No pictures please!!!

Been recuperating from my hernia surgery for the last 10 days. Staples are coming out tomorrow so snapped a picture. Once they are out I can work on getting back to normal... I'm told 6 weeks but aiming for sooner.

OXFORD ROUGH 'N' TUMBLE......

Round 3 of the UK flat track GNC took place at Oxford on Friday night. It was a very eventful race. It was raining everywhere else but we had dust and sunshine. Wilky #99 went down in the first turn of the first heat and hurt his wrist. Drogo #27 also had a big crash early on but managed to walk away relatively unscathed. I had fuel problems in my first heat (just happened to be my front row start) and after a strong start limped home in next to last place...not that I'm complaining in view of what was to come in the short track final....a horrible 6 bike accident on the back straight resulting in young Tim Neave #14 getting badly hurt. The fence was destroyed and bikes and bodies were everywhere. the final was cancelled as there was no chance of a restart. It was very sobering to witness and really drives home how much risk is involved with such high speed, close racing.
Anyway despite the crashes and mechanical problems, both me and Wilky scraped into the THUNDERBIKES final....personally I was just happy to not be hurt seeing I was due to have hernia surgery on Monday morning!
Thanks to Matt Davis and Anthony Brown for the pics........

DAVE SKOOTER FARM....PLUS SUPPORT!

After three months of rigorous lifestyle change, exercise and healthy eating...my body rewards me by developing an inguinal hernia.
Inevitably, I'm going to have surgery...but in the meantime.......IN GOD WE TRUSS!
Made a makeshift cod-piece out of 2 pairs of underpants, a piece of camping bed mat and some duct tape and proceeded to skate the pool. This worked satisfactorily so I then purchased a cheap, generic hernia support belt online and went flat track racing last weekend with no obvious serious issues.....but I guess it's only a matter of time.......

"You shall go to the Prom"

It was my Nephew, Jake Roberts 16th Birthday yesterday. As I posted a couple of weeks back, he's recovering from surgery to a splintered collar-bone after a heavy BMX crash whilst training in Denmark.

One positive outcome from all this is Jake can now take his girlfriend, Aimee-Kate to his school Prom Night! The date clashes with a round of the National race championship and he's under contract to attend 'em all...However, he is recuperating...so he's excused.

Jake came round yesterday to raid my attic and try out some suitable threads for the Prom. this is the outfit he picked out.

I know for a fact that his mum has different ideas about this.......thing is.... he's Sixteen now!

BIG BALLS...BIG HEART

My nephew Jacob Roberts got hurt this afternoon.

 He flew out to Copenhagen, Denmark with 12 other top English BMX racers.

They have privately rented the UCI SUPERCROSS track for the weekend. The track is ultra-gnarly......it's BMX on steroids.....super-hero stuff.....the stuff you see in an X-BOX game.

Unfortunately, Jake went down hard on his first attempt to take the fearsome first jump... a 40-footer. According to his Step-Dad, Roy... he did a massive, terminal endo..... landing on his head and breaking his collarbone.
the phone footage is shaky and doesn't show the impact....but it still sickens me to watch.

Over the last 8 years, we have watched Jake grow from a little kid "having a ride round" to becoming one of the most promising racers in the country. He will turn 16 in April, he's the 4 times defending British and National number 1 and is one of only a handful of racers on the BRITISH CYCLING TALENT TEAM.....grooming him to represent his country at the 2016 Olympics (he's just a few months too young  for 2012 London)

I'm watching his progress "live" on Facebook....it's a bad break and he's been moved to another hospital to see a surgeon.

Jake is my hero...his first time on one of these "X-Games super tracks", only been there less than one hour, he has the balls to take a jump like that, fully commited, not knowing whether he will make it or not.
Unfortunately, today, it didn't go quite as planned, but knowing Jake like I do, if he had not broken his bones ..I'm 100% certain he would have dusted himself down and tried it again and again ..until he made it.
These modern, made-for-TV tracks make the tracks I raced on back in 1980-81 seem like pre-school.....I wouldn't even ride down that start ramp!!

I'm so proud of his achievements and if he wasn't so damn good at BMX I would have had him on SKOOTER FARM in the junior class in a heartbeat....I know he is in good hands but I am thinking about him....

BTW, Jakes bike sponsor is REDLINE ENGINEERING for those that know their flat track motorcycle history..a company formed by Linn Kastan....originally producing thoroughbred cro-moly race frames before sidestepping into BMX racing in the late 70's!

UPDATE

Jacob is now recovering from his surgery which involved a steel plate and pins. It's a complicated break, he splintered the collar bone into 4 pieces and has been told he can't even begin to do any physio for another 6 weeks. This means he will miss the first few rounds of the British BMX championship...which he's gutted about.

VERONA EXPO part two... EVEL KNIEVEL EXHIBITION

The Evel Knievel exhibition was on display at the show. It all packs into a big trailer and is on tour throughout Europe for all of 2011. The blue leathers are the ones he wore for the Wembley Stadium Jump. Also on display was the Canyon Sky Cycle (complete with damaged nose cone) his XR750 he used for the jump over the tank of sharks, the EK Dragster and the Jet-Bike. The highlight of the exhibition was a skeleton showing all of Evels broken bones........I purchased an EK bathrobe!

Duane Peters.....Lowdown on the leg

Straight from the horses mouth!!


Duane Peters Actions Realized from dlxsf on Vimeo.

Duane Peters "benefit" wheels

Great example of folks looking out for each other. OJ wheels are producing a wheel with all proceeds going towards helping to pay Duanes crippling medical bills following a serious staph infection in his left leg (which he almost lost). For the full story see here
If you skate, do the right thing and hunt these wheels down  and run 'em on yer board....if ya don't skate but dig what DP is about then buy a set and put 'em on the mantlepiece, use 'em as a paperweight, give 'em to the dog to chew etc.
All being well, Duane will be on a Euro tour which includes 2 UK dates 24th Nov. London Underworld and 25th Derby, The Old Bell........

UPDATE:
I've been corresponding with Big Woody and he can confirm that he is able to supply these wheels here in the UK when they become available....He thinks the cost will be £36 per set (in line with all OJ wheels prices) If you want a set, then get in touch at www.bigwoodys.co.uk/

Duane Peters...update

Our thoughts are with our good buddy Duane Peters, who has been fighting to not lose his left leg after developing a serious staph infection following a bad slam on a skate tour last month. GoGo Lou emailed Duane yesterday and got a reply.....He is in good spirits and feels he's turned a corner in the last few days. Doctors said his leg has to grow some "new meat" in order for it to begin to heal and if this didn't happen soon he was facing amputation at the knee. DP has gone back under the surgeons knife very recently and signed a document to allow them to take the leg off if necessary. If amputation was to be the outcome, he told the docs not to bother making the stump to take a prosthetic limb saying he was gonna go back to boozing and "go pirate with a wooden peg-leg".

He ain't out of the woods yet but the gap in his leg has started to close up a little..and that's an improvement!

Above are some progress pics of the wound and some pics off Ebay. Duane is selling some of his art and personal skateboards to help to pay off some crippling hospital bills. If you feel you wanna bid and help raise some cash take a look on Ebay HERE

Update 20th October 2010:

Here is a post from earlier today over at Duanes facebook page....

just noticed all the cool donation sugestions.I dont think I,m cool with that tho,but thank you all you radsters.cant go to jail for oweing I dont think,I just gotta stir up the shit instead of siting in it I think,so I,m burning A disc with all my last Shoe ideas & even tho the market is soft I,m gonna look for someth...ing.when my son clash told his class his daddy was a shoe maker for a living the other day it made me start to think about it.no real offers yet but I'll wash dishes ,Tap dance or what ever I gotta do till shit happens. ive allready done the bum thing,begging aint my style no more.Clash gets his tonsils out friday so I hope it dont rain that day,gonna ride motto up to LA to see him,coreys brother cherokee has been going to bat for me during this whole fucking last ordeal of mine. I guess some shit sold on ebay.I will be able to give her half.I,ll sell garage junk next weekend & next till I can tap dance on the road in 3 weeks.rent got paid.Gonna work on just staying sober & healing for now.More people way werse off than I ! You ROCK ME ! Thank you Friends for even wanting to help out,much Love.

 

THE RED MAX GOES DOWN.......

Get well soon to RED MAX Steve Von Hillary who went down hard yesterday at the Amman Valley flat track race. Steve has suffered a broken collarbone that looks like it will have to be pinned. This puts him out of action for a couple of months, missing next weeks mile race in Chech Republic and the next round of the UK championship in Stoke on July 10th.

Steve was the only English guy to ride in the ALL AMERICAN TWINS race on the Saturday night in the horrible, wet conditions and put on a great show!!

All the Skooter Farmers rode well especially Wilky #99 who won the Short track 'D' final. this meant he  transferred through to the 'C' final, so, including the Thunderbike final.....he went out in 3 consecutive races without a break!!

Jason #75 has also come on leaps and bounds.....riding better than ever. Capt. Highside was on the podium again with a 3rd place in the Thunderbikes 'A' final.

LIVERPOOL DEATHMATCH

Great clip of the last ever "NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD"  Halloween skateboard all-nighter.
If you don't know about this event, It was the brainchild of Foxy (vocalist for S.S.S.) and was held at a skatepark I built, RAMPWORX in Liverpool. It had a bunch of bands play in the early part of the evening and then at the stroke of midnight, a 10 minute bare-knuckle brawl/ skate session took place. The baying crowd were actively encouraged to throw stuff into the bowl during the Deathmatch. Over the years I saw beercans, pumpkins, fireworks, male and female streakers and a lambs heart.
Foxy is the "Don King" of promotion in UK skate circles and NOTLD was extremely well attended.... maybe 1000 or so people at the last one and things really did get out of hand but it was a real lot of fun.
 Foxy even managed to get Tony Trujillo, John Cardiel and the rest of the ANTI-HERO team to attend one of them...so that was an eye opener for all involved parties!!

Point of no return....

Full Frokkul Wheelie.....just about to loop out and land flat on my back. Summercamp, Les Deux Alpes 1998.

Broken Rib Blues

It's been over a month now since I broke some ribs snowboarding. I was kinda hoping they were maybe just badly bruised and I'd feel better after a week or so, but sadly, that's not the case.

I'm still in pain and having trouble when I am sleeping.....according to online diagnosis, it looks like its gonna be another 2 weeks before I am likely to see any improvement and be able to start going to the gym again.

I don't bounce like I used to, so I guess I will be spending time learning how to post properly on this blog.