Meet Me in the Hills
Slobber strands dangle from a hound’s jowls.
The last steam-bath days of St.Louis heat stretched on. It was 2019, mid-September, the long taper of a summer without demarcation. It was the evening. My phone rang. It was Jackson. He pitched a rendezvous. Meet in Colorado to hitch along for a short leg of the 6th Maiden America tour, joining the FBM/Profile crew and some of the extended ménage for 48 hours of riding in the Rockies. It was short notice and a short trip—a blink, really.
Maybe I’d get in a few airs before my elbow began ripping apart like viscera velcro. The dry hinge joint was creaky, had been for months, and gripping my bars was more of a symbolic gesture. Tendonitis, shitty, but not a deal breaker. And the road tugs. And prospecting for transition gold in the mountains with long time friends, the call drowns excuses. I’d take what I could get. I booked the flight to Denver.
Summer boiled off without a hiss besides the brushes on Bohren’s Black Earth, but Jackson’s call promised fall wouldn’t evaporate the same way. I was ready, and in the dark before dawn on the equinox I pulled on my backpack and tugged my bike bag 6 blocks to the Red Line and took it to Lambert.
Jackson and I became close friends during my two stints living in Santa Cruz. I watched Garrett grow up ripping Ramp Riders in Saint Louis with his brothers. And Steve Crandall, whose party I’d be crashing, was a friend from years of crossing paths on the road.
I knew a few of the renegade BMX nobility loitering in the motel parking lot from Woodward, BMX events, or previous meet-ups with FBM. Some: The Leeper Bros, Jay from QBP, Vic from Circuit, Matt from Profile, and the bizarrely talented Declan Murray, were new to me and—
A cosmopolitan vagabond approached the van.
”I’m so horny.” he said.
Eric Holladay was grinning behind black sunglasses as he strolled up in a billowing un-buttoned short sleeve, khaki shorts, and slides, banana in hand.
”I’m horrnyyy,” replied a voice from the shadows of the van interior, Seamus I think.
”Man, I’m so horny. Is anybody else horny?” called Garrett.
Pockets of voices spread around the asphalt called back, “I’m horny,” “Whooo’s horny?” “Soo, horny.”
The call died off as suddenly as it started—this was a pack of coyotes.
Time dilation is wild. Two days, and that’s being generous, felt like a week. On day one I managed a few carves at The Hook and a few airs at the Milliken park which earned me six more months of frayed cable friction in my arms. So, I was sidelined right away but happy and shot tons of photos.
This trip marked the conclusion of FBM operating as a handmade in the USA BMX bike company. Steve made the announcement while everyone was taking a break at Frisco. But, he also made clear this wasn’t the end of the road for friendships or road trips.
FBM was always more people than product anyway.
The road—we met there, we meet there, and if we see each other again, that’s where it’ll be.
*Click’em to make’em big and un-cropped.
