Last week I decided to take a road trip from Greenville, NC, to New Hampshire for the 2010 Rye Airfield Wicked Jam. On Wednesday night last week at about 11 pm we decided to pack up and leave. It was kind of a last minute decision, but we were all set on going, so we drove all through the night. We decided to make a pit stop at 7:30 am in Lakewood, NJ to ride at the Incline Club. The park wasn't going to open until 2:00 pm, so we slept in the car for a few hours. We woke up and put our bikes together to have a sesh. I was having a great time; the park was super fun. I snapped my axle in half trying to learn crank arm slides. Luckily for me STAFF BMX was on site and helped me get a new hub and get me rolling again.
On our way up the coast we stopped and hung out in Massachusetts with Brandon Christie and his family. It was a nice little vacation.
We arrived at Rye Airfield on Saturday morning.
I enjoyed watching all the ams shred in the different divisions and everyone seemed to be having a great time riding their bikes. After the ams finished up, pro practice began. The Rye Airfield has endless flowing lines and two super fun box jumps. After about an hour of practice, pro qualifying began. I was in the last heat so I had a better idea of what I needed to do. I had a good ride and I felt I was riding pretty consistent. I found out later that I made finals and so did my friends Ryan Taylor and Brandon Christie!
Finals were the next day.
Practice for finals started around noon. I felt pretty good and learned some new lines. I found a wall ride transfer that I wanted to barspin to during my run. I went for it and I had a pretty bad crash about 5 minutes before finals were to begin. I didn't make it all the way to the wall and I rode into the flat bottom. I smacked both my knees really hard and was having a hard time riding afterwards. Finals began and I started out with a 720 turndown into a front flip. I crashed on my frontflip because I missed my snap. I wasn't feeling it at all, but all I really wanted was to just have a consistent run. It was a jam format so I had a few more chances to try and get it together. I decided I wanted to send a body varial, so the next run I dropped in and I pulled it! After landing that, I felt proper again. My adrenaline was going good so the pain went away. I still had some tricks on my mind that I hadn't sent yet. The first was a flip barspin... I have been working on it back at Mirra's warehouse in Greenville, but had never done it on a real box. I sent the flip bar and cased a little, but i still pulled it. I only had one trick left on my mind... a 900. I have tried it a bunch in the past, but had no luck pulling it. I sent it and I crashed. I didn't get hurt so I tried again. On the second try I landed my first 900! I was really happy with my run and I had a great time....
It ended up that my run was good enough to take my first win in a pro park contest :)
BIG thanks to Brian Hunt and the Rye Airfield for putting together a great contest at an awesome skatepark. I will definitely be back to ride Rye again soon.
-Chris Hughes
twitter.com/chrishughesbmx
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