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Ty Morrow - Tales From The Streets

A Bleeding Man and Grimaldo Duran

10 Nov 2014

ty morrow bmx tales bleeding man CM

Words by Ty Morrow Photos by Chris Marshall

So one night we all went to Newark to meet up with Ralph Sinisi and Nicky B at some trex ledges. Garrett, Colin, Lil Sean, and myself were in NJ staying with Marshall for a few days after the Brooklyn Dew Tour in hopes of getting to see a handful of his seemingly endless North Jersey spot list.

We rode the ledges for a solid hour during which Grimaldo Duran randomly showed up. I'd never met Grim before but I recognized him from all of the old Animal videos. I was actually kinda star-struck when he introduced himself.

We left the ledges and followed Ralph towards the middle of Downtown Newark where we ended up at another spot that we'd actually checked out the night before. I didn't call anything out first time round but now I had something in mind. I decided to ride it and see how I felt.

The first hop wasn't giving me too much trouble so I started going faster and faster at it. I kept wanting to launch from the bank and clear the second rail to feel out the pop of the bank, but didn't in fear of missing my pop. For some reason doing a nollie over the rail seemed like a good way to feel out the hanger. After some convincing from the homies, I decided I was going to try the hanger in hopes of doing the hanger 180 after.

ty morrow bmx tales CM

y lays down some viking strength with this gate hop to beast mode Hanger 180 over the stairwell gate

All of the sudden, this guy comes walking up the street out of the dark. We quickly notice he's holding a napkin up to his eyebrow to stop a severe looking head wound from bleeding. He begins to ask if there is a hospital around that is open because he said the first one he went to was closed. I was right in the middle of setting up the camera for Garrett to film when he came out so my first instinct was to start filming him. I went up to the bleeding dude with the camera and dimmed down the light so that I wasn't completely blinding him. I could be mistaken here, but I believe the guy could barely speak English (Editors note: He spoke Portuguese) so Grimaldo said a few words to him in Spanish explaining there was no other hospital near by. After the wounded man had asked Grimaldo if he would accompany him back to his house for help, Grimaldo assured him that he wasn't going to die so he kept it moving.

The whole thing didn't really fuck with my head too bad. At that point I was already convinced I could do the trick and wasn't about to let it go considering I wouldn't be on the East Coast again soon with winter approaching. Had I seen him a little earlier it may have messed with me a little more. Sometimes I'll notice random things and think it's a sign to not do something. I like to trust my gut when that happens but still; in a situation where you're filming at a cool spot that you probably won't get the chance to go to again anytime soon, you just have to block that shit out and do what you want to do.

grimaldo duran bmx tales CM

After the guy walked back into the darkness and the cameras were setup, I began warming up for the hanger again. A few bitch-runs later, I went for the hanger and landed completely sideways… thankfully past the rail. Hyped that I built the confidence to try the hanger and naturally getting halfway to 180, I decided to go for the hanger 180. I went back up the hill, rolled down and pulled it. As soon as I landed, my tire popped but I managed to half cab and roll away while dodging a bike and parked car. I watched the footage and decided it wasn't worth going all the way back to the car to get a tube, repair the flat and risk my ass to do it again, so we headed elsewhere to plot some future moves...

"Sometimes I’ll notice random things and think it’s a sign to not do something. I like to trust my gut when that happens but still..."