Steve Crandall

Posts from Steve:

Lords of Fun 2 – Puck’s Photos

This week we will be posting a handful of Photo Galleries from the 2nd Lords Of Fun, anything on wheels adventure travel party. These pictures were submitted by Brad “Puck” Byrne, who was shooting randomly the whole time, and getting great snapshots. We also worked together with Props, who will be publishing a 2 part video, filled with nonsense, and goodtimes, a lighthearted hell on wheels!

The trip was made possible by Tioga, and FBM and dudes willing to just hit the road, looking for nothing more than laughs.

Some of the photos were also featured in The Albion, with this description..

“For no good reason, The Lords of Fun convened for its second ‘official’ gathering, with a 12 person Motorcycle Rally from Virginia, to the Birthplace of Aviation, Kitty Hawk North Carolina. Followed by a Green Lincoln Limousine, BMX bikes in tow, and every other available vehicle towards a good time. For a almost a week, we rode, camped, partied, and eventually ended up in a rented beach house, in the Outer Banks, where at the turn of the 20th century, The Wright Bros. successfully experimented with homemade airplanes. Perfect.
If nothing else, it was an opportunity, rather an excuse, for friends, who all live thousands of miles apart, to have a few days together, laughing, exploring, traveling, and taking it easy, all at the same time. Working class BMX knucklheads, taking advantage of a few days on the road, and a chance to ride the wild.
No clip counts, trip goals, stress, worries, deadlines, just a good time, with good people, living out the essence of our version of the BMX lifestyle…”

Stay tuned for more…

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Hwy 120

Pretty Awesome moto POV from the crew over at Biltwell…

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Old dude in a shopping cart…

An old guy in a shopping cart?

My friend Walter shot this Pic, while visiting lovely upstate NY a couple of summers ago….

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On any Sunday

On any Sunday, you might find people making their own boats, and hanging out on a river.

Random river photo gallery:

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Local Shop- Boardwalk Bikes

Nestled in the heart of the paradise known as Virginia Beach, on the corner of Norfolk Ave. and Cypress Ave, is a slice of heaven for bicycle riders known as Boardwalk Bikes.

Owned and operated by Dave Morrow, a former BMX racer and current concrete business owner, the bike shop is a haven for the local BMX scene. Not since the days of Bike Zone bike shop (rip) have riders in the VB area had so much of a selection of BMX parts readily available to them. Now in it’s second year of operation, Boardwalk Bikes continues to grow and as a result, nurture the scene. Thanks to a solid crew of workers, including Eric ‘˜Balls’ Lee, Darryl Williams, Christian Hewett, Lloyd Welch, and led by Sean Meeker, the youngsters in the area are learning the value of having a local shop vs. purchasing their goods through mail order. Some of the brands that Boardwalk Bikes carries include FBM, S&M, Cult, Fit, Profile Racing, Sunday, Odyssey, Kink, and many more. The shop serves as a meeting point for the local riders, and on any given day, they can come in, check out the latest parts in the showcase, borrow a tool to fix their rides, and even get a quick lesson from Sean in bike maintenance. The kids even lend a hand or two whenever things get hectic in the store. The local BMX riders aren’t the only ones to benefit from Boardwalk Bikes either. Being in such close proximity to the beach, the shop’s main traffic would be the locals on beach cruisers. The local populace has embraced the shop’s carefree attitude and folks stop by on the regular to get their tires pumped up or to get their often neglected bikes a tune up. A recent expansion into the ex karate studio next door has provided much needed room for inventory, as well as an upstairs ‘chill room’. Stocked with couches, videos, and magazines, the Thomas Holman Media Center (named for the man who donated the entertainment) has become the go-to room to escape the sometimes madness of the shop.

With an upcoming Mike Tag benefit jam scheduled for August 28th, the boys at Boardwalk Bikes have their sights set on giving back even more to the community. Video nights, weekly rides and more are scheduled as well. So if you find yourself in the Virginia Beach area, come on down to the shop and check us out. Oh, and bring some cold beer too, it gets hot down here.

Article assembled by-Christian Hewett, Photos – Howard Tarpey, Words Craig Welch

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Westland Beach Regulations

One of my favorite things to see, is the end of a road, when it hits a waterway, whether it be a beach, a river, a harbor or what have you…where something ends, and another begins, or vice versa, littered with the remnants of passerby’s, people partying, sightseers, nomads and vagabonds.
Sometimes there are people around, doing what people do at a shoreline, fishing, laying on a towel, being weird, or like me, just scanning the view, at the scattered ghost of an old pier, or an empty twelve pack of some semi obscure shitty beer.
The last time I did that, there was a full sized, well manicured poodle digging through the trash, near a sign reading “Westland Beach Regulations”, which mentioned nothing of the absurdity of huge poodles, and how stupid they look. I went closer to take a photo of the dog, near the trash,piled up from beach going party animals, and that weird looking bastard growled and snapped at me. Shitty dog…

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Faces in the Midwest

Over 15 years ago Mike Tag made an impression on the scene in Ft.Wayne Indiana, and in his battle against cancer, the riders there got together and held a jam to help raise money on his behalf. Riders young and old, came together from throughout the midwest, like it was the early 90’s again, for an afternoon of dirt jumping at the 4910 trails, and these are some of the faces I captured during saturday afternoon.
For some great Riding shots, check out Scott Towne’s photos on Dans 360, one of the event sponsors!

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Deck Dancing

Jason Morris, Original Least Most’er, and creator of BMXfeed, and many other interweb creations, put this self filmed edit together, and I think it’s awesome!

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Fred

In 1982, I was eight years old, at least for the last few months of it anyway. I was in second grade if I’m not mistaken, and it was the same year E.T. the Extra Terrestrial was released, complete with the epic moon scene, kids riding Kuwaharas across the sky with an alien in a milk crate. I was hooked early on by the mystique of these magical BMX powers. I rode a bike my parents had bought me at a garage sale, as well as borrowing a neighbor’s modified Schwinn Scrambler. It wasn’t until the local bike and mower shop had BMX bikes my folks could afford, that I would have a proper BMX. That would be a year or two later.
Some 26 years later, I found myself in a small town in the Outback of Australia called Dubbo. We had driven six hours inland on an FBM tour, on the word that there was a crazy skatepark we had to check out. When I was eight, I hadn’t ever heard or thought of a skatepark; my idea of a ramp was anything that wasn’t flat that I could ride off of. It was probably a safe bet there weren’t many parks back then, let alone “local parks.”

Any rate, we get to Dubbo. It’s the evening, it’s hot as all get-out, and there are dozens of kids of all ages having a blast at the park. It was awesome. By the end of the session, this youngster named Fred gets on some one’s bike, and starts roasting around the bowls, nearly looping the 18-foot cradle. I was stunned, I don’t think he even had his own bike, he just used whatever someone would let him ride. I asked him how old he was, and he said “Eight.”

“WOW,” I thought. He just rolled away, totally oblivious.

Obviously things have changed over the years, but man, I sometimes don’t realize how much. While the 40 year-old weirdos are online, collecting old Kuwaharas and such, talking about the good old days, I can’t even begin to think about how even just a few short years ago, things were so much different. Yeah, the old days were good, but the bikes were marginal in comparison, and you rarely saw a skatepark, let alone some random town with a fullpipe and tons of kids laughing, hanging out and unknowingly pushing the progression of bike riding.
I was happy to see Fred carving that bowl, with little or no idea about BMX, aside from getting on someone’s bike and doing it. Pure, unadulterated and innocent. Call it what you want, I saw an eight year-old kid riding and smiling, with no thoughts of Nintendo, the Internet, an iPhone, or what anyone else thought about him. It was pure BMX!

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Randomly Independent Photo Gallery

Every year Americans Like to celebrate it’s Independence by having picnics, going to baseball games, listening to Bruce Springsteen and watching fireworks.
Here is a rogue photo gallery shot By Latane Coghill with some suggested activities for enjoying a safe, and patriotic July 4th…

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Kanis

Ryan Corrigan, shot by Ben Mistak

My first introduction to Little Rock Arkansas was an HBO special about the plague of Urban gangs, spreading throughout America, and how it affected smaller cities throughout. The result, was a frightening look at Bloods and Crips, in the form of average white kids, that made me nervous as a teenage traveler, visiting new cities.
I became more familiar with the legend of Little Rock, through a friend, Ryan Corrigan, who grew up around some of the people featured in the tv special, and had plenty of rebel rousing stories to back up the cities reputation.
My first visit to Bill Clinton’s stomping ground wasn’t until years after, on the way home from Interbike in Las Vegas, With Gilly, Dave King, and the infamous Chris Sales. Ryan had given us the phone number of his good friend in Little Rock, a BMXer who was Running a skatepark, Called Ferguson’s, right in the heart of Downtown Little Rock. As it Turns out, it was Jud Ferguson, who was also well known as a former pro skater who had a section in the groundbreaking first Zero Video.
The drive into town was typical, a scary city, late in the evening, people drinking 40’s and rolling dice on the corners, and a few bmxers arguing while trying to navigate themselves from being lost in a Ghetto. We finally Showed up, and Instantly became friends with Jud, and the locals..
Anyrate, the real Legend of Little Rock, was a crazy Bowl we’d always heard about, during an era, when most cities didn’t have skateparks. It was called Kanis, and it was/ is nuts.
I asked Jud some history about the park, this is what he had to say-
“kanis history (as i recall)
somewhere around 1988 two skateboarders approached the city about building a public skatepark, there was a previous outdoor park called skateworld from the 70s. when skating started to boom again in the late 80s, the city agreed to build another skatepark, the original design was going to be more of a square shape with with angled hips leading into the shallow end. by the time of construction, the city decided to just use a peanut shape and hire the cheapest labor they could find, hence the different trannys, over vert, and lop-sided hips. anyways the bowl was finished in the late spring of 89, and the street course about 6 months later. (the “street course” was 30′ long curb w angle iron and a 30′ long 1&1/2′ tall angled wall with a curb on top). me and my friends would spend our summer days there skating and hanging out, watching all of the older dudes shred, drink beer, smoke weed, etc. of course over the years it was used less and less, they finally
tore down the street course, and eventually the sessions were few and far between. It slowly became a place for grafitti kids to paint without getting busted,many gang initiations went on, and then it became the hangout for all the alternative persuasion people to park backwards and do god knows what. In the late nineties little rock had an indoor park that hosted skateboard demos, somehow these pros had heard of a local pool built by the city, thus sparked a resurgence of people wanting to use the bowl for it original purpose-skating and bmx. list of pros-Chet Childress, Ron Whaley, Richard Kirby, Magilla, Tag, The Maniac, Bas Keep, to name the most memorable. Now kanis is probably getting more use than it has in 10-11 years there has been a group of skateboarders with a d.i.y. approach, they have constructed concrete obstacles where the street course used to be and have bondoed and painted up the old bowl. They host a benefit jam once a year to raise money for more
crete and tools with auctions, bands, etc.
Oh yeah crazy stuff- we used to make muratic acid bombs with 2 liter coke bottles and throw em in the deep end and watch them release pressure and carve around the bowl til they blew up….”

The last Time I was there, I was on a roadtrip, and the FBM team was BBQing at Kanis With Jud, and his Family. Some old school skaters were riding the bowl, and one of them tried an invert, and ate shit bad in the deep end, falling all the way to the bottom, compound fracturing his leg. We had to carry him out of the bowl, with a makeshift splint, and put him in a jeep Cherokee, so his friends could get him to the ER. It was Gnarly. Never a dull Moment at the Kanis Bowl.

Derrick Girard- shot by hallman

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Thinking Of You

Scott Towne Rules!

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