The Average BMXer Part 24

"A town called South Bound Book."  

Working 8 to 4:30…what a way to make a living, working 8 to 4:30….that is how that old Dolly Parton song went right?
It had been many years since I was at a full every day grind job and here I was again. Having lived the life of what some would call a “BMX bum”, but what I would call experiencing BMX to its fullest, I decided to start to save money and prepare for what the future would bring.

As usual I had no idea what that future was. Like I said in the previous story, being able to have a steady income changes ones perspective on life and I was changing. By the summer of 1994 the

ramps were completely gone and I was once again holding onto my good old High Voltage Trick TeamTrailer. At this point in time, 9 years after being built, the 7’ wide by 8’tall ¼ pipe was looking a bit…stale. I decided to scrap it off the trailer. Jump boxes were coming into their own, as I had realized with that crazy portable jump box I made for TC Cycles and I decided to build a portable wooden one with the better trailer. So to the scrap yard I went and the HVTTramps…were no more, one to the great metal scrap heap in the sky. Looking backnow it seems sorta sad that I just dumped them like an old girlfriend, but right there all I was thinking about was moving forward and moving forward meant putting together a new style of ramp and coming up with new ideas for freestyle.

Now if I was smart at this time, I would have backed off from riding in shows (Which I couldn’t do well anyhow with the acl injury in the back of my mind.), gotten another team together, started looking for shows and building a team together to move forward. But instead of that I just tookit out to have fun with my buds occasionally. While riding and working, I was still imagining. Again one of the big should have’s in my head now…I should have taken the knowledge I had gained running the Ramp-Ateria and expanded whatI did there. I was making plans though, even coming up with a huge mini to jumpbox hip ramp design in my spare time. (Serious, check the plans and drawings accompanying this…circa 1995.)

One really weird thing that went down at this time was the chance to ride in a small demo with the Canadian Trick Master Jay Miron. I was somehow tagged to build a jump box and spine for a bike shop up in 

North Jersey by one of my friends, I forget who it was…Rodney or Bill Danner but they tagged me to go up there and build the ramps for this demo and then help ride. I believe Rod and Mike Wilson rode flat during the demo along with, of course, Jay Miron. Back then Jay was just as bad arse on flat as he was on…well….everything else. Believe it or not, since there were no other ramp riders there I somehow got pulled in to ride the jump box as well. So there I was doing like no footers, learys and 360’s in between a full on pro BMX rider like Jay. Incredibly humbling. Jay was a great guy and at no time said anything like…why is this lame old guy (I was still the oldest guy out there in NJ at the time…) riding here! LOL! I think that could very well be the highlight of the late 

90’

s part of my riding career, riding with a couple guys I saw grow up next to a pro that I saw come up through the ranks during the late 80’s.It was an amazing experience for me.

The Average BMXer Part 23

"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.

The Average BMXer ~Part 22~
The Soul Kitchen cooks across the east as the Ramp-Ateria becomes a focal point for BMX freestyle in NJ...

1992. I guess,  in retrospect, this was the year where I really got to live the idea that I had in my mind in High School without all of the overwhelming responsibility of it. That was, of course, owning a bike shop. At this point

 in time, I was done with the mason thing, and Dave Wynn was good enough to put me on full time at what was now Slot Car City. Dave and myself would attempt to run something that was really ahead of its time, sort of a family fun center. Ramp park in the back, slot car tracks inside along with a bike shop and even arcade machines and comic books, yea we put it all in there. 

One of the questions that my buds always ask is, “Why the hell did you put a slot car track in there?!” Well back then we were trying to come up with cool innovative ideas to, quite frankly, bring in more money to grow the business. It’s normally what people in business do. So we started brainstorming ideas and one of them was slot cars. We had both messed around with them as kids and our initial idea was to put it in the basement of the small store where TC Cycles originally was in that new location. Dave talked to Sully who owned the place and he gave us a deal on the rent so we could move into the bigger building and really see what we could do.

We went for it. Eric, myself, Bill Danner, and I think even Rod…cruised to North Carolina to pick up a huge slot car track in a rented uhaul truck…blasting by weigh stations along the way of course! LOL. We set it up, made another run someplace else to grab a oval track for guys who liked NASCAR style racing and set that up…then they wanted to run drag races…so we got that going. In the beginning, it was good and people were flowing in.

This in turn helped the ramp-park. We now had a pretty steady flow of income to pay the rent and keep this whole shebang running. 1992 would be the best year of the Rampe-Ateria. Since I could work there full time and devote all my energy to running things the park began to explode. There was enough cash in the till from the previous year to change up some of the ramps and to build something I had been wanting for quite a while. A 5’ tall mini-ramp. Me, Eric, Joe Doll, all the locals, Bill Danner, we all got busy putting together this thing and it was pretty wild. What is now common at ramp parks and the Dew Tour was just starting to happen for all of us. As vert ramps went to 9, 10, 11’ we went off and decided that it was time for something easier to ride to just have fun on. This was definitely the ticket.

As we were working on the ramps at the park we also started to heavily follow the NBL’s newly christened (by now big name nature photographer, Hal Brindley) Soul Kitchen Series. Hal Brindley along with Ellie Stack and a cast of crazies, including myself and Eric, went about putting on a series of “east coast national” BMX freestyle contests. Daytona skatepark, Hoffman Estates, Rhode Island, Maryland, I think there were about 6 comps total that year and we hit them all. Myself, Eric, and John Jenkins. The comps were a good time and it truly was an 

amazing era on the east coast as the riders began to take charge of BMX. Names like Hal Brindley, Leigh Ramsdell, Kevin Robinson, Bryan Huffman, Joe Rich, John Englebert, Tom Stober, Rob Nolli and many others would show their faces at some of these comps. We even put one together at…the Ramp-Ateria, but that is a story for a bit later.

For now though the park was in full swing, we had riders coming down every month for the comps and guys who would go on to become big deals in BMX freestyle practicing at our place, among then Joe Rich, Tom Stober and the incredible Jeff Crawn (who at this time went by the name Crawndor). What more can I say about Jeff that I didn’t already say in the other write up.  The kid was amazing. Flatland, ramps, mini-ramps, trails, street, rails…he did it all and he killed it. Destroyed it. Dominated it. The Ramp-Ateria, as I have said, was HIS park. Sure we ran it but we had the pleasure of watching this guy use it to its full potential. For 1991 and 1992, he was unstoppable.

The Average BMXer ~Part 21~
Explorer Post 201, The New Jersey Freestyle League and year one of ...The Ramp-Ateria...

BMX was done. The magazines were getting lighter and lighter and sponsorships were non-existent for professional riders. Even Jay Miron, one of the

 top guys at the time was told by Harold “McGoo” McGruther how to “scam” free soda at McDonalds by reusing an empty cup! LOL. It was rough out there.The rider owned companies had not really popped up yet and the rest of them were trying to figure out what to do with a sport that had now lost a lot ofriders and most of its contests in a very short time.

The ‘core riders though didn’t really care. We just kept right on riding like we had been doing along.

Which leads me back to where we left off at TC Cycles new location over on the other end of South Plainfield. With the Boy Scouts, our landlord and a bunch of BMX riders backing us, we put the ramps in and planned for our 1991 season. Flatland comps were fun and the little ramp stuff we setup on the side of the other shop was cool but this was taking things to a whole ‘nuther level. Our original set up had our big portable Stonehenge with a 4’ deck on it! LOL!, the old HVTT metal quarter pipe, a small hip ramp jump box, a 4’ spine, grind box and a sub ramp that we made from a jump box, the old metal HVTT kick turn ramp and another jump box, as well as small launch ramps all over  the parking lot.

The centerpiece though was the bowl ramp with two hips from the Crossman’s King of the Court contests. With that in the center of the area it was looking pretty amazing back there for its time.

I mean it certainly wasn’t anything as elaborate as today,though for 1991 it was pretty cool.  So we set off in the spring to turn up the heat on BMX freestyle in NJ. The New Jersey Freestyle League of Explorer Post 201 was about to blow up. 

The Average BMXer ~Part 20~
Masters of Land and Air, NBL, and the beginning of the Ramp-Ateria...

I mentioned one of these guys in the last installment and I should really give these fellas all the credit they are due. So here is a condensed version of how I met a bunch of guys who would help out IMMENSELY

 with the contests and what was coming down the pike. These gents were Joe Doll (remember him?), Charlie Ford and Chris Kline who did a killer job painting a very grunge looking version of the High Voltage Trick Team logo on my crazy portable jump box. These guys would come out and move stuff, build stuff and basically follow what I said in order to get things going. I can even remember the first day I ever met these guys. I’m riding down the street in Dunellen and I see a group of BMX hoodlums (I’m joking, just a bunch of guys on bikes.) heading down the street. I see them; they see me and one of ‘em, (who would later turn out to be Joe Doll) says, “Are you Brett?”. Amazed that someone actually knew who I was I answered yes. Their reply was “cool, we were trying to find out where you live, did you have that General ramp in front of your house”…etc, etc… I was sorta stoked to find some people that had an interest in BMX in the area again and could see these guys would be down to help out and help out they did. In fact, in the months that I was out they kept me motivated and pumped up to get back into the scene to “make things happen”.

I’m sure more than a few of you have busted something or tore a ligament. So when I make the statement that 6 months of rehab sucks A**!!! You can feel my pain. A good month in a brace that slowly allowed movement to my knee. Then a new $400.00 dollar brace to get me back to the point where I could lift weights with my leg to rehab the muscles. Yea it was fun. I gotta say in my mind this whole thing was sort of a game changer. I guess when you are 13 and break yourself off it doesn’t really make a dent in your mind as far as maybe I shouldn’t try to hurt myself. You get to be near 25 and have bills to pay and you start to say to yourself…should I continue to push myself in a direction that could potentially hurt me for the rest of my life? When the ok was given for me to continue to ride late in 1990, I realized that maybe I should start to think about other ways to push the limits of BMX rather than be as big a bad ass as I could. This started actually, while I was still wandering around in a brace unable to ride.

The Average BMXer ~Part 19~
Out here on our own...

So that was it. No fanfare, no great arguments or fights.Just a polite thank you to Harry Myers and a farewell to the great guys who went on tour that year and I was done being part of a “factory” team.

 It was the fall of 1989 and you could really tell that freestyle was going into sort of a hibernation. Freed from having to ride a certain type of bike, I of course went right back to the ride that I always loved which was a Haro Master. A nice lime green/chrome mug and I was set to jet once again. With the guys who I now knew at TC Cycles fully behind the idea of making freestyle big in the area I started to think of ways to move things forward. 

First though I wanted to ride! I hadn’t built a quarter pipe that I could get busy on in a long time so with the help of some of the local gang of BMXers, Jason Britland and Joe Doll and some permission from Jason’s grandmother we built a nice 8x8 quarter in her driveway that we could shred on.It was actually built so skaters and BMXers could rock on it and I even got a hold of the old General street set up, the box and jump, to have fun on. It was really great to be back to the roots of just having fun on a BMX bike again with no pressure of learning the newest trendy tricks or hassling about show schedules. Now it was just me, my buds, riding and having fun.

Around this time I met up with a dude who was now running all the 4-H stuff over in Somerset County named Eric Fleming. Eric had been around for awhile but it wasn’t until now that we started to ride together and realized that our viewpoint on a lot of what BMX was about jived pretty well. So once again my riding crew changed up and we had some new guys in the mix.

Right about now, like I mentioned earlier in the ’89 General tour blog post, street riding was blowing up. Actually at that point in time it wasn’t so much pure street as it was, jump boxes, mini-ramps, wall rides, grinds, sub-boxes…for all intents and purposes, BMX freestyle was growing beyond 8’ quarters , flatland and half-pipes. It was growing into something that really combined all 3 aspects of the sport. Since I had kept the old HVTT touring quarter I could see there was some room for guys to now go around and rock out on a portable “jump box” set up. My bro, Joe Doll, at the time had this old camper trailer and wanted 

to build a jump box at his house that he could move. Well Eric and myself saw this as an opportunity to go out and make something that we had never seen before, a jump box that folded up on itself and could be towed around to contests and shows. So me, Eric and Joe built NJ’s first foldable, portable jump box set up. (The picture accompanies this posting.) It was…insane to say the least. About 4.5’ tall, 8’ wide but with a 4’ deck! Duh, I hadn’t quite figured out how to make the jump box all lay out perfect and hadn’t considered going length wise on the trailer so off the two sides hung a transition and landing. What was nice though is that it had a huge compartment inside to store a PA system, bikes, and whatever else we needed to do shows. By today’s standards it was pretty crude, for the time though it was…weird, LOL, but fun. We set about continuing on the HVTT at that point with Joe Doll, me, and Eric. 

 

The Average BMXer ~Part 18~

When fun becomes stress it's time to move on...

After that show in Johnstown, our next stop would not be till Wakefield Michigan. This was the part of the tour that was SUPPOSED to swing past the shops in Chicago that had cancelled. So with them out of the picture it was all about finding a quick route to Upper Peninsula Michigan. That route would take us through Niagara Falls, NY and across Canada over the top of Lake Erie. So we get to the Niagara border crossing and apparently get the then standard questions given to us, what are we carrying, where are we going…what…is…your…nationality….  When we are asked that little question we all got this bizarre look on our faces and started spouting out, well…where our ancestors were from, um…Italy, German, Dutch, English…The border guard gets this, “oh my gawd what a bunch of maroons” look on her face and more blatantly says, “What COUNTRY are you from?” With that we all smiled and said, OH! United States! Since it was then obvious that we were not up to any international mischief as it would seem we just weren’t well…bright enough. They let us pass on through. With no desire to deal with changing Canadian dollars to USA and vice versa, I hightailed our AC-less suburban across the Canadian Tundra to Michigan. Our next stop was WAY up in what is called Upper Peninsula Michigan. Wakefield to be exact. I tell ya, at 43 the idea of driving probably 12 hours for peanuts as pay now seems insane, back then it was just one great big adventure and a good time hauling that rig up into Michigan and seeing the country.

Anyway we get into Wakefield and it seems we are in a well…very small town. Like if you could take a Norman Rockwell picture of small town USA, this would be it. We’re thinking, this is gonna be a super small show and after that insane drive!

 The Average BMXer ~Part 17~

Your on your own kid...

Like I mentioned in the last installment the AC in the suburban went out not too long into the summer tour. In fact it went out on a return trip from Thiels Wheels in Upper Sandusky Ohio, which as it turns out was Brad McCarty’s first show with us!  Now a suburban as many people may know is a pretty large vehicle and this thing had AC not only blasting at the driver and passenger but also had a separate AC unit in the rear. What this meant was that anyone sleeping in the rear of the truck was in cool air conditioned comfort. What it meant this year on tour was that they would be sweltering big time in the back of that truck while the best seats were in the front with driver. Ya see when I took the rig to see about getting the AC fixed before we were to leave again; the mechanic told me that it would be a good grand plus to fix and that the part would take about a week to get to NJ to fix it. No time for that, so we had to suck it up and go for it. Why didn’t we just have the parts sent to a stop on tour and get it done there. Well at this point in time like I have stated before, General was not having a pleasant time with the financial situation, so much so that I was told that the General rig was to be brought back to East Rutherford every weekend. This of course doesn’t sit well when you are going on tour across the country.

Be all those fun facts as they may, we still jumped in that nice warm vehicle with a redone trailer; half-ass street set up and went out on what would be General Bicycles last summer tour.

Before we headed out into the wild tour yonder we stopped by a staple on the General Tour Trail, Minitrail Bikes in Lindenwold NJ. This place had a HUGE scene and there were always tons of riders at the shows, this time though, the crowd level seemed to have peaked and what we began to see was that the only people that were showing up at freestyle shows, were freestylers themselves. The average, “what is this stuff about”, person had left the scene. We did the shows there for the shop and headed north to do a week of practice at a place that is now synonymous with BMX.