K.K's Canberean Nightmare.

I had volunteerd to drive my girlfriend and her friend back from Canberra where they had been catering a wedding for a friend. Wiping the tears from my eyes, knowing that at that precise moment in time my MASH Bretheren were no doubt flying around the perfect contours of San Remo, I set off consoling myself with thoughts of the twin bowled perfection of Weston Creek.
I pulled in to Goulburn Skatepark, and although I had some fun runs, I was prevented from really skating the park as a whole by five or so godammed annoying BMX bandits. So after about half an hour, the Lure of Weston became to strong, and I hit the Highway South. As I got closer, visions of my last visit with the MASH boys on Belco weekend flashed across my skate fevered brain. The uncrowded bowls, the epic session we had. With a minimum of fuss I retraced our route, and soon there in front of me was Macas, Yes! Ive made it, now to enjoy a fun dusk session, alright! Fuck, theres a few cars around, Jesus, theres not a single park in the street , and hang on theres a lot of kids on BMX bikes, OH NO, OH SHIT it CANT be, :open_mouth: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, How could life be so cruel.
It was the biggest BMX competion I have ever had the horror to witness, and they were swarming over Westons trannies like a swarm of metallic locusts.
I turned the van around, didnt look back. Shattered, I consoled my self with a quick tour of Tugeranong, Belco, and Gungahlin, I guess every cloud has its silver lining… :wink:

Take a bag of thumb tacks next time. Gungahlin is ace anyways - so many lines - so long as the blowflies weren’t there you would have had some compensation.

Spewing, I would have lost it and ploted some kind of revenge It shits me up the wall sometimes . I try to sneek a few practice sesions at dully after work and end up just riding the half pipe. You may have all noticed that sometimes I have trouble placing my foot on when droping in because I keep seeing some dickhead on street transport taking me out. The little kids with nurotic Mums are bad enough , but the real pricks are the ones on the moutain bikes, the look GAY please Im not homophobic but when they lean back and lift the front wheel it looks poofter and theres plenty of straight acting gay guys the would agree with me. Honestly when they turn up in hordes and do the poofter lean back I feel like pouring petrol on them and seting them on fire :imp: :laughing:

Pertinant remarks Mustang, and no I don’t think anyone would regard those observations as homophobic. Generally speaking the blowies are not much fun to watch, they have real smell style and they seem to think its a big deal to do an air on a thing you can pedal. I have on occasion had the misfortune to skate Fitzy in Melbourne on my own against 4 or 5 blowflies and with that ratio of skater to flies run sharing protocols seem to go out the window. I have developed a very effective tactic which involves walking around the bowl and standing on the edge right where they very predictably want to do their little airs (they are so repetitive as you may have noticed) and it seems to put them right off. In fact it is occasionally been so effective I have driven them out within the space of 10 minutes with this Ghandi style non aggressive resistance.

Thanks Micheal yes I agree there airs are a wank, however it would be unfair not to mention a group of hard core BMX guys that somtimes hang at dully theres about six of them they all rip I mean realy high airs, back flips jump the fun box great to watch, no gay lean backs. ABOVE ALL THEY SHARE THE PARK WITH US AND TREAT US WITH RESPECT. Its funny how the ones that are realy good seem to be like that.

The BMX rider that I most respect is Jamie Greentree (aka Flouro). He has a long pedigree in the sport, but he keeps it purely for the dirt. BMX is totally rad on dirt, but he knows it is skateboards that belong in concrete bowls. So Jamie gets on a deck for vert and rips. I get the feeling that Super Flanno Man may follow a similar philosophy these days.

If BMX riders do want to ride parks they should at least:

  1. Limit their runs (‘look mum I’m sitting down and peddling and I can go forever’).

  2. Make a conscious effort not to let their handlebars or grindy bits end up penetrating the unsuspecting body of a skateboarder, ie, LOOK OUT …

  3. Pay a toll for each circuit of the bowl … 8)

(to be honest, I’ve been impressed that I’ve never seen a BMX try to grind the concrete coping at Bondi).

Oh they have Bill, but they usually only do it once as the chorus of screaming skaters generally puts them off trying it again. That and the threats of trucks to the head etc.

As i said - generally speaking BMX riders have smell style. Rad or not rad in terms of hieghts of airs achieved, its the going around the bowl bit where all - I repeat ALL, BMX riders, completely lack any grace of movement, or manifest their skill (??!! is there any skill carving a bike in a bowl). There just is no style there. BMX riding belongs in the bush or on the dirt and a thousand miles from the civilised smoothness of concrete. There are two holes in the bottom of Fizty bowl again and they are the result of bike riders bailing and dropping their mobile concrete hammers to the bottom of the bowl.

In addition I’ve seen the way they behave to skateboarders their own age. I’ve seen deliberate snaking and I’ve seen deliberate collisions to drive skateboarders out of bowls. Put a kid on a bigger machine and what comes out nine times out of ten is their natural tendancy to childhood cruelty. As far as I’m concerned the flies have a war, and I don’t care who rides them (in fact I’m disturbed to hear Fluro Jamie does) I don’t like them. I’m with the regular crew at Fitzy on this one. Zero Tolerance. The bikers made me this way and I’m staying that way.

Bill will probably fill in some blanks here but I reckon BMXers have got an inferiority complex which they compensate for by acting in the fashion that they do.

They know biking is not cool so they feel an instant desire to assert what power they have via the behaviour previously mentioned.

The biggest problem I have with a lot is THEY DON’T LOOK WHERE THE F*CK THEY ARE GOING. I am a patient, tolerant person but on Sunday I took my little girl (7) to the park and I swear if one of em had hit her whilst they were swarming all over the place with no regard for anything or anyone…

:imp: :imp: :smiling_imp: YES, YES, KILL THEM, KILL THEM ALL, HA HA HA HA HA HA HA { maniacal laughter} :imp: :smiling_imp: :imp:

Fluro Jamie does not ride his BMX in any bowl or park he use to ride dirt track comp and road race 500cc he an’t no fag. My bigest fear is the day that one them does a real number on one my mash brothers or one of our children because the repercussions will be hideous. Example Steve machine snaked in the dully back bowl by bmx drop in, he had that look in his eye that Scott and I know so well ,man that guy was lucky.

i would like to say i hate the bmx fuckers with a passion they piss me off all the time at bondi . ive even gotten into very heated arguments with them on many occasions. the thing is i raced bikes in the 80s from about 8 to 11 (wasnt allowed a motorbike yet) and it was fun lots of my friends did it too so it was trips away and good times . so the opp came up last year to buy the bike i always wanted as a kid and i like to collect things from the 80s so i restored this bike and just for some fun i joined a club and did a few meets at night and its still fun they even have on old school class with guys in their 50s still racing .the guys who race are not the same guys that come to the park and destroy every thing these guys do nothing more than go round and round the same track over and over they even hate the other idiots on their extreme can openers . so in closing yes i race my bike on a track and yes it is fun . but skating is and will always be my life .oh and my fishtank.jamie greentree

last week a nice late sunday arvo session with a mate was interupted by about six of 'em. Im a tolerant guy and kinda handled it, you know when they jump out of the bowled sections into the dirt and grass and mud and rocks and shit and then bring that shit back into the fast bowl section or when “old mate” decides to lay on the hip in the fastest line to film up his boyfriends shorts for like half an hour, but when i ate shit after locking up on a broken piece of reflecter we decided to cool off in the shade for a while.

Whilst there we chatted, plotted, engineered, debated the best possible eradication strategies. We looked at park design, bullying, whatever, but decided that overt actions might just strengthen their resolve! Our final plan is genius and will surely see convic employing both of us as design consultants in the near future.

We decided on a simple design feature that is covert in nature and will seep into the psyche.

PLAN: Install bike racks at the entrance to all skateparks!!

Genius or what! Gradually kids will inadvertantly be drawn into thinking that bikes in skateparks are superfluous!

HHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Brilliant doglog.

Your assuming they are intelligent enough to connect bikes with bike racks.

What about those tyre spikes that you can roll out in front of them before they even know whats happening?

I’ve known many top skaters who also liked to BMX a bit - but not in bowls or ramps. Duane Heketa, subject of recent discussion in ancient haunts, was one of them. When I stayed at his place in manlyvale we would always head out for MSC or Kierle Park with him on bike and me on sk8. He would tow me up hills and do amazingly big wheelies and jumps, but it was just transport. Nonetheless, he was as massively talented on BMX as he was on skateboards or surfboards.

  1. Jamie’s aquarium is the extremest thing about him. He apparently lurks in front of it all day with a puzzled expression muttering things like ‘I see the bubbles, but where’s the photosynthesis?’. One of the fish is stealth-black, blind, and hides behind rocks till he comes out and dances with a big shiny white fish. Several are flourescent, but none appear to ride BMX or skateboards!

Is there something you want to say but just can’t admit to yet Dr.
Are you, were you ever, have you ever been a BMX Bowl rider

Never done it, not even once. Neither has Jamie. I’ve never even owned one or wanted to. As any modernist aesthete will remind you Michael, every mode of expression has its appropriate medium. Skateboards belong on concrete; BMX on dirt, and the twain should never meet.

other notable names who dabbled on a bmx include mick mullhal. cam ward. and tony hallam. cam was even in the coke freestyle team . very talented (fully mega bitchen ) i think was the term used back then.