Challenger BMX Mag - Issue 1 - Spring 2017

Welcome to The Curvature Counsel. This column will focus on covering the countless curvatures and shred-able pleasures the good earth has provided in optimal proportions to the 20 inch wheel. Our purpose is woven with wonder and zest for the best caliber of curves on all the continents. We will present you with an infinite thesis on transitional surfaces, landscapes and places to toss a tabletop.

The Curvature Counsel is directly derived from a tenure behind the trusty spade splashed with a quick swish of sweet talk spouted off about ‘the dozens of Curvature Research Centers strolling down the beach in their bikinis.” (A double entendre derived from the virile mind bent on the penchant of tearing off g-force driven jumps and roasting back alley wallrides.)

The ever so fashionable Jersey Barrier is our first specimen for its simplicity. Conventionally used as a makeshift quasi quarterpipe on any roadway the F shape Jersey Barrier amasses a shadow with just enough tranny that would have Sir Isaac Newton looping out and questioning his Law of Universal Gravitation. The transition is far from favourable, but the freestylers of yesteryears past have proved gravity wrong once again with swift tact and simple technique rendering many Jersey Barriers stamped with evidence of your buddies gettin’ sideways.

These very tire hieroglyphs are a true testament to the collections of curvatures that we at The Curvature Counsel will honor, catalogue and collaborate on, for many mannys to come.

And as always, safe landings out there.

Challenger BMX Mag - Issue 2 - Summer 2017

The forever present Curb Cut. A right of passage, a stepping stone to freestyle supremacy and a sweet slope bred for bunnyhops and bump jumps. By design, Curb Cuts act as a handicap embankment easing the deeds of the less than fortunate, minimizing a wheelchair bottom out, facilitating a trip-less hike up to the half a foot high altitude where most all of our heels and wheels have wandered upon.

Applying the enthusiasm of the BMX wheel to any Curb Cut reveal a world of potentialities, endless only to the next cross street in any given neighbourhood. In the always fluctuating dog pile of BMX hierarchy, the Curb Cut is where nearly every grom cuts their teeth. Pecking order pinch flats, over the bar blues and nose case collusion prepare any new kook for the kingdom of rad and ridicule.

All salt stomping aside, the variance in widths and heights align the mind for dynamic Curb Cut appeal ranging from cut to cut double ups and choose your own adventure rhythm sections of catching backsides or opting out for a contemporary flat landing. The sweet spot of the transition sits in-between the running slope and interfacing street radius outfitting optimal pop at the users discretion and preference. Cutting the curb too tight to the gutter may leave your crew over the moon going to the bar or bodega so remember to glide low and ride high.

And as always, safe landings out there.

Challenger BMX Mag - Issue 3 - Fall 2017

Nestled on a dirt road in backwater Montana rests the remnants of The CC’s first Research & Development Centre - Shady Acres. Built as much out of necessity as out of a dream, the Acres became the exploration of elliptical experiments and an array of ramshackle radii ramp setups. Pallet ingenuity, Pa's overbid plywood donations and torn down billboard signs served as the chemical makeup for the carves that spawned transformational G-force comprehension sessions sealing the deal of a never-ending curvature conquest and an infatuation with perpetual pedal-less motion.

The mid-school generation was in full flux, back rail fufanus and ghetto jams fuelled the literal bonfire that ignited the imagination for gleamin' the lean, learning quarter pipe curves and creating pastures full of pipe dreams. The cocktail of a cinder block and a propped up piece of plywood can and have blinded the majority of all our freestyle colleages and The Acres serve as earnest evidence to these elemental environments that drive the abstract cause and effect of catching air that keep us all psyched and searching.

And as always, safe landings out there.

Challenger BMX Mag - Issue 4 - Winter 2017

Ye’ Ole Glory Hole. As history is written the project contract went to the lowest bidder of Peter Keiwit Sons’ Co., who built the entire dam and morning glory overflow spillway structure in under 4.5 years for just shy of 27 million bucks in the upper end of the 1950’s. Miraculously, the crew only broke 2 backs considering the dam thing overflowed during construction and the entire spillway barrel was blasted with two big bangs of dynamite. Formwork of tongue and groove 2x6 lumber lagged in 24ft lengths shaped the 28ft diameter full pipe and they never poured concrete on weekends, amen. This labor of lore was bore from the Solano Project which hauntingly desecrated the late curvature martyr of a town; Monticello, that chillingly rests in remnants at the bottom of Lake Berryessa.

Glory's first purpose is simply being the spillway for when the water gets too high in Lake Berryessa so the Monticello Dam doesn't collapse, her second purpose is best bestowed upon a BMX. And how glorious it is to pedal like hell from the elbow, veer around the dam detritus and peer into your first few perhaps finest carves of your very life. As your rods and cones in your eyes adjust your tires surely will, by gluing to the g-force driving you down the drain dreams are made of.

Time should be taken from Glory's curves as she has kept the clock for the last 60 years and its as if every other full pipe out there has bloomed from Glory’s grandeur. Colossal, at times overwhelming, mammoth and matchless the opportunity is to open up the overtures of this full pipe making it nothing short than an absolute must, a bucket list operation for anyone looking to lean into the most marvelous transition built by man not specific to the 20” wheel.

Reeferances;
MONTICELLO DAM TECHNICAL RECORD OF DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR BUREAU OF RECLAMATION
SOLANO PROJECT - CALIFORNIA

And as always, safe landings out there.

Challenger BMX Mag - Issue 5 - Spring 2018

As one thing tends to lead to another, two turns itself into three and so fourth. Historically speaking, humans defy odds at all costs and sometimes the bicycle serves as a simple tool for doing so. A pioneer pushing the proverbial envelope four times over, backflip brave Jed Mildon exercised his high proficiency in airtime crowning four whole backflips in one jump.

A warrior of wicked ways, the kiwi whipped up a whirlwind of wood and steel structures second-to-none-other on his quest for the quadruple backflip. These very ramps consisted of colossal curvatures compounded with complex mightiness and magnitude. Raising the immeasurable stakes higher, ramps first made for motors were modified with steeper extensions multiplied by 100-foot-tall roll-ins that in some cases yielded speeds close to terminal velocity for a BMX wheel clocking in at 40 miles-per-hour towards the impending catapults of either tragedy or triumph.

The pursuit of the right pop, thunk and sheering huck off the lip allowed for more than three seconds of airtime and a whole lot of float propelling this grand schematic of progression, mechanics, and athleticism into the books. A science project of psych delineating g-forces and acceleration into four pull back as fuck flips baffling all pad gladiators parallel-ish. The way willed the mental fundamental flow state necessary for such an operation and unequivocally has yet to be seen again. The quad limit still challenges scientists and physicists alike—and, well, our money is on Mr. Mildon to prove em wrong.

And as always, safe landings out there.

Challenger BMX Mag - Issue 6 | Mat Hoffman Interview - Summer 2018

As freestyle’s frontman, Mat Hoffman ponders at his perch in the Oklahoma countryside just like you, me, and the other kid down the street that has ever nailed a two by four and a piece of plywood together.

A pioneer of plywood painting airs at heights previously unseen to the human eye. The Curvature Counsel cracked a few questions in Mat’s direction and from what we can gather, he’s just as psyched as ever. From our brief talk, the sky is not the limit for Mat Hoffman.

What were you doing when you were designing the backyard vert ramp? Explain some of your process of building your OKC kingdom, compared to say; when you built The Secret Ninja Ramp?
It’s a portable vert ramp from some shows I did at Universal Studios and I set it up at my old house to find out I have a neighbourhood association that didn’t approve of it. I called them the hypocrisy democracy, who came up with all these bylaws where you couldn’t have swing sets and pools and stuff. So I put my vert ramp up, and they’re like “when are you going to take it down?” They were a bunch of lawyers in suits calling me in for a meeting and I’m just like ya know I don’t belong here; I know when to pick my battles, I’m just gonna find another place to live. So I found this place that doesn’t have any neighbourhood association so you can do whatever you want, live however you want. So, I put up my ramp here with Gary Laurent; he always helps me put up the ramps and then we extended it and put the roll in up and had some locals come help me with that. I built the ramp here first and it took me a few years to renovate the place, and renovations basically turned into tearing it down and rebuilding the house, (laughs).

So how high is the ramp?
Let’s see here, thirteen feet tall, Eleven foot tranny, and two feet of vert.

And how wide is she?
It’s forty feet wide, but I have another thirty feet of ramp but I’ll hit these trees so I was thinking of moving the ramp to another spot on my property that has a little bit more space but it’s so nice and cozy in that spot; it’s kinda like a tree fort how it is. But if I really wanted to I could make a seventy foot wide ramp which would be amazing.

So that’s the same skeleton of the ramp for the for Universal?
Yeah, I had another show come up that I was producing for Magic Mountain theme park and had G-Ramp out of Germany manufacture the ramp in Hungary. I’ve never put them together, but they’re supposed to be the same dimensions and everything but yeah, I dream to put ‘em together some day.

What’s the length of the flat bottom? Roll in dimensions?
You know, I think it’s sixteen feet but I don’t know, that’s the standard but I don’t know if that’s true. I should go measure it but yeah I’ll get back to ya on that.

The roll in, I just kinda rigged it up; I think it’s six and half feet higher than coping. I took metal ramp parts, flipped the transitions upside down so it’s kinda a custom build from scraps, (laughs), it’s so wobbly. you get up there and I can shake it a foot to either side.

The coping sticks out an eighth to a quarter inch, standard two inch diameter coping.

Where’s the sweet spot?
You know, with these big transitions they kinda go from a swing set sweet spot to like a rope swing sweet spot, so there’s not really a defined sweet spot, it’s like whenever you’re riding an eight feet quarter, the whole centre of the ramp is the sweet spot, but with a bigger transition the sweet spot is the pump, which you’re always kinda inside it, and it’s just you can’t really pump it because it’s so slow; so the faster you go, the sweeter it gets. That’s why the roll in makes my life so much easier because before when I’d roll in from the deck I’d pump a few wall where I’m six to eight feet and then I’m tired. So with the roll-in it just serves it up to me on a platter, it gives me all the speed and puts me right in that sweet spot and I don’t even have to try, I just hold on and do a few walls, have energy and fly out. I don’t even have to try anymore, it’s like my old age session style (laughs).

How has having a backyard ramp changed since your first one that your uncle built? Biggest difference between say building the secret ninja to this backyard ramp?
Building the secret ninja, it was kinda before ramps had evolved into what they are today. So we were still trying to figure out, what is the master plan? Ya know. So I’d do 9’ 3” tranny with 1’ 3” of vert (laughs) and then skaters were riding 9’ trannies with 2’ of vert and it just seemed like too much vert. And now I’ve found out that if you have an 11’ tranny grooved with 2’ of vert it makes it all flow and you don’t have a big kink at the top and skaters and bikers like the same tranny. It’s a different finesse of how you ride, you don’t really pump; you’re really light and you can adjust your pop with your pinky. But the 9’ with 2’ was way too hard and it took the bigger trannies to even out the 2’ of vert for BMX. And everyone’s happy, we’ve come to the conclusion.

The amount of vert on big ramps always perplexed me, what’s the steepest ramp you’ve ridden?
Hmmm, the one that sticks out in my mind, and if we went and rode it today it’d seem really small but back in the early days the big blue ramp in Houston that Jeff would ride a lot. 2hip had a contest on it, in 87’ I think, that ramp just seemed insane, but it was because it was back then, it’d be tiny now.

I did ride the SMP vert ramp in China which was 16’ tall with 2.5’ of vert which was pretty RAD. It was 100’ wide and you could just dead sprint on the deck and dive in. With big trannies like that you need the speed otherwise you can’t pump it, and you can’t really respond to the transition unless you’re going 10’ above it.

Your conversations with Johnny Airtime were super influential to your understanding of G-force and your quest for high air. Do you still talk w/ Airtime?
Yeah I talked with him when we did The Birth of Big Air but I haven’t spoke to him since then. But yeah, he showed me how you could use math as your first guinea pig. Ya know, ya don’t have to just charge something, see what happens and pick yourself up, heal and go at it again. You can figure out the physics to it, and it’ll tell if somethings possible. That was some impressive education for me.

Wow, optimal accelerations to the 20” wheel. That’s what we wanna catalog with The Curvature Counsel.
He’d figure out these crazy formulas, where he’d end up hitting a jump ramp and have a pickup truck driving next to him driving at 50 something miles per hour, jump 150’ and then land in the pickup. And I’m just like whaaat, how in the hell would you ever figure that out with all the wind variables and everything, that’s insane, that you could calculate something so perfect like that and pull it.

Are vert ramps tapped? Is there potential to build a better ramp with more optimal proportions to the 20” wheel? Perhaps freestyle is the answer yeah!?
Well ya know a couple years ago I went and rode Danny’s ramp, which was 30’ tall. 30’ elliptical transition, so it went from 30’ to 25’ and what that did was, ya know when you’re going up a massive ramp your highest speed is at the centre of a ramp, the bigger the ramp, the less G you have at the lip, so if you make a 30’ tall ramp with a 25’ elliptical radius, the ramp comes at you 5’ quicker, where it takes your G’s and equates them out for you so you feel one constant G-force. So now, the ramp is like a big hill, one force all the way up and you try and neutralize the G all the way up the ramp when you pop of coping and you build up (air). When you roll into a huge ramp like that, you don’t really know what the rhythm of the ramp is going to be and so sometimes you miss the rhythm and dead sailor 30’ in the air. With the elliptical ramp the rhythm was so constant, I left the coping centred and in control.

Wow, thanks for schooling me on this constant G-force. Did the ramp have 5’ of vert on it then?
No, I think it had 2.5’ or 3’ of vert, but what Danny did was he jumped a 40’ step down then hit the 30’ quarter and was worried about casing the ramp so he put an 8’ extension to the side, set back 8” to catch him like a net. He had it really tech. But I just kept over on the 30’ ramp, the one thing I found when you do pop off the lip too hard and you come down, now your G’s are so hard coming in mid-tranny that you can’t hold yourself up. And the force collapsed me and it knocked me off and fractured my collarbone and so you can’t land low on an elliptical 30’ ramp if you’re going 25’ above it. Note to self (laughs).

Too sweet, well hell yea Mat, appreciate your time; blue skies and happy landings man.
Thanks man, peace out!

Challenger BMX Mag - Issue 7 | Joe Rich Interview - Fall 2018

In the world of backyard setups, The Terrible One ramp sat as one of the ultimate shredding spaces of the past and present decade. An ever illustrious and inspiring curvature of seamless imaginative wonder from Ryan Corrigan and the T1 family. Since the patina’d plywoods passing, The Curvature Counsel shot Joe Rich a few inquiries on the enigma of transcendental transitions; The Temple of Roast.

Since its been several years now since you dismantled the ramp, how do you look back at the time when the ramp was running? What stands out most when you reminisce?
The main feeling that runs through me is just pure stoke that we did it. From the first day that we got the key to that building, we went and bought wood before we moved anything else into the office. ha ha. Just taking an empty space and converting it into a dream, step by step . . . And from the very beginning, it was always in the cards that it would come down. We just didn’t know if it was going to be because of the landlord, the city, or something else. It became something I never could have imagined, and I just feel grateful in the end. So many good times riding, building, and just hanging out. Not bummed one bit, just a warm feeling inside is all that exists.

Before the T1 ramp did you ever have any other backyard ramps growing up?
Yeah, for sure. My brother skateboarded and we had this 6ft tall, 8ft wide half pipe that went to vert! It was in my driveway when I was 11 or 12. After that came down, we built some smaller quarter pipes out of the wood. That was all before I actually bought my first proper BMX bike. But a couple of years later, I was riding all the time, so my dad and I built an 8ft tall, 12 ft wide quarter that was really good. I lived on a corner that was on a hill. So you would just bomb down the road that was downhill, around the corner and there it was . . . blast off!

Ryan Corrigan and yourself disagreed by one inch on the radius for the 9ft blaster quarter right? It seems like you’re splitting hairs there! I’m interested in hearing the process behind that. Was there a quarter somewhere that influenced the roaster on the ramp?
Ha ha, yeah, we both had our ideas of what 9.5ft addition should be when we built it. I don’t even remember what led us to wanting it being 9.5ft tall, but we both agreed on it. And it was only 1 inch difference between transition size and how much vert would be on it. But we actually did discuss that 1 inch for quite a bit. ha ha ha. In the end, we went with Ryan’s call on it. I think that part of it is fun. And its in the details that can take something from being good, to really incredible. The fine tuning of an idea might be one of my favorite past times.

What was your favourite part of the ramp?
I never had a single favorite part. Maybe on a certain day I did, but that changed all the time. When I think about the ramp, my first thoughts of it are always as a whole. Both in its physical sense, and how it just felt to be back there. There was just so many different lines, and combinations of feelings that happened as a result of it. So I could never pick just one.

Ripping the bowl corners was one of your favorite things to do on the ramp. Do you mind revealing any tips on how-to properly carve a corner?
Drop that inside shoulder, and hang on!

In a parallel universe, what would you think if you came upon the same exact ramp but constructed out of concrete? Additionally, let’s hear your take on riding wood vs. concrete?
Hmmmmm, that’s hard to say. Because there is a certain flex to wood that almost makes the transition change as you ride it. You don’t get that with concrete and I think that’s why you can have a concrete quarter with the same transitions as a wooden ramp, and it’ll feel completely different. When you pump the shit out of something, that flex, or no flex, is something you get used to. So even if the same transition was made out of a different material, it would feel a lot different. And that feel can vary even further by the wood the ramp is built with. 2x4’s vs 2x6’s, 1 layer of ply, 2 layers of ply, 2 layers of ply with Skatelite . . . and so forth. It all dramatically affects the feel. So the term “wooden ramp” can be very vague. ha ha ha. Once again, what makes something that really stands out is in the details of it. I don’t know how to fully describe it, but I could prefer to ride either one just the same depending on the design of it.

The ramp had a huge influence on the mid-school to present day era, looking back; what was the biggest impact it made for you and T1 as a brand?
I love how many people it brought together. Through all the years and all of the different scenarios that brought so many to our backyard. Everything from large amounts of people that would show up for a jam, benefit, or premier. To the days when I’d get a knock on the door and someone would be there by themselves. It was really great to be able to share that with so many people from all over. Growing up, I remember thinking about places like the Enchanted Ramp that Ron Wilkerson had. I thought that must be the best place on earth when I’d stare at the posters on my wall of it . . . And it was hard for me to understand at first that our ramp could have been that for someone. I’d meet people that would just have this exhale of pure joy when I’d lead them back to the ramp, and they’d say. “I’ve been wanting to come here for 10 years.” That was always such a cool experience.

The ramp was very utilitarian and linear at first, and then the space became very imaginative and experimental. Was there ever construction drawings for parts of the ramp between you and Ryan, or was it just purely freestyled?
When we first built it, we just wanted something to ride that we really liked. The first phase of it was inspired by a ramp that was way up north of Austin at the Ramp Ranch indoor skatepark. We were driving there 3 or 4 nights a week, and that was what we rode the most. So it was a natural thought to build something based on that ramp when we got the new place in 2002. We added, and changed a few things about it, and created our own version. That first phase remained as it was built for about 10 months. And that’s when Taj really set it off by bringing about the idea to bowl in the one end. So Ryan and Paul B. went to work and created one huge speed machine complete with plenty of vert, some not so normal angles, and a hip as well. It was so unique, and that addition changed everything! From there, it almost started designing itself by the ways it gave you speed and the angles that it spit you out at. We just followed the signs it was giving us, and made sure we put something in those areas that could hold the speed that it was giving. As the ramp evolved so did our imagination for it. There were even a few sections of it that ended up getting torn down more than once and rebuilt due to trying to make those areas work even better. The driving force in all of it, was endless roast!

The box jump portion of the ramp changed a handful of times, how many iterations of the box was there?
There were 3 different versions of the box jump area of the ramp. The final one being my favorite by far.

There’s something about not revealing the dimensions of the entire T1 ramp that The Curvature Counsel respects, and we’d like to give you the platform here to explain why you want to keep the ramp’s numbers a mystery.
Its no secret what so ever. I feel that you should just take a piece from something, and create your own version from that. I’m happy to give knowledge on any parts of the ramp, but not an exact floor plan. If given the chance to rebuild the ramp, I wouldn’t do it exactly how it was anyhow. It had its time. Can’t live in the past. Too much good possibility awaits us.

There is a certain kind of sentiment to having a backyard ramp and once it’s gone there’s not necessarily a void but an appreciation for the times spent and the sessions had, is there any advice you’d give to any aspiring backyard braves looking to create their own plywood paradise?
My advice would be to go full speed ahead and build the ideas that you have. Even if you’ve never seen it done before. If you have the opportunity to create, take it and do your best. Build it!!!! Let your ideas and dreams be the steering wheel for your actions. Its all possible!

And as always, safe landings out there.

Challenger BMX Mag - Issue 8 | Ryan Corrigan Interview - Winter 2019

The DNA of any DIY ramp building is inextricably associated with the almighty pallet. The two main different types of pallets the present day laymen may find in any shady corner of the curved earth will most likely be a stringer pallet or a block pallet. Both designs have their inherent merits, come in stock sizes and serve purposes mainly associated with forklifts and heavy liftings of your favorite consumer goods.

Oddly enough BMX’s own Ryan Corrigan lifted the illustrious pallet loop at the 2004 FBM Ghetto Street Comp in Binghamton, New York while standing on top of a fucking forklift!

Corrigan’s cleverness and regard for the rad tilted the shreddable scales and it was as if the pallet was where he took his paints from; spreading them thick and thin into the eye of hurricane Ivan painting a real-life picture of Picasso proportions.

We shot Corrigan’s Corner some queries about his quest for the famed Pallet Loop nearly 15 years ago.

Historically speaking, the pallet loop was a 1st (still is). Can you recall your process behind the idea for the loop? Seems like something so wild was just a joke at first? What’d Crandall think of it?
It was pretty simple. My idea was that a loop is just two arches. They will hold themselves together. Pretty much you put enough nails in something it’s hard to knock down. It was right around when loops were just becoming a big deal in BMX. It just went along with the ghetto comp vibe, that not much is a big deal in BMX so Lets make a loop out of garbage. I remember talking to Steve and telling him I was gonna come build a loop. I remember he was silent for about 15 seconds, then replied with “you can do that?” I think my answer was, “why can’t we do it.”

Whats your favourite aspect about building with pallets and recycled materials? There’s a crude craft in it.
Yeah, just the wing it factor makes it fun. You can’t help but smile when you make something out of pallets and wood from an abandoned building.

The whole experience of sourcing materials and making something out of nothing are hardwired into some of us. Any wild wood snatching stories?
For the loop, and that years ghetto comp as a whole, a lot of the wood came out of the building that was above FBM. People were just tearing the top floors of the abandoned building apart and throwing wood out of the broken windows. It was beautiful site. Would you care to expound on any pallet intelligence you may have? Best ways to utilize, stack and create curvatures? (The CC has been developing a decentralized pallet quarter pipe plan-set system, that could dovetail in some of your intel, if you’re interested.)
Just stack them up, step back and take a look. If it looks good run with it.

Approximately how many pallets did it take to build the pallet loop? No need for a tape measure right?
I bet around 30-35. I can’t really remember; we had on the run in and run out. Yeah I didn’t measure anything till it was finished. I measured vertical and horizontal at the end and it was less than a 6” difference. We called it good enough.

How many beers were optimal for pallet loop production? I heard this dude Chickenwrap was site supervisor.
I don’t think that many while actually building it, but probably a big beer or two. I couldn’t understand anything chickenwrap said.

Did you reeference anything? Or just prop up opposing over-vert quarters and link the two of them together? You didn’t use a centerpoint to define any radius to define the circumference? I was always perplexed on you you actually did it.
I started in the flat and worked each side up and met in the middle at the top. I couldn’t tell you what the radius was. It took a lot of just looking at it and trying to make each side the same while staggering each row a little bit over than the last row to make it exit on the right. When I got to the top two rows, It was two pallets wide, I took some door hinges and connected the two rows then lowered them down on the shop fork lift until it wedged into place. Then I just added some ply, took out the temporary supports and there it was. During the event people were actually on top of it to watch, that made me a little nervous.

Have you built anything since then that can compare to how ludicrous the loop was?
Ludicrous is a relative term.

I’m sure you’ve had this happen before, building ramps and people frothing over dropping in on it the minute its done. With the loop, it seemed like everyone was just straight spooked on it?
Yeah. It was around 15 years ago in shitty parking lot in Binghamton, New York. People were spooked pulling into Binghamton. The loop was just the cherry on top of Binghamton.

After you built it, did you think anyone would actually loop the thing? Jim Cielenski and Fisher were the only ones to conquer the curve correct?
Yeah they were the only successful ones. Two other people tried it peddling up the hill and they didn’t make it. I learned later one of them was Big Daddy.

I’ve seen some rumblings about the pallet loop being recreated for this years Swampfest. Will you be making a run to Florida?
You never know what can happen. Trey and I keep in touch and I’m stoked he’s keeping the laughter in BMX events.

Other than the loop, is there anything else that sticks out about the jam in ’04? And lastly, did you get honour in tearing the loop down?
After the Loop and the 900; Crandall and myself basically said, That’s it. We’re done. I didn’t get to tear it down. Big Dave, aka spooky Dave, aka Pedal Driven Cycles Dave tore it down and said it wouldn’t come apart. They took the fork lift, raised it as high as it would go into a big egg then dropped it and it just formed an oval in the other direction. He said it was amazing.

And as always, safe landings out there.

Challenger BMX Mag - Issue 9 - Spring 2019

If you’ve ever dared to pack in a lip or clack in a landing you’ve unknowingly built against the angle of repose, it’s the angle that the dirt naturally forms relative to the horizontal plane you’re most definitely in the middle of. The angle lies at the undying authority of the almighty gravity.

The repose ranges from 0 degrees to 90 degrees and involuntary shifts into shape depending on how chronic your dirt is. The morphology of the material you’re digging with affects the intended angle; smoother round grains of flarf or topsoil can’t necessarily be stacked as steeply as rougher interlocking flakes of say PA or WA clay. Although, this hinges entirely on your stacking strategy and The CC recommends a stack/step/stack formation that the Egyptians pioneered back in the day.

It's in the medium that the matters begin to metamorphasize. Applying solvents to your selection of dirt as simple as water bridges gaps as big as the mind can wander. The electrostatic attraction between the water and dirt multiplied by your flathead smashing against its face may create the castles of curvatures your creativity intends. Because that’s the thing with the angle of repose; if you were to tip any type of trail mix out of your wheel-barrel the mix only stacks itself so steep. (duh) You gotta stack that shit to mack that shit.

The repose reaps in the foundations of any trail feature, inherent to every backside, side slope, and frontside riding surface. The features radius, height, and width vary in volumes equal to your imaginations capacity as the reality is; you sow what you know. Relativity, aversion to authority and the pull and push of gravity play a massive role in the application of trail theory and construction against the angle of repose. The earth-shattering truth is that discerning turnkey holders of the trail elite and dry guys alike whether they’re into it or not abide by this rule. So the next time you meander down to the old trailhead, ponder the precedents set and the science behind the trail salt. Counter it with a case of cold ones, enjoyment of the experimental environment, and hell you may even get to rally a roast against the repose.

And as always, safe landings out there.

Challenger BMX Mag - Issue 10 - Summer 2019

Imagine the island of Hokkaido, Japan in the early 1970s, fresh off of an Olympic sized hangover. The buzz from hosting the first winter Olympics outside of either Europa or North America must have had local adventure capitalists reeling, wondering what can we do next? The answer; most definitely obscure in its convention, vertually unknown to an extent, and many a bmxer’s nemisi - vertical rollerskating.

But on what? And where?

Unparalleled curvature folklore exists out in the hinterlands of Hokkaido, Japan in the form of the Mikasa Death Bowl. A forbidden steep and deep concrete mirage, constructed in the shifting sands of the skatepark monolithic period, essentially unridden; sits this paradoxical transition paradise built on as much as a whim or a wish than for its intended end product of getting sideways and catching air. Curvature investigative reports yield nearly no early era ephemera of any skating or riding until the turn of the century.

The quaint family amusement park adjacent to the consequential curvature codifies the ancient polarity in why they built the bowl in the first place. Under the cover of early mornings, local curvature correspondents still pay their respects to the Mikasa mystery as to avoid the sharp sword of the local law enforcement that looks to incarcerate any daring poachers from far or wide.

Unhindered by law - the calibre of this curvature and the sheer stature leaves us staring at the almighty map, dreaming of the search and satisfaction rendered at reaping the rewards of such a revered ridable ruin.

The CC hit up Zacharia Costa who is one of the first gringos in the present day to go sniff out The Death Bowl. His exclusive account is as follows.

" I first heard about The Death Bowl many years ago from one of those Thrasher books, either Insane Terrain or the other one. I might have seen footage of skaters as well, I don't remember. Anyways, I was talking to Rob Tibbs right after I got the Japan gig (biology reconnaissance) in 2012. He was like ‘dude, the death bowl is in Hokkaido!’ (northernmost island of Japan where I would be living and working for 3 months). I was skeptical because Americans know very little about Japanese geography, including myself, and all I knew was that it was a big place with lots of different islands. Tibbs was adamant and convinced me it was on Hokkaido, and right there I decided if the bowl was on the island - I was going no matter what.

Fast forward a few months later and I found Kaku Ono of Wheelies bike shop in Sapporo and him and his wife took me out there to ride, much thanks to them - it was fucking amazing. Not sure if it is still standing but I haven’t heard different. Its basically in an abandoned park in the country, but no one is around to care so I don't know how much of a bust it is. It's crazy dangerous in the big bowl because there is no deck and the bowl stands a good five feet off of the ground with a curb width concrete deck. Shit is super gnarly but fun as hell.

As for the other spot (The CC interrogated Zac about another hollowed haunt in Hokkaido), that shit blew my mind. Kaku and his wife casually mentioned it, like yeah there is another abandoned spot closer to the city, 'it has a big tranny wall.' Holy shit its big; they weren't joking. It's actually an abandoned bobsled course from the 1972 winter Olympics. It's a downhill concrete tranny course essentially, but its all overgrown and deteriorated, so the one spot to ride turns downhill to the right - straight into a vertwall and then a piece of wood sticks out and continues out over vert for water to freeze for the bobsledders. Its got slick moss all over and you gotta jump over a pit at the end of the tranny wall. Needless to say one of the coolest spots I've ever ridden.

Spots like this are hard to compare to street spots, although both give me similar satisfaction, in a way they are completely different. Usually, spots like that are a mission to find, let alone get to, not many humans have experienced them, and you have the gnarly factor of crazy structures designed and built by humans that are just so massive and intimidating, yet so appealing to ride. It gives me that feeling of when I rode my first pool, or when I went to Burnside, or The Glory Hole for the first time; they are just so epic and awesome you can't help but feel inspired. It reminds me of being a hungry teenager and I love it. "

And as always, safe landings out there.

-
CC Bibliography
Many Thanks to:
@Kak_Ono & Wheelies BMX Shop Sapporo
Zac Costa
Greg Illingworth

Challenger BMX Mag - Issue 11 - Fall 2019

The Curvature Counsel ponders the sound experience mechanics behind the movement of molecules in BMX making music or sound. Can wavelengths of sound inform curvatures?

Sound moves and vibrates a medium causing a resonance we pick up as sound. FYI: there is no sound in space – there is no medium to be vibrated, so therefore there is no sound. Sound is measured at traveling 770 MPH, the actual speed is dependent on the temperature and climate and I'm afraid you'll never break the sound barrier while jumping the gate in yo clipless pedals there Mr. Gary Ellis.

The connection between curvature reality and sound; the bicycle as an instrument. A melodic manny spellbound by the sound of a solo strumming stroll, the audible amplitude and buzz of a bunny hop, the tenor of a simple curb cut tuck. Sonically speaking a learned ear prefers the sweet buzz of a freewheel, the clickety-clack of a cassette or the silence of a free coaster compared to the clank of a loose-lipped chain rattling against its stays, so keep that shit slow and tight or fast and loose. Forever Freestyle. 5 senses nostalgically nodding with respect to the reverberation of that 44/16 ratio with a falsetto flapping baseball card pinned from the fork into the front spokes for good measure.

Chorus lines link from track to track, case cacophony, banks to subwoofer. The tonal tear of a tabletop always tipped the scales off into another overture the bars octave. Engagement points within a hub serve as the harmonious humdrum to a sound wall wall-ride. The pauls piercing with pounding percussion.

& Where does the seamlessness of a transition fit into the sound’s profile? If you’re lucking enough; you’ve been down to your local neck of the woods where the wild/mild ones build booming booters of bounty. They rip down the rhythm section and you can hear the air catching acoustics of either baselines of boasting or more importantly roasting. The trails may run like sheet music to the shiver that shutters down your backbone if you rail that grail as good as some of our trailboss godfathers. All hail the fuckin rail. Earth-shattering teeth chattering pull up pump down give em’ a good wack don’t get thwapped afternoon. The unraveling hit rewind return go-get-em again rock and roll. Trails; a perfect example of compression, amplitude, and frequency.

However granular; The CC goes full circle and concludes curvatures are simply sound waves in a different medium.

Challenger BMX Mag - Issue 12 - Spring 2020

Mother Nature carved the Great Lakes out at the end of the ice age some 14,000 years ago. Big bowls of bounty housing precipitated arctic ice; wedging water in-between sister lake basins and imaginary lines. The Greats serve as a source for trade transportation, avian migration, fishing, and house a habitat of many aquatic biodiversities. Etch A Sketch’d at the shore of large Lake Michigan, The Windy City wound up situated at the southwestern waterfront.

Booming Chicagology - by the end of the roaring 20’s one of the first inland aquariums in the world juts out into the Lakefront Trail. The Shedd Aquarium, a marble masterpiece housing plenty of fish for Chicagoans to marvel at. Upon rail, rust belt ingenuity mobilizes all five classes of fish across the plains in a custom-built aquatic railroad car. Fast forward 70 years and the aquatic theatre addition unfolds with trifling intrusion into Lake Michigan. This time a seawall fortification is in order.

If Lake Michigan’s mid-drift ever decides to flare up on it’s southern shore, there’s a shield - a convex riparian ramp ring protecting the Oceanarium. Combative architecture whose sole purpose is to exercise elemental wave on wave dissipative war. The curved seawall aims to re-direct the lake's incident energy, resulting in a reduced turbulent wave reflection. Bio-mimicry at it’s best.

Municipal design as ride-able architecture. The utility of curved Chicago concrete crust that’s deep dished and cupped exactly for a rear wheel to nestle up in on. Greater subtlety of design and non-linear programmatic intent becomes clear when one applies the grandeur of the rolling wheel upon the Chi-Town sea wall structure. Multitudes of radical attitudes swooping up the wave’s transition, bottom turning and cutting back again for another backside slap soaking up every inch of that cupping carve. Often overlooked by the laymen, this curvature treasure measures up to its defense duties and secondly supplies BMX opportunists with that ever searching spot satisfaction.

Challenger BMX Mag - Issue 13 - Summer 2020

The sly-guy that seldom procrastinate, you know the type with that kinda hype - can get away with nearly anything, hands patina'd with paint, clay or grease, half pack of smokes in his left pocket, licorice hanging from his lip, 5 buck sunnies on, kindly nods past the bell-curved common kind. The key in this guy's pocket glides into the keyhole that houses the answers to many inquisitions, opening up the bellows of bonafide beauty in a simple backyard ramp. For some scenes, you leave it up to a select few or a singular capable kid who's got that shit hidden, who's got it in his periphery, searching for that cache of consumables to prop up, build-out, and stack higher.

The transitory masterpiece christened Liquor Town Backbone was a Canadian concoction of curvature clairvoyance multiplied by sugar high and caffeine. Vertually single-handedly built and championed by Mr. Braeden Barnard; the guy with those keys that turn. More or less whole-heartedly half crooked by design and fully built by reclaimed materials The Backbone went up within the first weeks of worldwide shut down in the early spring of the year 2020 in a newly rented Richmond, British Columbian backyard. Made out of as much a necessity as an escape.

"Fuck yea bud, build the ramp; I won't have to mow the lawn."

Oversight and radial understanding abound - a quonset hut or two goes kindly recycled and up went one wall, a construction site dumpster cashed in and up went another tranny to tranny chandelier centerpiece oddly mimicking a sciatic spinal column, the southern fence usurped by a bastardized version of the T1 roaster quarterpipe; which was built out of chic 5-ply Czech Republic Spruce. Nearly not a quadrant of the backyard un-utilized by The Backbone’s footprint.

Transcendence in Transitions. Strength in Curves.

Braeden had done it again; The Backbone banged. Una Obra Maestra - translation; A Masterpiece. Dry guys and eager beavers came clad in face masks to reap what B-Real sow. Half exclusive, mentally distant sessions commenced - The Great White's Finest click-clacked all up and down the chiropractic curvature classic. The frugality of fun, cobwebs ironed, retirements interrupted, immeasurable grins, innumerable tins, airtime cradled over one man's noble craftwork.

However hard one grips onto those fleeting feelings above, there's something to be said about holding on loosely. As fast as she came, the faster she went. The leap year reaper came around the corner replete with pinche johnny law's strata papers in his soft soulless hands. The dreaded tiny type on the letter reading tear the ramp down.

The ascension of progression, Liquor Town Backbone was pieced and plucked apart to flourish in nether regions of The North and on with it B-Real went. A poorly postured standing ovation to these scene seers that shine thru time and the powers that may be. Caps off to everyone prying ply from gone-by the wayside pastures, dialing in the dirt, or to the alleycats raking back at the rebound and bump-jumping into the backcountry from over-booty driveway kicker ramps. Free to the style, moto to the bicycle. Go fucking get IT.

Challenger BMX Mag - Issue 14 - Fall 2020

The architecture behind catching air. Semi-abstract in theory whether behind the bars, from a diving board, or in any linear thinking brain. In many aspects of BMX; the genesis of such an unbeknownst concept came from the preoccupation of experimentation permeating from a pen on paper in the 1930s. The transition from back then era-specific minimalist functionalism percolated into an organic expressive form in the shape of a pool, snapping the grid of architecture and foraying into the garden at the Villa Mairea. Hidden inspiration in bio-mimicry buried by originalism or a form of architectural surrealism?

The pen in question belonged to Alvar Aalto; the Finnish architect behind the first angle-less designed swimming pool in modern history. Divided into two quadrants the pool comprised a kiddy-shallow end and dropped into a deeper end for those swimmers or future pool draining swashbucklers more daring. Until that day, swimming pools were traditional rectangles, highly uniform, angular square prudent forms. Little did Alvar know that this non-symmetrical concept to his one-off pool layout would literally shape our BMX world around. Creating entire industries still clad to the idioms of this vertical stationary wave-like wall. Rhetorically; the one with the curve at the bottom.

With this - Alvar unintentionally introduced the vertical vernacular into our vocabulary revealing future decades of demarcations between youth and becoming adulthood tracks over a deep end lightbox. An ageless wave from the fountain of youth came splashing with uncapped adolescent enthusiasm, unencumbered by laws of physics and undefined with the 20" rubber tire.

History books purport that Alvar's genius biomorphic design inspired Thomas Church who took the direction and flipped it into a Bay Area backyard and away the swimming pool fever flourished back then. Iconoclastic California - summers of love overflowing with chlorine idealism, pool boys keeping tabs on who's home and who's out for vacation. Imagine the Mothers turning a blind eye to the posse of pool rats looking to catch a curve carve in their backyard pool when the old man was out on a business trip. Given the current climate, has it gotten any better? In the case of the forever curve-seeking optimist; we'd hope so. "Keep it Like a Secret" mid-era Dig Magazines (issue 24) surely influenza'd this Curvature Counsel Column of search and destroy wanderlust ethos and we must keep it alive, for it is our duty. More often than not under a double negative of inclusive secrecy; like all great grande things in this world, discovery is not for everyone especially regarding these pools and pipes of personal achievement.

If you know, you know these tooth-taking holes take a lot of grease on elbow pre-production for feature fun having. Alvar Aalto's curvature crystallization is still curating early morning missions from lats up and down the Wests of the Americas back to the Easts of Europa, serving as the catalyst for the endless search uncovering the soul side of 5-gallon buckets and noisy sump pump past-times draining pool bladders for a pious platter of out of coping pancakes and a touch at sideways weightlessness. Duh, it's a right of passage to ride a pool.

While the pedigree of rideable pools fluctuate like high water marks; know that the Villa Mairea pool nestled away in Finland is the great-grandpa to every modern-day skatepark in the world. Respect your elders but be sure to snake em if you catch em sleeping.