I made this video for ESPN a couple weeks ago. Shad runs the BMX shop, Goods, here in Portland, and has a ton of cool old stuff around the shop that I end up poking through every time I’m in there. He’s in the middle of remodeling the shop, and starting to sell vintage stuff as well as new on the shop floor. Take a look inside.

For the fourth year in a row I’m down at Woodward West in Central California for (the fourth annual) Old School BMX Reunion. Once again a grip of legends made the trip out including Brian Blyther, Mat Hoffman, Dino Deluca, Todd Anderson, Dennis McCoy, Dave Voelker, Xavier Mendez, Jason Geoffrey, James McGraw, Dave Nourie, Duncan Gore, Martin Aparijo, Eddie Fiola, Jose Janez and many more. I posted a couple photos of Martin Aparijo last night, which you can check out in the previous post or by clicking here.This year seemed a bit mellower riding wise, but it was good to catch up with everyone. Check some more photos including a small gallery after the jump.

Andy Shohara, mega ramp invert.

This was Jason Geoffrey's first Old School Reunion appearance. Later in the evening he brought out his B-boy dance skills at the after party.

Mat Hoffman was in the house once again this year.

Dave Nourie's flatland demo at the Saturday after party has become tradition. This year James McGraw, Danny Hubbard, and Martin Aparijo joined. Jason Geofffries also brought his B-boy skills to the floor.

Check out some more shots in the gallery below.

Back in 1986, East Coast freestyle promoter Ron Stebenne brought Martin Aparijo from California to a contest he was putting on in Natick, Massachusetts. At the time, Martin was one of the biggest names east coast kids like myself got to see in the magazines. He was on the GT bicycles team, and he’d been in movies like Rad. We’d Martin in magazines like Freestylin‘ and BMX Plus, but having him turn up at one of our local contests — at least for an 11 year old kid like me — was sureal. One thing I remember vividly of Martin back then is that he was always smiling. When he came to Natick he was smiling. When I saw him in the magazines and videos he was smiling.

Fast forward 25 years, and I’m at the fourth annual Old School BMX Reunion at Woodward West. Martin is 49 years old, and, well he’s still smiling. Today is the first day of the reunion, and while I haven’t shot many photos yet, I did get to shoot Martin during Miami hop hops under a California sky — something I never anticipated back in 1986 (above he’s doing a one-handed Miami hop hop). There’s another photo of Martin after the jump that I also liked. As for the Reunion, there are plenty of faces that have been here the past few years like Mat Hoffman, Eddie Fiola, Tony Murray, Rich Sigur, Xavier Mendez, Pete Augustin, Dennis McCoy, and Brian Blyther as well as some new faces like Duncan Gore and Troy McMurray. I’ll have more photos tomorrow, but for now, here’s Martin.

Stopped by the Tigard skatepark today for the Goods BMX 7th Anniversary Jam. Goods also had a photo show last night with a bunch of my photos from the 90s through present day. I think the photos should be up in the shop for a few weeks, so stop by if you’re in the NE Portland area. I didn’t take any photos at the photo show, but I did shoot a few today. Edit: Vital BMX just posted a video from the photo show where I walk through some of the stuff that was on display with a little bit of back story. It’s embedded at the bottom of the post. You can check out a few more after the jump (the horizontals can be expanded by clicking). That’s Roman Tencza above, with his go-to trick, the timeless one-handed table.

Ginger-powered boost from Evan Abernathy.

One of my favorite Germans, Paddy Gross got married to his long-time girlfriend from the Northwest, and made the move across the pond. He's brought the German sub-box assault to Portland. Here he's tailwhipping to fufanu, smooth as glass.

Evan Abernathy blasting a shirt-free turndown.

Ryan Barrett had some of the highest airs on the 10-foot quarter.

Jared Souney Photo Show – More BMX Videos

It’s been a couple months in the making, but the new studio I mentioned in the last post (two months ago) is mostly done, save for some outside work, and some details around the place. A couple months ago I mentioned we’d bought a new building in Portland, Oregon’s soon-to-be bustling Flavel Arts District. After looking loosely for a couple years, and realizing we’d outgrown our old space, we happened upon one that had all the space we were looking for, and from a construction standpoint it wasn’t going to be “too bad.” Most of what we did was cosmetic, aside from gutting one of the bathrooms, but it was still a lot of work (most of it fun) in addition to the whole regular work day thing.

Starting at the end of January, in the midst of a busy travel season, we ripped out 2000 square-feet of glued down carpet and tile, ground off all the floor glue to expose the concrete (the most labor intensive part of the job: two days of solid grinding with a fancy stripping disk), tore out and remodeled one of the bathrooms, painted the place, fixed some roofing, repaired some drywall, sealed some concrete, installed some new hardwood, installed some new lighting, replaced all the trim on the studio/office side, and, I’m sure a lot more.

The new space is three times the size of our old studio, and it’s much closer to my house so I can bike or even walk there if I want. Most importantly, we have everything in one place. Before I had screen printing stuff in the garage, some of my files at home, and more stuff stored in the attic. I even got to build a ramp — albeit a small ramp — inside, which was great for the end of the Portland winter/rainy season, and a nice break during the day. It’s a small skate ramp (at two feet tall), but still fun to take runs on the bike here and there as you can see in the photo of me above. We’ve even got a small fenced in backyard area, which, in a few weeks will house the chickens that are currently growing up in my garage (for no reason other than having office chickens couldn’t be more “Portland,” and they’re almost dinosaurs). I’ve got some after photos, which are posted first, as well as some before/process shots. We’ll be doing little projects for a while, probably forever, but for now, we’re in there. At the moment the space is used by myself for my studio, as well as for the snowboard site we do called Yobeat. We did all the work ourselves, with some lifting and grunt work help from friends along the way. Some of these photos are further along in the phase than others, and we’re still going. Check out the space after the jump.

The main entry room/gallery, which doesn't have any wall art yet in this photo.

Remodeled bathroom, complete with hardwood and vintage paper towel dispenser.

Bike rack and sliding steel/wood door in the main entry/gallery, both handmade by me.

Entry/gallery book case and old stuff display area.

My desk and computer area in the studio.

Another view of the main room/gallery area in progress.

I've started hanging some photos in the main area. Those are both Mat Hoffman on the wood wall, one of which was shot in the old studio.

Wood wall, and rough sawn cedar scanning desk area.

Rough sawn cedar wall, scanning area, and back hall/bathroom.

Brooke/Yobeat's office, early in the process. This has evolved since, but it was the first space done.

Mailing/shipping, sticker cutting, and stock room for all the Yobeat apparel.

Full in-house screen printing room with press, dryers, etc.

The ramp, just after I finished it. Two feet tall, 12 feet wide, with a three foot extension. Small but fun.

Below are the before/during photos….

Tons of carpet, old desks, etc got ripped out. This room is where the ramp now sits.

This is the old back hallway and bathroom. We gutted the bathroom, ripped out the tile, etc. There also used to be a wall/doorway mid-way down that hallway for some reason, which I tore out pre-photo.

Bathroom pre-remodel. 1992 in all its glory.

Entry area during the tearout of carpet and tile. Not the hideous light fixture above the door. That was the first thing we replaced.

The carpet glue grind-off phase was a pain in the ass, but worked out in the end.

More glue grinding.

Tearout.

This became the print room. The gray carpet was glued throughout the building.

Ramp room during the work phase. Trim, tools, chaos.

Mid-way through building the main room and wood wall.

Below is a video I made of Ben Graham skating the ramp last week.

If you follow me on Twitter you might have caught wind that we’re moving into a new building. Between traveling, we’ve started building out the new spot in deep SE Portland. It’s closer to my house, and we’re the only ones in the building, so we can make noise and use all the strong smelling solvents we want.

The deep SE part of Portland is affectionately known to long-time residents as “Felony Flats,” but it’s come a long way over the years, even in the short four year period I’ve been here. Shit, now there’s even a hip food cart pod called “Cartlandia” that sits along a bike path walking distance from our new shop. We’re hoping to take that progression one step further — we’ve been jokingly referring to the area as the “Flavel Arts District.” Portland’s prosperous “Alberta Arts District” was not so long ago a not so nice neighborhood. Some developers looking to make a few bucks added the “arts” and away things went. So we’ve taken the same approach and we made a logo (above). We also used the word “historic” which we feel also adds class. If nothing else, we found a cool building that works for us, and we think we should even have some skateable surfaces inside it.

I’m a day or two away from moving my desk and some of my stuff into the new place. We’ve still got a lot of work, and building, but my studio area is painted, and the trim is in, so hopefully tomorrow I can start loading into that section. We’ll slowly be moving everything over throughout the month, and should be in there on a full-time basis by the end of February (though likely before). More pictures to follow, but we’re excited to have more space. We are going to miss the Sweetpea coffee though (and Lisa).

The past couple weeks have been chaotic as we’re building out our new office space here in Portland (which I’ll post about separately), in the middle of which I took off to PA to shoot some snowboarding at Seven Springs Resort. Forum Snowboards sponsored a “real street” inspired snowboard park, and I headed out to the mountains near Pittsburgh to shoot the grand opening for Yobeat. The resulting video can be viewed after the jump. That’s Austen Sweetin above.

I’m back on the east coast for Kevin Robinson’s surprise 40th birthday party his wife Robin put together for him in Rhode Island. Somehow it stayed a secret, and Kevin had no idea that a heap of BMX friends were in town from all over the country. Mat Hoffman, Dennis McCoy, Mike Dominguez, Xavier Mendez, Brian Blyther, Ron Wilkerson, Joe Johnson, Brian Curran, Warren Marchese, Brett Downs, Kevin Martin, Mike Rotondo, Josh Heino… in addition to tons of local friends and family, all packed into an American Legion hall with a country theme and mechanical bull. This morning we all headed up to Rye Airfield, a skatepark in NH. Kevin cut the vert session short by falling asleep on the flat bottom of the ramp, but fortunately he was (relatively) okay. I did manage to snap off a few photos of the Condor (above), and one of Josh Heino at the park, as well as a few from the party.

(Clockwise from K-rob. Photo by Brooke Geery. Click photo to blow up): Kevin Robinson, Kevin Martin, Dennis McCoy, Mat Hoffman, Ron Wilkerson, Brian Blyther, Me, Xavier Mendez, Warren Marchese, Mike Dominguez.

Mat Hoffman, Josh Heino, Mike Rotondo.

Joe Johnson.

Robin and Kevin Robinson.

Mat Hoffman, Howie Robinson.

Kevin Martin (paramedic), Brian Blyther (police officer).

Brian Curran, Joe Johnson.

Mat Hoffman

Josh Heino.

Mat Hoffman.

This was the first time I met Anthony Napolitan, who I’ve shot an awful lot since then. At the time, Anthony was a flow rider for the distributor System Cycle, and lived right down the road from the skatepark pictured above, Section 8 in Columbus, Ohio. Section 8 was a bad-ass bike oriented skatepark, producing some amazing riders over the years. I had recently moved to Pennsylvania, and took trip out there with Kevin Robinson, Alistair Whitton, and a few other guys. Anthony was killing the mini ramp, and the pink bike was a nice spark of color in a dark indoor park, so we shot for while that night. This photo was used in BMX Plus Magazine a few months later. Seven years later, Anthony’s still killing it. He’s all grown up now, and went on to win X Games medals, and a Dew Cup in Dirt.

Just took a road trip down to San Francisco to shoot another urban snowboard rail jam for Yobeat. It’s halloween weekend, and there’s no distinguishing between those who are dressed up, and those who just live here and are out for a walk. Check out the gallery I shot at the bottom of the post here on Yobeat.