![]() On occasion a tour would roll through our area, we were always eager to check out the pro riders, get stoked and try to learn new tricks. Travis built a much nicer ramp after we ran mine into the ground. Travis after he ditched the mag wheels in favor of spokes. It had to be cold if I was wearing jeans & thick gloves. Had to ride brakeless for a bit after I broke a frame. Tons of room to roam at Cetronia Elementary school. Travis squeaking across a cold intersection on his Haro Master. The AMC theatre had a really nice lighted parking lot, Allen High with its covered parking garage, Union Terrace (UT) had a cool paved embankment, there were the dirt jumps at Tioga St & Posh track, The Wall & smooth dirt jump over in Bethlehem, just a ton of cool places to ride and hang out.Įarly pic, 1987? Bar endo, riding in my backyard.Ī hastily slapped together kick-turn ramp. Travis and I mostly rode down at our elementary school, tons of smooth blacktop & a really nice dirt jump. We had plenty of good local area 'ride spots' to choose from. I wish I had more photos from these days. Frontrow L-R: Chris, Kevin, Travis & John The early crew: Backrow L-R: Steve, Paul. It was an early days skate park for bikes. Sloped hill with a plywood runway to a quarterpipe, some launch ramps & other 'street' features we could ride. ![]() Kevin lived out in the farmland borderlands, but had one of the coolest backyards ever. We'd eventually build a halfpipe in his yard. Chris lived on the other side of South Mountain (yes, there's a South Mountain in PA too!) with a large yard. It was cool to hang around kids from other area schools who were better, they helped me push my limits higher. They were both primarily ramp (quarterpipe / halfpipe) riders, but were also better flatland riders than Travis and I. Paul never really got into the sport, but he introduced me to a couple of his riding friends, Chris & Kevin. We would end up riding together most of the time pushing each other to get better. One of the locals, Travis, lived a couple blocks down the street and he was getting pretty good at flatlanding as well. Endos, framestands, riding backwards, pogo's, they were all the norm back then. We were always out messin' around trying to learn new tricks. One of my earliest pics, note the Halley's Comet T-shirt!!Ī few of the kids in the neighborhood also bought freestyle bikes around the same time. This was the start of my flatland freestyle days. Now, not only did I have a new bike for the dirt jumps, but I could now learn how to do those tricks we saw at 7-Eleven. My mom felt really bad and the next day we went down to the local bike shop and I picked out a shiny new Haro FST freestyle bike with one caveat: I pay for everything going forward. Paul had insurance on his bike, but mine really wasn't worth that much. That afternoon we came out of the park and both bikes were GONE! Not even 24 hours in my possession and my Kuwahara was stolen. We locked our bikes, he had an SE Quadangle, to a tree and went inside. The next day Paul and I rode down to Dorney Park & Wild Water Kingdom for a day at the water park. I snagged it up and was so excited to finally have a bike worthy of taking to the local jumps. So, I finally got my mom to agree to let me buy a 'real' BMX bike.Ī few weeks later my friend, Paul, happened to be selling his old Kuwahara BMX bike. I wanted to learn how to do that, but I knew my Huffy wasn't the bike. ![]() One day that summer we met a group of older kids from nearby on these tricked out freestyle bikes, it was awesome! They were doing all kinds of tricks/stunts that I had never seen before. We'd often mess around there for hours, grab a slurpee and head home. A couple of neighborhood kids and I went down to our local 7-Eleven where, right next door, was a dirt lot with jumps. One day I modified the Huffy into a pseudo BMX bike to be one of the cool kids. ![]() Growing up in Allentown, PA I never really had a BMX bike as a kid, it was usually a 10 speed or some banana seat Huffy. I should have known I'd enjoy the sport, afterall my riding obsession began in earnest way back in the summer of 1986. Back in 1994 I was beginning to taper off my BMX freestyle flatland ways & looking to find something to keep me in shape during the skiing off season. I have always enjoyed the freedom bike riding brought to me. This is more about why I ride, where did it all start? I first rode a mountain bike back in 1994 thanks in part to my friend, Adam, who let me borrow a rigid 26" for my 'off-road' ride at Papago Park. This is not a mountain biking post about riding tree roots. ![]()
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