Kye Forte's Green Acres Jam - BMX Perfection
With the weather set fair it was always going to be a good day, but Green Acres turned out to be even better than expected.
After driving up just about every lane to the south of Newton Abbot, we finally saw a sign about as big as a business card which directed us to the right part of Devon. Sure enough there was a field with a few dozen cars in it, and behind a row of trees there was another field where the rest of the day would be spent.
This particular field was on a right old hill, which was perfect for spectating, but tricky for some of the riders who chose to go brakeless. The trails ran along two sides of the field, with a little slalom track down another side, and food stalls, a bar, and other good stuff at the bottom.
The best part of the event was the atmosphere. There was the perfect amount of people, and being a trails event in the middle of nowhere, everyone who made it was there for the right reasons. The trail building and riding community was well represented. Notable attendees included Scott Edgworth, Martin Murray, Ian Morris, James Brooks, and Fids. The latter two both rode as well, with Fids even managing to 360 every jump in the smaller line. His best effort was doing a huge nothing into a backflip on the main line though; check this:
The jumps themselves were all fed by a single start point into a succession of rollers, followed by a sharp left hand berm. There was a bigger line which ran down the outside of the field, but really this was just two long and low jumps and only got hit a couple of times all day. After the berm, the small and main lines dropped into a right hand hip. From there, riders could either hit an s-bend berm which cut through the mainline to a smaller jump into the main landing, or take on the shark fin which put them over the small line and into the main double. The landing for this double is where all three lines converge. After that there was a (concrete) left hand berm which spat the riders into the final double, which was a bit smaller and with a stepped up chipped landing. When discussing his various 720 attempts, Greg Illingworth described the last jump to me as 'basically a foam pit'.
Tambling and Leo going through:
Although the shark fin caught a few people out, the jumps overall looked pretty fun and not overly intimidating. Being brand new the bombholes needed patching up a bit throughout the day, but they must've ridden well as some serious stuff went down in the 'pro' jam.
Firstly, Chris Doyle is the man. The full repertoire was delivered, including 720s, 360 tailwhips and backflips(!) over the last double and the best 360 turndowns and inverts in the business on the main double. The straight invert over that jump was pretty much on his back, and he even managed to look directly at a group of hecklers during one of the 360 turndowns. A true pleasure to watch!
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| Doyle staring out the hecklers. Edge Photo |
Watch Doyle's head in this vid, this is the 'looking at you' 3 turndown!
Greg Illingworth was enjoying the hip, with some awesome one handed can cans and those ridiculously clicked one foot tables. Sergio Layos also had some super clean downside tailwhips on the hip, usually followed up with wonderfully floaty 360s on the following jumps.
Hucker was extremely entertaining. Most runs he started by trying to hang five the rollers at the top of the course, which proved to be impossible but was an obvious crowd pleaser. The big bar hump and nac nac 360s came out, and the backflip e.t. to x-up was another bit of improvised brilliance. After the competition he found a little vole in the grass and proceeded to carry it around with him for a while, showing anyone who was interested. Despite being bitten. Then he engaged in a spot of drunken beanbag wrestling with some of the more loose members of the crowd.
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| Hucker having it. Edge Photo. |
Anthony Napolitan took a few slams, but front flipping the double super clean was really impressive, and he almost had the no handed version as well.
It wasn't really a 'comp' as such, but the top three were given pint puller trophies made by Leo Forte. Doyle got third, Hucker second, and Joe Bagley won. Joe who? Well he rides for Stay Strong, and he brought the two tricks that defined Stephen Murray to this jam. Those tricks are still good enough to win any bmx event! Absolutely awesome riding.
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| Joe Bagley with another Murray classic! Edge photo |
Vids from James Brooks' instagram:
After all that excitement, the course was opened to everyone and there was beer and music. Pompom was shredding the lines, Fids was stacking everywhere, Doyle was clapping along to the bands and Hucker was fiighting the locals. Idyllic! Cheers to Kye and everyone also involved for a brilliant day of bmx. Please do it again next year.
posted by Ben at 6:47 pm
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