East Central Reunion Jam 2009

The last contest or jam I participated in was back in 1993. Seems crazy that so much time has passed so quickly. Back then, during the 80s and early 90s, I would spend all day, almost every day, spinning around in the parking lot. The friends, events, and tricks from that time period make up so much of who I am to this day. It seemed a lot of other riders from that time period felt the same. A reunion was long overdue.

I worked with Dan Sirkin and Randy Loop during the months leading up to the reunion jam. We started small in our planning, but as interest from other riders started to increase, we could picture the event being a bit more than just a dozen or so riders meeting in a vacant lot. We started to picture riders bringing their families, sponsors getting involved, having a DJ, and scattering a few fun activities throughout the day.

The day before the jam I rode up to the Cleveland area with Todd Carter and Randy Loop. We met Karl Elsass at his house and all headed over to Solon Bicycles to meet Dan Sirkin. Jon “Rolaid” Flemming caught up with us there as well. After a few manly hugs and a tour of Dan’s killer shop we headed out for supper to discuss final details for the weekend.

Karl getting addicted to the weird pedal bike.

That supper around the table was one of my favorite parts of the weekend. When you haven’t seen someone for over 15 years there’s a lot of catching up to do, and more than a handful of hilarious stories to tell. But we pried ourselves away from the table and headed over to the pre-jam at Chenga Brook Park.

Todd Carter gliding a junk yard at the pre-jam.

Yes, the reunion jam had developed enough momentum that there was actually a pre-jam to the jam. Gotta love it! David Schaefer at Chenga had invited everyone over for an evening of flatland as a warm up to the full day of flatland to follow. The pre-jam started in the parking lot, complete with 80s background music. After the sun went down and the rain came, we moved it indoors. This was my first visit to Chenga and the flatland area upstairs was killer. I think there were about 25-30 riders there. After a few conversations it seemed a lot riders were just like me--they’d been away from the sport for a few years, got the itch to get back involved, put together new bikes, and are now passionate about learning new tricks (as soon as we relearn some of the basics :-)

David Schaefer and Brian Rybak at Chenga.

After a solid night of sleep (thanks to Karl and Michele for putting us up!) we headed to the reunion jam location and were greeted by rain. It wasn’t to last, and after a good brooming session and a little bit of sunshine we were back in business. Riders started showing up with their spouses and families. And more riders showed up. And then more. We ended up with close to 50 riders, and who knows how many kids and family members. I had to laugh when I saw so many of our kids sitting on the sidelines watching a bunch of guys with receding hairlines relive the glory days! But at the same time I was impressed with the quality of riding I saw. You had riders from just about every era of freestyle represented. You’d see someone on a 1988 GT Performer busting front wheel hops right next to someone with the latest bike in the midst of some weird body-varial hitchhiker link. And us riders cheered for both just the same.

Phil Brunet working hard for ya!

Kevin Cunningham provided the music for the event. Lots of tracks from the Dorkin’ videos, and other tunes that gave me flashbacks of mullets and neon. Besides the music, Kevin was riding as smooth as ever, with high speed straddle-ronis, one of which was a little too high speed. Hope your knee is healing up Kevin!

Watching old contest footage under the tent.

Randy Loop was the main voice behind the mic. I felt 16 again as Randy would randomly say throughout the day, “30 seconds remaining, 30 seconds,” as he used to say towards the end of all our contest runs back in the day.

Classics.

We had some great sponsors for the event, which I’ll list at the end of the article. They were very generous with supplying prizes, food, and drinks throughout the day. Maybe send those companies an email thanking them for supporting flatland!

Dan Sirkin standing proud, and rightly so.

We also scattered a few contests throughout the day. I’ll put the results at the end of this post. The first was the lawnmower contest. If you could hold the longest lawnmower you’d win a prize. No pegs touching please. Then we had a pinky squeak contest. Here’s a link to Dave Schaefer’s winning run:

http://www.elephantglide.com/video/dave-shaefer-wins-the-pinky

And the final contest of the day was the obscure trick contest. I yelled out the name of a trick, and the first person to pull it won a prize. It was hilarious to see a dozen or so riders all trying no-handed cowboys at the same time! The one trick no one was able to pull was the Invertabrator. You might remember that as the upside down trick only Krys Dauchy could do. Krys was at the reunion and I saw her laughing as Joe Cicman lay stuck upside down on his front wheel. It was not pretty folks.

30 seconds Randy, 30 seconds.

Everyone at the event was so supportive, regardless of what era your bag of tricks represented. Most of all I saw a rekindled interest in the sport that has and still does mean so much to us. There were even some new riders at this event having a blast!

There were so many great things that happened throughout the weekend, I couldn’t possibly document them with a single blog post. I'd love to mention everyone who was there, but I'd hate to miss anyone. If you couldn’t make it to the event maybe this gives you a taste of being there, and combined with the comments, photos, and videos from elsewhere on the site, I think we’ve painted a nice picture of the weekend.

Mid-Ohio Trick Team and Sprocket Rockets riding in harmony.

I walked away from this weekend convinced that this was just the beginning of a new era for many of us. So I’m going to go start planning the next event, and until then I’ll see you out here on Elephant Glide!

MANY THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS:

Solon Bicycle
Elephant Glide
Haro Bikes
Specialized BIcycles
DK Bicycle Co.
Eastern Bike co.
Odyssey
Skyway Mfg.
Flatland Fuel
Primo
Monster Energy
Pepsi

LAWNMOWER CONTEST:

1. Dave Schaefer
2. Larry Herbert
3. Eric Patterson

PINKY SQUEAK CONTEST:

1. Dave Schaefer (35)
2. Bryan Rybak (30)
3. Dan Sirkin (16)

OBSCURE TRICK CONTEST:

1. Danup - Dan Sirkin
2. VanderRoll - Tony Riddle
3. No-Handed Cowboy - Karl Elsass
4. Stubble Duck - Brian Rybak
5. Xerox Machine - Trey Leeper
6. Backwards Decade - Zack Yankush
7. Sideyard - Dave Schaefer
8. Bank Roll - Josh Evans
9. Double Decade - Marty Clark

Note: If I missed anyone please let me know!