Steve Crandall

Coffee sipping pilot of a red FBM frame and a Nikon camera.

Posts from Steve:

The Alley way is quiet…

Just about everyday, I navigate my bike through the alleyway where I live, carefully aiming around the potholes, ruts, loose gravel, broken bottles, and it’s strange inhabitants. It’s another city alleyway, conjoining a few row houses, businesses, and walks of life.

Sometimes, I’ll wander past domestic disputes, drug deals, drunk people, or middle aged women getting their furniture re-upholstered at the fabric shop, usually in relative harmony, with the litter, uneven pavement, bad graffiti and offshoot dwellings.

Sometimes people are sleeping in the cut, and others, people are strung out on bad decisions, amidst the overflowing trash, and discarded furniture from the seemingly never-ending turnover of tenants.

Over the weekend someone was shot in a drive-by on the corner. Aside from a few scuffles, shouts and a drunk guy getting hit with a shoe, the strange mix in the alleyway is typically not dangerous, usually just unusual. It was the second shooting in as many weeks, the sounds of gunfire often confused with the revelry of unsolicited fireworks, carried a different edge to it, and the heavy summer heat weighed on the vibe behind my apartment.

Pedaling home last night, passing news crews, ambulances, police cars, and yellow tape, I left the chaos of the world behind as I entered the familiar welcome of the alley way, picking up for the one usual pothole, worn smooth into a tiny valley, wheelie-ing over the next roller, made out of gravel and debris. The evenings are usually alive, and almost social, but tonight was different, the kids that often congregate behind their Grandma’s house, directly across from me were wild, shouting, making threats, acting out, trying to make sense of the heaviness that crept into their space. The older brother had just ended a foot chase with the police a couple blocks over. A police man was shot, and the kid was killed.

What was happening in the alley was more than a simmer, a reaction to another tragedy, kids trying to figure out how to feel, parents trying figure out how to cope, drunks trying to figure out how to stand up straight, and brown bag passersby trying to figure out if its safe to pass though the crowd, on the way from the sunny mart to the other side of the block.

Nightfall set, shouts and cries were only silenced by the not so distant sound of more gunshots, sirens, and even a helicopter. This morning the alleyway was quiet, aside from a few puddles and scattered empty trash cans, and my own uncertainty as to what would happen today, the alleyway was empty.

The emptiness was bit more vast than that however…

Just like every man…

Ripping…

Alleyway apparitions

We had been on the road for 8 days, in 100 degree south eastern american humidity, a summer road trip in a black school bus, a 25 year old diesel guzzling, fire breathing monster that belched blue clouds of smoke from it’s exhaust. With the windows down, the heat was almost bearable, as we went for miles and miles down back roads with a site radio on full blast, almost keeping up with the decibal count of the winding motor and loud pipes.

On the evening of the last day, closing within 30 miles of home, the bus quit chugging. The first time it seemed to get tired out and just want to stop going. I felt very much the same, on the side of Interstate 95 in post DC traffic, scoping for any leads on why we lost all juice. We were stuck, so close to home, with a giant black school bus on the highway at dusk.

13 hours into this adventure, Billy Dexter pulls over to the side of the road, I hadn’t seen Billy in 10 years, He doesn’t live anywhere nearby, and wastes no time starting to wrench on the bus. No luck, and he and his English friend Andy, wander on down the Interstate.

It took 15 hours for a tow truck to show up, getting us back at my place at noon, luckily some good friends drove out to rescue the precious cargo from the side of the road.

Once parked, I started troubleshooting, on the Phone with the “Chief” (my father) asking for advice or suggestions on this big diesel powerhouse, when Karl Beers shows up in a rattle can flat black 1963 Mercury Meteor, with a front seat filled with tools, including a test light. His back seat was stacked with bags of quickcrete, a shovel and beer cans. He very well may have a appeared of of my Fathers stream of consciousness, from another time, back to the future, to save the day.

Within moments the list of possible problems had been deduced just a few, when Karl was sitting on an upside down milk crate, back towards an overgrown weed tree separating the neighbors yard and the bus’ parking space. While talking shop and brainstorming, I saw a woman crouching down behind the bush behind Karl, and thought maybe he had someone with him, and I hadn’t noticed. She gave me a ‘SHHH’ gesture with her index finger over her lips, I kind of guessed she was sneaking up on him, but I was wrong.

There is a Grateful Dead themed bar 3 doors down, and sometimes its wayward patrons wander towards the bus in a haze, or a daze, or a generally confused stumble, as was the case with this woman, who I soon realized was taking a piss 3 feet from the bus, Karl, and the neighbors window. I thought she was with Karl, but it turns out she was hammered at 3 in the afternoon, and decided that was a good spot to squat. About the sound time, all the indicators on the bus started buzzing. Whoa. A few more tests, some jimmying of some wires, and woman was gone.

‘was she with you?’
‘no man, I thought she was with you…’

About this time I walked around the bus, hopped in the drivers seat, was about to turn the key to try and start it when I noticed the woman asleep in the back of the bus.

‘Karl, get her out of the bus so I can start it..’

She Stumbled out of site, I was too preoccupied with the bus to acknowledge how out of place she was in all of this.

I still thought she was with him, and he thought I was messing with him. At the moment the drunk lady stepped from the bus, the bus roared back to life. It was a bizarre 22 hour adventure after an 8 day voyage though southern pine forests, the Blue Ride Parkway and an alley way now filled with blue smoke, and triumphant shouts from lo-fi alley way back street mechanic vagabonds.

After the smoke cleared, the meteor returned to outer space, and I collected myself, buzzing with relief while the bus idled, I wondered if Karl an the strange woman were real or some alleyway apparitions from another dimension.

3 hits with Joe Rich

Joe Rich on home turf in East Austin on a Sunday Afternoon… Classic!

4 hours with Brian Foster

A few photos with one of the greats…

Previous Next

Tire Slide- Lost Bowl.
Classic Rebar Corner Pocket Table- Lost Bowl
Pool Coping Lip Slide- Lost Bowl
Blyther-esque Pool rip- Lost Bowl
Namesake Roller Scrub- Richmond Va.
Mid Train Dive Bomb- Gillies Creek, Richmond Va.
Woods Style, Gillies Creek, Richmond Va,

Previous Next

48 hours to philly

The Leeper Bros. Shane and Dillon, are weekend warriors, known to get off work, drive hundreds of miles, ride, explore and party all weekend long, only to drive directly back to work…

This photo series is from Dillon Leeper from a 48 hour excursion to Philly and beyond, searching for spots and camping on rooftops, with Dre Tylee,
Latane Coghill, Doug Fines,Carkos Bailey, James Lukas, Garrett Anderson and
friends…

8 Hours in Tampa

Matt Coplon. May 25th. 8 Hours in Tampa. from TBR BMX on Vimeo.

On the cusp of my 38th birthday, I asked Mark Mulville to help film a full day’s session in Tampa.
Each week, on Sunday, I wake up at 7am, am out the door by 9am, and am usually riding no later than half past.
It’s become a ritual.
On turning 38, as it was the same when I was 13, bmx remains therapeutic. Most of the time, in its simplest form: pedaling through the streets away from the grind of the day to day.
To celebrate those coveted hours pedaling through Tampa, I thought it’d be a challenge to make it a full 8 hour session (in 85% humidity and at 95 degrees, you have to take what you get this time of year) and document everything worth grabbing.
What’s left are the clips I was most stoked on. Nothing ground breaking…just a representation of what I look forward to come every Sunday.
Enjoy.
Thanks to Mark Mulville for his help with this project. Thanks to Profile Racing, Chad Degroot and Deco Bmx, Etnies, Adi and Folklore Brand, and the Skatepark of Tampa for their continued support.
To another year of pedaling in Tampa Bay.
Thank you for watching.
-Matt Coplon

Lifers- “Santana”

LIFERS – episode 5 – Miguel "Santana" Esparza from Hippie Josh on Vimeo.

GMG Trails, Pittsboro NC

A handful of photos from a saturday in Pittsboro North Carolina, with Darren Bouldin and friends…

Dillon Leeper- The Devil has many faces.

Dillon Leeper-FBM Bike Co. from FBM BMX on Vimeo.

Dillon Leeper and Shane Leeper, shot By Shane, Latane, Steve Crandall, and Matt Coplon.

Always Stoked…

John Corts- Characters with Bikes from FBM BMX on Vimeo.

John Corts is a beast, simplest way to put it, as head welder at FBM, he works hard, rides equally hard and is exceptional at both. From a working class background John knew early on he wanted to become a welder, and at age 14 had already decided he wanted to make a career out of welding bikes. Through BMX, he has realized his passions for fabrication, and travel, as John says, his two great educators. Here is a self produced edit of John, his brother and his friends traveling and riding FBM built bikes!
Always Stoked…

Rainy DIY Session

FBM- Lost Bowl Jam from FBM BMX on Vimeo.