Sheldon Brown 1944-2008

I heard Sheldon Brown died last week. He lived his life surrounded by bikes & his site makes for some interesting reading. I used his wheel building expertise from his tutorial site years ago to teach myself to build wheels & I've often found myself digging through the other parts of his knowledge of bicycles old & new.

RIP to a fellow biker


www.sheldonbrown.com/home.html

Ratboy Rocket Ruler...

SS20-Corby-5th Feb 2008...

It's always got to be good to cut work early to go & ride so it was half day for some old dudes & then hit the road to Corby again.

The plans all came together last minute & it ended up with Sunil & I travelling up from Banbury to Meet Alex, Mon & Zac at the park. After a good old chin-wag all the way up, we were into the park & out of the rain. Derren Bailey & Phil from Cov also came & we were soon all sessioning the bowl & wedge & having a grand old time of it!

Alex - Table


Mon & Zac skated the bowl & were there to do a reccy for the legendary Skate shop SS20 in Oxford. The plan, according to SS20 owner Mon, is to get a load of Skateboarders the world over to get together & have a big Jam type deal to celebrate 20 Years of SS20 with live music, DJ's & undoubtedly, some mental skating going down too. All due to happen as some point later in the year...

Zac


Zac - Hip


Mon


Mon - Bowl Carve


Sunil hasn't ridden for ages so it was good to see him blowing out the cobwebs & getting back into the flow. We made our way around the park & rode a little of everything, there were a bunch of foreign younger guys, all sessioning the main line down the park over the boxes but they all left after a short while & we pretty much had the place to ourselves.

We had a real good session on the street spine which has to have a prize for being the worst positioned ramp in a skatepark ever! it's right in the main line of the jump boxes/step ups callthemwhatyouwill. Fortunately as the park was quiet, we all managed to get some good stuff down on it anyways.

Alex - Spine - 360 Tyretap


Ian - Spine - No-foot nosepick


Big props to Sunil for conquering the spine & for the other guys riding who pretty much nailed everything they attempted. All Good...

After learning that the floor was in fact made of sandpaper (ouch) we returned to the bowl for a while & then Sunil & I called it a day. We said our goodbyes & were soon back on the dark roads to Banbury...

Thanks to you all for the inspiring riding & see you all @ Creation on the 23rd - Yo!

Phil


Derren & Alex


Sunil & Ian


Good times


Thanks to Alex for the photos ;-)

RADBMX-Corby-10th Jan 2008...

Bit slack on the up take, I know, but what a great way to start the year! Over a month has flown by since the Xmas doo & again we were a bunch of excited kids chomping at the bit to get out & ride ;-)

Alex drove us this time round & Ray took up some of his crew up in his motor. A good chin wag ensued as usually I don't get to say a lot to Al, as we are always busy riding our bikes so it was good to catch up. Soon as we got there the usual butterfly's hit (they always do - go figure?) & we were chucking front wheels back on & scrambling for shelter inside. We signed on the dotted, paid our dues & we were in to meet some other Raddies & after several introductions we were away.

First impressions of the park were favourable with a ton of options it was difficult to know where to start but we went with the bowl behind the mini. This thing is nice & smooth & you could spend all day just riding that & never get bored. But there was a whole park to use so we gradually made our way around the place & got a feel for what was on offer...

The day went pretty fast (as these things always do) & everybody seemed to be having a blast, I'm still not sure who half of the RAD crew are & I will hopefully get around to proper introductions & conversation in the future but they are all a sound bunch of BMXers ;-)

Milks snapped a few fotos:

Alex & CBCL made Toothbonks on the oververt

Milks carved the bowl with mucho speed & made some sweet footplants to fakie, I learnt disaster to nosepick & made 360 Canadians again, Alex made some good nosepicks on the wedge/sub thing in the bowl & nailed some other great stuff & Ray had to take Craig to A&E :-(

We got well lost going home without Ray to follow so plenty more conversation flowed...

Great day & already booked & looking forward to the next one, 23rd Feb, where with luck, Sboy should be with us!

So that worked out then...

I was reading some post on RADBMX site & remembered that I had posted about new years resolutions around this time last year. I checked the list I had made to see how many of these illusive goals I had achieved...

Answer: ZERO

SO, my single new years rez for this time around is:

TO STOP BEING AN IDLE BASTID!

08/12/07 - RADBMX Xmas Bash...

This was a big one for me, my first RADBMX get together (I'd missed the last 3 or 4) & to say I was excited was an understatement! The buzz on the site threads was good & it seemed that everyone who was going, was well up for it :-) Saturday came around & I spent most of my day dialing my bike & car & getting everything else ready to go. Ray, Mikey & I decided to trip up in the Scenic & by 4:30pm we were all packed & on route...

I don't get to see my riding buddies very often outside of when we are sessioning together so the trip up was a good chance to catch up & talk bikes/cars/life etc. We arrived at the park early & upon entering, it dawned on me that the last indoor park I had ridden was this one about 3 years previously! I was excited & feelings of anticipation about the park were rising as the last time I had been there it was some kind of Xgaymes stylee place that I didn't really enjoy in the least. After a quick piss & loiter in the entrace, we had negotiated the secret password for entry & we were in. My initial impressions were "yeah that looks cool" "Ooow I like that bit!" "yeah that's all good" & "nice mini" I was thinking a good session was going to be on the cards...

As more & more RADBMXer's filtered in & the Xmas Jam kicked off, it was like going back in a time warp to 'BACK IN THE DAY' central! I mean riders with their very own style!? - Front Brakes! - seatposts! one & all enjoying their riding & having a great time.

We mainly sessioned the mini for a good while which was nice, skatelite, fast but the coping was a bit 'proud' for my liking if I care to split hairs ;-) Ray was all over the park like a nitrous fueled duracel bunny in what seemed like one continuous 5 hour run! Boy got stamina indeedy ;-) I rode around the park & checked out the 'new' spine mini setup which was evil & would probably take me a good few sessions to get to grips with so I opted out on this occasion. Alex, CBCL & Mason Smith seemed to have no such 'issues' with it & they continued to rip it up good! I enjoyed going backwards a lot, 50/50's down the escalator. the spine with a flat bank on one side deal was good for a mess about & Milks & I came up with some cheeky little numbers on that. The mini got most of my efforts & I made some nice litttle bits on it. Milkey made some disaster stuff & was trying some wheel jam type nose picks on the sub on the back of the mini & also some sweeeet footplant tailwhips on the flat bank & almost to fakie too ;-) Ray was more or less just a blur of spinning & tapping in a 'Tas' stylee & was blowing minds with some of his 'Icantevensaythattrickletalonedoit' signature moves, he pulled one of the smoothest 540's on the mini I have EVER witnessed too (which was probably wrong way too) :-)

After a few hours my left thigh started to cramp so I stepped down for a break. I took a big tin of Roses chocs with me as a small token of Crimbo spirit & so I went on a pilgrimage around the park dishing out choc's to all in attendance & managed to get rid of half the tin. Everyone was having a good time & I don't think there was a bad vibe in the house :-)

Milks & I went for a mooch upstairs to look at all the old skool hardware that people had lovingly assembled & there was some rather impressive bikes to behold.

I think one guy (pkradman?) got most of the prizes for his efforts & also one the raffle too! How lucky!? After the draw & prizes were all dished out we decided to go do a bit more riding which continued until the ‘park ranger’ decided it was time we all went home. We said our goodbyes, loaded up the bikes & charged on home.

I met some good people, saw some old friends again & enjoyed some good riding at the RADBMX Xmas Party Bash & would say it’s the best doo I’ve attended in a good long while, just like the good old days.

Roll on next time...


Thanks to Mikey for the pics.

Deranged...

..hey, at least it has skating and riding in there!