Too hot, too old, too slow, two-seventy?

The riding progresses at a glacial pace. Granted, it's hard to find time to ride and the dirtpark needs a lot of work done to maintain it and keep it in form. Actual 'real' yardwork takes precedence though. Somebody has to ride the mower, man the trimmer, start up the pool, clean up the dog crap. The problem is that that somebody is me. And I'm also the dirtpark maintenance crew.

But the real problem is the 360s. 360s are just, uh, like, uh, argh.

I'm working on the them a lot lately and they are coming along slowly. I can tap/pivot a 270 around but that is not what I want to accomplish. I want to land both tires at full 360 degrees. This past weekend, I kept at it, but the 3's are just not there yet. Although, it was ridiculously hot and I think I had the beginnings of heat stroke. Other than being old, slow, and overheated, I'm not sure what the problem is. I think I maybe just need to go higher? Tuck the back up more? Keep my head turned? Dunno. Sometimes I tap the rear brakes to help spin, but this just makes me land on the rear tire and pivot out. If I don't grab the brake and really tuck up, the bike comes around, but I lose my centre of rotation and start to go sideways. Any advice on 360s would be really welcome.

My bro came by and shot a few pics with his DSLR. He used to ride a lot of BMX back in the day as well. Here he is catching some air off our old 8' quarter pipe that we set up in front of our old house in Barrhaven when we were kids. So, that means that this was taken back in the mid-to-late eighties. Notice the Redline RL-20 II in Radberry. I used to have a RL-20 in Radberry. I think at one point, we were the only two kids in Ottawa with Radberry bikes. Anyway, the ramp disassembled into 3 pieces and had to be put away back into the garage after every use. It even had wheels on the back so we could roll it down to the park. Well, until the Bylaw officers would show up that is...



So, with my bro wasting some flash card space I tried to get some practice in. I had the camcorder going and I even managed to land this little 180 fly-out to fakie roll down thingy. It was fun.

Frontside:


Backside:


Here's another crappy video edit. It's nothing special, but at least this one is short. (I have also made a promise to myself to not film anything again until I actually learn a new trick.)

Dirtpark 2000 from slamigo on Vimeo.

Good times in the dirt park!

This is a hard feeling for me to describe. Everyone who rides a BMX knows that feeling of just hanging out and riding with your buddies, that feeling of wasting time, of goofing off, everybody just trying to either work on reaching a personal goal or maybe just pull something that will impress your buds. You're outside, you're young, the sun is shining, and nobody has anything on their minds except what they might try to do next as they wait ther turn to hit the jump. Now imagine fast forwarding 20 years into the future and enjoying that space of time with your kids.

My boys are 5 and 7 years old and it's a lot of fun to hang out and ride with them. The boys are just out there living in the moment, riding and having a good time. Progress doesn't always come easily though. Sometimes you fall. Sometimes you're nervous. As I keep at it I realize that it really is hard work. And I see the boys starting to try these things. They are working hard.



But we are all enjoying some sense of accomplishment. My 5 year old rode the dirt bowl for the first time. My 7 year old can actually catch a few inches of air. To be at this point in my life that I can ride with my kids is really, really cool.

Still working on getting the walls packed down harder so I can start getting higher out of the bowl. Since there isn't any vert, if you go any higher you hang up your rear tire.



I remembered that I used to be able to do can-cans. Here is a fuzzy memory of what those were like. I realize it is a bad representation, but hey, it's progress and I'll take it.



Here's another little video of the riding from the dirtpark. It won't be super exciting to anyone but it's just an awesome feeling to share riding with my kids.

Good times in the dirt park from slamigo on Vimeo.

Baby steps

The weather has been brutal. Rainy and cold and it's making life at the dirtbowl miserable. In what can only be described as a tiny window of opportunity of no-rain, I decided to try out a jump that I had never before attempted: the no-footer. I think that it is an important trick that you need to learn in order to progress.

So, on my 39th birthday, I got out the bike and tried a few. The first time I tried it, I slipped a pedal and went over the bars and rolled down the side of the jump into the poison ivy. I now have an icthy plumber's crack. Great. But I managed to land some and they really aren't that hard. My no-footers are not pretty, or high, or stylish. Yet. Right now they are actually just terrible.



But I can land them. I found them to be a neat little trick. I like them. I was really tempted to try them higher but I decided to just do baby steps. I want to get used to finding my pedals and developing some 'muscle memory' before going higher.

The no-footer is a cornerstone trick. You need to be able to do them without thinking if you want to be able to do the really cool tricks. Like tailspins or supermans. I tried a couple of whips but the bike doesn't come around quick enough. Oh well, baby steps...



Here's some of the craptacular action. Don't mess with the dirtbowl guard dog. Any sudden movements could set him off.

Baby steps in the dirtpark from slamigo on Vimeo.

Live from the Dirtbowl - some lame riding!

I have been digging so much that I haven't really had a chance to ride. The dirtbowl is dug, but the walls are still not packed down. I've brought out the hand-tamp and have some of the sides somewhat packed, but it's going to take a long time. Anyway, here's a frame grab from a little video that I took today.



Nothing says pathetic loner like a video shot completely from the perspective of a camera stuck on a tripod. So, that's just the way it is. I placed the tripod at a couple of different angles and tried to capture the action as best I could. There's a ton of bugs attacking the video camera, but oddly enough, they didn't attack me. The riding is still particularly lame, but hey, I'm working on it. Keep in mind that the walls of the bowl are still very soft and if you do a 'real' jump, your tires will dig in and you'll just go over the bars. Plus did I mention that I'm old?

The video is longish, running nearly 6 minutes. If you endure the full vid, you are a trooper.

Backyard Dirtpark from slamigo on Vimeo.

DIRTBOWL! DIRTBOWL! DIRTBOWL!

The dirtbowl lives! I just finished digging out the last portion today. Holy crap, that was a lot of digging. I don't know if I had unrealistic expectations or anything, but when I thought of this day, I had thought of something like the following occurring:

It was a vision of me blasting huge airs while fireworks went off. Music was blaring as the Snow Birds flew directly overhead in perfect formation while the neighbours cheered, my wife wept tears of pride and my kids went nuts. Somewhere, just outside the edge of the crowd, Chuck Norris would make eye contact with me long enough to nod his silent approval. Yeah. F-Yeah!!

Well, it was more like me being so freaking tired and sore that I could barely ride my bike. My hands are a mess of callused blisters. The sides of the bowl are still pretty soft, but I am getting it packed down. I managed to pop off the spine transfer thing into the pool. Here, my 7 year old captures a picture of me entering the pool.



Here's a pic of my 7 year old testing out the berm wall. You can't really go any higher on the berm yet because I haven't packed it down. I'm still kind of planning how that will take place. Maybe I will get a water filled lawn roller?



This is his first time riding anything like this. I can't possibly imagine how cool this would have been for me if I had one of these in my backyard when I was a kid. Hopefully, the kids stick with the sport and have a lot of fun. If not, they better enjoy skateboarding, because the halfpipe will be built next summer and that will cost some actual money. All that I spent on the dirtbowl was the price of a shovel. ($15.99 at Cdn Tire)



I was reading online about how some guys can get bummed out about all the 'other' aspects of BMX. The trendiness. The peer pressure. The respect or lack of it. For me, this backyard dirtbowl is the pinnacle of what BMX was supposed to be. When I was a kid, if we could find a spot to ride and some dirt, we would just use our imagination and play on our bikes. On more than one occasion, I'm quite certain I said something like, "wouldn't it be awesome if you could build a quarter pipe out of dirt?!" We even built 'lake jumps' into really gross cow ponds. That was awesome until one of us got a nasty ear infection. Yuck.

But I look at the dirtbowl in my backyard and I can't help but smile. For me, this is pure BMX. Go play.

Dirt bowl is steadily taking shape

The digging continues. It just freaking continues and continues.

Sometimes I feel a little like Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind. He started out making a replica of "Devil's Tower" with mashed potatoes and then eventually lost it and built a giant mountain in the living room. Hopefully, somebody in my family loves me enough to organize an intervention if I ever get to this point.



But, on a positive note, the digging obsession is paying dividends. The bowl is actually taking shape now. I think that it requires about 2-3 days of digging. But I'm pretty optimistic. Three weeks ago I figured it would take about a week.

Here are some pics of the progress.



Here is a picture of the little spine transfer/entrance into the bowl. I've tried it a few times and it's already fun.



Another pic of the spine jump.



The arrow shown here is pointing to the smaller side of the table jump. That is the spot that I was hitting up in the earlier pictures from 'Day One'.



And finally here is the view from the edge of my lawn before my yard goes into the 'dirt park'. Kind of looks like the Shire from Lord of the Rings. Maybe it is time for that intervention...

A crushed skull and plenty of broken bones in the dirt bowl

The dirt bowl work continues. It's hard because I have to fit in the digging around 'life', but it is really starting to come along nicely. I figure that I have about a week or so left. I think I can have it totally dug by the end of the weekend. Getting the dirt packed down enough will take a while longer and if it doesn't rain, I will get out the hose. Which reminds me, I broke the outdoor tap last winter icing the hockey rink. Which reminds me, I have to take down the rink boards and get rid of the tarp.

Anyway, here is a picture of the skull that I accidentally busted up while digging. I believe it to be a deer. The whole skeleton was down there. The kids got a big kick out of this because they were sincerely hoping to find some dinosaur bones. In this first picture, if you look really closely, you can see the outline of the deer's head that I traced in the dirt to show the kids how it went together.



Then here's a shot of the rest. I'm sure there's still more down there, but the bones were really brittle. I don't think I have a career in paleontology because I pretty much destroyed everything I touched even when I was trying to be careful.



The bowl is really progressing. It's pretty hard to get the depth from my crappy pictures. The camera flattens the perspective badly. The walls here are about five feet high. It will be plenty big enough to boost some little airs. The twin tabletops are just to the left in this picture and will be attached to the bowl. It will be possible to boost off the smaller table directly into the bowl. Once the dirt is packed enough that is. Try it now and you'll auger your front tire about a foot into the berm wall.



There is a roll-in entrance and there will also be this pretty sweet spine to get into the bowl. It doesn't look like much in the pic, but in person it's cool. I have day dream visions of busting 360s off this spine into the bowl. Hey, it could happen...



I also picked up the new bars. This is purely a vanity purchase. I think they look just swell and I'm told that those Edwin grips are preferred. Good stuff.
As you can see below, I bought some Odyssey Aaron Ross spacebars. I am told that my jumps will be much higher and way more stylish.



Here they are attached to the bike. Which reminds me. I suck at taking pictures with my crappy camera. I will have to get my brother to come by and take real photos of the bike, the bowl and me riding the bowl, with his DSLR.

Can you dig it?

Can you dig it?

Yeah, I can dig it.

I dig a lot. Maybe too much. Last year, I bunged up my wrist by digging too much. I thought NSAIDs (non steroid anti-inflammatory drugs) could fix everything. They can't.

But it also is therapeutic to dig. It's part of creating. For me, it's part of the ride. But this year, I've actually admitted that I can't build a real BMX track and build it right. A BMX track is for racing and the jumps are all curved tops. Also, it just doesn't work right unless you bring in truckloads and truckloads of dirt. It would never be wide enough to race on and most importantly, it wouldn't be fun enough because the jumps would be lame.

But my kids are also too young for me to simply start building up a 4-pack or 6-pack. What to do?

My son was giving me grief over the design of the pump track. He complained that he couldn't build up enough speed to get up the jump properly or ride the big berm with any flow. He asked me if I could remove two smaller jumps that were slowing him down and build another berm.

I offered him one better:

"How about we make one giant berm and have it go all the way around?"

"Huh?"

"Let's make a dirt bowl!"

"Oh sweet! It will be a dirt skatepark!"

So today began the digging out of the inner section of the berm. I expect that it is going to take about a week to complete. The walls will be about 4' high to begin and I'll concave out the centre of the bowl a couple feet. Actually, I plan to go as far down into the ground as possible until I hit rock. There is a ditch nearby, so if drainage is an issue, I am prepared to dig out a trench and lay down an actual drain pipe. But it's pretty dry at that spot, so I probably won't even have to do that.

Pushing this much dirt by hand is not easy. For some really weird reason, I just don't mind doing it.

I am still going to order a couple truckloads of dirt for the second section of the dirt park, but I should be able to get this area done with just the dirt from the spot.

It looked like this.



Then I started to hollow it out.



Other side. The left berm that attaches to the little jump with the 'coping' will connect to where I am standing in this photo and everything you see in the middle will be gone. The little jump in the centre of this pic is the one that my son was complaining about. Bascially, everything in the middle where the shovels are will be gone and the dirt moved to the walls to build the berm up. Then the 'bowl' will be dug down and made concave.



Here I am beginning to line the dirt up for where the berm-wall will be.



Always listen to the riders when building. My son had lots of great ideas about how the dirtpark could be built to suit what he wants to do. I'm building it for the kids. Hopefully, they will be building and riding this dirt park for years.



Edit: Here is a poorly photoshopped artist's rendition of what the bowl should sort of eventually look like.

Day One

So I just made it through Day One. I'm a little bummed. The bike is not at all what I expected. I got on the BMX and it felt totally foreign. I could barely ride the thing. That was not expected. I thought it would feel like going home. Instead, it felt awful.

At first.

I tried some bunny hops on the flat pavement. Ouch. Apparently, at some point over the past 20 years that I was away from BMX, some freakin genius decided that everyone should be running 120 PSI in their tires. I could feel the landings in my ears. It was beyond jarring. I am used to a mountain bike with 8" of travel at each end and 35 PSI in the tires. This was absolutely bone rattling. But, I kept at it and tried to figure out how not to get hurt while attempting tiny bunny hops.

I decided to move on to the dirt track. The dirt should be a lot softer than pavement right? As it turns out, not much really. It was a little bit softer, but you still get rattled around when you land.

The bike I bought is really, really whippy. It has 13.22" chain stays. That means that it likes to spin and it likes to loop out. I hit up the smaller of the table tops at slow speed and tried to bunny hop at the lip. Before I knew it, I was standing superman style with the bike suspended up in the air in my outstretched arms. Then I tried to not loop the bike away from me and totally nose-dived. I was starting to get really depressed. I just spent a lot of money on a bike that I could not even ride. Argh. Why do I ride a kid's bike?

So, with my kids racing around and egging me on, I tried to bunny hop again and managed to get the bike level in the air.



I did this a few more times and it very, very slowly started to feel somewhat like something that I might be able to do. Again, roll into the little table with not much speed and pop up.



Okay, it's not going to impress anyone. Well, it sort of impressed my two youngest kids. My oldest gave me some polite encouragement. I think he felt a little bit sorry for me. Maybe even for himself. "C'mon Dad! That one wasn't too bad!"

So, I kept at it on and off for most of the afternoon and actually managed to get some little table-tops. I swear that one was fully flat but not filmed. I know, without footage it's fiction, but I swear it was clicked.

Keep in mind that I'm not carrying much speed and the height that I'm getting is just from the pop/bunny hop that I'm pulling. Still, it's kind of fun.

Here's a neat little one.



Not totally flat, but not totally crap. I guess it's okay for Day One. I really have to work on my facial expressions though.



I decided to get all old-school and go for a cross-up. I got the click, but not much height. Still, I would like to point out to the jury that the bars are fully crossed. Note the brand new Capital BMX shirt. Maybe it has good karma?



The last jump of the day was not pretty. I did another table top attempt at a higher rate of speed and actually got a bit more air. The picture sucks because my brother tried to do some sort of light/angle experiment that didn't work and it was taken a little early before I got the bike flat.



But because I went a bit higher, the bike dug into the dirt when I landed. It's still only April. The ground is still drying out. I pitched over the bars and as I rolled commando style down the tranny, the bike landed right on top of me. I caught it on the second bounce and stood up. That would be enough fun for Day One.



Here's the bike after one full day of backyard action. It's all nice and dusty and happy. Bikes like dirt.

My new WTP Envy self destructs while doing 110 km/h on the 417!

I was pretty jazzed about picking up my new BMX. My handlebars still had not arrived, so I decided that I didn't feel like waiting another day or two and went ahead and picked up the bike anyway. I got Jose to leave the stock WTP Envy bars on.
The bike looks pretty sweet. Feels very light and very solid. We'll see.

Some kid at Joe Mamma's thought it looked nice but wondered out loud why some dude in a suit and tie was buying a BMX.

"You don't look like a BMX rider."

Ouch. I thought about messing with him and being witty, but I have a pretty sarcastic dry wit that I usually try to deliver deadpan. It would have been funny, but not in real time. It would have been funny the next day when I told the story of the awkward scene I caused by messing with some kid at the local bike shop. So I muttered something about getting back into sports or whatever and minded my own business.

(Note to self: don't wear a suit to the local skatepark.)

Here's a couple pics of some new bike goodness.





So, Jose at Joe Mamma's gave me a pretty good deal and I was generally feeling pretty psyched as I cranked up the minivan to 110 km/h and turned up the radio. Head bobbing, fingers tapping, and stealing loving glances over my shoulder of the sweet new bike nestled snugly behind my seat every 45 seconds or so.

PING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Holy crap! WTF?! My first thought was that a piece of metal had flown up and nailed my windshield or window frame. That sucks. But my detective skills told me that my deduction was off. That sound wasn't outside the van. It was inside the van. INSIDE THE VAN! Like the horror movie where the super hot baby-sitter chick is on the phone to the cops and they're all like, "We traced the number. It's coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE!" Oh no! (so, yeah, for the sake of the metaphor, I am the super hot baby-sitter chick) So, I know something is up. And I stop taking loving glances over my shoulder. I just drive home and wait to get out and see what is up. I'm bummed, but still hopeful it isn't something bad.

Integrated seatpost clamp my ass! That thing busted itself off! Like right off. Check out the carnage below:



I call Joe Mamma's but they're closed. I leave a message. I'm not bitter. It's just a stupid seat post clamp and I'll get a new one. I don't think we need to involve the warranty police or send the frame away to Taiwan for visual inspection. Let's all just relax and move on.

Holding the broken clamp in my hand, I am shocked at how light and flimsy it seems. That does it. I want a cool seat post clamp now. And I want it to be a white one. And it should definitely be made out of something thicker than loose leaf paper.



And just like that, I'm not nearly as concerned with really light weight components.

Have surfer tattoo = you better surf

Tattoos are the coolest thing ever. To have a tattoo means that you are totally hardcore. Nobody can dare question your commitment. You put your money down, steeled your courage and actually went through with it. I was thoroughly convinced of all of these things about 18 years ago. I also wanted everyone who met me to associate the awesome coolness of surfing with yours truly. Well, to make it happen, I took an image out of a surfing mag and 'stylized' it. It was a black & white cartoon image of a surfer taken from a Surfline ad. Then I made up a fictional company that sounded cool (cuz I was going to fashion T-shirts/hoodies/surf clothes and be famous/rich) and put my new 'logo' needle deep on my right arm/shoulder. It was the coolest thing ever. It was 'SLAM BROS SURF!'



Now, I've barely ever surfed. I do some windsurfing, but it's not the same. I've only tried real, actual surfing a couple of times while on vacation and I never really did get the hang of it. But, as a part of the 'don't let your children see how lame you are' approach that I now have, I am committing myself to getting some decent rides in this summer.

You simply cannot live out your life with a surf tattoo on your arm and not be able to surf. So, this summer I will be spending 2 weeks down in North Carolina.

First thing I'm going to do is pick up a nice longboard/funboard like this:


And then go out on this stuff and, you know, stand up on the thing...

So what's this talk about skateboarding?

Yeah, unlike a lot of folks I don't discriminate based on skater vs bmxer. Whatever. I think they're both cool. Always have. I bought the boys some kick-ass skateboards last summer for their birthdays and I pulled my skateboard out as well.



So, after no skateboarding for 20 years or so, I decided to go out in front of the house with the kids and see just how foreign riding a skateboard had become. I specifically wanted to see if I could ollie. If I couldn't ollie it would be a pretty big indicator of things to come. So, with the kids circling me on tricycles and their little bikes, I went out and tried a couple of ollies.

I found that I could actually get the board off the ground. Not just off the ground, but I could probably ollie a recycle box if I needed to. This was unexpected. Most unexpected. I told my wife to run and grab the video camera. I was motivated. Over the next few days I went online and found some tips on kickflips and heelflips.
After clearing some space in my garage, I set up the video camera to help me analyze what I was doing wrong or right. (You know, just like the pros do to unlock the secret mechanics of the perfect golf swing.) The first time I did this I actually managed to land a heelflip. (Something that I didn't know how to do 20 years ago. Which is really weird.) It wasn't pretty. It wasn't stylish. Actually, it looked pretty awful and only by freeze-frame can I actually prove that the board leaves the ground, but hey, I don't know any other 38 year olds at my office that can heelflip.
So, in case I never land another one, here is the video proof.


(My 7 year old picked the music. I had an old Cake song picked out, but my 7 year old told me it was lame and specifically requested Red Flag by Billy Talent.)

I have a list a of tricks that I'm going to try and learn. Any tips on these tricks will be greatly appreciated.
shove-it
kickflip
heelflip
varial kickflip
50/50 and 5-0 grind

Next summer once the halfpipe is done, I'm going to try and learn to ride that.

Personally, I prefer a big back yard.

Since we live in 'the sticks', (within city limits, but just barely), I have 2.5 acres on which to play around with. The BMX track will be inside our treeline and will weave in and out of the trees. It also has a nice little downslope which will help. The only major problem is that there is a lot of poison ivy. I've been getting rid of the poison ivy by digging it up and making jumps out of it. If you have a better idea, I'd like to hear it.
I started digging the track back in 2006 when my oldest was only 3. It didn't see much use and I pretty much only had a double jump and table started. The best comment so far was when one of my new neighbours asked me point blank "Don't you have anything better to do?" Thanks neighbour. Go mow your lawn.

Here's what it looked like:


My 3 year old son makes them look a little bigger than they are. The jumps are about 3.5' tall.



Last summer, I decided to get the shovel out again and start digging. Here is the current state of 'the dirt track':

No more double jumps. Too hard for kids. There are now two table-tops and a few twisty berms.


The second table top is around 8' wide and has two separate take-offs with a shared landing. Note the 'coping' on the smaller lip. It seems to really help my 7 year old learn when to pull up.


Here is a little berm that is just beginning to be built up. All that grass in the middle will be shovelled out and piled into the berm.



I've pretty much exhausted the 'dig and move' approach as I started to hit some rock patches. This summer, I will order up some dumptruck loads of dirt and build it proper.



I'll keep posting up pics of the progression of the jumps/dirt track. If you have any cool ideas, let me know. I am toying with the idea of building up a big dirt spine jump or maybe even a dirt bowl?