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Banksgiving: The best backyard BMX banquet to hit Jersey.

The idea was simple, almost too simple; invite any and every rider on the East Coast to Garrett Reynolds’ house in Toms River, NJ, and give them something to shred. Garrett’s yard was already packed with features, but to make it even better, Nate Wessel rolled into town to really put the “bank” in Banksgiving. The mini ramp was fixed and re-plyed, more ramps were built and a down rail added, and after a few days with a Bobcat, jumps materialized. Then Garrett’s address “somehow” ended up on the Internet, and Banksgiving came to Toms River.

Saturday’s event ran from 12-5pm, and around 150 kids from all corners of NJ, NY, and PA, made the pilgrimage, while Garrett and his hometown crew threw down Jersey hospitality along with some mad tricks. Local Italian eatery, Shore to Please, catered a mean lunch, providing enough chicken parm and ziti to feed half the Garden State.

Catfish was on the mic keeping everyone hyped, moving the crowd from feature to feature, and telling his usual bad jokes. Garrett was out of control, absolutely killing the place with ice pick-to-barspins on the vert wall/roof combo, 360-tuck-no-handers, barspin to double peg grind barspin on the rail, and plenty of other ridiculous trickery. Scotty Crammer showed up and dropped a few bombs as usual, with flairs off the ramps and ice pick-to-tail tap off the roof. Brian Foster carried on the legacy, boosting the wallride. Van Homan made an appearance, and was killing the rail, until a nasty slam on a manual took him out for the day. The UK contingent was present as well, with Anthony Watkinson doing styley inverts off the ramp.

Props to Kris Kucab and Lil’ Taco who sessioned all day, winning BMX Street Edition Zoom Oncores for their rider-judged best tricks.

With no injuries, no haters, tons of unique features, and plenty of Jersey smack talking, the first Banksgiving was pretty much pure radness. Huge props to Garrett, Jeanie, and the rest of the Reynolds for their hospitality, the awesome neighbors who supported the good times, and all the riders who showed up. Check out the images below, or for more words and photos by Mark Losey go to www.vitalbmx.com.

The next Banksgiving feast is cookin’ up November 17th in Ben Snowden’s backyard near Santa Ana, CA, and is guaranteed to be another day of BMX mayhem. Check the event post for details.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 14th, 2007 at 9:00 am and is filed under Athletes, BMX, BMX, BMX, By Region, By Sport, Dennis Enarson, East Coast, Events, Garrett Reynolds, Mike Spinner, Nigel Sylvester, Sport. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.