Monday 12 May 2014

Bury St. Edmunds Official Opening Jam

Sunday saw the official opening of my new local skatepark in Bury St. Edmunds. The event was organised by Simon Pickering, Council Youth Officer and Hardcore Hobbies, BSE's rider owned BMX, Skate & Scooter shop.
The day started for me at 10am after a very late night at a party at local rider Stoney's Flat and the evening turned into a impromptu celebration of my birthday by some. 
As I dragged my body to upright, I was unsurprised by the wet weather that greeted me at the window and as I drove to Olding Road the rain started again.
The park was awash and amenities were still being installed at the entrance, so a group of us prepared for the day by having breakfast in Asda's Cafe, where we met Aaron Clapham.
At the party the night before he's asked me if I was going to join him for an early skate at 7am on Sunday morning. I laughed and dismissed the suggestion as we had both indulged and it was already quite late, but he had in fact got to the park at 7am. It was raining.

ON return to the park, the toilets and the P.A. were in there respective places and vans of banners, tents and prizes were being unloaded. Along with the usual advertising boards and sponsor's banners fixed to  the fences Simon had been busy and had ordered a long banner printed with a huge range of photos documenting the life of the park since its beginnings in the mid nineties through to the build of the current park. Some I hadn't seen before and some I remember taking, but don't remember circulating them!
In the chaos of the day, I forgot to take any photos of the banner so if anyone reading this did, please let me see them!


Proceedings began with the usual small town pomp with Councillor Terry Buckle, The Worshipful Mayor of Bury St. Edmunds making a speech and cutting the red ribbon to mark the official opening. Flowers were presented to major contributors to the project but the Mayor's speech was not heard by many as the mic was turned off. So Jason Mills took the helm with help from long distance local Dom Tinkler making a quick detour on his journey from Andorra to Austrailia. The park quickly became full of riders, skaters and scooterists with the threat of rain on everyones mind. Things started going off straight away.






MC Millsibub
MC Tinklecore 



The Jam was, as always a relaxed affair and at the end of the day Jay and Dom gave prizes to the best ten skaters, BMXers and scooter enthusiasts throughout the jam.


Luke Jarvis
After a heavy shower at the beginning of the jam things quickly dried up. at this point things stepped up. An announcement that a rider was going to attempt a never been done transfer from the high Jersey barrier into the shallow end of the bowl. One became two and both riders landed an attempt but unfortunately, when repeating the trick to better the landing, one rider, wearing a helmet ended up head-butting his handlebars as his bike slipped from under him. The paramedics on standby were called in and eventually an ambulance was called and the rider was lifted out of the bowl on a back board.
We were given the good news at the end of the day that he had come away with only serious bruising and expected to be back on the pedals very soon.   


Joe Embrey

Ashley Finn

Tom Bird






Edd Pooley - kickflip


 After a session on the rail, a highest air comp went down in the bowl. This became a game between two riders, Ashley Finn and Joe Embery with Joe eventually winning.

Ashley Finn
Joe Embery
Luke Jarvis - body jar

The sun finally made an appearance after a few short showers and the rail and stairs got another pounding.
John Howlett - b/s feeble to smith (feeble bit) 
John Howlett - b/s feeble to smith (smith bit)
Jake Royal

Charlie Munro - f/s board slide
John Howlett - hurricane 
Sticker tosses are always a laugh to watch. All the mayhem for a few stickers. I was exactly the same when I was as short!



George, very happy with his haul
Harley impersonating George
Louis doing Harley doing George
George Braham - f/s 5-0


A few years back, during a jam at the old park there was a transfer comp from the 4 foot mini to the pump track. This comp was repeated this year. This time the challenge was to clear the platform between the park and one of the large burns on the pump track. Skaters only.
After a number of ollie makes, both Charlie and Jarvis attempted and made a kickflip transfer.















After prizes had been awarded and the main event had ended the park slowly began to get a little quieter and a short session went down in the bowl.
Fuller, Harley and John tried stuff as Aaron attempted to grab peoples boards mid air. This resulted in a couple of near misses and Ron managing to spin Harley's back wheel mid ollie!

Until next year.


Fuller
Harley - f/s ollie with wheel spin
John Howlett - b/s smith

Harley - f/s crail air (Aaron - tail grab)