Yo what up! First off I wanna thank everyone that was a part of this. I had a great time hearing all the stories. Most had me remember when I was a little younger or on the ground laughing. So below is the top 5 that I personally picked. I am going to announce the winner on August 31st which is Friday so keep your fingers crossed. lol. Well here they are and thanks again……..
Gator
1)
Shawn says:
On April 12 of this year, I got a phone call from one of my good friends Jason Weatherly. He said that Mike Laird, Jeremy Fanberg, and Josh Boatright were going to be at the Concrete park in Little Rock and wanted to ride with some locals. I called up my best bro Brandon Warren and we headed out.
We got out there and it was us and the pros just riding and having a good time. I rode a little, and sat and chilled with Jeremy Fanberg, just talking about random things. After a while, some skaters showed up and called the cops on us. Saying that Laird was threatening some skater, while all he was doing was riding. Cops showed up and they were really cool, just cutting up and talking with us. All of us (including Laird, Fanberg, and Boatright) left and went to a gas station to get something to drink. We had 2 options. Either go to a BMX track and jump, or ride a 2 lane abandoned waterslide. We chose the slide.
It was so awesome seeing pros flying down the slide and walking back up with smiles on their faces. That was a good time. I even got the chance to race Mike Laird down side by side. He beat me, but it was just fun racing down a water slide next to a pro that I look up to. The pros were some of the coolest people I have ever met. Really cool and down to earth.
I go into the Air Force Basic training on Tuesday, so I won’t be able to see who won this contest anytime soon. So thanks for letting me share my story.
2) Alex Mendoza Says:
So yesterday I went riding with a couple of friends. First we got rejected from a skatepark…uncool on my way home my back wheel shifted over touching my seatstay… …I fixed it and then I decides to go biking at the local high school with a friend, it went fine until we decided to go ride somewhere else… being that the day was already pretty bad I was frustrated, then I only landed 1 out of 4 360’s which is a pretty bad number… on our way back from the spot my friend’s wheel shifted touching a brake pad, we fixed it and then we started riding home when I started hearing noises from my sprocket. I look down to find out my a link was broken…
Knowing me I decide to keep riding on it, like 100 yards later it broke and I nailed my knee into my stem and flew over the bike…the crash hurt. I got up and tossed my chain and doe my bike like a scooter, I started doing rock walks because it was like a freecoaster, next thing I know I am once again flying over my bike and I throw out both elbows to break my fall, I scraped both. I look at my bike my back rim is touching a brake pad and my front tire was flat. I walked the 2 miles to get home and then I had to tune up my bike, and get a new chain, and front inner tube …moral of the story…
BMX is fun, and I can’t stop riding…
3) Shawn says:
I go into basic training at the end of the month, so I am trying to do as much riding as I can. Yesterday I got out of the house around 5:15 am, picked up 2 of my riding buddies, and headed out to a park here in Little Rock that doesn’t allow bikes. We arrived at the park around 6:15 am, and so many cool things went down. One of my friends, Cody, dropped into a bowl for the first time, didn’t have to deal with any skaters, and I pulled a 450 tiretap. Left around 7:30 am just in time to pick up my wife for work. Good times.
4) By BucBlueBird:
yo sup Gator??? nm here dude jus out ridin and livin but i don’t really know what will make your day lol but i have kind of a riding story for ya so here it goes, well me and my boy Justin were up at tha park today and we were playing a game of B.I.K.E so anyway i let him go first since he is older and i think he did like a Double Peg or something i forgot but anyway i did tha trick and learned two more tricks on tha way i mean dude Gator you gotta understand that i haven’t tried these tricks or attemted them or anything like that but tha tricks are Smiths and Feebles and now i got em down and that same day you see there’s this ledge at tha park and me and Justin were startin another round of B.I.K.E on that ledge and so since i let him go first tha last time he let me go first and my trick was supposed to be a Double Peg but i messed up and ended up gettin my front wheel on tha ledge and ended up doing a Feeble Grind so i said what tha hell i’m jus gonna ride it out and i did it FIRST TRY!!! never attemted on a ledge before just BALLS lol but it’s funny cause like afterwards me and Justin quit playing B.I.K.E so i figured that i would try to hit that ledge again and you gotta understand that this is a pretty medium sized ledge and by that i mean if you mess up on her your chances are your probably gonna eat shit so my first attempt didn’t go too well cause some dude got in my way and then my second attempt i Bunny Hopped up onto tha ledge and thought i had it but somehow that bike completely got off that ledge so that bike was just sliding down that ledge and i don’t really remember what happened but i screwed my leg up and i wasn’t expecting that but my whole point is that i learned 2 brand new tricks today and i am thankful that i didn’t get hurt too bad with that Feeble 2nd attempt lol.
hope you liked it Gator.
5) Mike Spraker says:
With a legal hurdle behind them, a Brownsburg couple hopes to expand their homemade BMX park that became the focus of a police investigation.
Mike Spraker, 37, of the 700 block of East Tilden Drive, settled theft charges filed against him in May. As part of a pretrial diversion agreement signed June 22, he will pay court costs and fees and not seek the return of plywood and signs seized by authorities. Spraker said he also is stiffening requirements for teens using the non-commercial park. Juveniles are required to have parental permission and cannot litter or do anything that would irritate neighbors.
“No drugs, no alcohol, no fighting,” said Spraker.
“We want to make sure everybody has fun and stays out of trouble.” He and his wife, Jamie, installed the ramps in their yard last winter, located behind the parking lot of a Marsh store and facing Tilden Drive, mostly as a recreational opportunity for their 15-year-old son, Mike.
Such two-wheel, airborne daredevil biking is popular with middle and high-school-age kids. The elder Mike Spraker said the ramps are a good idea because they offer youth a place to go. Brownsburg has no BMX park like the one in Plainfield.
“I will tell you what. If these kids did not have this place to go, they would be in trouble elsewhere,” he said. There are now four curved ramps and two others under construction, along with light poles. A foam pit for users to learn tricks is in the works. Interest peaked in April and May, when around 30 kids at a time visited after school and on weekends. With the rise in popularity, however, came some complaints about juvenile misconduct. Mike Spraker and his son were arrested after police found them in possession of plywood taken from a nearby construction site. Spraker said it was a misunderstanding. The wood, he said, was scrap that came from a Dumpster. That issue is now resolved. Under the pretrial diversion, prosecution will be withheld in exchange for Spraker agreeing to a misdemeanor conversion charge.
While Spraker believes he has been unfairly targeted by police, Brownsburg Police Department spokesman Capt. Jeff Gray said no officers are trying to shut the park. Police did investigate the property in May after complaints that some of its users were riding in the street, being rude to motorists and behaving recklessly. Now, Gray said,
“We’re not concerned about it.” Some neighbors interviewed Monday said they had no problem with the park as long as kids behave. The Sprakers, who split time in Orange, Calif., have said the arrests and resulting legal fight and negative publicity nearly caused them to shut down. They say it is possible they may have to move to a new location, because they are using rental property.
Adam Taylor, 21, Brownsburg, a family friend who acts as one of the supervisors of the park, said,
“I think it’s the fact it’s a bunch of juveniles in one place the town can’t control, and they think when a bunch of juveniles is in one place, something bad is going on.”
Today the vert prelims took place at the Dubai X-Games. You can imagine the heat that was going on in the desert but some riders are stuck in the cold at home so there are little complaints about the sunshine over there. Swiss Mirraco rider Jean-Marie Baertsch rode vert and qualified in 6th. He wasn’t too stoked on his riding but he was riding smooth indeed and thinking that he was off the bike since the summer due to a broken leg, he was doing really well. Simon Tabron won prelims and shoots staight to tomorrow’s final.
Nigel Sylvester and Maxime Charveron worked with the heat in street practice. Prelims for them starts tomorrow too and we’ll post right here what that brings. The course is pretty street with loads of rails and flatbanks making Nigel feel at home at least a little bit. Nigel riding at the X-Games, who would have thought…..
Stay tuned. 
