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Whew, that is funny, lol!
Man this thread needed some levity big time!Tidey,
Welcome back! You and your son are exactly who I am talking about, you guys are SO IMPORTANT right now!! Just think, you’re kid goes out and races, he’s stoked, comes back, tell’s other kids…we know the drill, ’cause we already did it as kids.
I’m hoping someone reads if not this whole thread at the very least your one post, because I have to tell you with all the bickering us already sold guys have been doing, it’s the people still on the fence about it that are most important.Jesse,
Well damn man that is some killer style!
That’s it though if you tried that move on our dubs when you’re back wheel hit, it would be kablam, and you’d be standing still or OTB. We need to mellow out that part of it which is what Vinnie said he is gonna do, I just don’t think he has had a chance yet with the weather.
It disrupts the flow…LMAO
It’s not really about who’s a mary, lol…that’s between all us older guys and the wussosity factor.
It’s about new riders and and keeping existing ones.
The jump just needs a little work to make it rideable by everyone and I’m pretty sure Vinnie will get it done.Excellent, now a point can be made..
Jesse, do you see how your dubs are mellow on the second part? Like that dude in 31-35 was able to drop the back wheel and roll them easy.
It doesn’t look like it in the picture above but that side on ours is steep enough that when you hit it like that it’s very brick wallish. And the take off has a lip that makes it super hard to keep that a** end down…
What are those dubs peak to peak?Thanks man!…
I was, but I try just to put up what I think is the best stuff….
I’ll put the rest up in an album in the pictures section tonight for you all…
Please don’t hate me if some of the shots really suck, lol.
I’d say Freddie Hauge on the lower right is about 5’8″ -5’10”, so the jump is about 5′ tall, and you can judge the distance by the Farside shot.
Actually that picture was taken last year and the front has been built up about 6-10″ since then.
Again, I’m gonna add that Vinnie said he isn’t done yet, so…let’s volunteer to get out there and give him a hand getting it done.
That’s the man himself Rich F, clearing them last year. Right below his bike is where most riders are landing directly into that frontside of the second set. The launch is about another foot past the left part of the picture.The issue is that it is about 5 1/2′ tall 20′ apart peak to peak. The front of the second part of the double is just about reachable by 85-90% of the riders at the track going at full clip. Which means most hit the jump with either the back wheel flat into it, or the front wheel into it. CJ only gets about 25 motos a race, so most gates are not full. Most riders opt to slow down before the jump. If or when we get full gates of riders or near it, 1 rider crashing on a jump that size could cause potential serious problems.
Also, the jump is not rollable by people who cannot jump it.
The size and distance are more something you would find in a pro section or the bigger parts of some local trails.
I have a few pictures at my home computer. I wll post them later.
Let me say percentage wise, since it is not rollable by an average rider, I’d have to say if we have 100 riders at a race, perhaps 12-15 can jump it, which is not a big deal if the rest can roll it, but at about 5.5 feet it is a little rough for the average racer to get the front wheel up and over that at full speed to roll it.Oh come on Ham, we all know if we just had baby curb jumps out there, you’d still be down… 😉
My intent is to grow BMX beyond us, beyond the “hardcore” mentality, beyond the “I want to be number one” stigma, beyond “I want to be sponsored”.
I have a good number of older guys who have the same ideas I do, and we have plans in the works to make the young average, playing video games, kid welcome in the BMX world.I respect all you guys, especially everyone who has stuck with it through the lean years, (That means you Ham!!!!)
I really honestly am thinking about new young fresh kids and parents when I say we gotta tone things down a click.I’d love a track with 5′ tall, 12-15′ spaced jumps everywhere and have it be about 900′ long but that’s not going to entice new people. There is a good medium to be found.
I was just thinking about that ‘ol saying “go big or go home”, hehe…
Judging by our local race turnouts, it looks like everyone decided on the latter….It’s a race with obstacles in the way.
The doubles at CJ are no good.
Begin to fix the tracks or continue to lose ridership.Go big or go home pertains to top expert and pro freestyle riders.
Go faster than the other guy or lose pertains to racing.We either have a race or a jumping contest.
Bill Hayden was a TRACK BUILDER for the ABA, if he is saying that thing is a little too radical I tend to believe him.
You have got to look at OUR tracks in the eyes of a 10-13 TRUE beginner and think what is the happy medium.
Catering to the same riders we always have, catering to the hardcore crew, is not ever going to grow the sport of BMX.Craig is correct in saying that it’s not just the “jumps” that have brought down ridership, I can name about 5 other things that are currently contributing to the decline in racing, but I’m not going off topic on this.
I can think of 15-20 that will help grow it again. But I’ll wait till someone actually wants to hear from a guy with 27 years of BMX only experience.
Again, the final words on this and I got this from Kevin Mark, an intelligent, responsible teacher and father, are these “we are having a BMX RACE not a BMX JUMPING contest.”
I think I have to agree and say that WE should change the first straight doubles at CJ. I’ve talked to Vinnie and he personally has said that he has changes in store for that part of the track and at the moment they haven’t been fully implemented, so I would have to say give them some time.
Now, I capitalized we in that last paragraph. Why… Ya see when changes are made volunteers show up, CJ was good enough to have the input of Phil, Jimmy and a few other top NJ expert riders to build the new stuff. These guys go big and are great jumpers so they of course will give input accordingly. If we had a few more volunteers then possibly the track would have had changes made that were a bit more “average” racer friendly. Which leaves us where we are now.
I’m sure a few people might have noticed that I was missing from CJ this weekend. I got the opporutunity this weekend to do some demos at a local bike tradeshow. I jumped at the chance knowing that I could reach some new kids and parents that might be interested in BMX. I talked up racing to a few families, I didn’t have any NBL brochures to hand out or info about CJ but that will be changed for the next demo I do in April.
My motivating force being 40 and still riding is to bring NEW riders into our sport.
NOW, I talk up how great BMX is (when we do demos we play up the fact that I also race and it’s great for kids..etc.) send them to the website, tell them to get info there, head out to a race and check it out. I tell them it’s easy, fun and you’ll be riding with kids who are at the same age and skill level as yourself. Great, they’re sold,, here’s a responsible adult, clear spoken, has a real job and believes in BMX, says it’s great for kids, let me head out and see what this is about.
They get to the track with their 5-10 year old kid, see huge PAVED turns, jumps that are 6′ tall and (and I know a lot of people don’t want to believe this) the parent or the kid says, no way this looks too intimidating.
It’s true, it’s happened, I’ve talked to more than 1 person who has told me this.People say the trend AT NBL National events is toward bigger jumps , ABA is more racing friendly as opposed to lips and jumps friendly. We are at the local level looking to grow the sport, you have to make it inviting to new people, “overly” big jumps aren’t inviting. So maybe we should at the very least look to give Vinnie a hand the next time a change is made, and I mean ALL of us. Volunteers are obviously sorely lacking when you only get 10-25 motos at a race.
With that whole diatribe being said, I’d also like to say there are problems at every track in NJ. The quarry dust at HC that most aren’t into, of course with low moto counts easy track care becomes a consideration so they stick with the dust, the controversial jumps at CJ, and believe it or not I am under the belief that EHT could actually use a few LESS jumps to give it a little more racing and a little less pump and jump.
As I’ve said before here, I am going to do everything I can to get new kids to ride and race, when they get to the track we have to make it friendly. Let’s work together.