Style 43

“What are you doing tomorrow?” “Nothing much.” “Want to come to the Leicester jam?” “Yeah, why not…” - And with that plan drawn up in an MSN conversation between myself and Streetphire’s H-Man, a loose plan for train tickets and meeting points, Style43 representation (albeit relying on tech camera phone usage to get the photos you see here) at the Project 5 Lynched In Leicester street jam was secured.

Rolling on a solid 4 hours of sleep I hit up the E&C station, got myself on a train to Sevenoaks where I was to jump into H-Man’s world-famous (thanks to Over The Pond) Espace, along with Mutiny/Primo/Vans shredder Mr. Niki Croft, Daison and Waffle. 5 people, 5 bikes, 1 car. Cosy.

After a few hours of power ballads, rap classics and general pop nostalgia, we finally made it to Leicester. Using pure luck, we managed to find our way to the Victoria Park that was to be the start point of the jam. Having parked up, a group of riders cruised past on their way to the park, and we soon followed suit.

The “park” at Victoria Park was a concrete hipped flatbank setup (That got abused by people - alley-oop downsidewhip by Niki Croft for one, but a fair few hammers got dropped on there), and with 80+ people riding there, it soon got pretty hectic. The jam kicked off when the megaphone came out, and with the police sitting watchfully outside in their car, people started getting into the flow of things.

After a while, people became restless and we headed off down to the next spot - a 3-set at the nearby uni. Not the ideal starting point you might think, but the ledges by it got shut-down with some fakie grind tech, the first few bars of the day got thrown, and the first security guard interaction took place.

I don’t really understand what sort of mindset you’d really need to have to actually ask to be an S.G. at a place like that, but apparently it’s the same mindset that makes you think that trying to grab a rider’s videocamera, then take a swing for him, would also be a sound plan. Mute soon took up heckling duties with the megaphone, and when the guy finally realised that the odds weren’t really in his favour, he called for back-up. Soon enough, some of Leicester’s finest appeared and we all rolled off down the hill to the next spot. Suitably refuelled with some Subway goodness, the group headed over to a cobbled hip/bank-to-subrail setup.

“Billy from Brixton” surprised everyone by both not being in Brixton, but also by dropping out the barspin rock. Good times. Various peg-related shenanigans went down, the rail got broken a few times, and Ride coverboy Chicken (Who had to ride to “Covershot!” shouted for the first few times he did any kind of riding) threw a 180 out over the top. All the while this had been going on, the pocket-wallride setup was being sessioned by a select few, and Niki again took this opportunity to get rad by doing a pocket-wallride-to-whip combo. At the time I was pretty sure that what I’d witnessed wasn’t physically possible, and even now looking back it doesn’t make much sense, but hey, what do I know. A few people then decided to hit the cobbled-hip at Mach 10. The usual boosts, tweaks and bars kicked off proceedings, but the game was soon stepped up by the appearance of the ellusive double whip. A double whip. On a cobbled hip. Brakeless. A few ridiculously harsh crashes later, the towel got thrown in (So close though).

The interesting backdrop to all the riding taking place at this spot was the surprisingly loud chanting going on from the Sheffield Wednesday/Leicester supporters who were all trooping over to the Leicester stadium for the Championship match. Whether the fact the police had their hands full with crowd control was a good thing or a bad thing probably varies depending on whether you were riding the jam, or happened to own one of the spots that got sessioned…

Moving on from that spot, we cruised over to Leicester College. A few different stair-sets, some rails, a pretty significant (but seemingly easy for Chicken) wall-hop and some other little nibbles awaited us. The spots really catered for everyone, from the beginners to the winners, so everyone seemed to find something to play around on. The 4-set saw a fair bit of action ranging from the legions of freecoaster users getting tech to a good old fashioned nothing. Props.

After people got their tricks pulled, we rolled through the centre of Leicester to a pretty fun little spot with an interesting bank setup, and a rail-hop/hip setup that was made rideable with a few choice boards. A dude I was told was called “Shaun” threw out some bangers - floaty trucks to fakie, dialled 5’s, boosted whips on the bank - all good. A few more people started to hit the rail-hop, and soon enough bars were spinning, bikes were tweaking around, and hands were coming off. Chicken did a pretty substantial twist over it, just prior to Niki “I did too many whips today” Croft shutting down the session with a security-guard-approved whip over the rail.

With the spot being officially done, we rolled back round to a pretty hefty stair set (Didn’t count ‘em, but they were big enough) that we’d past earlier. Tom Davis did two of the best stairset 3’s I’ve ever seen down the big set, before American Mike did a nollie 3 down the slightly smaller set. Big moves, and big traffic control by everyone to make it happen. Some dude in a black Audi tried to run a few people over, and got told exactly what the 100 or so riders thought of him. Windows up, accelerator down.

As we rolled on to the next spot, Niki C earnt himself the “Throwdown of the Day” award by calling out a pretty damn big wallride down the side of a multi-storey car-park. With one look at it, everyone set up and the wallride was done. To give you an idea of the burliness of it, in the picture, he landed basically on the pavement. That’s a pretty big drop. Pretty big indeed.

With that business taken care of, we trooped up to the Courts. I don’t know what it is, but every single police station or law courts I’ve seen have had amazing riding spots outside them. Whether it’s some sick and twisted thing that the police specify when they have the architects come in to make them some new buildings, or whether it’s just coincidence - who knows.

Regardless, there was a decent rail-hop that a few people launched themselves over with various tricks and tweaks added, and a few turndowns and tyregrabs got thrown down the stairs by Streetphire’s Larkin. Drops to flat = good old fashioned street, and add a tyregrab into the mix, and you’ve got a fully Tom Mann authorised line.

While this was all going on, there was a pretty heated session going on over a horrible gap over a pathway. Narrow brick run-up, narrow brick landing. Not fun. Whips were pulled, manual lines were attempted, and yet more bars were slung.

A 3-set/5-set session was aborted after a strangely angry woman started trying to rugby-tackle people off their bikes as they landed off the 5-set next to her, so we rolled off before someone got hurt.

A pretty small corner-shop type place got overwhelmed by the masses of riders descending upon it for drinks, sweets and more sweets (”2 schoolchildren at a time”…), and we rolled back up to Victoria Park for the 180 comp, a bit of a chilled jam and the prize giving.

Mute rode the 4-mile round trip to his car (Yes, there was a carpark at the skatepark, no, we don’t know why he parked there, yes, we did all ask each other that too) and picked up the prizes, the 180 kicker and a suitable amount of alcoholic beverages up, and the jam continued. Massive trains of riders looping around the hipped setup is always a good time, and somehow carnage was avoided. Shaun, Chicken, Niki and others still managed to pull some awesomeness, in spite of the fact there were about 10 people directly behind them who’d be rolling over them if they took a fall. Somehow, the direction the group was going in changed, and a few more bangers got thrown down, with Daison stead-fastedly refusing to conform (Almost taking out Beddows camera in the process. Literally millimetres in it. I think every photographer who was there at the time went “Oooooh”) by going around the outside of everyone the other way. Balls of steel (and the voice of an angel, but you have to be in H-Man’s Espace for that treatment).

Unfortunately, Tom Mann’s bloodlust wasn’t slaked by the much anticipated footdown comp, but was probably partially relieved once the 180 comp kicked off. The kicker was literally pure danger - a combination of partially hammered-in nails, some thin boards and a few too many supports - yet people were still flinging themselves off it. Tom D, Chicken, Gez and someone who reminded me a hell of a lot of Nathan Williams (Reliably informed that’d be Mr. Alex Bathurst sent themselves over and over again, but ultimately Alex B won it on a technicality after Chase didn’t stick the 284mph roll-back.

With the 180 comp done, the session closed down and the prizes were given out. A bunch of people got a bunch of stuff, kindly provided by all the sponsors (4Down going above-and-beyond with the amount of stuff they gave to hand out), and thanks were said both to and from the organisers.

Although this has pretty much been a trick-list, the best part about the P5 jam was just being there. After the uni spot, I was in the first group to get to Subway (I was hungry, leave me alone!), and coming back out to see a sea of riders totally covering the long road down the hill was amazing. Rolling through the streets going the wrong way down one-way roads, or just on the wrong side of the road, and having car drivers being totally powerless to do anything about it was a sweet change to the norm I usually experience riding in London on a daily basis. Kids getting excited as we all rode past, parents getting apprehensive (”How many of them are there?!”), security getting agitated, policewomen being asked if they were strippers - it was all part of the jam, and it’s all part of the reason that you should most definitely come to the next P5 jam at Coventry. We’ll post the details up on the site, but whatever you do - go there. With it seeming like the Battle Royale days are over, no stress street jam like Lynched in Leicester are a great way to get out, ride a bunch of new spots, do some stuff you’ve been meaning to do for a while and meet a load of other people who love to ride. Whether you go to session or just to chill out, it’s still definitely worth it.

Massive thanks go out to everyone involved in organising the jam and sponsoring it, with the amount of negativity there seems to be in BMX these days (I did actually hear some kids next to me at the park bitching about people’s setups, riding styles and stuff like that, but they were most definitely in the minority) it’s awesome to see people putting in the work and trying to do something good. Nice one.

Words and literally amazing cameraphone photos: Mark Westlake

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