TRP needs a little love right now and Veteran is helping out with a jam on Saturday. Check their site for more info. TRP has been the "go to" spot for bike riders since it opened, let's do what we can to keep a great place going....
thanks
for the ticket hookups. I got their super late but got to see the Bubba show. James Stewart is unstoppable right now.
I am putting together a premier for the new Etnies BMX video, entitled "Grounded" for late May. I will post more details as they are hammered out. With any luck, the Deliverance short film will be premiered then as well...
I know this was taken in the Spring of 1977 and I'm going to say it was probably around March-ish. That's a long time ago. I can tell you that I rode tonight at Modern with Solan, Chris Yankee, Phil Race, Davey and Evan Brawler (that's it!) and it was even more fun than it was back then. I wrote this for a 'zine I did a few years ago.
Kinda corny but true. This guy is just plain awesome:
and Davey Coop goes back to the future with some surfey styley.
Davey and I discussed it yesterday and he estimated that it would take about 45 minutes to walk the estimated mile and a half. It was actually 1.6 miles but it only took me 30 minutes. I wouldn't go so far as to say I enjoyed it, but it was no big deal at all. I listened to music the whole way and I can never get enough of that. It's not like it's the first time I've pushed this thing. On my big trip to California, I pushed it even further than this, fully loaded with gear, tent, sleeping bag and two weeks worth of supplies, when I ran out of gas coming into Salt Lake City. Pushing an old motorcycle down the sidewalk is nothing compared to hiking through the desert in a foreign country, wearing a hundred pounds of gear and hoping you and your comrades don't get blown up by a mine or shot buy some other guys that you don't know for a War you don't understand. Right? Hippie talk. You can see I'm wearing tye-dye in the photo.
Some friends of mine, McGoo and Bill Bryant (partners in Snafu and Biltwell are setting off on a big motorcycle trip that they put together a year ago, called the El Diablo Run starting tomorrow. I wish them the best of luck and hope I can join them someday on a trip like this.
I rode Modern tonight and it was awesome. Just a handful of dudes with a large contingent of Cobras. In the words of Hatfield, Jason Burton was "killing it!". He was. I brought my Super 8 movie camera out and shot some film. Movie film is not the most efficient or cost effective method of capturing moving pictures but it sure does look cool. I'm shipping off a bunch of movie film to be processed tomorrow, so we'll see just what we have to work with.
Don't you hate when you find kick ass spots that you know you'll never get to ride? One problem I've always had is with following through on ideas. I am better at this than I used to be. Just the fact that Deliverance Clothing has been going for four and a half years is testament to some sort of commitment. Sometimes, though, I'll have an idea, bring it to fruition, then just kind of let it sit there. The Deliverance bar bag is an idea that I was really stoked on and even though I did follow through with a full production run, I haven't followed up on promoting it as I well as I should have. I think the problem was poor timing of the release. They came out last fall, right when the weather here was taking a turn for the worse. The bar bag really shines for street riding. I've been using mine a lot lately and it's everything I wanted it to be. It doesn't flop around, keeps everything handy and you don't even really notice it is on.
Here's Team Green Sean, stoked on his and the idea of adding a secret compartment inside. Dan's Comp has them in stock if you need one. The Westland "Concrete Jungle" cement park is having bike sessions on Sunday afternoon now and I was fired up to ride some 'crete outdoors. Unfortunately, the wind was fired up as well and it was blowing like a motherfucker. I still had a good time but my ears hurt, my eyes were red and leaving the ground was a gamble, as the wind would blow you into the next county. There were a handful of heavies on the scene and shredding ensued regardless of the blustery conditions.
Matt Carmichael was added to the Deliverance team right before I pulled the plug on the whole team idea. He's still an FOD and a bad mamma jamma.
I'm glad Hatfield was there. I rolled into the park and cruised over to say hi to him, doing a lil' curbo endo against the fence to confirm my hello. My new custom Solid bars (see last post) moved all the way down to my front wheel. Yeah guy, maybe tighten up those stem bolts next time. Had Chris not been there I would have rolled into a bowl or something and it would not have been pretty. In fact, it would have been pretty ugly. A couple minutes later Chris was laid out in the flatbottom himself. He has been killing himself lately and I feel bad for him. He is so good but he just takes it sometimes. Chris' partner in crime and full-time FOD Dan Closser is back in Michigan after an extended road trip around the US. >>>I remember when Dillion Bell used to rollerblade at TRP.
He's a come a long way in the time since. Clicked lookback in the deep end.
The legendary Jason Suchan made an apprearance and spun a 360 over the scary/sketchy spine.
John Reed moved here from Colorado a couple years ago, then moved back to CO, then back here again. I haven't seen him lately but he was riding the shit outta the big bowl. I love the name "John Reed". Just sounds like a tough kid from school that would sit in the back of the bus and smoke cigs right in front of a teacher or something. >>>After leaving the park, I went on a mission to find a street spot I had been made privy to. I asked Hatfield about it before hand and he said he's ridden it for so long that they called it a "half pike" when he started going there and that it sucked. He went on to say he had ridden it a "zillion" times, so I assumed it must not suck that much.
This is the kind of place I would ride all the time if it were close. I love banks. I love bank to walls too and that aspect of this place wasn't great, but it was rideable. I thought it was awesome. Taking a photo of yourself with a cellphone camera is not easy...
Thanks to the Veterans for the directions.
Our son, the big-looking guy on the right, had surgery today for a hernia. Hernias are pretty common in little people and in fact, they are genetic. Noah got his mommy's good looks, but he got the hernia from me. Thanks Daddy! The surgery went well and he is doing great, but damn, that was stressful for all of us. Mommy is about to be a mommy again and this was tough on her. As hard as it was, we are very thankful that it went smoothly and in the big picture of life, it was a pretty minor event. It ain't easy seeing your kid in the hospital, no matter what.
There is a lot going on in our lives right now (obviously!) and riding bikes has been helping to keep me sane. There are some pix on Veteran that make me really happy. The one of Joe Gall, Otto and myself is my favorite. Thanks Matt and Hanaan, for those.
I am extremely fickle when it comes to bike parts. I'm always experimenting but I usually go back to the same set-up when I'm done. These are the same, only different...
They are custom bars that Aaron from Solid Bikes made for me. They are 8" rise, but have a narrower bend so you can actually position your brake lever and have narrower bars. They are awesome and I can't thank Aaron enough for the favor. Perhaps they will become part of the Solid line-up soon.
Davey Coop works with me and he is a big fan of Hunter S Thompson.
He told me I look like him. I'm not sure that is a compliment but the book Hell's Angels is amazing, not to mention Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I guess I just mentioned it. Anyway, Davey has been kicking ass around here and I wanted to give him props...
I take some satisfaction in immature acts such as this. Believe it or not, there are new Deliverance tees in the works. Here's a shot of Noah sporting a vintage prototype.
I discovered a new station on Sirius satellite radio called "Punk". They play mostly old (and a bit of new) punk music. Go figure. This is a new station for Sirius and it is awesome. I guess I'm officially old because my favorite radio station is technically a "classic punk" channel. Weird. Besides great songs from Black Flag, Sham 69, Fugazi and Radio Birdman, they even throw in some oddball/cornball stuff like the Vandals song that was playing when I started this post. Reminds of being in my friend Lew's mom's basement, listening to the latest records we had just bought at Boogie Records. Yeah, I am old.
Speaking of old, a lot of the Cobras have been at the recent Modern sessions and it has been great. The last half hour of the Tuesday session had a few of us in a heated session on the mini that was so much fun. I supposed because the mini is fenced off and you have to make an effort to go ride it, it doesn't see a lot of action during a regular session, but Tuesday was tits. I said it.