Without doing actual math (I went to art school), I’d say I’ve probably ridden BMX bikes with Jim Cavanaugh more than any other person in the last 25 years. And that takes into account that I haven’t ridden with him in close to 10 years. When I was going to school in Boston I rode flatland, and occasionally street at Turtles, nearly every day with Jim. For years prior to that I would drive into town with him on weekends. And before that I had my dad drive me up there on weekends. It was a solid 8 or 9 years I rode with Jim all the time.

This is one of the first photos I shot of bike riding where I remember thinking “this isn’t a complete piece of shit.” Looking back, I still like it. It was shot with a Konica TC-X that my parents got for free at a pharmaceutical conference. I still had/used that on occasion until my car got broken into a few years back, but I used that thing for years with no clue or regard for what the hell I was doing. In the shot he’s doing a “forward deathtruck.” There’s motion, but it’s sharp. It’s got a bit of a “Freestylin’ magazine” sort of close in feel to it. I processed the Tri-X film, and printed this one in the darkroom at the Art Institute of Boston. The photo never got used for anything… It was before I started making magazines on my own, or got a job at a magazine, and it’s been sitting in a box of prints that I occasionally dig through, for the last 15 years.

Jim still kills it, and recently won the annual King of New York contest in NYC. One of these days I’ll get around to sorting through the video footage I’ve got sitting on Hi-8 tapes from this era.