Wednesday, August 29

Philly Night Riders

By Josh Root
EXPN.com

If you are one of the top BMX riders in the world, you can ride in front of millions of TV viewers and thousands of people in the stands at the 2001 Philadelphia X Games. Fame, money, screaming girls, and piles of money can all be yours. True, you'll have to deal with security guards, helmet rules, TV commercial holds, "park" street, and all the other stuff that comes with a big contest.

But people rode in Philly long before the circus rolled into town, and will be riding long after. And one of the reasons that I made this whole journey across the country at all, was to sample some of the famous Philly street riding. Love Park, City Hall, FDR skatepark (which I've been working really hard on not calling Phillyside), all are places made famous in skate/BMX videos and magazines. Then there are the little hidden spots that only locals know about. You can't just roll into a city and expect to find all of the spots in one session. That kind of thing takes the dedication of months of rolling around at 3:00am looking for somewhere new to session.

Frank Pheneger, 360 down a small set at City Hall

After having some trouble hooking up with riders, a couple of locals came through and we headed out for the evening. Love Park had been a big bust all week, probably due to the large number of both pros and masses of skater kids in town. After playing the "around the block" game, we started our night on the famous steps of City Hall. There are a lot of fun brick spots in Philly, since in one evening we hit four of them. We rolled all through downtown, then circled back to hit City Hall again and to CVS to find batteries for my cameras. Then it was into the car to go to a couple of farther out spots in West (a sketchy place at best) and Southwest Philly. I finally rolled into bed at 3:00am or so.

John Hoysa, ledge manual to trashcan ice-bonk at City Hall

And what better thing to do after a very late night? Get up early and go to FDR of course! Just like it's sometime namesake Burnside, bikes tend to be there early in the morning and clear out by the time the skater crowds show up. So at 6:30am I stumbled off of the Broad street train and walked down to FDR. There was already a small crowd of bikers there, riding like they had spent a lot of time there. I guess with the winters that Philly has, FDR ends up being one of the only places to ride when it snows. And even then, there's probably some shoveling to do.

Steve Curry, Ice pick on a brick planter somewhere downtown

Philly's got street, and it's not all made out of Skatelite, 2x4's, and coping. There's a reason that this part of the country grown such inventive and original riders. No matter what city you are in though, nobody is going to just hand you the goods on a platter. Take the time to know your city and find the spots for yourself. It will make sessioning them all that much sweeter. Now go ride your bike.

Sean Dalton, No foot can-can at FDR.