Rye Airfield Huckfest 2003
by: Peter Wilk

April 26, 2003 marked the one year anniversary for New England’s premier skate park, Rye Airfield. It was celebrated by an event called Huckfest 2003, which attracted everyone the park was designed for; BMX, inline, boards and mountain bikes. Despite the dismal mid-forty degree temperatures and driving rain, the 50,000 square foot indoor park was filled with nearly 600 enthusiastic riders, skaters and spectators. The event wasn’t just for sponsored riders and demos, it was open to all.

In addition to the skaters, BMXers and huckers, the event also opened its arms to the trials community, both the one and two wheeled variety. The staff at Rye Airfield wants to start bringing trials to their outdoor facility. Huckfest 2003 was the start of their efforts. The day’s plan was to have six to eight riders doing informal demos throughout the festivities.

To accomplish this, they contacted a local trials rider/skateboarder/hucker who frequents the park, Dave Lemieux. Dave then began contacting other local riders including Craig "Ralphie" Dionne, Rich "Mental" House, Jerry Villar, Bill Ward and myself to help out with the effort. On top of the six trials riders, two Boston area unicycle trials guys were called in, Ben Plotkin-Swing and Joey Cohn.

Dave, Rich and I coordinated with the park and BustedSpoke.com to have some obstacles constructed. In only two weeks we were able to procure and build your basic trials demo set including boxes, pallets, beams and triangles. Originally the plan was to have these obstacles outside under a tent, however, as the day began it was seen that an outside trials demo, even under a tent, would not be fun for riders or spectators. At the last minute the park decided to put us indoors in an open area in the park. The riders welcomed this decision for obvious reasons. We couldn’t set up in the middle of the park, but we were able to use a nook adjacent to the pro street course in the park. This actually turned out great, allowing us to check out all the other riders and skaters while being out of their way and vice versa.

Our "informal demo" turned into a 5-6 hour jam session. After getting the obstacles set up and secured in place, the eight of us had a blast all day. Our section lent itself to numerous gaps and ups. As most riding sessions go, they evolve into "I just made that move, now it’s your turn" type of atmosphere; this ride didn’t deviate from this path. At first we did the obvious moves, stylish ups to the 2ft. box, ups to the three and four footers, gaps between the large boxes and a number of other basic moves. Once we started to tire of this setup we brought a few pallets in and started opening up the gaps and being more creative. A few gaps grew to over two bike lengths with an eight inch up. Jerry showed he’d been practicing his gaps making them look easy.

Joey and Ben [the unicycle trials guys] were not to be outdone. They started doing some crazy sidehops from the balance beam and from an extremely steep pallet resting against the four foot box. If this wasn’t enough they started doing the gaps and triangles too. I would guess that most people, outside of seeing Kris Holm in magazines, haven’t seen unicycle trials. It is amazing to see them ride in person. Joey even capped off the day with a move the regular trials guys wouldn’t do, an eight foot drop from a railing to the medium box; not just once, but twice.

Between the spectators and other park users, we had a decent crowd all day. It was tons of fun just messing around. The professional atmosphere of a demo and the pressure of a competition were miles away and everyone could relax and pull some good moves. I hope that park is able to deliver with its plans for adding a trials area to its outdoor facility.