Signal BMX

My laptop is.


And I'm posting from it right now, which is surreal in a not-very-surreal kind of way.

Name every sticker on there and win absolutely nothing.

Man, it's hot as hell out there.

I may write SPRFLS (updated daily!), but at heart I'm just another trend whore. So when I saw that topload stems were making a comeback, and thought about how a little more rise would help my 37-year-old back, I went digging in the crates:


Much better.

P.S. I'm gonna try and start updating this on a weekly basis, at least. It might not be much sometimes, but what the hell.

Started a Flickr page where I'm just going to start uploading everything, riding or not. We'll see how long THAT lasts. Not sure what the URL is (haven't sorted the whole thing out too well yet), but my username is russbengtson.


Not gonna quit this one quite yet, though. Then again, if it keeps raining every day, I might never take a riding photo ever again.

Sometimes I leave the backpack home and just ride around with my little point and shoot (a 7.2 megapixel Casio Exilim EX-Z70). It's slim enough to fit in a pocket, and takes decent photos as long as you don't want to shoot action. And if you don't need a flash. Or much of a zoom. Half the time I forget I have it and don't use it at all.

Anyway, lately I've been just randomly shooting down/across at my bike as I roll down the street. Maybe it'll be a summer-long series. Pavement! Crosswalks! Sidewalks! Grass! Cobblestones! (Maybe not cobblestones, I wouldn't be able to focus on anything, and I'd probably drop the camera.) Here's a couple just for the heck of it, taken somewhere around Spring Street and Broadway:


(Shorts by Zoo York, sneakers by adidas.)

Can't say I know Jake Seeley all that well. Or at all, in fact.

What I do know is this: a) he's on Sunday flow, and b) he Luc-E'd to turndown 180 the Pace ledge, which has seen a lot of action over the years.

Other things worth noting are that this took place on June 24th, that he didn't pull this particular attempt (but did pull the next one, which I didn't get a good shot of, so it's still plenty legit), and that he would have given it another go but security decided we were done for the day.

I suppose I should have shot the rollout, but I wasn't using the flash (in deference to the video cameras) and the frames-per-second rate was pretty slow. Not like anyone checks this blog anymore anyway.

I can't believe it's taken me so damn long to post these—I meant to do a long post about the whole scenario over at SPRFLS, but Supes's post over on Super made me reconsider. If Mat Hoffman was there, and he signed off on it, who am I to question things? Nobody, that's who.

Honestly, I only had two real problems with the whole event : 1) The Red Bull wasn't free, and 2) the ever-annoying NYC Parks Department didn't provide a place to park/lock bikes, and actually harassed people for locking their bikes to park railings. Um, it was a BIKE EVENT. A little common courtesy (and common sense) would have gone a long way.

(Also, I'm not convinced Kevin cleared 27', but I promised I wouldn't talk about that.)

A nonparenthetical aside: Can we please refrain from calling Kevin Robinson "K-Rob"? That's a lazy "nickname" that should be restricted to basketball (T-Mac) and baseball (A-Rod) players. Hell, it sucks for THEM. Kevin deserves a real nickname if he's going to have one at all.

As usual, it was good to see the NYC BMX community, both past and present, show up in force. Things may be fractured now, but at least we can all come together for a corporate-sponsored televised event. Power to the people!

Anyway, eight photos. All in chronological order. To be honest, I was more impressed by the flip than any of his "record" (sorry!) runs. Feel free to use them elsewhere (now that it's only two weeks later), just credit me. Or the blog. Whatever.

Unless you live under a rock (or don't follow BMX at all) you probably know that Kevin Robinson allegedly broke Mat Hoffman's high air record on a custom-built Red Bull ramp in Central Park last night. I say allegedly because, from the viewpoint of the ground, it looked like he came up a couple feet short. This feeling was widespread.

I'm gonna write more about it on the blog I actually update, but for now here's the best flick I took all night. Think this was his second-to-last run. Poaching flashes rules.

Hola, hovitos. Been a minute, huh? Again.

Not that I'm one to make excuses (even though I am), I've just been slacking with the camera and spending more time on the new blog. But hopefully you'll see more posts on here as it continues to warm up outside. Pretty sure I even saw the sun this week. Gangsta.

Anyways, much going on. Edwin, Tyrone AND Nigel all have new shops opening (or open) in BK, Manhattan and Queens respectively. Power moves. I've got shots of Rone's shop—Dah Shop—that I need to sort through and post one of these days. It's down on Division Street, right near the Manhattan Bridge. You know they come correct with all the latest Animal stuff, as well as all sorts of singlespeed gear. They built up what I'm pretty sure was the first FBM Sword to hit NYC. And they already got mentioned on BikesnobNYC, so it's official. Here's the flyer:


I went down there the other day to see what was going on, and to drop off a copy of "Dead Bang," which Rone hadn't seen yet (and you should absolutely own by now). As it turned out, he was supposed to head down to the Banks to meet up with Edwin and Nigel in order to shoot something for BET. Seeing that it was a gorgeous day and I was actually carrying my camera, I figured I'd tag along. Also, Edwin's bike was unavailable, and since I ride pretty much the same setup he does, my bike would be a pretty good backup in case he needed it.

So we get there, and the crew is already in place. Nigel threw a few barspins (shocking, I know):



And then he posted up in different places and answered questions as we all rode around behind him. If this does ever air, look out for me—I'll be the white guy.


P.S. This spot is right around the corner from Dah Shop. Nothing I love more than old grimy-ass storefronts that haven't changed since LaGuardia was the mayor, not an airport.

Spam! Tabled fakie at some spot you've never heard of. His frame is lighter than yours--I'm pretty sure if you hold it up to the sun you can see through it. Shot with the lousy point-and-shoot (and mildly brightness/contrast modded in Photoshop) because I didn't feel like lugging a bag around. If I were a Photoshop expert, I would have considered erasing his bike and turning it into one of those "invisible bike!" images. I'm not, so I didn't.




The bridge is not over.

Springtime is the the air. Can you feel it? Sure, it's still in the mid-50s (at best), and you get strange looks when you wander out of the apartment wearing shorts (well, at least I do), but it's coming. Spring! When the streets fill with scantily clad would-be models in search of employment (Coffee Shop is right down the block, ladies) and the wonderful smell of boiling garbage. Oh wait, that's summer. Spring is random thunderstorms, freezing-cold mornings and busload after busload of suspected tourists. Regardless! April showers bring May mold and whatnot. Psyched! I can't wait to start leaving Pleg residue everywhere like a spritzing dog. Is that even grammatically correct? I don't care!

This post is brought to you by Canada Dry seltzer and the exclamation point. And a chickadee.

My camera bag is actually dusty at this point. Didn't even think that was possible. With luck, I'll start posting some new-new flicks soon.

Apparently there have been questions as to whether this blog is still alive. It's a question I've asked myself, to be honest. And I'm not sure whether there's an answer yet. This could be an extended winter break, or this post could be an epilogue. I suppose I just haven't had anything to say.

According to the FBM website (aka Steve Crandall), Metal Bikes head honcho and toothpick master Jimmy Levan "has taken a spill, and is in a hospital with some serious head injuries." Others who were there said the spill took place on a skateboard, and that he may be in a medically induced coma. I'm not sure exactly what to believe at this point. Over the years Jimmy has taken seemingly countless nasty blows to the head and come out no worse for wear. Hopefully, in the end, this one will be no different.

Get well soon. Jimmy. You've got a lot of friends out here.



(Photo from the Fox Jam at the Brooklyn Banks, June 2, 2007.)

This is Li'l Taco. I'm not sure where he's from, or how old he is (I've heard both 14 and 16, I think) but I DO know he a) did this rail pegless, and b) tried to 180 the MLK steps. Ludicrous. Now he's doing truckdrivers and tailwhips. Kid's too good.

Photos from August 12th of this year.

This shot is my desktop image right now. '32 Ford coupe parked on 4th Avenue and 11th (or thereabouts) after midnight a couple weeks back. D50 with the 10.5 fisheye, no flash. Can't remember the F-stop or aperture (I should really write that stuff down sometimes).



Banks jam setup. Shot with the Exilim point-and-shoot, no flash, balanced on the curb at the top of the bank. I think it looks like a New York scene out of the '70s—except for my bike, of course. And the ramps. The wedge pyramid didn't even last a week. The quarters are still there.



The sign above the door at Max Fish on Ludlow between Houston and Stanton. Shot with the D50 and my little-used LensBaby 2.0. I really should use that thing more.

I am not a professional photographer.

Not only have I never taken a photography class or been paid for a photo, but I've pretty much only shot digital (at least when it comes to BMX). There's something romantic and real about shooting film, but I like a) being able to see my images right away, and b) being able to store 500-plus full-sized frames on one 2g SD card. I also don't carry much equipment. Three lenses, the camera body, and that's about it. I have a slave flash, but the (light activated) remote isn't very reliable. Not to mention I need AAs for it. The one thing I absolutely should invest in is a spare battery for my camera, because I'm forever forgetting to charge mine, then having it die at the most inopportune moments.

(You know, I actually did shoot 35mm news photos--and develop them--when I worked briefly for the Oxford (PA) Tribune right out of college. Not sure if that qualifies me as a pro, though.)

I'm also not one for a lot of setup time. I like to think part of it is because I approach BMX photography from more of a journalistic standpoint (record what's happening without influencing it), but part of it is because I'm kind of lazy. All too often do I realize too late that I should have been standing THERE instead of HERE. And that maybe I should have started using my 50-200 lens before last week. But my normal MO is just pulling the camera out of the bag when I see something interesting happening (or about to happen) and try and capture what I can.

Sometimes there's someone filming already, and I'm always conscious that my flash could mess up a line, either by distracting the rider or rendering the clip unwatchable. So, I improvise. In this case, Nigel was doing a 180 on the bank to barspin out (I think) and the slow shutter speed captured it in a different way. I really like the blur of the front wheel and bars. If I was a real photographer, I would have set up a tripod up top and stabilized the background but, yeah, I'm not.



I really like this next one, although it seems it could benefit from some further brightness/contrast adjustment. If I remember correctly, this was a session where we were messing with the "bulb" setting, where the shutter stays open as long as you keep the trigger pressed down. You can set it up so the flash fires twice, once when the shutter opens and again when it closes. The hope was, with the camera stationary, that it would pick up a double-exposure image of a feeble-to-smith. It didn't. But the ghost feeble is still kind of cool.


(This post was somewhat inspired by Keith Romanowski's latest update over at Ride LI. Keith IS a real photographer, and his stuff is super-rad. Check it out.)

Clearing more stuff off the desktop.

Stack of kids bikes in Portland, Oregon. I don't know if it was art, a class trip, or some sort of horrible first-grade pile-up.
Downtown NYC. Architecture from a period best left forgotten.

Banks Jam setup night, around 4 a.m. I have NO IDEA who would ever want to tag a wall like that. I mean, that kind of thing is ILLEGAL.

Got to the Banks sort of late today due to an extremely late night last night. These things happen. Anyway, Mike Hoder was there, and while he didn't flipwhip over the rail out of the bank or anything, he sure did some high wallrides. Lazyman steez with the camera, wideangle sideways shots without even looking through the viewfinder or using a flash. By the time I switched positions to shoot from a different (and better) angle, the show was over. Oh well.


Ruben, really, whatever you want to call it.
Check out the face of the kid in the red T. Priceless.

The last two shots could be in Highlights magazine as one of those "point out the differences" things.

Nick "Spam" Ponterio wallslap.



Joey "AM:PM" Piazza hanger tooth.



Frank "Winteractive" Macchio whip.



Eric "He's Like, 15" legburn turndown.



Joey "Look For the Official Matt Brown Photo" Piazza hang over.