August is a busy month!

I can't believe tomorrow is August 1st already....where did this summer go? This month and next are going to be nothing but madness for me...but its madness I am looking forward to. I am headed to New Hampshire this coming weekend for the New England Criterium Championships on Saturday (15 mile race) and the Central New Hampshire Road Race on Sunday morning (32 miles). It should be a fun weekend of riding! I've been training hard under that watchful eye of Aidan at CCNS in Middletown. Next Thursday is the big day, August 10th! Lolli and I leave on our 5 day road trip to race the Race 2 Replace at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indiana. Its a 13 hour ride to get out there, but I'm psyched!!! We race the 25 mile race Satruday and then we're headed to the Kokomo Sk8 Park that night and the Louisville Sk8 Park on Sunday. We're also staying 3 miles from Major Taylor Park which has a velodrome and a cement sk8 park. I'm so stoked for this trip! It's going to be the best of both worlds. Some fast and furious road racing and some serious shredding at 2 of the sickest parks in the US! You can be sure I'll have dozens of rad pics up as soon as we get home. So keep checking back around August 14th or so to see the hotness!!! To top off the month it looks as tough the Pedal Power Summer Stunt Show will be on Saturday August 19th at high noon....BUT NOTHING IS FINALIZED YET! Check back in the coming weeks for detials.

Dog Days of Summer

I decided to ride from my place in Portland to a family picnic at the Guilford cottage on my road bike. It was hot as hell, I got a flat that took 10 minutes to fix, and I got sunburnt during the 29 mile ride. I was also a bit sore; I raced the Cyclonauts 56 miler yesterday morning up in Monson, Mass. The plan was that the crew was going to get together to ride some BMX street tonight. So we waited for the sun to go down in hopes that we would get out for a warm evening session, but no such luck!!! It was hot out and I was sweating bullets!!! For the first time in a long time the crew got togehter for a Sunday night session. Lolli, Whip, Arnwine, Pete F., Todd from the shop, and I rode around M-Town for a few hours hitting up a few of the regular spots and one new fence ride that Blachura and P. Krol found. It was nice to ride with a bunch of people for once, solo missions get old after a while!
Here are a few photos Whip took for me.

Arnwine with a downside pedal stall on the cross brace of the fence


Me attempting to icepick the cross brace resulted in a fence ride

New company setting sail!

You heard it here first...well maybe second, cause they have a MySpace page up now, but Ghostship Clothing is about to set sail! Get on board and go down with the ship!!!

Best of both worlds!

So this was a crazy week of riding! I rode over 200 miles on my road bike over the course of 6 days, rode the Wethersfield Skatepark for 4 hours one night, and rode street in East Hampton for 2 hours another. It was nice to get out to a park and ride some ramp, its been strictly street riding lately cause I have been training on the road bike while its light out and riding BMX at night. I raced a crit in Naugatuck yesterday and came in 8th out of 50+ riders (only 40 or so finished) in a Cat. 4/5 combined race. I was the 3rd Cat. 5 rider in so that makes me pretty happy! I was 18th a month ago in New Britain so training hard with Aidan is paying off. My trip to Indiana for the race at the Indy 500 is quickly approaching....2.5 weeks and counting!

Thanks to Jason Patrician for the photos!

25 MPH into a hard left turn!


Sprinting to the line!

Pushing my limits!!!

So last night I did a Performance Test with Aidan to see what kind of power my legs can put out and exactly how far I can push myself before I drown my legs in lactic acid. This test also helped determine my heart rate levels for various levels of training. I'm sure I am going to get a few laughs when I show up at the skatepark with my heartrate monitor on, but I'm curious to see exactly how much I exert riding ramps. It was a good time, well if you're a bike junkie like me, and thirve on pushing your limits and a little pain. The funny thing about the whole night was that when I was given my results page Aidan included the results of Lance Armstrong's test to humor me. It appears my legs generate exactly 1/2 the power of Lance's.....but can Lance do an icepick grind or fufanu? :)

Race 3 - New Haven Alley Cat

So the New Haven Alley Cat went down despite the mid 90 degree temperatures. Matt decided to ride, even after a long night Saturday, and I worked a check point in the middle of no where at the end of a cul-de-sac in East Haven. Sadly my check point was late in the race and too many riders were dehydrated and exhausted so only 4 valiant riders made it to me. All in all it was a great weekend! Props to Matt Uva for planning a great event!

Once the riders saw me they had to ride 1/2 mile to get to the checkpoint!

Race 2 - Hartford to New Haven

So the 2nd day of the Kings of New England Weekend was a stage race from Bushnell Park in Hartford to The Devils Gear Bike Shop in New Haven. The route chosen by the event organizer was Rt. 5, the busy Berlin Turnpike a good portion of the way. Matt rode well hanging at the front of the pack the whole way and to my total amazement a fix gear rider from NYC hung the whole way too. Shawn Hebrank donated a $50 gift certificate toward a tattoo sitting at Turnpike Tattoo to the first rider to reach the shop on the south end of the turnpike. Matt and 2 other riders were in a tight pack and Lolli sprinted ahead to win the tattoo voucher. The madness of the day was that Matt and another rider who had a pretty big lead over 3rd place missed a turn literally 200 meters from the finish and Dan the fix gear rider from NYC won the race.

Photos by Jason Patrician

Matt was the 1st man to Turnpike Tattoo.....by a few feet!


Leaving Route. 5 and headed toward State Street

Race 1 in the books!

So Lolli and I rode like wildmen; weaving in and out of traffic at high speed, bunnyhopping curbs, covering all ends of Hartford (30 miles total) to complete Stage 1 of the Kings of New England Series: The Hartford Alleycat. Matt and I were the 4th and 5th men in out of a group of about 30 racers, but this race had a twist. Not only did we have to ride to all the check points, we had to answer a barrage of questions about downtown Hartford landmarks, and the only way to get the answer was to ride to the landmark. Seeing neither of us are from the Heartbeat we got are butt kicked on this aspect of the race, which bumped us down into the teens in the placing. All in all it was a hell of a time and we both made it out in one piece...although I nearly got hit by cars twice!

Lolli chatting it up before the race

Kings of New England Weekend

So for all you out there that haven't heard of, or participated in, an Alley Cat Race this weekend is your time to step up! The Kings of New England begins tonight with the Hartford Alley Cat, 7pm sharp at the Charter Oak Cultural Center. Typically these events are ridden by fixed gear riders but anyone can show....rumor has it a posse of BMXers rode the last New Haven one. Lolli and I are going to take on Hartford tonight, he is racing the Hartford to New Haven time trial tomorrow while my co-worker Jason and I follow him in the Tyrant Mobile as Sag support and a film crew, and Lolli is also riding the New Haven Alley Cat on Sunday. Check out the flyer below. These races are madness...don't miss out!!!

Rad photos...

So I ordered this new wide angle lense for digital cameras and it came today. I am so psyched to get out and shoot some photos of street riding or at the park. I'm also looking forward to shooting a bunch at the Kings of New England track race this weekend that Lolli is riding in. I love new toys!

Team Tyrant.....on road bikes?

So this isn't exactly BMX related, but its bike related and Tyrant related so deal with it!!! I rode in the New Britain Criterium Cat 5 race this morning and it was insane! I thought going out of the gate with 6-8 guys in a line at the BMX track was scary, try 38 guys going off at once!!! Not only did we all start at once, but we kept as a pack for almost 9 of the 10 mile race reaching speeds over 35mph...in spandex none the less!!! Lots of people talk trash about the road scene, but I'll tell you from first hand experience its no joke!

Repping Tyrant in the road scene

The Bird Flu has landed!

I just finished screening the first of what I believe will be many runs of Bird Flu shirts (a new series of artwork) for Shawn Hebrank. If you'd like a shirt stop by Turnpike Tattoo, contact Shawn through his website, or contact me and I can get my hands on one for you. The Bird Flu has landed and its going to be an epidemic!!!

Disrespectful Kids

We all know that we can get in trouble for riding street spots if the property owners, cops, etc. really wanted to give us a hard time. I'm sure we've all had a run in or two, but we try to be respectful and session spots discretely so they don't become a bust. Well one of the most fun spots in Middletown, the parking garage (which I've been riding since the 90's), is now dead. Thanks to some ratty dirtbag teenagers littering, breaking the lights in the garage, spray painting all over...ultimately doing thousands of dollars in damage, the barriers have been removed and the parking garage is now off limits. The cops are handing out tickets and taking names so that if you are caught a second time there you are arrested for trespassing. What once was a chill spot to ride, especially to get out of the hot sun,rain, or snow when you're itching to ride, is now a total bust. Thanks jackasses! You ruined it for all of us!!!

Mini-roadtrip Session Re-shot

So last time Lolli and I went on this in state street riding trip his camera was a little screwy and he basically lost all 3 rolls of film he shot. Tonight/this morning we decided to go re-shoot all the stuff and session all the spots again...hitting a few new ones up too. Peter F. hitched a ride and came along for the fun as we made our way to Wallingford, Meriden, Berlin, Cromwell and Middletown. Thanks to Matt for shooting a ton of film again and taking the time to take a few shots and video with my camera as well. Check out the photos at Tyrant's Flickr. Quick clip of me pedaling across a Rt. 5 in Wallingford and manualing down a pretty long median super late night.

Me icepicking a guardrail atop a 5 foot bank

Mike Stock ain't right!!!

So Lolli and I went out on a mountain biking photo shoot with Mike Stock and some of his friends over in Mesh. I will be totally honest, I earned a lot of respect for freeride mountain bikers...especially Mike Stock. This kid was riding down things so steep I had to slide down them on my butt and dropping off boulders that were a story high! I don't know what I can really say, props to Stock for being a little crazy and having cojones the size of watermelons! The photos speak for themselves!!! Check it out at Tyrant's Flickr.

Little hit to huge gap and steep lander!

He's alive!...and still killing it!

So after nearly a month of none of us seeing or hearing from Bry Arnwine I get a random 8:47 AM phone call asking if I want to ride. Only Arnwine! So Bry, Charlie, and myself decided to go hit up Wethersfield and the BMX track. What else is new! Right out of the car Arnwine is fufing everything at the skatepark and foot jamming the mini sub box. Later in the day when we made our way to the BMX track it was the same thing. Bry flatted 360ing the first jump at the track so he decided to take Charlie's 4 pegged, brakeless, 40 lb. bike and session any obstacle in site. Check out the photos at Tyrant's Flickr. There is also a video of a random rails slide as well.

The man...the myth...Bryan Arnwine

Krol Fest Photos

So Krol Fest 2006 was a total success with the cops only showing up once all day...due to a lame neighbor who called in a noise complaint when the first band played. There were about 20 riders and a ton of spectators and fun was had by all. Dave B. was pulling out some pretty rad tricks, Jake Lineberry was hucking himself and doing some big tricks, and Schmidt and Steve B. were flowing the yard with their trails style. Thanks Pete! and happy birthday! 364 days and counting till Krol Fest 2007. Check out the photos at Tyrant's Flickr.

Dave Blachura riding the curved wall to the top