All of those riders are ones I have admired my entire riding career and it’s a real bummer to know that they all might be forever changed because of their conscious choice not to wear helmet. Mikey’s life has already permanently changed but it remains to be seen what the long term effects on Matt and Van’s lives will be.

Now I am no saint, I used to ride BMX without a helmet all the time and thankfully when I did sustain my last head injury I was wearing a helmet which probably saved my life as I currently know it.

I strongly believe that when you are at the pro level you should wear a helmet all the time, no exceptions. You are lucky enough to be part of a small group of people who are fortunate enough to make a living doing what we all love and you should take the necessary precautions to do this for as long as possible.

Let’s not kid ourselves here the sport is dangerous and at the level it’s progressing it’s not going to get safer any time soon. Let’s take a look at our idols and legends; Matt Hoffman and Jay Miron. True pioneers of the sport, gladiators if you will, who gave up their bodies to push the sport as far as it could go. They wore safety equipment (for the most part) and still destroyed their bodies to the point to where Jay can’t ride at all anymore and Matt, god that he is, is somehow riding with essentially one arm and more than quadruple the amount of concussions that end a professional hockey players career.

If today’s top pros are going to keep pushing themselves day in day out they need to wear some protection, at least on their head if no where else. This is alarmingly apparent in Van’s situation where he fractured his skull in a contest environment. Contests are designed to be a place where you lay it all on the line and if you are going to lay it all out there you should be in a bucket.

‘Street’ or no street.

Morgan Wade took a ton of slams at this years X-games and thanks to his helmet (and super human pain tolerance) he was able to get right back up to take more.

If any of our (and when I say our I mean the ‘mid-school’ crowd) legends are going to make it into the ‘DMC years’ of BMX they need to start wearing proper equipment all the time, not some of the time.

If they are not ready to do it for BMX do it for your friends, do it for your family and do it for yourself. The amount of time I have spent trying to put together the pieces of just a few hours of missing memory depresses me enough, I couldn’t imagine trying to piece together weeks, months, or years.

Get well soon Van, Matt, and Mikey.

Ride safe.

Here are some conversations I had with my friends right after it happened, reading them back later they amused me.

Reaction 1:

Nairica says:
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/176673/CUTEST-PICTURE-EVER.jpg
david
um

Dave says:
the ground

Nairica says:
did u feel the earth move?

Dave says:
it moves

Nairica says:
yes
wtf
its not supposed to move!

Dave says:
no…
not here…
2012
we are all dead

Nairica says:
nah
thats a lie
Earthquake felt in Toronto, US Geological Survey coming on CP24 momentarily.
http://twitter.com/cp24
their official site is down

Dave says:
weird.
never felt one of them before

Nairica says:
so is the star
me neither
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/earthquake-shakes-ontario-us-states/article1614941/
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2010/06/23/ont-storm-warning-100622.html
now we get thunder + hail + maybe a tornado or two

what an exciting wednesday!

Dave says:
2012
head for the hilllls

Nairica says:
david
hahah
its only 2010

Dave says:
ya
but
just warming up

Nairica says:
oh its gonna get worse
ok u do have a point

Reaction 2:

scotty do says:
yo

Dave says:
earthquake?

scotty do says:
ya!
scared the shit out of me

Dave says:
ya dude
everyone got out of their cubicles

scotty do says:
ya
across Ontario apparently

Dave says:
farther..
detroit.. ny
what i hear

http://twitter.com/cp24

scotty do says:
holy shit

Dave says:
twitters jammed up
lol

scotty do says:
lol
fucking protests going past our building
cops fucking EVERYWHERE

Dave says:
ya I bet eh
ha
I can’t phone even

scotty do says:
why? jammed?

Dave says:
ya
had to use land line
‘what are you talking about’ – my dad

Reaction 3

Aaron says:
holy shit!!
did you feel that?
Dave says:
the fuck?

Aaron says:
crazy!
Dave says:
everyone was up
and like
wtf

Aaron says:
haha
here too
shock at first

Dave says:
ya
kinda like
umm… did you…?

Aaron says:
haha, yeah

Dave says:
well
2012?

Aaron says:
oh, missed this
i hope not!
that didn’t end well

Dave says:
called my old man
figuring he would have something to say
he said
“stop bullshitting”

Aaron says:
haha
where is he?

Dave says:
mississauga
but some ppl on lunch here didn’t even feel it

Aaron says:
and he didn’t feel it?
wow

Dave says:
which boggles the mind

Aaron says:
indeed

Dave says:
having never felt one before
Ill be good if I dont again

Aaron says:
haha
indeed

Reaction 4:

Dave says:
haha
patty didnt feel it
she’s like
get out
no way

Donald says:
wtf
HOW
can you not feel that
was she on like a vibrating bed or something

Dave says:
haha
she was out eating sushi

This had to happen right around the G20 summit to eh? Damn.

Anyway this blog still isn’t dead yet, I think about it every week when I wish there were more hours in the day. Perhaps I will start writing blogs on the subway… but then I would have to just retype them later and there in lies the time paradox…

I don’t check the traffic on this blog anymore but for those of you who keep checking thank you. I will have some more random shit soon!

Hopefully the truth comes out soon and this man can rest in peace.

Here are some of my fav Gangstarr tracks.

RIP GURU

Crazy Camaro car build

Pic dump

This car is more of the devil than my friends

Mike Poos!

While both are significant nuggets of BMX news Dave Mirra is a tank and is damn near out of the hospital already. The news of Jay’s departure has left a lot of people wondering WTF happened.

For as long as I can remember I’ve looked up to the following riders; Mat Hoffman, DMC, and Jay Miron. There are a few more that I really respect and would like to (or have) meet one day (Foster, Bestwick, Nastazio for example) but the aforementioned three probably had the biggest impact on me at the age I needed to be impacted to keep the BMX fire burning 5 alarm.

Out of those three riders Jay stuck out because he was a Canadian shredder when Canadian shredders were relatively rare.

My first memory of Jay was when my mom called me at my dads house and told me to turn on the TV to some obscure television show. The tv show ( which was The amazing incredible or something like that) featured Jay, in full Schwinn gear on a bike with 4 pegs and bars a little bit forward, flying down a sketchy rollin from high in the rafters to hit a box jump below. He hit the lip and sent a double flip and wrecked, hard.

Before the stunned announcer could ask if he was dead Jay was responding with “I’m ok” and was already on his way back up the roll in to drop in and send a perfect double flip in front of a crowd of people who had no idea what was going on.

At this time I had maybe seen a handful of flips and never even thought a double was possible, and yet there it was.

I was blow away.

Once I dove further into the culture of BMX I realized that Jay had been around for sometime and could really through down hard on a bike, at every discipline.

Later in my riding, and while still doing events with the Action Sports Coalition, I was able to have several encounters with Jay and maintain somewhat of a relationship with him over the years anytime he would come back to Ontario.

It was on one of these  trips to Ontario where I was fortunate enough to see him ride in person. It was at a demo at Muskoka Woods. While the demo was great this was also the first time I was able to see first hand the rumored BMX had done to his body.

Immediately after the demo he had  a personal massage therapist on hand to stretch his body out for him so that he could walk the next day. It was a strange sight.

Jay, like a lot of the true pioneers of BMX, paid the price of pushing our sport with his body and for this we should all be thankful.

Without Jay (and the rest) there is no telling if there would be the Boomerang (aka downside whip), double flip, or 540 tailwhip. Jay suffered for these tricks that are now almost common place.

While some might question his decision to leave BMX entirely I must say that I understand.

Think of it as breaking up with your girlfriend but then being around her all the time watching someone else had what you had. Some of us can take that in stride but others can’t and need to get away before it destroys whats left.

It seems that after all these years Jay has decided that all he needs is to get away.

Peace out Jay, thanks for all the frames, contests, and inspiration. All the best of luck with whatever you do next.

Jay Miron Props Bio

Jay Miron in the First Macniel Video

Jay Miron In Mad Matt

Fuck the Oakland A’s the suck donkey dick!

WTF His mom put him in the oven!?