Leif Valen

Morisaki Hiroya

Terry Adams

John Cote

Back in the "old days" (5+ years ago), I could just start off a York Jam story by getting right into it. But since so many riders these days weren't even riding when the last one was held in 1995 (not to mention most riders today aren't flatlanders), I guess some explanation is in order. (If you already know all this stuff, skip ahead...)

There's a group of riders from York, Pennsylvania called the Plywood Hoods who helped push flatland riding from stupid hopping and balance tricks into the present. (If you're wondering why predominantly-flatland riders were called the "Plywood Hoods", ask an old person; if you don't know who the Plywood Hoods are at all, there's an article from an old Freestylin' on Strike's web site.) Most notably were Kevin Jones and Chase Gouin, who continue to move riding forward — it's safe to say that they're about five years ahead of everyone else.

One of the Hoods, Mark Eaton decided to make his own riding video to replace the crappy how-to videos we had at the time. Thus "Dorkin' in York" was born: videos with sick riding, cool music, and some funny stuff, too. Over the years, honorary Hoods who have appeared in the "Dorkin' in York" videos include Dave Mirra, Jay Miron, Leif Valen, John Huddleston... The York Jam was an excuse to get riders (mainly flatlanders, as you can guess) from all over the country together to ride, and also watch Eaton's latest video creation.

I hadn't been to all the Jams (this was my fourth), but even though I was told it wasn't as good as the early days, I'm happy to say that this one was much better than the last one. Brian Chapman, Gabe Kadmiri and I pulled into the parking lot behind Queensgate Cinemas around 1:30 or so, after what seemed like an extra-long drive. Weather was warm and sunny, despite what Yahoo weather had told me. We unpacked (it should be said that Brian is quite a master bike packer) and reassembled our bikes and hit the rider-filled lot.

New England was also represented by Jesse Hicks, John Cote, Sean Maher, Mark "The Ice Cream Man" Florek, Rich Upjohn and Jim Cavanaugh. Also in attendance were Leif, Brian Tunney, Brian Huffman, Terry Adams, Armin Batoumeni, a bunch of Hoods (past and present), and a ton of other guys whose names I don't know. Japan was in the house as well — several riders were there (I didn't catch all of their names), and I finally got to meet Skip from Dig-It face-to-face.

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