Photo Shoot Trip to Phoenix

I know you’ve probably seen or read a lot about Arizona lately, either from the Kink , Shadow Conspiracy, or Odyssey teams’ latest trips through there, but I still wanted to report on the good times that we recently had in the Grand Canyon State. The main goal for our recent trip to AZ was to shoot photos for our upcoming 2009 catalog, but like every other time I’ve taken the wheel of a 15 passenger van full of BMX bikes and others who love riding them, the photos became an added bonus to the abundance of other good things we gathered along the way.

Although it sounds like a dream job, planning photo shoots for a catalog can be quite challenging. It’s one thing if you’re visiting people’s riding spots as guests and you’re shooting photos to document the good times, but when you’re shooting for a catalog, the invites rarely come without hesitation and a side order of suspicion and general weird feelings. There is a perception that exists that when a team shows up at a spot to shoot photos for a catalog which will then be used to promote their products; it is a form of ‘the man’ exploiting them for the sake of making money. Sure, some of the photos we took on this trip will be used to decorate a catalog, but we went in peace to have fun, ride bikes and gather a few photos of some of our O9 bikes in action. We were grateful for every spot we got to ride and for every local who was kind enough to lead us to them and for some reason, we were met with the same level of respect. I will ramble more about this later, but in a nutshell; the locals we met up with in Arizona were very cool and helpful, and offered up nothing even remotely close to the cold shoulders that are always a possibility on catalog shoots.

Potential cold shoulder.

It was a gracious invitation from a cool AZ local after all that made the decision to go there a very easy one for us. We had been kicking around a few different location ideas for the shoot when we crossed paths with a super nice guy named Ray at Woodward West a few months ago. Ray had driven his whole family and some friends of his son Jessie’s to Woodward to ride and celebrate Jessie’s birthday. You may have seen a photo of Ray and Jessie sitting by one of their ramps in a recent issue of Ride UK. Ray is a ripper from days gone by who used to do shows and probably rode ramps in leathers, but the coolest thing about Ray (aside from his friendly demeanor and great attitude) is that he still rides and rides his own trails and ramps with his teenage son. A visit to Southern CA where it all started is always tempting, and Fiji would have been nice for sure (had it been within budget), but with Ray’s invitation, the promise of great weather, and the chance to ride bike-only skateparks, we were off to Arizona.  

In the days before the trip, I got pretty excited to go and to see this peculiar land where ‘skateparks’ that don’t allow skateboards exist and where less rain falls in a year than I see in a little over a month at home in the NW. I had visited Phoenix for a month when I was 15 (more than half of my lifetime ago) and other than running over thorns and a confrontation with a track operator, had nothing but fond memories of the place. It was dry and sunny every day, there was always a Taco Bell within riding distance, and there were plenty of places to ride including the legendary Chandler race track. The Chandler track in those days was amazing (and probably still is today), but you definitely didn’t want to make the mistake of taking gate practice laps before a race without first signing up to race. A buddy of mine and I did this and were all but clothes-lined at the finish line by the track operator at the time. We had definitely met head on with the limits of the Arizona BMX community’s hospitality on that trip, but this trip was far different in that way.

Ride Magazine’s Jeff Zielinski was the hired trigger man on this trip. This along with the company of fellow Long Beach resident and healthy eater Aaron Bostrom made the trip even more enjoyable. In addition to being an amazing photographer, Jeff is one of the coolest and most easy-going guys I’ve had the chance to work with. If you look at the photo credit on your favorite BMX shots, you’ll probably see Jeff’s name. Being joined by Aaron was another added bonus on the trip. Aaron is equally cool, friendly, and easy-going and is a very talented rider to boot. Aaron didn’t know it or plan for it, but his amazing riding helped us out the whole time by giving our lean crew another ripper to ride with. We sure can’t count on my nac-nacs and rollbacks to inspire anything worthy of a catalog photo…

Jeff preparing to capture some action. He carries around that bag and another that weighs more than he does all day and doesn’t have a complaint about anything.  

The bar was set pretty low on the first day. We were all showing up at the airport at different times and we weren’t really sure if we’d get any shots off at all. Robbie Wright and I were greeted by Jeff and Aaron in the baggage claiming area as soon as we landed. About an hour and a half later, we were joined by Nicholi Rogatkin. If you don’t know who Nicholi is, YouTube his name and you’ll see some pretty wild stuff. He’s a 12 year old who is the size of a 9 year old who rides a 16″ bike like a 21 year old in a contest final. Once everyone had arrived, had some lunch, and I had convinced the staff at Nicholi’s gate that I was the responsible party his parents had agreed to sign him over to for the weekend, we were off.

After we checked in to our hotel and put our bikes together, we headed straight to the Chandler Park. It is nothing shy of amazing to me that places like this bike-only skatepark exist. I don’t have Dale Earnhardt’s or his son’s car number on the back window of my pickup, but I am definitely grateful for the fact that I was born in this country and get to live here. Yeah, we can see bad things and bad ideas being implemented everywhere we go, but take another look around and you’ll see that we have it pretty good here with the kinds of freedom we have and the many opportunities that we are presented with simply because we happen to live in the U.S. Nowhere else have I seen more evidence of the American spirit than at these bike parks. The riders rode the skateparks and got arrested, but instead of kicking and screaming and selling their bikes and joining gangs, they banded together for a better cause and were able to convince the government that they needed parks to ride too. This might not seem all that impressive to some of you, but you’re reading the ramblings of a guy who used to have to drive to Canada to ride a skatepark.

Jeff capturing one of many tailwhips and double whips Nicholi threw at the Chandler Park. Those concrete doubles were super fun to play around on, but hitting the hip into them (as seen here) was a hoot as well.

I had a neighbor growing up who was a pro flatlander. He rode the tennis courts at the local park because they offered up the smoothest and most level ground around. He would get kicked out of there and understandably so. The court he was riding was built to play tennis on, not to scuff around on and perform Miami-hoppers. Could he have gathered up all of his flatlanding bros and worked to convince the parks department that they needed a flat slab some place for their preffered form of recreating? Maybe, but he didn’t. He stopped riding and became a coffee company tycoon and could probably care less about anyone looking for a place to flatland today, but these guys in Arizona somehow beat the odds and pulled off something that I consider very impressive and commendable. On behalf of Diamondback and anyone else in the riding community who doesn’t mind me speaking on their behalf, congratulations on a job well done and thank you very much.

So we rode the Chandler Park and it was truly an amazing experience. The park was designed by bike riders and has something for everyone and I do mean everyone. They even had a set of concrete doubles and a couple of concrete berms for this washed up racer to ride. Many of the younger locals saw the doubles as an ideal hang out spot and starting point for the stuff they liked to hit, but I thought they were one of the best things there. Robbie, Nicholi, Aaron and I rode while Jeff got some shots off (and got to ride a bit too) and a good time was had by all. Darin (Read) needed to work on Friday so his flight didn’t get in until pretty late that night.

There was a contest going on at the Glendale Park on Saturday, so our plan was to go back to the Chandler Park and get some riding in while everyone else was across town at the contest. We had truly underestimated the size of the BMX scene in Phoenix. I don’t think I’ve been anywhere where I’ve seen more people riding around on BMX bikes. It was a beautiful and amazing site, but the volume of bikes at the park that morning didn’t make for the best environment to try to shoot photos. There’s no question that the absence of brakes on bikes has created a whole new style of riding that many consider enjoyable and challenging, but unfortunately for the young kids at the park on disposable bikes who need brakes but have removed them to fit in; things aren’t going so well. I witnessed no fewer than 3 collisions that could have been avoided had a set of brakes been available to at least one of the parties involved. Situations that could have ended with a brake check, a swerve, and a ‘my bad’ were ending with piles of mangled steel and small puddles of kid blood in the bottom of the bowls. Not fun. After the last batch of kids we had watch collide had been scraped out of the bottom of the park, we followed another friendly local named Dillon and a few of his friends to some street spots.

The first place we went was a crazy and huge ditch. The word “ditch” doesn’t begin to describe this place so be sure to check out the photos. It was very vast and wide open and offered up all kinds of high speed hi-jinks as well as some fun hips and a wall ride too. Darin did some nice alley-oop wallrides there and Nicholi did more tailwhips and we moved along. Dillon and friends then led us to another “ditch” that was downright amazing. The place looked like it was made to ride bikes in. The transitions were smooth and clean and many had nice kickers at the top not to mention a very nice and seemingly endless wall. Jeff got more great shots of Darin and the rest of our crew there and also captured Aaron wall-riding out of the ditch, over a railing and sidewalk and into the street we had parked on. You’ll probably be seeing that shot somewhere in the future.

Darin doing a very well-documented alley-oop wallride at ”ditch” #1.  

Here’s another view of what ditch #1 had to offer. Over my left shoulder was another section like the one seen here, so you could get going mach 3.5 or so and hit the tabletop I’m standing on and land down that huge wedge tranny and be going about mach 5 at the bottom. Good times…

Sadly, this is the only shot I took at ditch #2. I tried to keep a low profile and not draw attention from the neighborhood watch, but to no avail.

Because the ditch was running right through the middle of a neighborhood, we knew there was a good possibility that the neighborhood watch might have something to say about us riding there and we were right. Fortunately the self-appointed local authority didn’t arrive until we had all but wrapped up the session anyway. I was standing on the sidewalk between the ditch and our van, peacefully watching the riding go down and for cars during Aaron’s wall ride out of the ditch and in to the street when a guy pulled up with his passenger window rolled down and proceeded to yell at me over his young daughter seated beside him. It was a pretty pathetic site as the guy with eyes the size of sprockets exclaimed “DO I NEED TO GO HOME AND GET MY BADGE AND GUN BELT”?!?! The wise guy in me was thinking that yeah, it’d give us more time to ride if you would, but I took the higher road and instead told him that it wouldn’t be necessary and that we would leave on our own power and without any more threats. I don’t know what kind of attack he had planned for me with his “gun belt”, but I’m sure we are both better off not having found out. If the dude had been entrusted with a gun, I can only hope that it had since been taken away; leaving him only with the belt. He seemed to be one who would have a twitchy trigger finger. His demeanor could be the result of a strained marriage, or the fact that he drives a Buick Rendezvous, but whatever the case, we left (while he waited and watched) and moved the van to another neighborhood. Jeff and a smaller crew went back on bikes to get another shot without the watchful and paranoid eye of the agitated man in the Buick.

Local ripper Josh Betley also met up with us and showed us around a bit that day. Josh too was extremely nice and helpful and gladly showed us some spots. We checked out a couple high schools that were the size of some universities I’ve been to and rode a bit and later went to the ASU campus for some more street riding. Soon after we arrived, we saw part of the Kink team and friends riding and filming there. KC Badger, Sean Sexton, and Darryl Tocco were among the riders in that group that were killing that campus. It was fun to watch them and meet them, but I was also laughing inside at the same time for Darin and Robbie. Those guys obviously rip and take part in helping define what cool is these days (whether they know or admit to it or not) and here they are rolling up on another larger group of fellow talented riders with me (a mid-30’s desk jockey with enough seatpost to hang a flag off of -which I have done) and 12 year old Nicholi in his full face helmet. I didn’t feel quite as bad for our guys after Nicholi did some more tailwhips, but it was still pretty funny for me. As a side note, I will say that my hat’s off to Nicholi for wearing that helmet while riding street and everything else he rides. The boy believes that wearing a helmet is a good thing to do and so he does it; no matter what anyone else thinks about what he looks like.

There really isn’t anything that Nicholi isn’t willing to throw a whip off of. Here he is whipping from a wedge to flat at ASU. Another great photo by Jeff Z.

After a full day of ditch and street riding, some beverages and time to hang out and relax were in order. While the others hit up a place near the campus, Nicholi and I went in search of a Jamba Juice. I’m not typically a $5 foam cup of juice kind of guy, but I definitely had one calling my name that night and was pretty sure I could hear a faint ‘Nicholi’ in the distance too. We found the Jamba Juice that had been calling us, but not until about 3 minutes after it had closed for the day. We reluctantly ended up at Starbucks across the parking lot and paying $4 a piece for a plastic cups filled with little ice pellets floating in some kind of strawberry flavoring. We were not too psyched on that return on our investment. Maybe Howard Shultz will use a few of the bucks we left him to try to buy back the Sonics (Seattle’s NBA team).

I had put together an unrealistically ambitious plan for the following day that would have us starting our day on an “Indian Reservation” south of Chandler and finishing up at Ray’s place which is in Surprise to the north west of Phoenix by a ways and with a lot of traffic in between. We got to ride the reservation in the morning, but to no one’s surprise, we didn’t make it to Ray’s that day.

The time we spent on that so-called “Indian Reservation” south of Chandler was amazing. Sidenote: I say “so-called” because we were with Native Americans on their land nearly 9000 miles away from India.  If the Natives want to be called “Indians”, I’ll oblige, but not until then. I had been in touch with a guy named Derek the day before who had invited us out to his trails. He led us out there to the reservation he grew up on the next morning and we learned that Ray and Jessie weren’t the only father / son BMX duo in the Phoenix area. Soon after we arrived, we met Derek’s dad Jackson who also rode and maintained the trails. Derek rides the parks a lot and is going to school too, but his dad was in to riding. Way into riding. He rode with us for quite a while and talked with us about where and what he likes to ride and it was something else. I think he knew where more riding spots were than anyone else we talked to on the trip.

This was the view from the roll in at Derek and Jackson’s place.  

I’ll try not to get too philosophical or emotional on you here, but hanging out with Derek and Jackson on that reservation was pretty surreal and it just showed me again that the best thing about riding (next to the fun that it is) is the things that you get to experience and the people you get to meet in the process. Those guys were super nice and cool and treated us like old bros. Here we were; a van load of white guys riding and hanging out with these Native Americans on their land and not any of us were remotely interested in discussing the irony of the situation or our cultural differences. We were only talking and thinking about one of the things we have in common; the love of riding BMX bikes. It was something else. I looked across the horizon a few times and had to reboot to understand again what was going on. Kids; if you’re riding to get rich, famous, or women (or rich famous women); you’re missing out on the best part of riding.

Darin got shot multiple times at close range on that reservation, but fortunately only by Jeff’s camera. Here he gets some shots for Darin’s upcoming bike check that will be featured on Ride’s website on Monday (the 21st).  

The next day was our final day of the trip. With Jeff’s help, I changed the overly ambitious plan I had for that day so that the crew would be able to sleep in a bit. I needed to get Nicholi to the airport pretty early for his flight back to Boston and that was a much more involved process than I had planned for. Since Nicholi is a minor, I had to wait there in the terminal at his gate not only for his plane to board, but also take flight and pull up its landing gear. I had never been involved in that kind of thing before, but it does make sense. If the plane had been turned around for any reason, I would have needed to be there to stay with Nicholi. They don’t want unaccompanied minors running around the airport. Nicholi is as polite and mild-mannered as they come, but even he would probably resort to passing the time by sizing up more tailwhip opportunities had he been kept there in a holding pattern. It was 11 or so when I finally met back up with the crew and I was all the more happy that I had taken Jeff’s advice and not woken everyone up to go the airport with me in order to get down the road faster.

By the time we ate and got everyone in the van, it was looking again like we wouldn’t have time to make it up to Ray’s and back down to town in time to catch our flights, but we went for it anyway. We made very good time getting up to Ray’s and were very glad we went as soon as we took one look at the place. I know at this point it probably seems like I couldn’t possibly use one word to describe anything, but there is only one needed to describe Ray’s place and that is unbelievable. The first thing you see when you arrive are the trails. They’ve got good-sized jumps and some rollable tables too. Big kickers, longer jumps, shorter jumps; pretty much whatever you want to ride is right there. Further back on the property is Ray’s mini ramp. Ray will be the first to tell you the thing’s a bit weathered, but it’s a very cool little ramp and is complete with quarters, sub boxes, wallrides, and even rooms under the decks to cool off in and play guitar hero. Next to the mini ramp sits a gigantic vert ramp that was obtained from Rick Thorne. That’s right; the Biker in Black offered his ramp up to Ray and Ray took him up on it and drug that monstrosity all the way from Hollywood to his place. That Ray knows what he’s doing and his family has got it good. They are the nicest family and were very cool about having us up and allowing us to ride and shoot at their place. The session that took place on Ray’s mini ramp was a highlight of the trip for me and I didn’t even ride it. You could just tell that everyone was having fun and enjoying this family’s company while they rode with them. Jessie was pretty quiet much of the time, but he flat out killed that mini ramp, blasting airs that seemed to by higher off the coping than the ramp was tall. Robbie did a wild footjam on the wall there and a huge one-footed table too. We also got some great shots of Darin riding the trails too before we had to pack it up and rush back down to the airport. The time we spent at Ray’s was another surreal experience that showed us again how good we’ve got it and that riding has so much more to offer than money or fame. Ray’s whole family took us in as their own and were so cool to us. If you meet this Ray and he invites you up to his place, take him up on it and have a great time. It will be an experience you won’t soon forget.

Kids, this is what just part of your front yard would look like if you were Ray or Jessie.  

Here’s another shot taken at Ray’s place. That’s Jessie and Darin on the deck of the mini ramp on the right, the Biker In Black’s old vert ramp on the left, and the amazing house that Ray has been building Johnny Cash style (one piece at a time) by himself for the most part in the background. Another word just came to mind to describe Ray’s place - incredible. Man, I knew I wouldn’t be able to leave it at one word…

Have fun and thanks for getting through that with me, Trevor

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