I’ve been down at Woodward West in California all week (I’ll post photos soon), but made a point to be back for the annual “Enjoy the Trick” Portland summer flatland jam that went down today. Last year’s summer jam was actually what got me psyched on riding flatland again, so it was fun to get back and actually get to ride a bunch this year. I didn’t shoot many photos, but I did make a point to get some shots of OG Plywood Hood / Aggro Rag ‘Zine maker Mike Daily (left), and Bill Freeman (right), who made the trip up from Los Angeles. There’s a lot of flatland BMX history in these shots. To be honest, I had a couple shots of both of them that I liked, and I couldn’t decide on my favorites, so I posted a couple more after the jump. The above shots can be blown up by clicking the image. I love the contrast here. Both guys have been riding bikes forever. Mike’s riding a CW California Freestyler from the 80s, while Bill is riding a much more modern, brakeless flatland setup. There’s also a clip of me from the jam that Mike filmed at the bottom.

I drove up to the Seattle area today for a flatland BMX jam. I only shot a few photos as I spent most of the day riding, but you can see a few more shots after the jump. Above is Mark Florek, who I spent many years riding with on the east coast. Mark now lives in Seattle, and fired out plenty decade variations and combinations.

I didn't catch his name, but I know he's a Japanese student living in Vancouver, BC, and had a smooth, fast style.

Portland's Patrick Dennehy

I remember a few years ago as photographers we’d labor over strange ways and devices to get cool POV perspectives. In the last few years, GoPro and a few other manufacturers have made it incredibly easy and cheap. I’ve been itching to try some flatland stuff with it for a while, but kept forgetting. This time around, I remembered to bring it, but forgot to charge it, so I only got a few clips, but I thought it was neat. These suckers have become cliché in an “everyone’s doing it sort of way.” Nevertheless if gives a neat perspective that can be used well in moderation. Next time, with more planning and battery charging, I might try it with two of them, to splice different angles together.

Twice a year (summer and winter) the local flatland BMX crew holds a jam to pull together riders from all over the Northwest (and sometimes beyond).  Until I moved to California in ’99, I rode flatland almost exclusively, but once I moved west I started focusing more on street and ramps, partly because of what the riders I liked riding with were riding. At some point in the fall of last year I started riding more flatland again, so this was the first jam since I’ve been in town that I actually rode a bunch. The old tricks are coming back. It’s sort of like riding a bike.

This time around, the crew got really lucky with an awesome indoor spot. Scott Hagnas, a long time flatland rider, who produced a number of videos throughout the ’90s, is expanding his CrossFit Portland gym to a new location. His new spot is being built out at the moment, and he was nice enough to let the local BMXers take over the space for the day, while it was still in build-out condition. We’re in the rainy season around here, so it was a perfect scenario. Snotty, and a group of local street guys built up a spine ramp and brought it along for the day as well, so we had huge group of street/ramp guys taking advantage of the spot as well. 2001 X Games gold medalist Bruce Crisman (that still sounds weird to say, even ten years later) even made an appearance.

Mark Rainha filmed a bunch throughout the day, so hopefully we’ll see a short video on ESPN BMX soon. The FlatWeb TV guys were also filming, so there should be plenty of footage floating around from today. I got off my bike for a bit and shot a few photos which you can see after the jump. Above is Anthony Buglio doing a classic deathtruck.

Blake Hicks, dumptruck pivot.

Anthony Buglio, Smith decade.

Justin Hoey, no-handed hitchhiker.

Snotty, wallride out of the street spine that he made happen.

Justin Hoey, no-handed hitchhiker

Anthony Buglio, two-footed deathtruck

Justin Hoey, no-handed crackpacker.

Codie Larsen, bunnyhop whip (Whopper).

Snotty, wallride to 180 out.

For more photos from the day, Shad over at GoodsBMX posted up some shots here.

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.

Gabe Kadmiri was starting to pop up on the northeast flatland scene when I moved to California in 1999. Within a year or two he’d gotten really good, and started traveling to contests. He’d come out to California from time to time, and I met up with him on several occasions to shoot photos. These were somewhere in Laguna Niguel, and I’m pretty sure something from the shoot ran in BMX Plus, though I can’t remember what. Check out another shot after the jump.

Here’s one for the flatland folks. Rich Upjohn is something of a New England flatland BMX legend. If you rode BMX in the late 80s and 90s you’ve probably seen or or heard of Rich. You might have seen him in Freestylin’ magazine, or Kieran Chapman’s Wire ‘zine and video series. Rich has a fast style, with original tricks, many of which can only be done by a tall rider like himself (the cross-footed undertaker above is a good example). In the late ’80s, Rich, along with his mother, did wonders for the New England BMX scene by organizing an indoor riding spot during the winter months at a National Guard armory (they held some contests there as well). What’s really interesting about Rich is how he runs his bike… He’s always run it his way, and doesn’t follow the trends. He STILL runs an SR Spintech stem and rotor system from the 80s. In these photos you can see it. It’s 13 years later, and from what I’ve seen he’s still running it, and still killing the cross-footed undertaker. That’s awesome. In these shots he’s still riding a General RL Osborne frame, about 10 years after it’s release. Shortly thereafter he upgraded to a Powerlite frame, which he still rides today. These photos, like the photos of Sean Maher in the previous post, are from the unreleased Nine-Ninety issue 2. Check out the photos above, as well as another photo, larger after the jump. Note: that’s an authentic, straight out of 1998, on-camera flash vignette on those photos.

When I moved to California in 1999 I faded out of riding flatland and started riding more ramps and skatepark, mostly because that’s what the guys I liked riding with out there rode. The last full flatland video part I filmed for was Moronics in Action, a New England area video made by Mark Florek around 1997. While I was pulling together some old footage for the interview ESPN did a few weeks back, I came across this section, and figured I’d upload it so I’ve got it archived. The first link is over a minute long. At the time I was really into the whole linking shit forever thing. There were some other clips spread throughout the video, but this is my main part in the video. This video came out about two years before I stopped riding flat regularly, so I’m sure there’s some newer footage somewhere out there, but I haven’t come across more than a couple clips. A few months back I posted an older section from Wire’s “Live Wire” (1995), which you should check out here.

Before we all had websites and blogs, hand made zines were a popular creative outlet. One of the most influential BMX ‘zines of all time, Aggro Rag, came from a group of riders known as the Plywood Hoods from York, Pennsylvania. Mike Daily was the Aggro Rag ringleader. The Plywoods Hoods, with riders like Kevin Jones and Mark Eaton, ultimately changed BMX Freestyle, specifically flatland, dramatically. Daily went on to edit Go: The Riders Manual and later BMX Plus, and the “Dorkin in York” series became the most important BMX video series of all time. While Mat Hoffman ushered in a new era of ramp riding, and the Plywood Hoods were doing the same for flatland and video.

Daily has since written two books, and currently lives in Oregon. He recently restored a 1985 CW California Freestyle, and brought it by my studio to get some photos before he took it out to the streets. We got to talking about an Aggro Rag book he’s working on compiling, as well as his bike build, which I turned into an interview for ESPN. You can and should read that here. There are some additional photos of the CW after the jump, but be sure to check out the interview. And don’t forget to pick up a copy of the Aggro Rag book later this year. I also sort of blame Mike for inspiring my recent purchase of a 1985 Haro Master frame and fork. Seeing the CW gave me the vintage bug.

Don’t forget to read the ESPN interview here!

Going through some old New England BMX footage this week I came across an old video part of mine from Wire Zine’s “Losers of the Year video from 1995-ish. Kieran Chapman produced the video, as well as most of the important New England BMX coverage from the time. I was digitizing it for another purpose, but figured I’d post it here… hopefully Kieran doesn’t mind. Not that anyone would want to, but it’s not embeddable. This was definitely the “baggy pants era.” Standard Bikes had revolutionized previously flimsy products with unbreakable components, which resulted in a presumably 50 pound bike for most of this.