East LA…

Flat.

Trying to feel comfortable on the 8′ while testing some plastic pedals that Atomlab may offer which I like but ONLY for park or street.

John not being gay…

I gave Taka my camera and he gave John his Riot and this is pretty gay..

Pedro drifts into the East LA sky…

Orange County Local John lays a stylish 1 foot table over the nipple. Photo Taka
Last night I drove up to a concrete park in the heart of East LA and it was a wild scene. For the first hour there was 4 little (4-6 years old) Mexican kids running full tilt thru the entire park being chased by an old Abuela who had zero control over these kids. One kid in particular, I gathered his name was “Estaban” from the old lady shouting it over & over again as he slid into bowls, narrowly missing collisions with bikes, boards and razors. This little Hell Spawn would flip you off and yell “Fuck You!!!” to anyone who gave him shit about his freestyle playground antics. It was awesome…
Then there was some dude on a Next 20″ flailing his bike in the air like some sort of weapon on the top of a concrete nipple. Random. After the park cleared out a bit it was pretty fun with a good 8′ vert 1/4 and a fun 1/4 to nipple transfer. Pedro was blasting the 8′!!! Here’s a few pics from the session.

Photoblog…

Fernando gets things twisted…
Local Landon Belcher 180 to nose crooks.
Mr. Sabat quick ledge to hop bar.

Yesterday afternoon Fernando Sabat and I headed over to the Fullerton park to flow around a bit before the sun went down and luckily I brought my camera… 

Just riding along…

eject!!!

Brian Raphael… JRA

I’ve found that kids will try to get you to believe anything in an attempt to warranty a product. It usually starts with ” I was just riding along…” or “JRA” has become the industry term. What that usually means is somewhere out there, there will usually be an undiscovered photo on PinkBike or MTBR looking like these 2. Thank god for the Internet!!!

NYC… Thrash Bike Street Coast Jam Results…

Alex taggin’ the POST ramp… thanks for letting us crash and your hospitality!!!

Anson in full effect…

Nadia, Nick and Thomas Holford chillin’…

What?

Nick Brandreth giving out prizes at the post jam jam at POST.

Rocco fakies the Brooklyn Bridge…

I’m not sure what I think about this… McDuff in the skid-off looking manly in those jeans.
photo Nick B.

Matt McDuff hot bars… photo Nick Brandreth

Adam warming up to go high…

One of the highlights of the weekend was meeting Matt Jamieson who came here from Sheffield, England as the newest blkmrkt rider and kind of an unknown in my eyes. Matt proved himself to be a solid, talented, ballsy as fuck chap who dresses like a pirate (sort of). Welcome to the Team Matt!
The Thrash Bike Street Coast Jam is done and over and was a blast… except for the massive dehydration headache from not being used to the humidity causing you to sweat every drop of moisture out of your body before you know it.
Here are the results from this weekend’s contest at the Brooklyn Banks in Manhattan.
Pro
1st Adam Hauck, New Jersey
2nd Cape Cod’s own Rocco Quintiliani, Cape Cod
3rd Matt White, UK
Am
1st Martin Knorr, the Netherlands
2nd Nicco Bucci, Irvington, NY
3rd Chadwick Gibbons, Dobbs Ferry, NY

And here’s the rundown… I’m sorry but due to a ridiculous headache I missed the amateur jam but I’m sure Nick over at ThrashBike.com will have that covered.
Pro’s rode in 2 15 minute jam sessions with 6 riders in each and some crazy shit went down… the craziest coming from Cape Cod’s Rocco Quintiliani who tail whipped from the sub box on top of the banks to flat… I’m only guessing but at least 10′ down and 15′ out because he was hitting it on an angle. Rocco had lots of big moves and actually tied with Adam for first… more on that in a minute.
Adam’s run was action packed with both tech a burliness like a wall slap about 10′ out of a 6′ home made ramp and a wall to 360 & wall to whip… Tying with Rocco for first.
Matt White from the UK rode well… barspinning both ways, tailwhip airs, Vaders and even a flair tying Matt McDuff for 3rd. Matt McDuff was killing it too with moves like manual to bar down the 11 stair not to mention being a Jeff Spicoli look-a-like and a really nice kid.
With ties for all the podium spots and the sudden dumping of rain it was decided there would… skid off…
The riders sprinted for all they were worth to a given point and the grabbed a handful of brake or in McDuff’s case a shoe full of tire and whoever went the furthest on the slick wet brick downhill would be the victor.
Adam and Rocco both skidded at least 200′ but Adam pull thru and Matt White easily out skidded the brakeless McDuff.
After the Banks Jam we all headed to Brooklyn for the Post Jam Jam at the POST bike shop. Thanks to Troy & Phillip for letting us party. Check out the POST bike shop if you’re looking for a BlkMrkt in the Williamsburg area.
Thanks to Nick Brandreth and Rick Nolte for pulling all this together and Rick you were missed!!! Rick is recovering from shoulder surgery he had last week. Wish Rick a speedy recovery if you see him.

Thrashbike Jam 2009 from y.arava on Vimeo.

Thrash Bike Street Jam 2009 from ryan hrbek on Vimeo.

NEW YORK CITY!!!

Washington Square Park circa 1988

TOMORROW!!!! BE THERE!!!!

 
I flew out to NJ yesterday to come check out the ThrashBike Street Coast Jam at the Brooklyn Banks. Nick Brandreth and Rick Nolte are the guys mainly responsible for making this thing go down, with some help from Adam Hauck and a wacky bunch of UK shredders all sleeping together in Adam’s sister’s bed… cozy.
So, let me introduce you to the English boys who have been a blast to hangout with weather it was playing Adam’s drinking game… “Wizard Sticks”, involving drinking, punching people, jousting and other nonsense… which we did until 4AM. 
First we have one of the new BlkMrkt family members, Matt Jamieson from Sheffield, England. Matt is BlkMrkt’s first full-on brakeless/rigid fork street rider. It’s been really good to finally see Matt ride in person… pretty good shit and a good fit on the team. 
Next we have Matt #2 from somewhere where they eat tea and crumpets. Matt2 rides for Union Street Bikes and is another funny kid from the UK doing hop whips and hop bars on his 24″… pretty sick…
Finally, there’s Toff… I don’t know why he’s called Toff but he is… at least he’s not Matt3. Toff is the youngest of the lot but that does not slow down his shredding or shit talking one bit. Adam has been breaking in the UK crew pretty hard but Toff is hangin’ strong and running with the “Wolf Pack” wild thru the streets of New York. Toff’s mom would not be proud. But Brooklyn Machine Works is.
 I didn’t bring my camera bag today because today was about “Taking it to the streets!!!” Which we did in a big way!!! We all rode the Path train into Manhattan… to the World Trade Center. From their we cruised over to the Banks and met up with another 25-30 riders from NY, NJ, CA. the UK, the Netherlands, Austria, French Canada, Unleaded Canada… and, well from all over.
We rode the banks for about 2 hours the headed out for a 35 person street ride from the Banks to Union Square and every shred spot along the way. China Banks, Washington Square Park (my favorite spot to ride as a kid, I posted a photo above.) even making a stop to eat a dog at Gray’s Papaya…  and that deserves a “RED DRAGON!!!!”, if you catch my drift…
After chillin’n at Union Square for a couple of hours… the place was packed… 1000’s of people just hanging out talking, playing hacky sack, just enjoying the Spring night and happy it wasn’t raining anymore. Now the ride uptown was nuts with 35 street riders hauling ass the NYC streets at 9 o’clock on Friday night but that was up hill sort of, kind of.
But back to the banks is all downhill and shit was pretty out of hand. There were a few close calls for some of the guys not used to playing traffic. That ride was amazing and one of the funnest things ever on a bike. There was one fixie guy with us and he was insane… flying, I mean fast… doing 1 hand wheelies and drifting thru corners on a big ass fixed gear road bike with 10″ wide bars and toe clips. Adam was stoked on the guy so you know he was legit… he thru a barspin while airing the really tight cobble stone China Banks… on a fixed gear road bike damn it!!!! Crazy.
After the ride back to the Banks we rode until about mid-night where is was time to get on the last train home where I would have to ride Toff on my handlebars back to Adam’s. Toff did manage to fall off my bars causing me to run over his foot, causing my bike to endo and my seat to catch my left… you know where this is going… just tapping it ever so slightly, of course causing me to double over while everyone else laughs their asses off.
It’s 3 AM and my stories over for now… more shenanigan’s tomorrow…. and photos!!!
night…

So. Cal. roadtrip

you end up with a cool dirt ‘stache…

When your tire knocks your foot off your one remaining pedal…

Lisa getting thru the main line at Da’ Compound with ease.

Um… yeah, Thomas.

Lisa catches a lookback from a different angle.

Jim makes good use of one of his favorite jumps in the world… Da’ Compound.

Cobb adjusted to our spot immediately…

Jim Tharp and Lisa Myklak made the trip south this weekend along with Santa Cruz local rippers with Shane and Cobb. They came down to ride Woodward for a day then check out Nasty’s Jam which once again got weathered out… rain, wind… they got it all.
Once done with the Central coast’s random acts of wind & rain they headed to Da’ Compound were I met up and rode the rest of the day and night with Thomas Hancock. Thomas is now a daddy but still a badass!!!
Cobb & Shane both got thru the hip line at Gavilan first run ever… back to back! Pretty fucking dialed I’d say. Lisa was getting thru the entire big line and hip line at Da’ Compound all day yesterday and had a couple of girl 20″ riders totally stoked on her… and all the boys!!!
Here are few pics from this weekends riding… enjoy. Thanks to Lisa, Jim, Shane and Cobb for making the trip down, I had a good time.

BlkMrkt Russia

Clicked 3 table

Tailwhip

Steezed out can can 3

Welcome to the team Vishneviy!
I never thought in a million years the time would come when BlkMrkt would sponsor a rider in Russia but that day has come. We just started helping out 19 year old tech master Pavel Alyokhin from Moscow. Pavel goes by “Vishneviy” and has a deep bag of tricks you don’t see everyday in 26 like t whip to fakie… and since Vishneviy rides free coaster & brakeless he throws in some cool style and flair in his riding. Here’s a few photos from him shredding a recent RedBull event somewhere in Russia.
Photos by Dmity Seregin
Can’t wait to see him ride in person…

Little bit of dirt therapy today…

One more from today… thanks Fernando.

Fernando can ride some bikes…

That’s more like it!!!

Getting the feel for this fork has taken me a while… but I’m loving it now!!!
With all the issues we deal with from day to day sometimes the best thing for it is to get out an ride. I was able to do just that this morning with Fernando and Pedro my Mexican compadres who aren’t Mexican. 
I have been having issues re-learning lookbacks and turndowns since starting to ride the rigid fork a bit more. It’s harder for a few reasons but mainly the speed is so much faster and so is the entire feel of the bike with a lower, steeper bar/headangle. It’s taken some getting used to but I’m really enjoying the feel of the rigid fork… it’s amazing how much more pop you feel out of every lip, I like it!!!