I'll never forget the day John Griffin brought home what would later be dubbed the legendary "Griffwood". I was a gay little skater wearing some Jnco jeans when I saw Mr. Griff in his Gnarly Toyota truck luggin these super nice wooden ramps. Needless to say I immediately ran to John's backyard to see these fantastic wooden structures. It was two 3 foot wide banks, a 6 foot long deck with a grind box on the side of it. As an 11 year old in Nesco, this was the sickest thing I've ever seen. John and his dad got the ramps all set up and John began jumping it on his legendary S&M black bike. I only had my skateboard at the moment so I dropped in on the banks into the dirt, regardless I thought that was the shit.
Eventually John and Nick Hagaman built the "Quarter pipe" that would lay rest on the other side of the burm. I remember trying to roll up it and fakie rollout countless times. One time Nick Hagaman did a fastplant 180 on it and I nearly pooped in my pants. Then came the Louis times. Louis jumped the bank to bank came around the burm 100mph and hit the "quarter pipe" as a launch ramp and gapped over the deck into the bank that was supposed to be jumped off of, not onto.
I remember Jon Clayton's older brother Cory parking his purple car in between the two ramps and jumping over his car, I don't think there are any pictures of that but if John has any in his storage unit I'll be sure to post them.
John and Nick eventually put the "spine" in, which started as a dirt jump. Some crazy neighbor of John's gave him a handicap ramp to use for shreddin because he saw "The Crew" outside shreddin some wicked grindbox's. So he put that handicap ramp on the landing of the dirt jump then built another little kicker to use as the lip. I remember Richie J and I not wanting to hit the spine because we thought we'd get hung up and die. Years later Jon Clayton took "spine" riding to new extremes when he gapped from the spine to the big bank which brings me to the next chapter in the story of griffwood.
I can't remember if it was John's 18th or 19th birthday but he wanted to make somthing that everybody would be stoked on. He said, let's make a legit boxjump and that's what we did. It took about a weeks time but the end result was sooo good. I remember driving to Home Dept with John and Louis and the Toyota. It was a snug fit so John couldn't reach the shifter. So John had to push in the clutch while Louis shifted all the way home, pretty outrageous. With help from Matt Gettings, Louis Kerekes and the legend himself Emory Silipigni the ramp got done before the deadline.
Before...
Men at work...
Gettin there
First griffwood jam
Final result...wait a minute...wrong side...
Some of my favorite memories on the final set up were Nick Hagaman attempting to nose manual the entire deck and just going right over the bars scraping his chiiiiiin down the entire ramp along with his only clip in the crew video, his super smooth buttery jumps over the ramp haha. Matt Gettings starting from Emory's front door to clear the ramp because of the gnarly run way. Luke Gajtkowski trying to 360 and just falling off to the left almost eliminating himself on a shovel. Building the tree stand for a "Super good" angle for jumping it, turned out to be the worst angle ever and the first rung of the steps fell out as soon as I jumped on it sending me straight to my back.
A day in Nesco Episode 1: Griffwood from piney bmx on Vimeo.
One of the better web videos I've made happened to be entirely filmed at Griffwood.
Last week I had to do one of the hardest things in my life. Help with the destruction of the Griffwood. The ramps were getting too rickety and dangerous to ride and John didn't want somebody he didn't know to get hurt back there and sue sue sue. I can't really blame him, it was a pretty smart move because last time I was back there tryin Nothings I landed in the middle of the deck and heard a loud thump. The entire first support beam had snapped off. John hit me up several days later about taking it down and although it killed me a little inside I went over with emory and helped moved the rotten ramps over the side. Matt Gettings picked up the only remaining ramp that was intact, the big bank. It's now a hip set up at his house, when he sends me a picture of it I'll post it up on here.
All that remains...
