I remember those days....

Bloody Bike Brigade

I remember back in 1996 when I first started riding flatland. Those were some good days back then. There were four of us kids trying to ride in that small town - me, Chris Santos, Matt Kelly, and Mike Peters. We had some good times. My friends all had bikes before me, so I traded my Yamaha motorcycle to some older kid named Ryan Geraths who lived in town, and he gave me a Schwinn XS bike for it. I think he got the best out of that deal. Anyway, once I had that bike, I could hang out with my friends in town everyday. I would ride all the way from my house for 2 or 3 miles into town and meet my friends out at the dirt jumps. At that time, some new suburbs were being built and a lot of new houses were going up, so my friends and I would hang out at the construction sites and build dirt jumps there. I never did get into dirt jumping. There was just something about flatland. So once we got kicked out of there and our jumps were bulldozed, we were looking for new places to ride. This lead us to the park where we built the jumps that Paul and his brother would later be shredding. I can't believe I never met up with that guy back then. Paul even knew Mike Peters. Man, I have never seen anyone ride for so long and never pull any tricks than that guy. We used to laugh at him so hard for trying those tail whips that he could never pull, heh heh....

So the city came in and shut down our jumps in the park. There was a guy who worked for the city we used to call Twinkie - a big guy who hated kids. He came in there and destroyed our jumps, so that was the end of our dirt riding. That's when we turned to riding flatland. When it wasn't raining, we rode on the basketball courts at the middle school next to the park. When it was raining, we rode in this covered shed at the elementary school where we used to play dodgeball when we were kids. The surface in there was slicker than the Diatech warehouse, I’m telling you. Matt used to bring that little radio with him and I’d have some Operation Ivy and Rancid on the box while we sessioned. Just before I came to Australia, I rode in those spots where I went to school more than fifteen years before. Almost ten years after I started riding flat and not much had changed. It was still quiet there. I blasted Rancid once again, this time from my car stereo. Then a guy I used to go to school with came rolling up to play basketball and we talked for like 2 hours, just trading stories about old times. He couldn’t believe I was still riding flatland. We talked about what happened to those guys we used to hang out with. Turns out Mike Peters is getting married. Matt Kelly - I went to his wedding a few years ago. Actually, I missed the wedding but I was there for the reception. His little boy is about 5 or 6 years old now. I remember him saying at his bachelor party the last words of a man on the edge of the adult life, and he said, “Man, Chris, you’re the coolest guy here. I’d rather hang out with you than any of these guys…” I guess he was having regrets at losing sight of those old times, trying to grow up too fast. I wish I could session one last time with him….