Like most riders, I’ve wanted to go to Woodward camp ever since I found out about it. Something about riding some of the best ramps in the world with some of the best riders in the world piques the interest I guess. Anyways, its been in the back of my mind for ages, but over the winter I started to do a bit of research, and got a couple contacts there. I was originally going to try to go for their winter camp, but school interfered with that plan. Then in early March, I found out that they were having a spring break camp the first week of April. I started emailing people, and ended up getting in as an Open Session Instructor, which is the cushiest job at camp.
Basically, you spend 4 hours a day being a lifeguard at one of the ramps, and get free food, lodging, and riding. I tried to bring some friends with me, cause its a long drive from Vancouver to Tehachapi CA., but for various reasons none ended up making it. So the evening of Wednesday March 29th, I finished work, finished packing, and started the journey south. After a bit of hassling at the border from US Homeland Security, I got through and drove to Olympia. Thursday I woke up to rain. I had planned on doing the lions share of driving that day, and the rain enforced that plan. It rained from Olympia all the way to Sacramento. I ended up driving 15 hrs all the way to Fresno.
Fresno is only 3 hours from Woodward, so Friday morning I had the time to ride the Fresno BMX park. Rolling up to the park was wild, giant transitions everywhere, a capsule, a huge wallride wall, the place is on another level from what we have in Canada. I spent a couple hours basking in California sunshine, cruising around the best park I had ever ridden, hanging out with some friendly local skaters (who were poaching the park, as its bikes only), and receiving texts from back home asking if I was down to go snowboarding on the weekend… I left around 2, and continued the drive. At this point I was getting a bit tired of driving in Cali, its like driving through Alberta, but instead of fields, there’s concrete, Walmarts, and people everywhere.
I was pretty pumped when the homestretch had me driving into the mountains. Arriving at Woodward was quite a bit like being in a dream, looking at all these parks that I’ve been seeing in magazines and videos for as long as I’ve been riding. The staff were super welcoming, its a real family atmosphere there, I was pretty much the only new guy, everyone else had been there a few times at least, so it was like being at a family reunion. Friday night after orientation I got to ride the Hanger. Every ramp in there is perfect, and there’s lines everywhere. I had to seriously hold back, as I didn’t want to get hurt on the first night.
Saturday dawned bright and sunny. Over 100 excited kids were descending on the camp throughout the morning. I was trying to pace myself so I wouldn’t get worn out, but it was a bit of a losing battle. I rode pretty much all day, testing out the various parks.
In the afternoon I had an OSI shift at the foampit, which was pretty fun actually, getting kids to do frontflips on skateboards and backflips on bikes was pretty entertaining. The best part of the day was the after hours staff session in the Hanger, just a bunch of riders shredding around a quiet indoor. I even learned a couple tricks, there must have been a blue moon outside! There’s a perfect “trainer spine” in the hanger, and I managed to opposite 360 it, and I even tailwhipped it to cries of “put some steeze in that whip!” (this video came out the week before my trip:
Sunday morning it snowed. Being from Canada, I got a lot of comments asking if I felt at home etc. It was an indoor park kind of day, luckily Woodward has one of the biggest indoors in the world.
Still, it was pretty packed, so a few of us headed out to Tehachapi to buy some ridiculous clothing for the pro demo later in the day. The pro demo was wild, a few of my favorite riders were at camp, and it was awesome to see Kris Fox tearing around the Hanger like it was a racetrack, and Matt Cordova going way too high on everything. Chris Hughes did a perfect body varial first try over the box jump, which was pretty mind blowing. I had an OSI shift that night at the concrete bowl. The snow had melted, but it was still real cold. The kids didn’t care though, they were ripping around finding the lines and having a blast.
Monday the sun was out again. Waking up at 8am and riding bikes on and off till midnight was definitely catching up with me at this point, I was stiff and sore. Monday was the last full day of camp, so I tried to use my energy reserves. After drying out the massive outdoor park named the Enterprise, we shredded the endless lines it had to offer. In the early afternoon we went back to Tehachapi to take part in the traditional staff thrift store shopping excursion.
This trip was hilarious, mostly because Vegas local Mike Payne decided to buy and wear a wig, and green corduroy overalls with no shirt. Any time any of us so much as looked at him we would die laughing. Upon out return, we had a rad session in the concrete bowl. I had a couple OSI assignments in the street section of the hanger, which was pretty boring to be honest, there’s only so many attempted kickflips I can watch before it gets tiresome. The after hours session later on was one of the best rides I’ve ever had, being the last night, I threw caution to the wind. It was one of those rides where you seem to have boundless energy. I was able to film a few clips thanks to my Woodward roommate Ben Glasset, and even a surprise case to face smash didn’t really put a damper on the session.
Tuesday was pretty mellow. Camp ended at noon, and after saying our goodbyes, 4 of us ventured to a sweet ditch just outside Tehachapi.
The spot was rad, it was two ditches meeting, forming a bank-to-bank spine, with a bank to subbox further down the ditch. After getting our shred on, it was time to head north. Fellow staff member Paul Bray had offered me a couch to sleep on in San Francisco, so we convoyed up the I5 to his place 6 hrs north. Paul lives in a rad place close to downtown SF, him and his 2 roommates share a converted warehouse, in an industrial area, which makes it an awesome party house.
The next day Paul started work at 10, so after a decent nights sleep, I hit the road again. On the way out of town, I stopped at the Alemeda park for a bit. This park was built back in the day, so there’s a lot of dodgy concrete work, but a couple sweet hips and a fun street spine. Around noon I headed out. After getting spectacularly lost in Oakland, I made it out of the Bay Area, and continued north. My Woodward roommate John had informed me that he had some friends in Redding CA with some rad trails I should check out. He had given me their contact info, and I hit them up. I rolled into Redding around 4:30, and proceeded to meet up with the POW trails guys at their spot. POW is legendary, everything is huge, and sculpted beautifully. They weren’t running due to tons of rain in the weeks previous, but we put in a couple hours of shovel time. They hooked me up with a couch for the night, which was pretty awesome.
Thursday I drove a couple hours into southern Oregon, and rode a couple of the original Oregon parks, Ashland and Talent. They were both made in the early ’90′s, and while a bit weird in spots, the design and transitions were amazing considering their age. After a few hours shredding, I continued my drive, and spent the night in Tigard, just south of Portland. Anyone familiar with Oregon parks will know why I chose Tigard. It’s home to a legendary park, and after starting my day there on Friday, I’d say it is the best concrete park I have ever rode, displacing Fresno. It doesn’t get much better than doing a line in a bowl full of sweet hips, before boxjumping out of it and sprinting into a huge quarter-to-bank setup. After a couple hours of logging air miles, I met up with a few locals doing a tour of the local parks. We headed over to the next town, Beaverton, home to a sweet skatelite mini ramp. After a couple more hours of riding, we got showered out of there, and headed across the Columbia River to Vancouver, Washington. There lies one of the yawning chasms in the earth that locals to the PNW call bowls. The deep end of this thing is probably 13 feet deep. It was a bit intimidating, but a couple laps around it and I got over it. There is a hip in this park that is simply magical, around 10 feet tall, but with the speeds generated in the deep end, getting 6 feet out of it is easy. I left there around 6pm, and drove all the way home, arriving to my own bed around 1am.
All in all, the trip was amazing, one of the best weeks of my life, easy. Woodward is a place that has to be experienced by every BMXer, the atmosphere and the riding is so good, that its really a shame to miss out on it.
James
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