and each night he’d have himself a good session. He trained as an electrician in the army, so he had keys to the light switches and with an abundance of wood and random obstacles on hand, he was left alone to turn up the tunes and get creative. So with his gun set down on the sidelines, he rode his bike any way he wanted. Each night he’d replace everything he’d built and the very next night head right back out there and rebuild it. Did he ever get caught? Only by people he knew, only by his friends who just couldn’t believe he had the nerve to do something that suicidal. When you care about bike riding that much, Ruben considers some risks worth taking. After his brief jaunt in the army Ruben spent some time riding in Red Bull shows around Europe, the money was good and it meant he got his tricks dialled in, preferring a more barspin based ensemble back then. After a few year’s worth of shows, and after a couple of decent Spanish contest wins, the inquisitive young ball of energy was ready to try something new. He’d been keeping track of the progress of BMX in America through the Props Video Magazine series, digesting every second of every episode with an almost psychotic obsession. So in 1997, aged 22, Ruben booked a flight to The Home Of The Brave and set out on a quest to meet his heroes and ride some of the crazy spots he’d seen in videos. At this time he was getting help with bike parts from David Quesada’s distribution company, which at the time were the Spanish distributor for Hoffman Bikes. It was through that avenue Ruben sampled his first taste of US BMX. With only a few words of English, very little money and just one secondhand contact, Ruben touched down in Oklahoma. Mike “Big Island” Castillo put him up and he spent the next few weeks riding the ramps in the Hoffman warehouse. Stoked to be riding decent indoor ramps for the first time he rode as many hours as he could and in the process amazed Mike and Mat with his ever-growing bag of tricks. So impressed were the Hoffman crew, when Chris Moeller stopped the S&M van by on his way to a contest, they sung his praises no end and recommended they let him tag along and try to enter the comp. Chris obliged and Ruben jumped in the van in between Shaun Butler and Freddy Chulo. The contest was the first ever MTV Sports And Music Festival in Austin TX. Unfortunately, no matter how hard his newfound friends tried, they couldn’t twist enough arms to get Ruben entered into what was a prequalified event. But that didn’t stop him riding in practice and it was from that session - on the ground breaking terrain of wooden ramps and pseudo street – that he had his first ever photo published in a magazine, a downside whip air, shot by Mark Losey and printed in Ride US. That wasn’t to be the only defining moment from the weekend; it was also his first encounter with his long-term idol Joe Rich. Joe was immediately impressed with this mysterious new character. Their first meeting was an awkward hour-long montage of broken English and animated hand signals during which the only thing they actually managed to communicate was that Ruben should come visit Joe in PA after the comp. Although the conversation wasn’t up to much, something resonated between the two progressive riders and it was to be the start of a strong and lasting friendship. Ruben returned to Spain with the sole aim of earning more money and returning to the states, and his new friends, as soon as possible. A few months later, still in 1997, he was back. He visited Joe and travelled around riding new spots, hitting up a few contests and generally soaking up as much American BMX as he could. Through one of these early contest entries and he ended up qualifying for the X Games, but with a rapidly depleting fund of money, a crack riddled bike and no means to travel across the country to get there, it looked

“ SO WITH

HIS GUN SET DOWN ON THE SIDELINES, HE RODE HIS BIKE ANY WAY HE WANTED

”

like he was going to be forced to turn down the much coveted spot and return to Spain. Ruben was depressed, his hopes and dreams of staying in America, riding with and against his childhood heroes just a frustrating finger tip away. And then in stepped Todd Lyons – The Wildman . The part wrestler, part racer, part stunt man that is THE WILDMAN, arguably the godfather of extreme, had his fingers in many extreme pies. The Wildman crossed paths with Ruben at Dave Mirra’s old warehouse and, like most others who bore witness to his riding, even with his own astronomically high level of extreme, he was instantly impressed. He saw the broken bike, he heard about the invite to X-games and about how he just couldn’t seem to make it happen. So ever the motivator, Todd got on the phone and made some speculative calls to his sponsor, Huffy’s head honcho, explaining that “We have to get this guy to the X games.” Unfortunately nothing was confirmed there and then, the moment passed, it was forgotten about and Ruben was sadder than ever.

It was just a couple of days before he was due to fly home, when the glum and down trodden Spaniard turned up at the skatepark to find a huge box addressed to him. Inside was a complete bike, a plane ticket to X games and $600 cash. The Wildman had come through like an extreme knight on a silver horse. After being renounced to going home with his head down, Ruben couldn’t have been happier. The Chicken made it to the X Games and another childhood dream was realized. With the Huffy deal now in place he spent more time riding and travelling and meeting people in America. The BMX world finally began to get tuned into to the Might Of The Spanish Chicken. During these early days of Ruben’s time in America, the help of Jay Miron, John Povah and Hoffman Bikes should not go unacknowledged. When times were hard Miron and Povah and the Schwinn credit card took him under their wing, and it was only due to a slight communication breakdown that he didn’t end up riding for Hoffman Bikes.

Then after a short but exciting year, Huffy dropped their team and Ruben ended up on Mongoose, and not long after that on his friend Jay Miron’s new company MacNeil. It was during this time that his riding underwent some fundamental changes. Up until this point his bike set up was big and awkward, his tricks were often wild and erratic and he was lacking that certain “je ne sais quoi” in the style department. But in the years around 1999 a transformation took place. He slimmed down his bike, his tricks became simpler and more original and some kind of all encompassing new firm hold style gel made the whole package stick. With his newly ripened sweet fresh style he had the attention of the BMX world – and with that came a herd of magazine covers, interviews, travel and a savvy “pressplay record” BMX media followed willingly along. This was no fleeting aesthetic style jump; it was just the final part of a smooth and gradual transition that started at the very beginning. There is no short cut to leaving

an impact as great as his. Over the years he’d tried everything. He’d ridden every set up there was to ride. From riding everything every-how, his style progressed organically. Butterflies only come from an ugly chrysalis. He moved away from the jerky stop start tricks of 4-peg park riding and used his simple free-flowing line based style and applied it to the streets. He took the biggest tricks of the day, cleaned them up and added his own unique blend of talent, style and vision to open a new chapter in BMX history. The next few years were off the chain. Wallride to whip, up rail to whip, bump jumps, Ruben wallride, Rodeo grinds. . . The list goes on, all drenched with his magical poetic steez. And it wasn’t just bike riding that Ruben redefined, he also played a big part in dragging the bikes themselves out of the dark ages and into a lighter, brighter future. With the release of his signature frame on MacNeil came tiny heat treated dropouts, heat treated headtubes, larger internal holes in head tubes and BBs, improved

top tube/seat stay junctions and an all-round lighter weight. His signature frame turned just as many heads as his riding and being amongst the first to drop down to below the 6lb mark the thing sold like wildfire. To this day it stands as one of, if not the, most popular/successful signature frames of all time. But it wasn’t just innovative riding and progressive frame design that Ruben brought to the table, the most lasting and outwardly obvious product of his influence wasn’t a trick or a bike part, it was a subtle little jig called the “Ruben Bop.” In an effort to keep on his toes and be ready to respond to any eventuality he developed a kind of ducking and weaving motion when he was setting up for a trick. As he approached a ramp or spot he’d weave from side to side and bounce up and down on his pedals – like a boxer dancing around a ring. It wasn’t long before the world cottoned on, and from Scotland to Australia – the world was bopping. After a prosperous partnership, Jay and Ruben parted ways on good terms. Believing that moving around and trying things out is the best way to find a perfect fit – he saw an opportunity to help out two friends who had been hugely influential to him during his formative years. So in a unique deal, one only afforded to true legends, Ruben rode for two bike companies – T1 and Fly. It wasn’t long after the move T1 and Fly that Ruben embarked on possibly his most ambitious adventure yet. Under the T1 banner Joe Rich, Garrett Byrnes, Ruben and Nate Wessel embarked on an epic yearlong round-the-world trip. The trip was well documented online, in print and on DVD and from the outside it looked like the life affirming journey of discovery that it was supposed to be. But beneath that rose tinted exterior there was trouble afoot. All was not well in the T1 ranks. One of the crew was acting out of kilter with the communal vibe and in turn was tipping the trip off it’s Terrible One mellow vibe axis and sending it spinning into turmoil. It’s unclear whether Wessel was having some kind of meltdown under the pressures of the constant travel or whether the rest of the crew had misjudged his character all along. His behaviour was erratic and unpredictable – firing up and flying off the handle for no apparent reason on a regular basis. His rudeness and abusive attitude was dragging the trip down, so something had to be done. Joe took the lead and sat down with Nate and a conversation was had that brought them both to tears, but it was no good. The differences and conflicts were too deep to be reconciled so easily. The final straw came when Wessel punched Ruben during a heated argument. It had gone too far now; there was no going back from that. So the rest of the T1 crew made a call and sent a dark black cloud back across the Atlantic. Maybe it was just the pressures of the unfamiliar situations, as Ruben and Nate got on when they bumped into each other a few years back down the line. It’s funny what travelling can do to peoples minds.

If the fateful world trip was the filler for a sandwich of monumental proportions then Ruben bookended it in true style with two of the most legendary video parts of all time. One in Etnies Forward and one in the sequel, Grounded. The sections were as pure as can be, the majority of his Forward part was filmed by close friends who just happened to be on hand. The innocent indescribable allure of travelling with friends and riding new spots was the catalyst for both sections. There were no other agendas, the riding was priority, that came first above all else, and if that riding happened to be caught on film, then that was just a bonus. It was this organic recipe that produced pure unfiltered magic. In the latter of the two sections, Grounded, Ruben once again blew the doors of BMX perception clean off their hinges. Just when the rest of the world thought they had caught up and were sharing the same plain, BOSH! Ruben sticks the boot in once again. His vision and talent had conspired once more and with some trial and error experimentation a new type of wallride was discovered. “The Pigeon Into A Window” – where a rider splats into a wall from a perpendicular angle. Although they can often appear uncomfortable, Ruben realized that without the pull of gravity inherent with dropping to flat, landing on a wall sideways wasn’t as harsh as it looked, and if forward momentum could be kept then the door was open to really innovate. Like a scientist breaking new ground, Ruben used the streets as his laboratory and he published his findings in seminal DVD sections that flipped all previously held convictions onto their heads.

“

ONCE AGAIN HE BLEW THE DOORS OF BMX PERCEPTION CLEAN OFF THEIR HINGES

Although unapparent to most, around 2003 Ruben began to experience chronic back pain. Although mild at first it slowly developed into a severe problem that was to affect his life for 10 long years. No matter what pills he took or what doctors or chiropractors he visited, without any obvious evidence of a cause, there was nothing anyone could do to alleviate this mysterious crippling pain. The pain worsened and became so bad that, with all available avenues explored, he was left with no choice but to have serious back surgery. The surgery would have lasting effects and the results were unpredictable, but out of options and in too much pain to even ride a bike, he was at his wits end – so he booked it up. However, with less that a week to go until his scheduled surgery, he was lying in bed one night toiling over whether to go through with the operation when he had an epiphany, and in that moment he knew he had to try one last time. The next day he went to see yet another specialist, and by some stroke of divine luck, the chiropractor who assessed him had been through the same ordeal herself, she immediately recognized the symptoms and knew exactly what to do.

”

As it transpired, the root cause of the savage and dehabilitating pain didn’t stem from his back at all, it was traced back to his mouth. Ruben had underbite, a seemingly minor and inconsequential condition where the top

set of teeth don’t marry up properly with the bottom set. To compensate for this slight misalignment, the muscles in Ruben’s jaw developed unevenly, and in turn these muscles affected his neck, which in turn again caused his back to become twisted. The twist in his back was pinching so many nerves that it even affected his legs, leaving him tired, weak and in near paralyzing pain. So after all these years, after all the pain and suffering and frustration, it turns out that it was a dentist he needed to see and not a back surgeon. To have finally uncovered the root cause of his affliction made him immensely happy, at last there was a light at the end of a long scary tunnel that had previously been as black as bin bags. Through a program of simple dentistry, involving stoppers and braces, the pressure on his back was reduced and within just a week he was back on his bike riding free of pain. The relief was indescribable. Now aged 36, Ruben has re-found a the appreciation he had as that 9 year old young boy, an appreciation for the simple joys of bike riding,just being able to pump and flow around a bowl brought a childs smile to his face. And that brings us up to the present day and to a house overlooking a beautiful beach. A place where the pace of life is slow and the air is clear. A place where he spends his time surfing and relaxing. He uses surfing as a therapy, using the time in the water to free his mind and be at one with himself and nature. Sitting out there in the water, he wishes he could ride his bike on the ever-changing waves. Ruben has treated BMX well, spoilt it in fact, and as in all honest and honourable relationships, BMX has treated him well in return. He is a modest and humble man. He’s not one who would ever

dream of bragging about his accomplishments and lasting influences within BMX, but he does acknowledge that he’s made his mark and it’s made him happy that he has. When growing up he was intrigued, excited and inspired by progressions in the sport. Watching BMX grow and growing with it made him feel part of something and it made him feel happy and it made his life better. To him, the best thing about bike riding is making others happy. If his ideas and his actions have made other people happy, then that has made him happy. Although now his ground breaking and awe-inspiring days may be behind him, Ruben enjoys riding his bike more than ever. Seeking out obscure obstacles on which to flow his unique art, traveling the world, experiencing life - he’s happy to be able to ride his bike and happy for all that he has. It takes a certain kind of rider to have a full sized interview in a magazine and not need to drop any hammers. It takes a certain kind of rider to pull off riding for two different bike sponsors. And it takes a certain kind of rider to single handily influence the course of a whole movement for the best part of a decade. And it’s this certain kind of rider who can be found sat in his modest mountain top palace quietly looking down and watching where his disciples go with the seeds he has sewn. The coffee cups are empty and the cake has all gone. Ruben gets up from the table and walks across the room and takes a long look out from the open window to the sea below, and in a calm and quiet voice proclaims, “Now we go surfing”.

Martin ‘Cookie’ Cook The king of monotone, with my own throne Righteously violent prone my words bring winds like cyclones Stormin’ your hideout, blockin’ out your sunlight Your image and your business, were truly not done right Moment Of Truth – Gangstarr. Cookie is a little rough around the edges. He’s very often clad in ageing football shirts and torn up old jeans, his shoes are worn thin, covered in fat marker and over spray with usually at least one sole hanging off. He’s hip-hop in a grimy and poverty stricken early eighties sort of way, a Wild Style and Style Wars, Queens and Brooklyn sort of way. It’s easy to picture him floating around a Metro station throwing up a tag and supping a beer, just hanging silently on his own. He tends to take a back seat amongst a group preferring to sit quietly and observe. When Cookie speaks it’s with a bass heavy and monotone voice, his Makem lingo and highly personalised slang are frankly unintelligible and indecipherable, his communication is conducted as much with hand gestures, strings of filler and curses as it is content. It’s bombardment conversation, he puts his point across in an entirely unique way - his entertaining stories soak in through osmosis rather than direct instruction.

Words by OLLY OLSEN Photography by DANIEL BENSON

ookie spent his younger riding days in the Doxford Park area of the less than affluent city of Sunderland. This unremarkable area has an exceptional BMX scene that produced Paul Buckley and Chris Souter. It’s a rough suburb filled with bored working class kids, invariably these kids cling to subcultures as a way of identifying and entertaining themselves. The thriving Doxy Park scene is a weird one, without a skatepark or set of trails at its core the scene instead revolves around a few brick ledges and a gigantic Morrisons car park. “The Doxy Park days were pretty good but there was loads of bad times, it’s the only time I’ve actually got a bike nicked off me. I got punched from behind, a proper sucker punch with the side of the hand. He reached around and bosh, burst my lips, it was basically like having my bike held up by the seat and having it yanked off me. I went back to where my street is, just up the road from Morrisons, it’s only a little street so when I’ve come up with burst lips and all the Dads are out in the street the word was going around that there’s been a bike pinched. Phil Dugan, the lad who got me into riding, his dad was like ‘Na, I’m not having it’. He got in his people carrier and drove down to Farrah where supposedly someone knew where this kid was from. They’d seen him pulling out the bike because it had blue Primo Logo grips on it and the rest was chrome. Phil’s Dad got out the car and chased him down, the kid slung the bike over a school fence and then hopped the fence himself and then just done off but we got the bike back the same day.” Cookie sticks out from his original crew as being the guiding force and the motivator, he’s as determined as he is laid back. His early inspirations for BMX were home grown and he has an unrelenting loyalty to his roots. His local area and the people surrounding him are held in his highest esteem. He was also from the first wave of kids that were inspired by the NSF [Northeast Street Foundation] “I guess I knew Souter but Newrick is more on my wavelength, when I moved schools I met Stu Busby and Rupert’s brother Chunk. Then I bought an NSF video from Rupert in school and we used to watch it everyday. We were influenced heavily but we didn’t necessarily copy the stuff, it was more that everyone realised there was loads of spots to ride around where we were.” Using his copy of NSF1 as a tool or jump off point Cookie was highly explorative in his youth. Kids of 14 and 15 don’t tend to explore as extensively as he did and as a result his riding oozes a certain realness and rawness only found by hour upon hour of urban exploration, an attribute to his credit not often found this side of New Jersey. “I think it just sprung from riding Morrisons car park and being sick of it, as soon as you’d seen there was more stuff out there you just wanted to explore more. We would get the train to Newcastle and ride back through Wrekenton and find as many harsh brick ledges as we could. I can’t remember whether Souter told us about Ledgeville or if people just knew about it from wherever. I was riding it with a good mix of people from my area trying to do ledges and falling off basically, ride on feebles and shit.”

Chris Souter was seen as an almost spiritual leader and mentor to the younger generation at the time, a shaman, a twisted and zany herder of the talented youth, a demented ringmaster rounding up the younger riders and getting them on film. He would visit Liverpool on a weekly basis and bring up awesome street riding kids. Cookie’s rail balance was apparent from an early age and Souter was quick to recognise. Cookie’s first real clip was of a big double peg rail and it was used in the friend’s section of NSF2. “Yeah it was a rail in Ryhope, It was the first time I had met Joe Cox and they were starting to edit NSF2. I think Buckley had already done it or he wanted to do it for his section. They ended up wanting to put it on the video and I was obviously buzzing on that.” When Newrick was filming NSF3, the pressure to produce was unusually high, NSF2 had been well received and Newrick wanted to out do it on every level. Joe Cox had just released Voices, the bar for BMX film had been raised. Every clip on Joe’s video was perfect; Newrick felt dragged along with the perfect clip mentality and admits to being super militant about footage quality. Cookie was filming his first section and he was also a permanent fixture on the Buff House couch, eating chips with The Mitz and sipping Irn-Brus. The filming pressure, unrelentingly hardcore living conditions and cabin fever vibes didn’t seem to phase him at all, he came through with the killer end section. “There was a lot of Space Raiders and Strongbow consumed at that point. The things I filmed for NSF3 were more things that just happened at the time. Newrick might have had a plan but I don’t remember thinking I’m trying to film an end section. I normally take forever to film a clip, I feel bad for the people who are filming me. I’ll keep on doing things forever until I pull it, in the back of your mind you worry about the filmer more than yourself especially when it’s baltic conditions outside.” A: I thought the pressure might have been a factor because while filming for NSF3 in Milton Keynes you were trying to do the rail double peg to ledge feebz to smith and I can remember you getting pretty stressed. “I wanted to do crooked to feeble and there was a stupid kink on the end. It was one of those things where you don’t want to take the easy route and just do the pegs. I don’t normally get pissed off when I’m riding but I might get a bit annoyed when I can’t pull something. On the start of the section I sling my bike and get a bit radge but that’s not really what I’d ever do. I think it ended up giving me a bit of a beating to be honest so I decided to take the double peg over the crooked, take it as it is. James Cox used to give me a bit of grief for stuff that was taking ages, stuff that involved manual lines and shit.”

X-up rail ride, Gateshead. 99

“ I’D

RATHER CHANGE THE SCENERY THAN CHANGE THE TRICK

”

A. Do you think this is related to the time when you broke his camera? Do you even want to tell that story? “I was going to Liverpool and James had offered for me to take his camera to get stuff with Ben [Lewis] for NSF3, we didn’t plan on getting a full section but Ben is that good, he got a full section. I was trying to do an x-up crook and I kept landing on my sprocket. My chain broke so I ended up using a rock to bash it back together. Everyone was blitzing back through Liverpool and when I got to a traffic light it changed. I went to put a harsh crank in and the chain snapped and I flipped over the bars and done a forward roll with the bag on my back. It wasn’t like a Lowepro it was just a backpack with the camera wrapped in a jumper. I proper decked it and I was in a daze but I had to jump up because the traffic was blaring horns. Back at the flat I was cut up, I looked in the bag and pulled out the camera but it just wouldn’t turn on. I rang James saying ‘It’s not turning on’ but I realised it was the ‘on’ switch that was on lock. I then noticed the handle was hanging off and it was only held on by a thin piece of circuitry wiring. I was shitting myself; I was trying to work out how I was going to pay for it when I didn’t have a job. It still recorded so the Benny L section got filmed on a camera that was bust. In hindsight, it’s not 100

as bad as it could have been. James was pissed off but Benny L got a section out of it.” In the Northeast the BMX and graff worlds have a certain degree of overlap. Cookie is no stranger to the dark world of Metro vandalism and getting your name up. A risky and rewarding hobby that leads to great highs and terrible imprisonment related lows. A healthy interest in street art and a total disinterest in personal safety leave Cookie enabled with the perfect mindset to pursue such activities. “After a late night out on the town people who paint or write would use the tracks to get home. There was a certain bit of artwork that had been covered by shrubs and bushes so I decided they needed removing. I had to go over three fences, the third wasn’t a three pronger, it just had tiny crosses. They don’t even look that vicious but they’re really sharp. As I jumped over my arm had dragged along them. I got the bushes away by stamping and ragging them and climbed back up over the fences. I took my shirt off to see what the damage was and the skin had lacerated around the top of my armpit and had flapped all the way down to my elbow so my whole bicep and innards were on display. I had to ring myself an ambulance and sit and wait in a bus stop. It got stitched up but the hospital didn’t give me antibiotics. Because it was under the armpit where you sweat it got infected and the stitches were just swimming around in rotting

(left) Ledge feeble, Newcastle. (above) Pegs to railride to 360, Newcastle.

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Gap to x-up grind, Newcastle.

flesh. It turned into months of healing and having to put Granuflex pads on that pull off the rotting flesh. All the nerves died so it wasn’t actually that painful but I’ve obviously got a meaty scar now.” Cookie has been a pro rider for five years, he’s at the stage where he’s an underground legend but is virtually unknown in the mainstream media, a stage I sense he’s comfortable with. He recently switched his main sponsor from Kink to The Make riding alongside his rail partner The Count, allowing him to feel more part of a team. Cookie’s bike, sponsored or unsponsored has always been a shambles. Wheels bent and buckled, hubs knocking and clicking, spokes so few it’s amazing his wheels don’t collapse. Cookie is invariably too humble to ask for parts from his sponsors, he runs a hand painted and sketchy setup that is always green. “Green is my favourite colour. When I started doing pieces I always wanted to paint green pieces. There’s a particular colour called surgical green that Montana does and my bike has got to be around that colour. Surgical green must be close to a surgeon’s mask or a smock. I’ve got green eyes, I see green.” Just as incomprehensible as Cookie’s language are his T2S [TeamTooStreet] edits, filmed on poor quality one chip DV cameras and featuring random collections of unrelated drunken clips, rails, comments and obnoxious hard techno or dubstep soundtracks. T2S is an oddball collection of lunatics, ex-BMX riders and hangers on. Just like a Stooges album a T2S edit has everything

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pushed to the red, raw footage with the vibe set to causing havoc rather than some carefully considered artistic approach. “I liked the whole style [that Ant Moss and Paul ‘Campo’ Campigon] had started, so I carried it on. It gave you the opportunity to take the piss and do whatever the fuck you wanted, it wasn’t really serious from the get go. It’s just good fun and you can make an edit of whatever the fuck you want and it’s viable in your eyes, it doesn’t have to conform to anything. It’s BMX but a load of stupid shit as well, it’s just taking the piss really.” A. In a strange way is that your view of BMX or not? “I don’t really take it that seriously. Half the time when we’ve made the edits we’ve been pissed or still up from the night before, the jokes might not make sense to most people. I gathered that some people think that T2S is all about being really street, like we only ride street but it’s not that at all. It’s just an in joke that’s been taken way too far, but I’m prepared to continue to take the joke that far.” Cookies early edits from back in the day were synonymous with the Geordie hip-hop tracks he used as a soundtrack, namely the NEA and Text Offenders. He had a brief stint as a death metal head, playing Cannibal Corpse riffs on the guitar (he was confused upon the realisation that his beloved Daft Punk robbed all their sounds from seventies funk) and finally ended up travelling Europe following the burgeoning electronic music scene. “It’s all electronic based music that I listen to now. What

Curved 60-40 grind, London.

is achievable from little bits of analogue equipment, the sounds created, I find it much more interesting than any guitar based sounds. When we go to Berlin we take the bikes away for riding but a lot of people don’t thrive on filming loads of ridiculous clips. The main thing was to go and see certain music acts. Berlin is the main place for techno and electro music. I go there just as much for Melt festival and techno as to ride ledges and rails. It’s a bargain holiday, it’s all intertwined, go away ride the bikes and go out and get fucked listening to some music.” A. What’s your favourite rail or is it the fact that they’re all different? “Any. It’s not all I want to ride but I look for new rails more than anything else. I don’t have a particular favourite, if you want to do tricks you always look for a perfect rail. It’s sometimes good to find one that has got something wrong with it, maybe it has no run up or there’s a half pedal start, it makes it hard to even grind down, it’s stuff like that which I find fun. You could have the perfect rail and you could ride it every day and do every trick down it but then that’s staying in one place and I don’t really want to stay in one place. I’d rather go to some far corner and go to some rail that isn’t memorable and that no one would want to ride and just see if I can get down it.” A. Is grinding down rails and harsh English brickwork a Sunderland thing then? “That was an influence from Souter, he used to love a harsh kinked brick ledge. I do other stuff but I wouldn’t necessarily say they were of a high quality. I know that

I can do certain things grind wise but I can’t really do that many other tricks. I’m not going to restrict myself to just grinds but it’s what I’ve done more than anything else and it’s what I’m good at. You wouldn’t want to see me do a turn down or anything like that.” A. Do you feel completely detached from everything that’s going on in BMX, do you just like to do it rather than follow it? “In that sense I would say I was completely detached, I watch riding videos but I don’t really want to emulate anything. I prefer seeing one of my mates doing a double peg handrail than some top pro do some wild move. That’s why I’ve always loved the NSF videos and Joe Cox’s videos, I know the people and it’s more enjoyable to watch. When I see them do a trick I can remember doing something with them or it brings back memories of certain things rather than just seeing someone do something amazing on a bike. I see BMX in a social aspect as well, more about your friends and what you’re doing with them rather than the next big trick. I like the New York stuff, it coincides with what’s going on in the North East of England. In New York it’s the kind of riding based around finding new spots rather then doing a new trick. I’m more into travelling and exploring, I’d rather change the scenery than change the trick.” Working and living at the revered pub The Tanners with his boss Tim has finally given Cookie a solid base of operations in Newcastle. The Tanners - once known for wild parties and illegality - now has a more relaxed atmosphere with some interesting and long-standing mu103

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Railride, Wallsend. 105

Suicide double peg, Gateshead.

sic nights. It’s a great place to meet BMX riders, photographers, writers and intellectuals. It’s much more of a cultural hub than your standard drinking pit. The walls of The Tanners are covered in street art that changes on a weekly basis and it’s filled with random furniture and even more random locals. Cookie’s boss Tim is an all round good bloke and a skater, who can understand a BMX rider’s need for time off due to travel and injury. “Tim had found a ticket for the derby match between Sunderland vs. Newcastle, I was like ‘I’ll have it’ not thinking that it was found in a bar in Newcastle. It was twenty minutes into the game by the time I got there and I realised the ticket blatantly was for the away end. I walked in and Sunderland scored, everyone around me was kicking off, the worst fucking shit was being said about people from Sunderland. I was cracking a cheeky smile. I got a text from my sister saying, ‘Do you reckon your seat is gonna be next to the geezer’s mates?’ Standing next to me was all these neck dudes and I started skitzing out.

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Newcastle equalised and I got ragged around by them, everyone around me was in complete jubilation and going mental. I was pretending to celebrate stiffly otherwise I was gonna be found out. It got to half time and I had to get out of there. At the divide I managed to collar one of the Sunderland stewards saying, ‘I’m a Sunderland supporter in the wrong end’ the steward let me in. My Dad had already been diagnosed with prostate cancer at that point, it was good to see him at the match and tell him the story that he found hilarious. I went to high five him and I managed to knock my Granddad’s coffee out of his hand and spill it all down his front. Typically my style, I try to do something good but fail to pull it off all that smoothly. Sunderland went on to win and it was an all round good day and a really good memory of my Dad. He passed away in 2009 and I wanted to dedicate this interview to him and my riding in general. Maybe he wanted me to stick with football but BMX took over and I think that he would appreciate that I put my all into it and it’s something I’m passionate about.”

MIKE TAYLOR, 50-50 to tooth hanger, Hackney by Daniel Benson

Strays

CORY BEAL, Feeble, London by Scott Barker

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SEBASTIAN KEEP, Austin by Sandy Carson

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SEAN BURNS, Austin by Sandy Carson 112

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CHRIS ‘THE COUNT’ LEE, Pegs hop over, London by Daniel Benson

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SHAUN HADLINGTON, Rail 180, London by Daniel Benson

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JOSH ROBERTS, Alley-oop Barspin, Snowdonia by George Marshall

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LUKE PEETERS, Toboggan, Sedona by Chris Hill-Scott

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Bones of Contention - Scaphoid. Being one of the smallest and most hidden bones in the hand doesn’t stop this being one of, if not the most, common breaks for BMXers.

How serious an injury is it? Serious enough to ruin a riders bike riding for years if it’s not properly diagnosed. Because the bone is entirely inside the joint, there are some unique things about this fracture. The rider frequently overlooks the break because it feels like “just a sprain.” There is often only a little swelling and a variable amount of pain may be present. Fractures of the scaphoid almost never show any obvious deformity of the wrist. “It doesn’t look broken.” So it often gets ignored. So what is the scaphoid bone and where is it? The Scaphoid is a smallish bone that sits on the thumbside of your wrists in something the medical profession have decided to call the “Snuffbox.” Basically it sits right at the end of the radius as the diagram shows. How do you get this fracture? Usually the rider falls on the outstretched hand and hyperextends the wrist joint either by falling forwards or if rotating a trick and extending the arm behind to protect oneself. How will you know it is broken? Often, an x-ray of the wrist can detect a scaphoid fracture. The fracture may occasionally be invisible on the first x-ray, only to show up on an x-ray examination taken weeks or months later. If an x-ray cant detect it a bone scan should. This little bone is about the size of a peanut shell and is almost completely covered in cartilage. It functions much like a ball bearing in your wrist

joint. Because of this, the blood supply is very fragile, and sometimes the fracture leaves part of the bone without any blood flow. Sometimes when a scaphoid bone breaks and loses its blood flow, it undergoes a process called avascular necrosis. This may cause the bone to crumble, and the wrist joint may be destroyed. What happens if my scaphoid bone does not heal? When a scaphoid fails to heal, you might initially get better for a while until the pieces of broken bone, which are loose inside the wrist joint, cause a deterioration of the wrist joint called traumatic arthritis. Traumatic arthritis is different from rheumatoid or osteoarthritis. This process only occurs in the injured joint and does not spread to other joints if the body. What about ligament injuries in addition to a scaphoid fracture? Since it takes such a violent injury to fracture the scaphoid, additional injuries to the ligaments of the wrist often occur along with a scaphoid fracture. If this happens, it is much more difficult to obtain healing of the scaphoid in just a cast. If the wrist is not stabilized surgically, collapse of the wrist bones occurs, causing deterioration and permanent stiffness of the wrist joint. What is the difference between a fresh fracture and fracture nonunion? The word “nonunion” means that the bone has failed to heal. A nonunion may occur for a number of reasons. Simple immobilization in a cast will not lead to

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124 healing of the bone. This scaphoid bone is particularly prone to this for several reasons, there is the possibility of the fracture being missed at the initial injury leading to a delay in treatment. Secondly, the bone has a poor blood supply. The fact that it is inside the joint and is constantly being bathed by synovial fluid also contributes to the development of a nonunion. A nonunion, in other words, is a failure on the part of the patient’s bone to complete the healing process. A “false joint” occurs at the nonunion since the ends of the broken scaphoid are attached to ligaments at each end of the bone, further separating the fracture and preventing healing. The term “fresh fracture” is used when the injury is less than two to four weeks old. Although this is the optimum time for treating scaphoid fractures, frequently the patient is not seen during this period. How should my fractured scaphoid be treated? The answer to this question depends on the type of fracture, the presence of any associated ligament damage, and the severity of the ligament damage. The location of the fracture in the bone is also important since fractures of some parts of the bone statistically heal better in a cast than others. When should the fracture be treated in a cast and when does it need an operation? The best results from cast treatment are in patients who have a fracture that is incomplete or does not extend all the way across the bone. “Nondisplaced” fractures treated in a cast less than 28 days after the injury have a good chance of healing. Fractures that are complete, take a much longer time in a cast to heal and may not heal at all. The average time for a fracture on the waist of the scaphoid of a bone that is not displaced is three months in a cast. Sometimes it can take longer. Studies have shown improved rates of healing in a long arm cast (thumb included), for up to 6 weeks, followed by a short arm thumb spica cast. A careful discussion with your orthopedic surgeon may result in a decision to operate and stabilize the bone with a special screw or an alternative treatment. Are there any fractures that should not be treated in a cast? Yes. Any fresh fracture that is displaced or unstable will usually be treated with an operation to reduce and/or stabilize this type of fracture with the fixation device. If it is not stabilized, the bone usually will not heal in a cast; and if it does, the wrist is stiff and usually develops traumatic arthritis.

and the quality of blood flow in your scaphoid bone. There are two primary types of scaphoid bone grafts being used today in wrist surgery. The first type is the Russe graft. Here the bone is hollowed out much like a “twice baked potato” and then the bone graft if packed into the hollowed out scaphoid cavity. The average healing rate is somewhere between 80 and 90% if the bone has good blood supply. If the blood supply is poor, this method rarely, if ever, works. After a Russe type bone graft the average time that you will have to wear a cast is between five and six months. Some surgeons will use other types of screw fixation with bone grafting as an alternative to the Herbert screw. The other type of bone graft usually uses the Herbert scaphoid screw and a solid block of bone between the two ends of the scaphoid. Assuming the bone graft can be stabilized with the screw, the patient is allowed out of the cast in three weeks. The healing rate of this operation is at least as good, if not better, than the Russe type graft. Another advantage of the screw fixation of the scaphoid comes in patients whose bones have a poor blood supply. In the Russe bone graft, if the blood supply is poor, very few, if any, of these patients heal their scaphoid fractures after surgery. With the Herbert screw or other devices, a significant number of these patients do obtain healing, but the patient’s cast must be kept on for a period of three months instead of three weeks. After surgery, when can I resume riding? You should not do any heavy/stressful/riding activities until the bone has healed completely. The screw is not a substitute for healing of the bone. As a rule, after a fresh fracture is stabilized with the screw, the patient may return to riding in around eight weeks. After a nonunion and bone grafting, this period is three months unless the blood flow is poor in which case the period of activity restriction may be longer. Last words There are also some additional treatments you can implement that aren’t mentioned above. We spent some time talking to Brian Simpson MCSP of the Physio Clinic and he has been successfully treating World Class athletes from all manner of sports including BMX/MX and Moto GP. Here is what he has to say about the scaphoid and the treatments he offers.

How is a nonunion or an old fracture of the bone treated? A nonunion of the scaphoid bone requires a bone graft to stimulate the old fracture to begin the healing process again. This small piece of bone is taken from the patient’s pelvis. Occasionally, fresh fractures require a bone graft when they are in many pieces.

From Brian: Some treatments can accelerate the rate of healing of bones, including the scaphoid. The main treatments are PMFT (Pulsed Magnetic Field Therapy) which was approved for the treatment of fractures by the American FDA in the 1970’s, Laser Therapy and LIPUS (Low Intensity Pulsed Ultra Sound). All have been proven to work in numerous studies spanning over 50 years. You can check out Brians advice and clinic in greater depth here and see some case studies. www.physioclinic.net

After the bone graft, how long do I have to wear the cast? This depends on several factors: the type of bone graft

So there you have it, once you have a correct diagnosis from your healthcare professionals then the options are there for you to look at. Good luck.

This article is for information purposes only and we accept no liability for it’s content.

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Quitters A chance encounter on Hampstead Heath unearthed a very unexpected quitter. Here, Chad Muska talks about how he’s always looked up to the Gonz and how it’s peculiar that a similar character in skating has shares his name.

A few weekends ago on one of the rare hot days this summer, with all the people I’d usually ride with out of town or broke, I decided to spend the day on Hampstead Heath in London, swimming, eating BBQ, expanding my mind with narcotics, chewing long blades of grass and drinking rose tinted wine and 12 year malts straight from the bottle. With the sun beating down on my pale façade and the toxins warping my perception of reality, all of a sudden, out of a haze of BBQ smoke and evaporating tie-dye inks, in walked a man on a pilgrimage, dressed head to toe in black and sporting the beard of wizard who’d wandered the Earth for an eternity in search of a good time. The next day I wasn’t sure if I could trust my own memory, but a photo on friend’s camera and a short recording on another’s phone confirmed it. I had sat down with the one and only Chad Muska. Albion: We good? Chad Muska: ACTION! A:Well, what does Chad Muska think about BMX? C: Long before skateboarding came into my life, BMXing was one of my biggest passions. Stealing bikes, trading bike parts… A: Ha! Really? C: Things like that, yeah. I was more into the value

of the parts than trying many tricks on it, but I had my little moves that I did, you know? A: But you were more into pimping your ride? C: I tried to, it’s just when you’re a kid you like to have parts and work on your bike and build these projects and stuff and BMX was part of that. Man, I had this one dope BMX bike at the time, I can’t really remember what kind it was, but it got stolen.

Words by RHYS COREN Photography by JACK SYMES

128 I used to live in Phoenix, Arizona. These kids used to skate in this pool there and I used to ride my BMX in the pool - this empty swimming pool and when my bike got stolen one of the kids gave me their extra board. When that kid gave me that skateboard, that’s when my BMX career ended! A: In that one beautiful moment of bike theft. C: In that one moment my BMX career ended and I found my one true passion in life - skateboarding! A: I went the other way; I went from scooting around on my Turtles skateboard, racing kids down hills and stuff, to wanting to race bikes down hills. I just wanted to go faster! C: Yeah, yeah! A: So, you grew up in Phoenix, Arizona? C:I kind of grew up nowhere and everywhere at the same time. Born in Ohio, moved to New Jersey, Phoenix, Vegas… Then left home at an early age to go to California to pursue skateboarding. A: Well, being a skateboarder and having grown up in Phoenix, are you aware that both skating and BMX have these people who were pivotal in defining what street riding was in their respective disciplines? They also share the same name. C: Mark Gonzales! Yeah! He [the BMX Gonz] is from Arizona. He’s one of my O.G. connections to BMX because he was always like a skater in our eyes. We’d go to a spot and Mark Gonzales would be there. I was going to bring him up before but I didn’t actually know how well known he was, as I don’t really know the BMX world that well. A: He’s the same as the skating Gonz; he

made crazy videos and pushed street to whole new levels really early on. C: Sick! Yeah, man… yeah! He’s O.G. O.G! We would go skate all these spots and he would come and ride with us just like he was a skater. I haven’t seen that homie forever, man. Like, since the first MTV extreme contest thing they had. I think it was in Memphis and he had a chicken suit on! A: The two legends. It’s amazing that they have the same name. C: That’s sick, your Gonz was always a legend in Arizona but I didn’t know he was global! A:Yeah, he was THE street legend. C: Same, so was my Gonz. We’d go to this place called ‘The Wedge’ in Arizona. Skaters and BMXers have never been enemies but skaters usually very much keep themselves to themselves and stay in their own cliques or whatever, but he was always a guy that we, you know… we were just down with him from the beginning. He’s sick, man, I love that guy. A: In our crew we end up all riding and skating together because we all drink together. C: The common bond of drinking! Do you know, I’ve seen some of the new [BMX] videos coming out and those guys are so crazy right now. Some of the handrails they are doing… and the street shit is bananas, it’s just fucking insane. Stuff you just couldn’t even imagine doing on a skateboard, like grinding double sets of handrails. Grinding down one set then gapping and grinding the next, It’s dope, it’s progression, it’s never-ending, you know? That solidifies the progression in any industry if there is that progression…

“

WHEN THAT KID GAVE ME THAT SKATEBOARD, THAT’S WHEN MY BMX CAREER ENDED

”

And then I stopped asking questions and another voice enters the recording. It’s someone doing a beer run to the far off shop. Chad Muska offers to chip in and buy everyone some beer. Money changes hands from the sounds of it, and then it ends. I wandered off, or he did, perhaps because I didn’t believe it was really happening, or maybe he knew my next question could’ve been about the Muska-pant, boomboxes or Paris Hilton. I guess we will never know.

Subscribe! — Live far from a bike shop or are you just plain lazy? For the price of two pints of beer, 35 chocolate bars or a roll of film, we’ll go to the effort and post you the mag right to your door. All for the convient price of £8.88 – The cost we have to pay for each mag and an envelope. Overseas subscriptions: US/Canada - $60 Europe - 47 Australia - $60 Rest of the world - $60 Vist thealbion.cc for more details

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132

Video Days Rhys Coren finds their ain’t no flies on Joe Rich as he tries to get the dirt on the 1998 classic, Road Fools 1.

During my first two years of riding in 1998/99, through watching the first and second Road Fools, Nails in the Coffin, Livid and Props 34, one person and his dreadlocks clearly stood out from everyone else. To put it simply, Joe Rich became my first BMX idol and defined, for me, what was cool during my formative years. I recently Skyped this great man, but my every attempt at getting some juicy gossip or for him to accept his greatness was deflected by his charm and modesty. Albion: It will be impossible not to go off on tangents, but I’m supposed to talk about a time that covered several of your video parts through the 1998-99 era. Joe Rich: That sounds good to me! A: In those days you were one of the most influential riders. I mean, we all had bikes that looked similar to yours, there were so many grey Primo hoodies and black Etnies with white laces. J: That must just be coincidence. A: No way! J: Yeah, I can’t take credit for that. It was definitely a great time. For me, that time was one of the most prevalent for just trying to figure out what could work on a bike. When I first moved to Austin, which was November of 1997, I was riding more types of everything. Like, you could take elements from one and use them to help you with others. You could look at a gap to rail and say that it is kind of just like landing smoothly on a jump landing.You

didn’t necessarily have to know what to do, but you knew not what to do. A: A modest tangent! What I was getting at is that you appear to be taking no credit at all for what was the signature ‘Joe Rich’ look! We used to copy it perfectly, the ‘Joe Rich’ look. J: That’s crazy for me to even acknowledge. I have always looked up to other people. I can see your face, though, and you think Bullshit! A: I had one kid who copied me and dressed just like me once. It was very flattering. J: But at the same time, if you had someone interviewing you about why that kid emulated you… A: Because he thought I was cool, obviously… J: Damn! I just do what I do, I am what I am! A: Do you get sick of the number of people trying to come and ride your ramp? J: No, never really. Only it does bother me on the rare days when I just need a day to my self or whatever. When I was growing up there Words and Images by RHYS COREN

wasn’t a lot of stuff - especially ramps - that you couldn’t just go and ride without having to jump through some hoops. So here, I have very few stipulations. I had to kick some guys out once who jumped the fence, though. That’s not cool. We have a pretty amazing landlord for letting us have it anyway… Out of respect for him. A: Did you loose your temper? J: No. A: Do you ever loose your temper? J: Dude, I have a temper, don’t get me wrong! It just doesn’t come out that much. A: Not even when Ruben’s constantly phoning up asking for new forks or bugging you for bars? J: Ha! It’s there, just all the stuff you’re trying to get me with isn’t working, but all the stuff I know that can make me loose my temper you’re not quite working out! A: I’ll work on that then! So, Road Fools? You must be blue in the face talking about Road

134 Fools? It all came out the year I started riding. You had tricks on the first four videos I ever owned. That’s probably where it all came from! J: Nah, I haven’t talked about it in a long time. The first Road Fools was done as an experiment, really. A: It was just an issue of the props, right? J:Yeah, Issue 23 I think. It was January and they wanted to keep their bi-monthly thing going on and they suggested doing a road trip starting in Chicago and ending in Austin. On our trip, you saw things… we weren’t really trying to… well, people weren’t trying! It didn’t have anything to live up to. We didn’t know how it would come out. You’d see a spot and think Jimmy [Levan] would like that, and you’d ask Jimmy if he fancied a go on it. A: When was the last time you watched it? J: Hmmm, about a year ago… A: Just to watch footage of yourself do your last tailwhip? J: Haha! A: You walked right into that one. Did you ever get jealous that a few of your best mates were famous for their tailwhips? [Joe started learning them by kicking the wrong way, as seen on RF1] Taj, for example, and Ruben just spinning them at all times? J: Urgh, envious would be a good word. A: But you had a better barspin than those two! Have you still got the barspin? J: Yeah! I haven’t done a barspin air or anything in a while, but I like to think that if I had to I could. My first thoughts on barspins are Moeller doing them, or Jeremy Alder doing them on quarter pipes back in the day. You have no idea who Jeremy is, do you? A: No idea… J: Alder did them in like 86’ in airs. He’d use both hands somehow to get the bars round but it would look pretty good! Kids these days… Listen to me, I sound like an old fuck! Kids these days are more style conscious. Do you know who Mike Griffin is? A: Of course I do! Who says Mike Griffin doesn’t rock? J: Well, he did barspins and truck drivers and they looked so unlike anyone’s, they just looked awesome.

Whether your seat is high or not, some people just have it. In 91-92, I was trying to learn barspin disasters on vert. I would start to spin them, flip one hand and grab underneath and pull it around. I am almost positive I got that way of doing them from Jeremy Alder. It didn’t really occur to me until I saw Luc-E do them. I didn’t understand the concept of pulling up, levelling out and throwing them. I thought it was magic!

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KIDS THESE DAYS… LISTEN TO ME, I SOUND LIKE AN OLD FUCK!

”

A: You know, one of the things I was asked to talk to you about was your interview on Props 34. Dude, some of those answers were heavy! They didn’t make any sense to a naive teenager. Things about Karma and stuff… J: OK, I am trying to think when it was that I did the majority of that interview… A: It was before the millennium as Sandy [Carson] asks you what you are going to do for New Year. You went ‘oooot and aboooot… and hung oooot!’ J: Ha! I think that winter I went and

did a month of the Warped Tour in Australia. On that trip I met Steve Cabellero. Know who that is? A:Yeah, man, course! Who’s interviewing who here Joe? J:Ha, well, he had this book written by Bruce Lee with him. When I got home I bought it and it took a long time to read just because it took time to grasp and fully understand it. He was such an extraordinary person, and his whole thought processes really made me think. That interview was right at the beginning of when I was thinking about that and making me think more about what I’d say. So, at the forefront, with every question I had, I had this voice saying ‘Are you really being honest with yourself?’ A: Like an inner-monologue? J: Yeah, I would just sit there, thinking about all this. Taj laughs that I signed all my letters with ‘live lightly’ but some things in this book just blew my mind. There was this quote in there that said that ‘the greatest challenge one will ever face in this life is to be truly honest with oneself’.’ So I would be answering questions and just catch myself… and think, ‘No, that was bullshit’, so my answer would kind of… you know? Man, I don’t want to get too cosmic about this! A: Ok- Posters. I had a poster that had you on one side and Taj on the other. I couldn’t afford two mags to get two posters, and I felt bad having one of you showing and the other not, so I would rotate the poster regularly and carefully. I didn’t want one side to get too sun bleached… J: Ha! The turndown 360! A: Your hair is getting pretty long again, Joe. Can we have a world exclusive for Albion that you are growing the dreadlocks back? J: No! But I do have one! Man, I don’t know how I ever made it through hundred degree summers with those things. A: Did you loose any tricks when you cut them off? Dreadlock only tricks? J: Probably all of them! A: I think this is a perfect time to finish and, in the words of Ruben, ‘Joe, you is better person than rider!’ J: Cheers man, don’t be a stranger! A: BYE!

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Rick Moliterno Interview Yesterday Rick picked me up from the tiny airport just outside his hometown of Davenport, Iowa. It’s a run-of-the-mill midwestern town, which outside of BMX is only really known for it’s industrial involvement with Caterpillar and John Deere plant machinery. Within BMX it’s a different story though. Thanks to the continued efforts and motivations of one individual, over the years this unassuming town has had a front row seat to some of the sport’s most far reaching developments. Rick spent his younger years competing and touring as a pro rider. Riding first for Hutch and then for Haro, he was a key player in a small group of instigators and innovators who, in the late 1980’s, were shaping the future of the sport and paving the way to where we are right now. After a successful career as a Pro rider, and after getting sick of breaking five frames a month, he took matters into his own hands and started his own bike company Standard Bykes. Standard were among the first real rider owned brands and – with their combination of superior product and a killer team – they quickly established themselves as a force to be reckoned with in the BMX industry. Rick himself pushed tech ramp riding to a whole new level and opened his own skatepark, Rampage as well as his own skate/BMX superstore, Goodtimes. Never flinching from his original goal of making high-end frames in America, Standard have recently undergone some fundamental changes that have seen them open a new machine shop and bring all manufacturing in house. By scaling back the company and learning how to make the products with his own hands, Rick is closer than ever to his long term goal - to make bikes on his terms and on his terms only. We caught up with Mr Moliterno in Davenport, Iowa to learn how a high-end USA frame is built and to pick his brains about the recent developments at Standard.

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Rick: Man, I’m gonna start stinking any minute. Albion: You’re gonna what? Start stinking. I’m sweating here. Yeah, I’m melting. It’s odd, I don’t feel all that hot... but I’m melting! Let’s record some stuff while we’re here hiding from the heat. How do you wanna kick this thing off? I don’t know man, you tell me. You’re the one interviewing me! OK, cool. So I’ll write an intro so we don’t need to worry about the formalities here, we can just jump right in. OK, go for it. Well the first thing that struck me, after being here for only a few minutes, is just how few people run Standard these days and in particular, just how much hands on involvement you have with the final products. Yeah, that’s a common misconception. Like, some kids phone up asking for free stickers or something and we’ll say yeah, and then two minutes later they’ll phone back asking again, thinking that someone else will pick up the phone [laughs]. When asked how big he thought we were this one guy guessed that we had at least two shifts of 60 workers each! [laughs]. We get a chuckle out of it. So how big is Standard these days, how many people are behind it? There are three of us. My fiancée Jessie who handles sales, custom orders, material orders and generally keeps us inline and moving forward. Then there’s Steve who does the majority of the machine shop work and all the welding. And there’s myself who does some office work, pays the bills and does my fair share of the shop work. Basically Steve builds the front ends and I build the rears. So, after the tour of the machine shop you gave me today, would it be accurate to say that you have a hands-on involvement in the manufacturing process of every frame that comes out of your shop? Yes, every single one. I will have cut or reamed or mitred the tubing, or tacked the backend and I usually sticker the frames and pack them for shipping. I was really surprised to see that. Pleasantly surprised too. Jesse: All three of us touch the bike once it’s finished. We all give it a look over for quality control. I inspect them before powder coat to check that Steve hasn’t missed a lug or anything. I finish the frames, I check them before and after painting then Jesse checks them too and then there’s a reinspection right before they’re shipped. So just a few years ago, in 2008, you guys brought manufacture in house. What was the situation before that and what brought that move about? Up until then we’d been working with a company called Waterford to make our frames. The first frame they made for us was in 1993 and our last order shipped from them in 2007. Waterford was a spin-off from Sch-

winn. When Schwinn went out of business the current owners bought it out of dealings with the bankruptcy and started making their own bikes. We met up with them pretty much the day they signed the deal and they agreed to take on our business too. We were looking for a quality manufacturer / supplier with experience in the bicycle world and we hit it off and they played a big part in us even being able to exist for our first ten years. Then around 2001 a key employee left the company, he was the person we had our main relationship through. One of the owners took his position and he was not down with BMX. We were 65/70% of their business and he was not comfortable with that, so he pulled everything back. What do you mean by pulled everything back? He made it too expensive to be worth doing? He up-ed the price drastically and he didn’t want to supply us the way we wanted to be supplied. We needed around 100 frames a week and he would only do 30. So at that point did you look for anyone else to make your bikes? We looked, but there were less options than there are now. We kept thinking he was gonna change his mind and help us out, but he never did. So with no other options we took the jump and decided to open our own machine shop. We’d been moaning for a while and it got to the point where it was either “do it, or shut-up forever.” So we did it. So has it been a good thing leaving Waterford. Yeah, it’s been great for us. With them it was a slow death for us. We had the choice to either quit doing this or stick our necks out and do it ourselves.

“

HE ROLLED THE VAN JOYRIDING AND NEARLY WIPED OUT FREESTYLE

Well, before we go any further with how the company is today, can we go back and talk a bit about the history of the brand? You’ve always made a point about being self-owned and doing things for yourself right? Sure, well the brand started because I wanted to do things on my terms. It was about 1993 that I realised what I needed to do. At that point I had some money from riding, from the Haro days, and I’d just bought my first new car: it was a ’93 Mustang Cobra. I had a car, I had a truck, I had a girlfriend and I had a business... I had all this ‘stuff’ that I thought I wanted but I felt no different. I realised then that no matter how much ‘stuff’ I had it wouldn’t make me feel any different. Realising that made me change everything. When you aren’t just trying to make money to get things it makes you think differently. Yeah, you were saying last night that you know there are different ways to do things with Standard but you do things the way that you consider right. Yeah, other people might think it’s right to just get all the money they can get, and that feels right to them. There’s nothing wrong with making money, everyone needs a certain amount, but that’s not the right reason for me. Over the years, in terms of frame design and manufacturing techniques, what do you think

”

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Standard has brought to the table? Well apart from making stronger frames available we were the first company to bring the threadless 1”1/8 headsets into BMX. We brought that in from mountain bikes when we were trying to make stronger forks. The threadless system allows for a larger diameter and much stronger steerer tube. It wasn’t just a case of just sticking that idea on a BMX though; it was much more involved than that. We had to engineer the headtube, change the fork steerer tube, design and manufacture a stem that clamped on, the headset needed to be available and gyros needed to be accommodated. And then we had to get everyone to understand it. And it turned out to be a revolutionary change that, down the line, affected every bike from then on. Yeah, we’re proud of that. We weren’t trying to be innovative, we were just trying to make things better and we were willing to share what we had because it would be better for BMX as a whole if this was used everywhere. Well thanks very much for your generosity there. Anything else. No worries. Yeah, well we worked with True Temper Tubing to develop the materials that were out there and took OX platinum to a new level. We went from a 7/8th seat post to 1” – I think Hoffman did that also – and we introduced thicker dropouts and heat-treated axles and threadless pegs. And then with the Bullit we helped kick-off the whole lightweight craze. But the threadless headset and standing behind a real lifetime warranty were our two biggest things. Back then, in the 90’s when Standard was everywhere – were you making a lot of money? Oh, it was pretty good. I guess it was a lot of money for the type of company it was. We’re still a frame company. We never expanded into complete bikes or played the Asia game, we just stayed that way. So I’m sure you’ve been asked countless times before, but what is your take on the Asia game? Well... there’s a place for it... but there’s just not a place for it with me. It’s not my style, I wanna build things with my hands. If someone has a problem with a frame, then I wanna fix it with my hands and if someone wants 142

something special, then I’m gonna make it for them. I’m not going to send a drawing off to some random company and hope it turns out right... I want to handle it all, from beginning to end. There is too much personal detachment in Asia for my liking. If you want to own a brand and don’t want to touch anything, then you’d run it though a nice clean warehouse and that’ll be the way to do it. So you wouldn’t get out of that what you’re after? Nah, I wouldn’t. So we just do it our way. It’s so simple, like I told you last night, everything is on the surface with us, there’s no hidden story or agenda, we just want to make bikes the way we see right - the way that works for us. And the quality thing – what do you do to ensure quality? We use the best materials that are available and we listen to the customer and talk to the customer and we make bikes to the best of our ability. How many frames have you made? It’s somewhere over 50 thousand that we’ve made over the years. That’s incredible. That’s a lot of frames. Back in Standard’s early years you guys had an awesome team, some big names in there: Robbo, Joe Rich, Taj, Sandy Carson etc. Then came a spate of high profile sponsorship changes, can we talk about that for a bit? Well, we were an infant of a company back then and riders everywhere were yelling at us for product, they were all like “make more, make more!” But we were at our limit and couldn’t make any more. People thought we were bigger than we were. We were trying to make ends meet and pay rent and all the other associated business expenses. This put us under a lot of pressure because we wanted to do well. Some of those riders had their own expectations, which we could not meet – with either money or attitude. They didn’t understand the business side of things and I didn’t want to share that burden with them, I didn’t want to let them know we were struggling. They’d bring me their agenda and often I couldn’t do what they wanted me to do – I couldn’t answer their demands with a smile – and a couple of dudes got hurt by not getting the help they wanted and thought they

deserved. There’s 20 sides to every story though. If you had have been in a better financial position back then, would you have given them what they wanted? I always gave them more than we could afford anyway, but people always want more. We paid some people more than we probably should have. What you paid them a wage? Like who? A lot of riders - Jim Reinstra, Paul Osicka, Robbo, a lot of people had their hands in there. I was young; it was crazy trying to juggle it all and still ride. Their reasons for leaving are their own reasons and I’m not going to guess what they are ... they’ve never really said it clearly to me... except for Taj. We talked way back, and I didn’t think it was a good reason, but at least we talked, you know? I remember watching Props Road Fools 1 and you were portrayed in some rather bad light? It was an ambush. I’d asked him (Robbo) a couple months earlier, at a tradeshow, if he was looking for a new ride or still wanted to stay on the Standard team – and he assured me he was down for life. Then came the Road Fools saga. We were a popular company and I guess he needed a reason to leave. What so he could ride for/set up T1? Well I don’t think he exactly set up T1, that was a joint thing. That’s Robbie’s thing though, He’s got his good points, he’s good at spotting trends and running with them. As well as getting riders to go with him and his ideas. I’m not going to build him up or knock him down. What about his signature frame, the Trailboss. The Trailboss was never his signature frame It was Joe Rich and Luc-e who came to me with the idea. We built it and it was a frame for trails and we just called it the Trailboss. Back then Robbo’s nickname was The Trailboss. Yeah, he called himself that, it was self professed. We launched the frame at a big BMX race and took photos of it with Keith Terra – it was a middle ground frameset between our race frame and an STA. Speaking of Props Video Magazine, I was surprised to hear that you started it. What’s the story there? Well we had a big part in starting it, we all got together

to do it and Standard financed it and distributed it. We paid for duplication, expenses and took care of the financial side of it. You guys were all real good friends though, right? Yeah, totally. But Krt [Schmidt] and myself knew we couldn’t afford to do it and didn’t have the time. But it looked like it was gonna take off so we just gave up our part to Rye, Banes and Marco and said ‘take it, take it and make it something, it’s yours’. And they did, they made it great. Keeping on the Props thread. Back on Road Fools 8 or 9, you were on the trip with Mirra and there were lots of rumors of fighting and arguing between you and Dave. What was up there? That couldn’t have been further from the truth. We’re good buds and we were hanging out and partying and riding a lot. And someone else on that trip started those rumors and shoved Dave out the door while we were play wrestling and he hit his eyeball on the way out. Someone decided to stick their nose in. Was it Greg Walsh? I’m pretty sure that’s who did it. Other people made all that up. Going back a little bit, to the days of the first rider owned companies, when Standard and S&M and Hoffman were all getting big, was there a lot of rivalry back then? Well that was around the BS [Bicycle Stunts] Series, in the mid 90’s. Well not really a rivalry, but we always played it up with Hoffman, just so we had a way to get in there. What do you mean? Because Mat Hoffman has always been a “Media Darling” we just pretended to be their rivals so we could get in there, get some coverage.You can’t battle Hoffman on a media level. He was the dude. Back in that era, before Dave was the dude. They had Hoffman so we waged war with them a bit. What did that entail exactly? Well they were organizing the contests at the time, so they were the establishment. So we’d just do funny stuff at the comps, just riding and being obnoxious and breaking the rules. We actually had mad respect for them, but we had no way to compete with the ‘Media 143

Darling’ so we had to improvise. What about Moeller and S&M? I’ve always sold Hoffman and S&M in my shop, and I wouldn’t do that if I didn’t think they did a good job. If there’s a rivalry then it’s them towards me, because I don’t have any. I think they both do a good job, but they are different from us, different types of companies. You have a reputation in the sport and industry for being a bit of an intimidating chap – you’re big and loud and... well... basically some people are scared of you? [laughs from Jessie] That’s in their own mind. I don’t know what it is I do to intimidate people. Well, at a guess, I’d say it was a mixture of you being big and loud and confident and generally intimidating. What, like I’m out there... willing to have fun? I think it’s funny, and I don’t know where it comes from. Some people are intimidated by anyone though... Oh, and I was with Ron Wilkerson last week and he told me to ask you about “the story”? Wow, which story man? He just said that you’d know. There are way too many to be just one story, but if I had to pick one then I think he’d mean the time he rolled the van joyriding at a contest and nearly wiped out freestyle. He nearly wiped out BMX. Almost every sponsored rider was in that van - Mike Dominguez, Josh White, Dennis McCoy, Brian Blyther... all these top riders of the era. Were you in there? Yeah, I was in there. We didn’t even drink back then. It was crazy... and that’s just one. Ron’s got a lot of stories dude. Getting back to Standard, it was once relatively big, now it’s smaller – where would you like it to be ideally?

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Ten years ago it was bigger than I would’ve liked. We had 16 employees and I didn’t want to be a people manager, I wanted to touch every bike. So I’d like to be a little bigger than we are now, but I was the bright guy who decided to start a machine shop at the start of the worst recession I’ve ever seen. We’re just a little behind where we thought we’d be before the recession. We’ve made it through that so far, but I’d like to grow a little bigger. To keep doing the same thing but do a little more of it. We’re on the right path. What are the benefits of being smaller? Right now we’re better than ever. We’ve been in business for 20 years – I have no idea how – some lucky juggling maybe – but right now it’s the best it’s ever been. We’re at the top of a 20-year learning curve and you can’t buy experience like that. The product is the best it’s been, we have better customer service, our quality is higher, we’re way more flexible, and we can make and are willing to make almost anything – and it’s fun. It’s so rad to do it all yourself, with your own hands. We’re small, we can change on a dime, we can build anything, we’re never gonna get stuck with a trend, we’re never gonna dive so far into a trend that we get swallowed by it, we’re not going to be defined by one era. We’re not gonna just make stuff for old school guys and we’re not gonna just make stuff for 2012 shredders – it’s just about creating frame designs to find the best match for the rider. That must keep things fresh and interesting for sure. We’re far from being set, way far, but it’s awesome and it’s definitely better than ever – and we’ve never been in great shape anyways – so we might as well do what we’ve always wanted to do. Right now we have a really positive attitude, we’re open to new ideas and we just want to keep doing what we’re doing – working with people to make good bikes and having a good time along the way.

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