BLOKES
Now Playing: Maritime

Although I don't miss living in Detroit, I certainly miss my friends from the area.  THis week I was fortunate enough to see Otto, Hatfield, Solan and Davey Coop all on the same day.  Hatfield, Solan and I had delicious Krishna food (I'll bet Solan didn't plan on that when he woke up in the morning).  I met Davey at his hi-tech post-production job.  Super cool place and nice people.  THey even did a Deliverance piece that I haven't used yet.  Hopefully soon you'll have something to see on this site besides stolen photos and crude drawings.  The trails here at the house are starting to come together.  Noah and I have been working hard.  Actually, I've been working hard and Noah's been throwing rocks, but it's awesome regardless....

 

tRAILER park Rockers

 

Here's the flyer for the Dowagiac Trailer Park Rocker Jam.  This is a renegade event, no permission from the city or anything.  We aren't having runs or classes either.  Just an overall best trick and the Fly Out Challenge.

All trashy parks have a fly-out spot.  This is it for D-Wack.  It should be fun.  Dowagiac is kind of in the middle of nowhere in way SW Michigan, but it's easy to find.  Exit 56 on I-94, take M-51 21 miles south to Dowagiac, turn left on M-62, go a half mile, turn right on Riverside Drive (there's a wooden mushroom right on the corner--you'll see it), then a half mile on the left is the park.  

  Spread the word!

 

 

Locals Only
Now Playing: Surf Punks: My Wave
It is my goal to update this site more frequently.  It's hard when I'm on the road with no internet connection, but sometimes I gather too much stuff and it becomes a big job.  If I just do smaller updates more frequently, it will be easier for both of us. Both of us, meaning you and I (assuming no one is standing over your shoulder and reading this drivel at the same time as you)...

I'm a Kzoo local now.  You have to be to ride there.  It's almost like a private beach "This is my wave, kook!".   Shredding.  I love to ride this park.  I did a couple new things there last night that I was really stoked on.  A table top was not one of the new things, but I'll take it.

Sean Newton is a local.  He's pretty much my neighbor, too.  He only lives about a mile and half from where we do, which is pretty crazy considering how few people live out here in sticks.  Sean's been on the charge lately.

Sean took the photo of me and obviously, not the one of himself, but he set up the flashes and handed his camera off to me. 

    I've been tinkering with custom stuff again.

I'm planning to do quite a few new one-off designs for the upcoming Dowagiac jam.  I should have the date for that later today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

black dots
Now Playing: This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb: Body Count

This is my view much of the time.  Driving into the sun with an insanely dirty windshield.  I don't even know what that long drip thing is right in the middle.  Lots of road time in the last week.  Eastern Kentucky this time. 

Duff Quarry and a covered bridge made for interesting scenery, but it was still a maddening amount of time behind the wheel.   Driving is good to clear your  head, but after a thousand+ miles, I start to transisition from clear-headed to insane.  It's cliche to say, but my bike is my savior on these trips.

The new Flow Skatepark in Columbus, Ohio is awesome!  The old flow was great, but I think the new one is even better.  It's huge and has an endless variety of ramps, lines and uh, flow.  It always took me a while to get going at the old Flow, but I got right into the groove here.  It is seriously great and I can't recommend it enough.  At most parks I go to, I always think of my friends and who would like the park the most.  Solan would love this park, I can say that with no doubt in my mind.  Big and wide open, with room to power it up and let loose.   Solan's been holding it down at the race track of late, along with Turbo Todd Britton.  Both were leading laps at the Michigan State Championship this past weekend.  Here's a quality shot of Todd.

Back to the future, I rode around a little town in Kentucky one night on my trip.

I enjoy exploring and it was fun, although pretty slim pickens, riding wise.  I was thinking about having a few beers that night but realized that all the stores had signs like this and not the usual Bud Light neon.  Dry county?  Yeah.  Hard to imagine, but a sad truth.  On the way back, I passed this roadside attraction once again.

I took this photo while sitting on my bike on the side of the road.  I really wanted to go check it out, but it was pretty far off the road and there was a barbed wire fence to climb over.  I envisioned myself staring down the barrel of the shotgun of an angry southerner and decided to get back in the van.   An hour later I got to ride a better fullpipe without incident, although it was like a scene out of Lord of the Flies.

The Athens park is amazing but my arrival time was horrible.  3:30 on a school day?  Little annoying skaters that get in the way are a pain, but these were little ripping skaters flying all over the place.  I still managed to get some lines going and skated the park as well.  I love skating cement parks but I always feel like a kook skating here.  I guess it's just too big for me.  I skated the cement no-bikes park in Ft Wayne on the first day of the trip.  That park is really fun to skate and would be great for bikes if they were allowed (Don't get me started).   I went to the Flow again on the way back through Columbus and loved it even more the second time.  Dan Closser called me and it was good to get caught up with him.  Dan has been around the country and half way around the world this year.  Coincidently,Tyler Deshaine just sent me this link to a great piece by Beeler Van Orman on the Defgrip site.  Dan's buddy Chris Hatfield is on the mend an has been riding again after his ankle surgery (and Tyler just tweaked his ankle last week--six degrees of ankle seperation?) Unfortunately, he took a break in Ann Arbor to get a soft drink and came back to the spot where he and Steve Blake's bikes were, only to find an empty sidewalk.  That was a long winded way of saying their bikes were stolen.  What a bummer.  If you're in Ann Arbor and see a couple of super dialed bikes with super undialed dudes riding them, call me. 

To read this post, it seems like I just cruise around and go to skateparks all the time.  I'm the first to admit that hitting up parks is an excellent perk of my job, but keep in mind that I'm also driving hunrdreds of miles, by myself, and doing real work while I'm at it.  I love my job, don't get me wrong, but it's not all kickturns and tabletops... 

    I took that last pick at the no-bikes cement park in Powell, Ohio.  It's really fun to skate and it was fun on my bike too.  I couldn't resist.  Seeing a shadow of my own tabletop on my way out of the park felt very defiant and liberating.  Stickin' it to the man! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For every action....
Now Playing: This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb: Everything

We went to the Allegan County Fair yesterday.    It was just as I remembered it as a kid.  Same sketchy rides, same freakshow people, same bad food.

   Noah had a good time though...

   He likes him some motorcycles. 

One other thing I remember about going to the fair as a kid is suffering miserably from hayfever while there.  Hayfever is awesome.  Every year, for my entire life, around the middle of August, hayfever hits me like a truck.  Lots of people suffer from allergies so I'm not singin' "Poor, poor, pitiful me", but it still sucks.   Medication is available, of course, and without it I can barely function.  Unfortunately, Ol' Isaac Newton's "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction" laws come into effect.  There is no up with no down.  I've tried everything over the years but this year I'm on Allegra.  It works pretty well, but of course has side-effects.  One of which is "weakness".  Weakness!   I've decided it's really a feeling of weakness.  I feel weak, but I'm really not if I hunker down and power through.  Most importantly, it doesn't cause irritability or irrational behavior, like Claritin-D or other Pseudo-ephidrine meds.    Not to mention the hoops you have to jump through just to buy the stuff because of its use in the production of meth-amphetamines. 

     Another thing that is awesome about this is that I have to have my father-in-law get the medication for me.  Because of my great insurance that I pay through the nose for, even a simple prescription costs me full price.   Ridiculous.  Hooray for healthcare!

     Uh, yeah.  Bikes or something.  I mention these "trails" that I've been working on and it probably seems like I'm just talking about it, but I've been getting some work done.

This is the first set.  I've been jumping these for awhile, but I've built them up a bit and added a lot to the berm.  They're small, but keep in mind these are on rough, virgin ground.  The run-ways are the biggest obstacle.

  This is the "over/under".   I jumped the under part for the first time this weekend.  Still on the freeride bike.  The jumps are fairly smooth, but the run-up is too rough for the twenty.  If we keep getting consistent rain, I'll be able to get it all dialed, I hope.  

     I wasn't too happy with how my bike looked and I changed it up a little, so I put some effort into a real deal paint job.

Again, it took a couple attempts to get it right.  All brown was too blah and all purple was too...uh, purple.  I like the contrast of masculine and feminine, earth-tones and art-tones and the 70's metal-flake.   I like how it came out.   I rode without brakes a couple times last week and it was good.  I thought about keeping them off, but I'm going on the road this week and no-brakes on unfamiliar turf is sketchy. 

      I've been listening to This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb for a couple years, but I'm almost obsessed with them of late.  I think it was the Props Rock and Roll video that drove them home for me.  They seem like cool people and I really dig their folky/punky styles.  I listen to them constantly and even sing their songs to baby Dylan.  Lullabies him right to sleep.  Maybe not.  Don't look for them on Itunes though, they are apparently too punk for that.  Ironically, I was able to secure three CDs of theirs via the internet and using Paypal to purchase them.  Too punk.   As with most bands I love, others seem to really love or hate them.  I was playing TBIAPB in the car and my wife said "What is this? It sounds like a church camp jamboree".  It made me laugh because it was true.   

      Pictures of jumps and pictures of bikes, but none in use together.  Kind of a theme around here, isn't it?

 

 

 

 

Yeah Man
Now Playing: this bike is a pipe bomb: hot diggety
so yeah, I haven't posted much lately.  not due to a lack of subject matter, but rather because of first, no power at our house for three days (that was awesome) and then, technical ball-ups with my website hosting program.  I couldn't log on.  log out.  water-logged.   I was all over the place as well.  I haven't ridden a whole lot due to busy work travels and such, but I try to sneak it in.  I packed my van very efficiently last week so I would have room for my bike.  Driving from Cinci to Detroit, I had a couple parks to choose from.  One, in Miamisburg, is real fun but I was just there a few weeks ago.  The other, in Middletown, is really fun to skate and ride, but last time I rode my bike there I got kicked out.    I was told that they had mellowed out on bikes so I decided to go there.  I pulled up and was still talking on the phone when I saw a few dudes on bikes.  Stoked.  Next, I saw a dude on a bike do a peg manual to decade.  Catfish!  It had to be, I thought, and it was. 

Catfish is a good friend and just an amazing person.  He was riding the park by himself.   We rode for a long time and even had the privledge of witnessing the "Legend" of Dayton in action.   This dude was riding the most busted, janky bike and just shredding.  Half-cab crank flip into the big bowl, for example.  Tons of innovative, amazing tricks, all with clankity spokes and squeaky pieces.  Catfish told me some crazy stories about this dude and after observing him for a couple of hours, they are all believable.   Catfish invited me to stay at his new house, where he lives with his brother and the notorious Simone (pictured above).   It's interesting, the more you learn about a person and their background, life and experiences, the more  you understand what that person is all about.  I can't even begin to comprehend all that it is Catfish, but now I have a little more insight into his life and I think more highly of him than ever.  He's with the DK team on Props Megatour Europe right now.  

      Speaking of Props, I got the latest issue the other day and it is great as always.  The FBM Brawlin' at the Belmar event coverage is insane.  So many people just taking it.  My favorite part is when the interview this little kid with a mohawk and ask who his favorite pro is "Dad!" he says, then comes Kelly Baker cranking at these monstrous jumps.   Kelly rules.  

  We had a birthday party for Noah on Saturday.  He's turning 2 this week.  I got him this little DK for his birthday, but it showed up last week when the power was out and we were bored, so I put it together.  He is stoked.  I'll try to get a pic of him in action on it, but it's tough since he needs my help to ride it. 

Not that I can't take photos of myself...

I'm the mystery man, riding my new ledge thing.   My session with Catfish actually inspired me to build this simple box.  I also built a work bench this weekend.  I'm proud of the fact that I didn't buy any materials at all for either creation.  Sure, some of the wood for the box were mis-purchased materials for my deck, but no money went out as this was going together.   It's just what I wanted it to be, but it's pretty high on the tall end.  The first 180 I did off of it was  bone-jarring.   I rode it for awhile in the barn tonight and it was great.  Time is at a premium for me and if I can session this thing for a little bit each day I will be able to keep my up-jumps in check and maybe learn some new things.  

     There is a jam in the works, sponsored by Deliverance Project, at the public park in Dowagiac, Michigan. 

This park is poorly designed, poorly built, quirky, weird and super fun. There is never anyone there when I've been there and I'm hoping we can just show up and pull off an event.  Here are some shots that Sean Newton and crew took last week.

That's Levi Brown, styling over one of the  hips.

Here's a nice one of Sean.  I'm not sure who took this, but it was either Levi or Tyler...

Here Ty spins a 270 over the same hip.  I don't know where he got the speed to go that high.

    Stay tuned for more details on this event.   It will be fun, I assure  you.

My friend Jeff V. took this sequence of me a few weeks ago at that reunion deal we had.  I overlooked the obvious key subject matter when I first looked at these photos.  I hope Jeff Tabb sees this.  How come I always end up tormenting the fat kids?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

classic rock
Now Playing: david bowie: Queen Bitch

This is a bike I recently built.  It's a Webco monoshock from the mid-70s.  Can you imagine racing this thing full-speed down the side of a SoCal mountain?  They done did just that on bikes just like this one.   I guess my old bike collection is the equivelent of listening to classic rock.   I love the classics, but I'm not stuck in the past!

I'm not gonna lie, I was pretty hammered when I did the "engraving" on these bars.  The funny thing is that they were NOS (New Old Stock) until I got to them with 8 High Lifes and a jack-knife.   I accelerated the rusting process by using Sea salt and water, then letting them set for a couple weeks.  

The patina paint job is something I've been messing with this year.  First I did it to my FBM, then this, then a new attempt on my FBM, which I don't like too much.  I like the way this came out though.

 

 Here's my FBM. which is pretty dialed otherwise...

now that I look at my bike, I realize I did more work to after this was taken and it looks worse or maybe better, I'm not sure.  I love my new Solid stem though, I can tell you that.  Sean Newton took the awesome pics of the Webco.  More later...

 

 

 

 

 

 

strung out

I've never been into drugs but I know what it's like to be strung out from the road.  Hundreds of miles alone and straight ahead put you into a strange state of mind.   That's where I'm at right now.  My job is great and I wouldn't trade it but days like today sure make it seem like work.  Temperatures of just under a hundred don't help matters much when I'm unloading 50 pound bags of shoes from my van.   I've been trying to lose weight and eat better and that's making it tougher to find food.  I brought a lot of food and a cooler and have been doing the grocery store deal, but once a day I crave hot food and southern Kentucky doesn't have much in the way of vegan or low-impact vegetarian food.   I asked the folks at one of my shops if they knew of any "hippy" restaurants that might have good vegetarian food and they looked at me like I was an alien, sitting behind the wheel of a German space ship.

     I did get to ride the new park in Bowling Green, Kentucky last night and it is pretty awesome.  Three different big bowls and lots of weird street obstacles.  I skated almost as much as I rode and met some cool dudes there as well.  Super fun and the highlight so far.  I've seen some pretty random stuff on this trip as well.  On day one, on a winding country road in Southern Indiana, I had to hit the brakes to avoid a low-flying hawk who was struggling to take off with a rabbit snared in it's talons.  It was pretty wild.  I've seen two too many dogs cruising around on the highways and off ramps as well. I hate that.   One was right before I stopped here to get gas...

Yes, that says possum junction.

Later, I put away a few of these:

I felt like a macho man pounding 7 ounce High Lifes.  Contact from my friends when I'm on the road keeps me sane.  Here's an awesome shot of Benny Baker jumping over his old man, wearing a shirt he tie-dyed himself (future Deliverance contributing artist!).  Kelly's worried the kid might go hippy on him.  

 

  As much as I'm not a hippy, I have a lot of hippy practices.  I ain't scared of tie-dye either.  There is something liberating about wearing clothes that bother other people.   Born to Lose, baby.

Sean Newton sent me a pic of his new paint job.  Looks tight.

Today is the 30th anniversary of Elvis' death.  I remember it very well.  I was at my friend Brian's house, riding bikes on the litttle practice track we had recently built.  My other buddy Larry had gone home for dinner and came back to ride more.  He had big news.  His uncle Steve had crashed his motorcycle and Elvis had died.  I was an Elvis fan as a kid.  My mom let me order an Elvis double record set from a TV ad (the only thing I ever ordered from a TV ad, even to this day).  It took a long time to arrive at my house (we probably had to mail them a check or something), but when it showed up, I was stoked.  I remember sitting at the kitchen table, by myself, listening to my new Elvis record on a little portable record player and singing along.   Good times.  I was pretty bummed when I found out that Elvis had died and remember being surprised that Elvis had died and my real hero, Evel Knievel, was still alive (and still is!).  

    August 15th these days means something more to me.  It's my beautiful wife Gail's birthday.  Happy  birthday to the person who means more to me than anything in the world.   I told you being on the road this week was a tough one....

 

 

 

heavy metal thunder
Now Playing: Neil Young: Comes A Time

Today was a wild one.  I helped organize a reunion for Bud's BMX track in Elkhart, Indiana.   The crazy part is that the track closed in 1985.  That's a big span of time to try to bring people back together.  The magic of the internet made it all a reality.  I won't bore you with the gammet of emotions that ran through my head, but it was a pretty special afternoon.  Here's a FlickR slideshow...  You can click on the photos to read the captions. 

Sean Newton sent over this pic of Tyler Deshaine shredding the fuck out of the new Grand Haven bowl.  This may well be one of my favorite photos ever.

Sean is a really cool dude and I like riding and hanging out with him, so I almost feel bad posting this pic, but he's the one that gave me the term "Underbeard" in the first place....

We got a new batch of man-bar bags and belts.  Here's a shot of the sweat shop in action.  If you buy a new Bar Bag from Dan's Comp and it smells like a sweaty dude, pretend it never happened.

A lot of work goes into putting the Bar Bags together, but it's worth it.  I'm not gonna lie, I think they are bad ass.  And speaking of fat ass, I need to put that bootleg copy of "8 minute abs" that Hatfield burned for me into action.

 

 

 

 

Pizza guy
Now Playing: This Bike is a Pipe Bomb: Jack Johnson

Fro Ardelean sent me this but don't ask how or why, please.  It's disturbing.  The logo on "dude's" shirt looks a lot like the very first Deliverance logo.

   I rode the new park in Grand Haven last night and it is awesome.  The bowl is a work of art.  Really smooth and well designed.  It was great to skate and ride.  Speaking of skating and riding, bikes and skateboards seemed to be doing fine together, but little kids on scooters were an absolute menace.  How about an 8 year old girl, wearing flip-flops and no helmet, doing continuous laps around the park while 50 skaters and biker zoom around her?  fucked.