MLK High, 10/22/06

I know I'm jumping around a lot here, so bear with me. October 22nd was the second day that Glenn Milligan was in town filming Dave Dillewaard, Yonny Wakefield and Ryan "Biz" Jordan for various projects. The first day we all rolled down to the Banks—and inevitably would up staying there all day. During a late-night drinking session at Max Fish, I asked Glenn where we'd be going the next day. "Anywhere but the Banks," he said. Fair enough.

Martin Luther King High, up in the 60s on the West side, has been the site of quite a few BMX moments, most recently Blackman's feeble to death drop off the ledge along the steps—it was both a RIDE cover and his banger clip in All Day. At the top of the stairs, there is a sizeable platform with benches, planters, and all sorts of little stuff. And this giant iron cube.


The idea was to get clips, of course, and Glenn picked out a likely spot. Don't be fooled by the short sleeves—it was kind of brick out there. And he might live in Cali now, but the purple Skavenger shirt and flat-brim camo New Era means he still belongs to us. The lavender front end in the foreground is Biz's new Volume 81. Nice bike.

It was cold, as stated earlier, so there wasn't gonna be any crazy stuff going down. Instead, Biz and Dillewaard decided to have a little competition to see who could pull this line first—feeble on the wooden bench to pop-up whatever this is on the i-beam, to pop off. Simple enough, I suppose, if you discount the 15-foot drop off the other side. And the fact that no one could pull it clean. Right around the same time Biz was saying "this is the hardest trick I've ever tried," I was realizing that it probably would have been a good idea to recharge my camera battery after taking roughly 500 photos the day before. No good. Biz eventually pulled the line clean, and after a few almost-attempts of barspins out, we moved on to the next spot.

Just one more shot from MLK, though. Nigel Sylvester and Ralphy showed up, and this shot gives you a pretty good look at Nigel's MirraCo prototype. It's loooooooow. And light. The flat brown paint job is tuff, but the frame can (and will) be tougher. Thicker dropouts and stays, taller triangle, and a final weight of a bit over five pounds (I'm guessing) when it's all done. And no brake mounts. Feel me? (Nice Nikes too, B.)

Nigel's got the fairly typical NYC setup going—four pegs, no brakes, Animal Jumpoff/Piff Bars/sprocket/seatpost clamp/Hamilton pedals/GLH-ASM combo, and Macneil Pivotal seat/post run looooow. It'll be interesting to see how many people trade those in for FBMs just for the hXc/American style points. I'm still not sold on 22-8 gearing, though, despite the fact that I ran it for a couple weeks. It just LOOKS wrong.