The Freewheelers BMX chronicles

10/07/2025

Heat wave today in my corner of the world. Skate park to myself. After a summer of getting out on the PK Ripper about once a week, I am noticing how my yoga practice is also helping my wheelie practice.

01/22/2025

In the midst of this deep Canadian winter, waiting for the this head and chest cold, revisiting riding pics from last year, dreaming about warmer and less congested days.

06/16/2024

Life’s a beach !! 👊😎🤟

05/15/2024

Fakies. Now. And way back when. That same weightless feeling at the top. 37 years later.

05/14/2024

The first time that we rode a wedge ramp was in 1983. The last time that we rode a wedge ramp was last Sunday. Something about riding wooden ramps that really brings me back 40 years the instant I lift that front wheel to kick turn.

03/06/2024

02/25/2024

Skyway TA 24 build

08/02/2022

About 12 years ago, while walking with my family on the riverfront trail, my mom looked at me as we passed the skatepark and said “Imagine if you had a park like that when you were a kid”. My eyes instantly lit up. “We literally would have lived there”. I wasn’t exaggerating. We were lucky in that my dad had built us some wooden ramps that were setup in our driveway. A quarter pipe and a kick ramp. We rode them every single day. As for concrete skateparks, they only existed as pictures in magazines. As my mom and I talked about the good old BMX days, never in a million years would I have imagined riding that skatepark today at 53.9 years old. Middle age. It can be such a powerful wake-up call. The first still shot looks like an aerial on the big quarter given the camera angle. The truth is that I can’t go above coping when doing a 180 on that quarter. I just don’t have the guts (and/or desire) to send it like I used to anymore. As you can see from the video clip, the shot is from a flyout which are new to me really. Our old wooden quarter pipes had a very small top platform, not deep enough to be able to ride onto.

07/28/2022

The basic wheelie. The very first trick that most learn on a bike. We used to measure how far we could keep the front wheel up using parking lot lines and then as we got better, telephone poles. A rock on the side of our dead end street indicated the current record until one day someone did the entire street. I can’t even imagine how many hours we practiced. Wheelies are mostly a big BMX bike thing today with the fancy footwork combos and hand drags. With the new school 20” BMX crowd it’s manuals. Their seats are just way too low for seated wheelies. Such a basic trick, but I still love doing them. That feeling you get when you’re sitting perfectly in the balance point. Feathering the rear brake. Coasting. Slowing down to almost a standstill. I had the skatepark to myself this morning. Practicing amongst other things wheelies...

07/23/2022

We used to call them rollback rollouts. I’m not really sure what they’re called today. Some type of fakie something. My riding buddy Jeremy (who is almost 20 years younger than me) mentioned a half cab. I hop a bit to help with the spin momentum. I think that’s what makes it a “cab”. I’m not sure. Whatever they’re called I’d like to eventually lengthen the spin to a 540. Even if I need to pedal into the last 180 after the hop. Yeah, that would be awesome. Until then it’s a 360 on a good day. Like today at the skatepark…

07/19/2022

People would be skating right here if it was winter. The Ian Fowler Oval at the Avenir Centre in Moncton. For the last few months I’ve been heading downtown with my BMX bike after going to the market on Saturday mornings. I ride the waterfront skatepark for a bit. Then, when it gets more crowded, I head over to the Avenir Centre Oval. The smooth concrete surface is super nice. But it holds water after it rains, so it’s best on very dry days. You can see in the video a small puddle in the middle. Still plenty of room around it for some old school flatland freestyle. Still relearning. Still enjoying this process. A bit of progress on my Fire Hydrants. Still need to figure out how to swing the back end of the bike around again and ride out of them…