Honestly I have spent so much time thinking about how I want to present the vacationland state. I really don't know how I'm going to do this or if it will even make any sense. I wish I could speak for all the riders in the state but I cant. So keep in mind these are just my opinions.

I have progressed from riding bike in Maine, not so much as a rider but more as an individual. Maine is a very isolated state in which there are not many people that ride bikes. Throughout my life I have never really felt comfortable around the people I should feel dandy around, like the kids at school. Many of my views have caused me to isolate myself from the "social life" that's around me. I have never really wanted to settle with people or just hang out with people I don't really like to be around.

As I have aged, a wee bit, I was turned onto the BMX world. That helped reinforce the way I see the things and the people around me. From riding in this fine state I have met many other people that share some of the same beliefs and interest as myself. For once, I felt apart of some sort of group.

Now, I realize this is the same old shit ass story as most of us riders, but here is where I think its different. From traveling to different riding spots out of state and out of the New England region I have found a lot of unnecessary drama evolving around riding. It just seems that riding in some areas is segregated into the type of shit you try, or one's posture on their bike. I really feel lucky to be part of a scene that is not like that — sure we have some kids like that, but they take up less than a handful of our scene.

I think this might be the case because any rider from an isolated area doesn't really have the option to chose who they ride with based on their style. That shit is just not important when it comes to that — like I said, it took me far too long to meet people that I can see eye to eye with. I would like to think that everyone riding got in to it because it was fun and to feel a part of something. I guess I'm just trying to say that it makes no sense to put petty shit in the way of riding, the thing we all share.

I realize I just rambled on about a bunch of crap most of you don't care about, but oh well. I just don't think Maine has much different as far as riding terrain goes. Also, there are no real super riders to drop names about. Shit, we have street, ramps, flat tar and trails like everywhere else. However we do not have an abundance of it, which I think forces the riders here to change their perspectives on riding. We really can't take too much for granted, which causes us make do with what we have.

I hope some of you reading this (if you read this far) come to check out what we have to ride. I'm sure any of us would be more than happy to show you what there is to ride. The only thing I would recommend is that if you do decide to come up, drop any attitude, if that applies to you. And do not expect to be in any type of rider's paradise, because you will just be setting yourself up for a disappointment. If you do those two things than I think you could enjoy yourself. I moved up to Maine to work at Sunday River and had a blast. The coolest thing I've learned about living in Maine was the thought the communities put into their children. As a street ramp rider, I was searching all over for spots to ride. Being a complete stranger to the state I found myself alone most of the time getting my ride on. Some of the older towns down on the South east side of Maine are good for street and have some funny old stores and architecture to laugh at.

Once the snow melted and I could get out and really explore is when it really got fun. I quickly found out about many town parks such as Brunswick Park, Portland Park, Windham Park, Gray Park, Auburn mini park, and Bethel-Sunday River Park. And pretty close to Maine in New Hamshire was a great snowboard shop near Mt. Washington called Hillman's — they had a nice mini and a fun little street course.

I also met a lot of cool riders that congregated at Portland's park most of the time. The Portland Park had the biggest ramps and the best area to meet up with anyone out of all the parks. I give props to Greg Harriman, Frank Jalbert, Randy Nickersch, Ryan Worcester; there are a lot of others out there, too.

There are a few set of trails I never got to as well. I spent some of my time travelling up to Montreal and riding there — I almost moved there because of it. The street riding in Montreal is awesome, and with it comes a great variety of scenes and night life. I rode Taz Mahal a lot and it's a damn shame they had to move; that place was a blast.

I met up with an old vert rider friend of mine that happened to move to Montreal a while back. You might remember "The Terminator" from Hoffman Bikes back in the early years of Mat's company? Well his real name is Jamie Merritt and he lives in downtown Montreal. He still rips the vert ramp up and is still sporting the smelliest pads ever...

I plan on returning to the state of Maine to do some riding this winter on my time off. If anyone needs a vacation it's definitely the place to go and ride and just try it out. If you want to hit any of the parks you can go online to Maine parks and check 'em out. If you live in Maine go to your next town hall meeting and see if there is any room to put a public park in your area. You just might get lucky there kiddo...