It's summer and summer means heading to Perth Amboy to hit up some of CJS's BMX comps at Washington Park. Al Battagliotti has been consistently throwing down good old homegrown, all about the
locals, free comps, going on 3 years now and this year he is back at it again. July seventeen was the day and even though the Gatorade Free Flow Tour was going down in Lakewood, more than a few guys showed up to get busy in Perth. Unfortunately the weather decided to stay in the upper 90's with 300% humidity. With the riders out there coming within inches of melting by the afternoon, a quick show of hands made Al and Aaron decide to turn the comp into a jam and just have the guys bust out tricks and give out some swag to the guys who pulled some cool stuff. Probably a much better idea as no one was really into the idea of wiping themselves out at these astronomical temps. CJS's crew was there, the local crew, even Extremz riders stopped by to get bizay. It was good to see Rob and Al from the two shops hanging out together and discussing working together to make BMX as big as possible in the area.
Since there was no straight up comp going down there's no need to go into a blow by blow play of the action at the event. Some of the locals that are there year after year are really stepping it up, guys like Tionne, Rob, and Tranelle (who was rocking one of BMXNJ's "World Bike Organization" stickers on his forks). Rob was going for a big ice pick on the rail out of the mini, Tionne was kicking big airs and Tranelle had the tailwhips on lockdown. In betwixt getting free water thrown out from Aaron, the rest of the guys there were getting busy earning some free tires, tubes, grips, sprockets and the like. "Not" Little Nick was all over the grind rail with variations on toothpicks, Rick was getting loose with whips over the spine and Mike Aldomavar was spinning like a madman while impressing the ladies with his muscle shirt in full effect. Two guys that had crazy lines in the park were Ted and Roman, who were blasting airs out of the mini ramps hip. Ted even let loose a 720 just to show the crowd that it is possible to shred in humidity bad enough to break a 10 ton air conditioner. Roman was on it with tons of style and flow along with a laid back one hander layed out air for Ramona Larsoe's lens...BMXers know how to have a good time and keep the stress out. Redondo Beach shirt wearing madman Dario Villegas was knocking off flip transfers and crazy no-handers...smooth as melting butter on a hot summer day...come on you know it's a fitting analogy
Big props have to be given to everyone who came out to Perth on a hellaciously hot Saturday to have a good time at the park. Al is having another shindig on August 21st, hopefully the weather will be a little more mellow on the heat and humidity side so the riders can have an easier time at busting loose. In the meantime though, here's a few shots from the day and most of the rest of the shots are right here at this link CJS Perth Comp 2010 Numeron Oneus. Look for more shots from the jam in BMXNJ mag issue 3 and video on brokenspokes BMX in August.
NJ's newest clothing company 732, (get it...732, the area code..cool as all get out, f that 90210 bullshite...'course that's a zip code...but I digress) is looking to sponsor 2 local BMX riders and in order to figure out who they are gonna be they have secured an early morning session at Manasquan Skatepark. Normally closed to BMXers the park will be open at 9:00 am for local rippers to come out and impress the 732 bigwigs. Since BMXNJ is HQ'd in Brick, there is a good possibility that we may swim across the inlet and check this scene out Saturday morning. So...if anyone wants a shot at a clothing sponsorship get out there! More info can be found on their FB page right here: 732 Clothing Facebook Page and if you want to see what the stuff looks like, check their regular website here: 732 Clothing . Oh and if you want to know where Manasquan Skatepark is click here: 'squan skatepark ... Dang that is a lot of clicking!
Although BMXNJ missed out on it, the Bulldog Team rolled into the Camden waterfront a couple weeks ago, July 3rd and threw down their Hybrid Tour 2010 in front of a massive crowd of spectators. Allen Semont, Chris Huges, Rob Deveaux, Mark Thompson, and flatland master Cooly brought the BMX to the city across from Philly and showed the steaming crowd just what it's all about. Bulldog has been on the move lately and their team is throwing down all over the area. If you see them coming to your town be sure to get out and let your eyeballs soak them in. For more on Bulldog Bikes check these links Bulldog Official Site Bulldog Wordpress SiteBulldog on the FB Plus...word has it that Jimmy Mac is a Jersey transplant... represent! (pics courtesy Bulldog Bikes: right- Bulldog Team, below l to r- Cooly, Mark Thompson and more of Cooly...hey! I like flat, what can I say)
These guys have been all over the web lately but try as I might, I haven't seen a good bold faced link to their website. So here it is: http://wallstreetsb.blogspot.com/ . These guys have been blowing up the central NJ area lately and are getting flow from places like GT and Cult. Gary Nilsson, Nick Seabasty, Mikey Almodovar (Smallfry), Mike Kleissler and Billy Kobovitch. (yes, haha, we were calling him "Bowlavitch" at JFJ...for reasons that shall remain undisclosed) It's amazing to see such an awesome scene that has blown up in the area that I grew up in. Scope out one of their edits below, check the rest of them on their blog site and look for more of these guys in BMXNJ Magazine and brokenspokes BMX as the year goes on. Who has a better scene than NJ, huh, come on, WHO, WHO? Answer the question! AHHHHHHH! I better go take my pills... LOL. Ride on.
Woodbridge NJ's Extremz Bike Shop has just dropped their first team edit and it wound up on the front of Ride BMX's website. Check the edit below and if you are in Woodbridge...well...you know what to do. (Special appearance by Hippie Steve's Compund...)
Al Battagliotti of CJS is once again having his summer comps at Perth Amboy skatepark this summer. 2 cool comps that have NO entrance fees and 3 classes, beginner, intermediate and expert. Prizes galore and the cool chill atmosphere of a CJS comp, what more could you ask for...coverage by BMXNJ.com and BMXNJ Mag...ok, you got that too! We'll be there, hope to see you too! Check CJS's BMX blog here while you are at it and scope the flyer below.
Working on issue 2 as I type here... Have a few pics where I am not sure of the rider in the them and want to make sure everyone gets cred. Click on this link and if you know the guy, let me know!!!
This guy brought into Grove Street Bicycles, a beach crusier with ape hangers on them. I just had to take a picture. Later that week, the mechanics and Rodney decided to put them on Double D's bike. After work, we all got to witness Garret Hoogerhyde do a nose manual to 360 hop. **** was ridiculous. But look at the picture, there is just so much going on in that picture. Mike Wilson is in there too, just look. Take a look at the picture after the jump. I also included the picture of Double D's bike.
"Ramp-Ateria and The NJFL meet the realities of economics, as The Crawndor bids us farewell."
Jeff was out. To me, the heart of the Ramp-Ateria had been silenced. Jeff pushed us all to expand our limits and see what we could do on our bikes. I felt we had lost a major part of what made the
place great.
Jim contacted me a month or so after Posh and asked me if it would be cool to hold a fund raiser at Ramp-Ateria for Jeff. With no hesitation I said, hell yes, and we made plans to have a big contest-jam with all the proceeds going to Jeff to help in any small way we could.
It was a great day for the park and it felt good to have day dedicated to one of our greatest riders. The community really pulled together and everyone was there. From Joe Rich, to Adam Guild, everyone who was anyone in BMX in the area showed up to jam and pay respects to one of our fallen brothers. At the end of the day, Jim collected what little money we got and headed up to Jeff’s house to give it to him and tell him how much everyone missed “The Crawndor”. The local paper came by to cover the event and Adam Guild was cool enough to put the whole thing in his new zine "Just About Everything" at the time. (He was even crazy enough to let me do some writing in there...scope it out in the overflow pictures section of this story right here .)
It was a rough time for me personally; the shop was not doing well. The idea of “expanding” into slot cars and a bigger building proved to be too much for us to afford and it looked like the end was coming.
Even with that on my mind though I was still riding as much possible and trying to learn new stuff. Riding Posh made me realize that I needed to learn how to jump a LOT farther. Which led me to do a little experimenting with the huge Ramp-Ateria jump box. I had already changed the take off from a bowl to a big launch ramp with deck and landing but the deck was only about 8’ long, nothing like the 12’ to 15’ dirt jumps that were now out there in the trails. I needed to overcome some fear. So with that in my mind, I took a good 5’ launch ramp that we had there, stuck it in front of the existing launch and started pulling the thing back to get a better gap and bigger air.
The transition was great and I was jumping with ease….with a coaster. This was when I realized that 360’s are way easier the higher you go, LOL. So I did this a few times and started to get pretty comfortable with my abilities, to the point that I was ready for an upcoming trail jam. Unfortunately, I fell victim to the one more time curse and took… “One more jump”. That jump went dead sailor to try to stay up by…sticking out my left leg this time…to slight twist of knee to realization that…”oh man, I think I did the same thing to this knee that I did to the other one”. It was not as bad this time, as it didn’t completely dislocate but it was enough to make me think…”I better see my ortho.”
A trip to my ortho a couple days later confirmed my fear. I had torn my left acl this time. I could see now that BMX was taking a heavier and heavier toll on my body and finances. The other thing that was going on in my life at this time was my Dad going in for open heart surgery. Double by-pass and a valve replacement. I looked at all this like maybe it was time to re-think what my values were in life. My Dad was only a couple weeks out of that surgery when I blew my knee out and I just couldn’t ask my parents to watch over me again as I re-hab’d my knee fully for another year.
I decided to just let the surgeon clean out the knee, do some same day arthroscopic surgery and be done with it. I figured the BMX thing was coming to an end. I still loved it and was all about it but I wasn’t progressing without injury and didn’t stop to think of ways to contribute beyond riding at that point.
Ed's Bike Shop's own Mike Paton (pronounced "payton") made it to the front of thecomeup this week, and as we know with thecomeup, the vid was up and gone before your fart could dissipate in the wind. We however respect the NJ more and want to see the vid out on the web for a while longer. Scope deh footie here and tell Mike that you think he is an ok guy for having ramps in his yard and letting his buds ride 'em. Mike will be at Kev D's ramp jam next weekend in Maurice River ripping the BMX. For now though he will probably be staying out of the 100+ degree heat like the rest of us. Ride that sucka!
John Decaprio has been dropping some of Cj Capozzoli's videos up on Facebook lately. Lots of good stuff from Hoernig's, A.S.S. park, early Incline and Area 51 as well as much insane street stuff. Here's a couple of 'em with Jennings and Decap. John is a Dad now and taking care of a youngun as well as repping his own clothing line called "The Rapture". Some great designs, hit up John on Facebook if you want to know more. For now, check out these vids. They kick arse.
Louis Orth John McNeil Dave Dechert Bill "Doc" Dougherty James Johnson Tim Cook Bob Mathews John Malone Adam Guild Dirk Lesko Harry Myers Dan Hammell Rich Carolan Hyper Pro-Am Brian Shute JSteady Trevor Swan if I missed you email me!
