The Newcastle Street Jam was an incredible day.
It all started when I organised a day of street riding with Newcastle local Harry Dyson. It’s far to say we totally smashed it with the help of NSF legend Chris Souter & Phil Skeggs from Alibico (also all of the NSFYC lads)

When I rolled up to our starting point at Exhibition Park, I’m not gonna lie… I was completely overwhelmed with the turnout. There must of been at least 200 riders in attendance and Exi was jam-packed. We had a bit of a quick ride at the park then I passed the megaphone to Jamie Curry who quickly rounded people up and soon enough, swarms of us descended upon the streets of Newcastle.
You always get that buzz at a street jam, just seeing hundreds of riders filling the streets, weaving in and out of traffic & not giving a fuck. It kinda of made me reminisce about the epic jams I’ve witnessed in the UK (P5/DFTU Battle Royale Jams etc) and it was a good feeling bringing everyone together for one day of riding and good banter.

The first spot was at the Civic Centre and I’m pretty sure we crashed a wedding when we rolled up, but no one seemed to care so we kept riding until an angry security guard came out (who got a shit load of abuse) then called the cops so we made a swift exit to spot #2.

Chinatown ledges are always a popular spot and it was locked down, hundreds of riders swarmed the area and people were whipping their phones out to take pictures, even businessmen in suits were stopping their daily routine to see what the hell was going on!

A few bangers were dropped by James Hayes aka ‘Bear’ (Alibico rider), Scott Thompson, Rax, Harry Dyson, Jack Norwood and a few other lads were getting their peg on too…

After Chinatown we headed off in a massive group to the HUGE stair set you’ll see on the video which 15 year old Zach Percival heroically chucked the bars down. This set is NO JOKE. It’s tall and pretty damn long, after a few run ups and a couple of hairy moments. Zach Pulled the bars and it looks so damn clean! This was for sure one of the biggest bangers of the day.

Fourth spot at Newcastle Train Station was pretty-much a bust as soon as we turned up,  a riot van arrived armed with only one confused looking copper who was actually pretty sound I’m told, he just wanted to know what the hell was going on. Moved us on swiftly but no one really minded too much, apart from Jersey who really wanted to send the rail. Next time mate…

We rolled to the Centre of Life and sessioned a couple of stair sets there, Bear from Alibico was goin’ off trying to bar one set, then whip the next. Really unlucky he didn’t pull it but after a few slams he decided to call it a day.

The last spot before the wasteland was the Law Courts and we didn’t seem to get any bother while riding there, plenty of people crowded round to watch what was going on, the megaphone was in full-swing by that point with H-man in pro-heckling mode. Plenty of banter!

We ended up at the Wasteland for plenty of beer, stunts, bbq, prizes and more heckling from H-man which was well on-point! The day was ended nicely by Souter shutting down the sub box (which no one seemed to capture on footage unfortunately)

Anyway without giving too much away, here’s the video which really impressed us. It was edited by Ryan Lilburn and filmed by Scott Godwin and myself (Neil Fraser) – Enjoy!

Newcastle BMX Street Jam from Ryan Lilburn on Vimeo.

Pics above taken by Elliott Brown, Ryan Lilburn & Neil Fraser.
(Cover photo taken by Greg Illingworth)