Yesterday, the fourth, Noah, my bro-in-law Chris, my buddy PJ and I headed back to Dowagiac, then over to Eau Claire (don't ask) to hopefully see a dude jump his bike over a rumoured five cars. We drove the hour plus and found a place to park. Eau Clair is a little town in way SW Michigan. They have a Cherry Festival on the 4th, apparently and there hundreds of people milling around and parade floats leaving the area as we pulled in. My connection told me this dude was jumping at 2pm. It was ten of with no jumps in site (I had seen the monstrosities a week earlier, so there was no missing them). PJ asked one of the vest-equipped cops when the dude was going to jump his bike and he knew nothing. Just as I was thinking it was a complete waste of time, a John Deere came rolling down the street with the landing ramp in tow...
A few minutes later, "Psycho" and his sidekick were doing manuals and 180s to warm the crowd up. Their flatland skills were pretty minimal but the ramp set up was impressive. The take off was 8 feet tall with a super steep tranny. The landing was just as tall with a flat bank landing and short "safety deck". It looked so sketchy, but not as sketchy as homeboy's bike
The Fit frame is legit but I can't imagine the thinking in not having a seat (or why you would need four pegs to jump ramp to ramp). No brakes either, making it even nuttier. He walked up the ramp and got the crowd pumped, no PA or anything. Lots of bro-hugs and hand shakes and he was off. Psycho's first jump was so hairball!
He over-shot it by a long way, landing about 3/4 down the landing. He kind of buckled, but held on. It was nuts. He jumped again and over-shot it again, but still pulled it. He kept moving the ramps further apart and the jumps actually got better.I was thinking an awful lot about his forks and how old they might have been, but the hillfolk didn't care none....
I was super-impressed by the ballsy jump, but his announcement to "comeback at 7 or 8 and I'm gonna jump 60 feet" was bullshit. We drove all the way down there to see his warm up jumps! I got a call later on that he was going pretty big, but 60 feet seems like a stretch (no pun intended). The kids were pumped....
PJ Danhoff took the jump pix...
Updated: Thursday, 5 July 2007 10:13 PM EDT
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