4:49 PM Another Trail Spot Lost to "The Man"

I'm not a kid anymore, but I am still enthralled with bicycles and jumps and both of them in the air together. I've done my share of digging. In the 5 years that I've been back in the Conejo Valley I've been on a mission to send both me and my bike in the air as much as possible. In that time I've seen at least five spots get plowed within 20 minutes of where I live. Each place has it's special memories, the first two after I moved back hit me particularly hard. The first one because of the time and effort I spent building those, and the second because I spent so many hours there learning how to ride them. To this day I still think I could ride those with a blindfold.

Our latest loss was equally as significant. These were legit trails (not just jumps) built to look like art and they required skill over raw guts to ride properly. They went by many names to keep people away and were tweaked over the years to increase the difficulty of riding them. The crown jewel of the whole set was in the perfect spot for some the standard sunset shot. Over the life of these trails I got the chance to shoot the main diggers, friends and some of the top pros in BMX and MTB. I spent time riding there with guys that have shaped MTB and BMX or will be part of it in the future.

I've got a bunch of photos from there that I could share of some big names- but in the end I chose one from one of my most memorable evenings there. It's from March of last year. The sun was setting and everything was coming together. I have many favorite shots from that night- but this go round this shot of Brett Auerbach wins.

R.I.P. The Palms, or the Hives, or The Knolls, or Arboles, or whatever you called it.

14mm 1/25th @ F7.1 ISO 100

I used two flashes- A Vivitar 285 and a Canon 550EX- one camera left and one camera right both at 1/2 power.

Enjoy!