Nope not the Weeknd the guy who said he didn’t rip off Portishead when its kind of obvious that he did (the beats in the song..) but the Weekend which went down recently (but not this one..).

Well im glad thats out the way, an over complicated intro to a fun weekend riding in the Team Valley area of Gateshead. Even when people say there isn’t anything to ride there, what they actually mean is that its pretty hard to find things when hit with the daunting task of a giant industrial estate and faceless corporation buildings but amongst all the crap there are gems, hidden places of beauty or in geek terms Easter Eggs (Microsoft Office ’97 XL for those old enough to remember Office 1997).

We assembled like the Avengers outside Greggs the Bakers, pasties, donuts and coffees curing hangovers in hand and went for a full on curb session for about 20 minutes while discussing the events of the night before and who’d been doing what, with who and how. Adam “Happy Man” Stone, Mousey Mouse, Marc “The Creed” Bell, Pete “Energy Efficient” Greaves, Jamie “D-Cup” Witts, Daz-E-Eee and Oliver “Krispy” Olsen and of course yours truly the man with many names Holagram, Hollowtip, H-Money.. yeah you get the gist, some tit with a camera.

After enough curbing and seat carving we moved on to the storage king flat rail which is where the session started to step up. Mouse was going for fast double pegs to launch and then Adam and Marc started the hunt for the double peg to bars. Adam’s arse made friends with the ground on one attempt but soon after he pulled it catching the bars with one hand while avoiding traffic. Mouse starting singing Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen because of some guy in a Mustang who proceeded to drive past at about 10 mile an hour when that muscle car could have easily done 20mph.. Mouse has a very good voice, you should ask him to sing for you next time you see him however don’t mention balls as it became the topic of the day very quickly, pretty much every other sentence seemed to reference bollocks, it must be the excitement of still being young.. ah them days.

All of this trick talk i’m banging on about has been getting clocked for a little edit so apologies for the lack of photos but hold tight and keep the eyes peeled for an edit dropping soon.

Enough of the rail was had and we moved on up the Valley and found this cool little car park to car park step up, along came a 8’x4′ piece of wood for the craic and a fly-out session started. We randomly met up with some of the Chester-le-Street and Sunderland boys and before you knew it the Team Valley was BMX central. Scott Thompson came out to check his new chain which has hex head pins, quite tech indeed.

Time for a few pics as my ramblings are becoming annoying..

Adam Stone with the 180 bars out the fly-out.

Olly Olsen doing the 180 Table

Like a beast with a turbo Daz did a few practice launches to see how much kick he could get and then did a really nice boost table clearing most the car park. Gotta love Daz and his got a break but ride fast as hell and hardly touch it style.

We moved on and started exploring the upper echelon of the ranks of the Valley so to speak where Pete found this rail he wanted to do. He was saying that it had been too long since he banged out a rail so he decided to take on a decent height one with a sketchy run up that you had to carve into last second.. yep thats Pete for you.. approaching the rail while quoting Renegade Master lyrics and then smashing it several times until he was happy with the rest of the line for footy.

Pete Greaves – Double Pegs

Rail done we hit up this really good curved wall spot. Years back curved walls were all the rage and one guy who could smash out all sizes of curved wall was Marty Meenaghan so I dropped him a message and hopefully in the next few weeks he’ll be back out on the BMX. Be sure to check out Newrick’s – Hit The North for a few cheeky clips from the past. Anyways we turned up at the most bricked spot you could imagine where Ben Howgate busted out the curved wall a couple of times, some of the other guys had a go but it didn’t work out as smoothly.

Next up on Ben’s hit list was this little curb boost over a fence rail which ended the session on a high before hitting up the local pub for a Sunday meal and pint. Twas a mighty fine day of riding and lots of footage got filmed, I can’t wait to show you Pete’s attempt of a double peg rail to pole jam and all the rest of the clips from the past couple of weekends so keep them eyes open on here and our Facebook for when that drops. Until next time stay classy and get some Sunday Sessions had!!

Ben Howgate – Curb Boost Fence Hop