Jay’s Jump : Bicyclists Transform Empty Acre Into a Riding Attraction

They come from miles away to ride their bikes down “Jay’s Jump”--a ditch that launches riders into dizzying airborne stunts--and sail over an imposing dirt embankment called “Table Top.”

To neighbors and passing motorists, the Canoga Park obstacle course is just another empty lot waiting for a developer’s bulldozer. But for the 30 or so BMX, or bicycle motocross, enthusiasts who come there every day after school, it’s a field of dreams carved into a maze of hair-raising dirt tracks and carefully crafted dirt mounds and ditches.

Since early March, the one-acre lot on the southeast corner of Saticoy Street and Variel Avenue has been teeming with bicyclists skidding, jumping, and wiping out on the obstacle course they built with shovels and bare hands over two weeks in February.

BMX bikes are specially designed for rough terrain as well as rough treatment. They have triangle-shaped frames for maximum stability and tires are thick and knobby for dirt riding. The handlebars typically have a cross-bar for added strength.

Ranging in age from 4 to 23, the bicyclists use the obstacles for airborne “pancakes,” track lingo for a maneuver in which the rider tilts the bike horizontally in the air and then lands upright; “cross-ups,” where riders twist bikes sideways during a jump, and other breathtaking acrobatics.

As Steve Shaw, 16, puts it: “We pile dirt, pack it down, form it and jump it.”

And that’s it. Steve, a regular at the track who also participates in organized races, and other riders say it’s an inexpensive form of recreation that keeps youngsters away from drugs and gangs and teaches them skills. Above all, it’s a lot of fun.

“Everyone’s friends here,” Jackson Howes, 13, said. “Everyone volunteers to build jumps. They get along.”

Said Jerry Lheureux, 15: “We get to leave home, clear our heads and be with our friends.”

But the fun may end soon, at least until the riders find another vacant lot. The property’s co-owner and neighbor, Bob Graf, said he may have to plow the lot and put a fence around it because others--not the bike riders--use it to dump dirt, old couches and other junk.

A week ago, a group of children threw stones at his house, breaking a window, Graf said. “The kids have a ball out there, but a few ruin it for all,” he said.

It’s par for the course for Steve and other BMX riders in the Valley who say they have no choice but to constantly move on because there’s no organized BMX park in the area.

“What we really need is a place where they will let us do what we want,” said Jason Lopez, 15, one of the regulars who helped build the course. Jason, whose nickname is Jay, dug the ditch named after him--Jay’s Jump. In the last three years, the bicyclists have constructed at least five similar courses on vacant lots, only to see them bulldozed after several months.

But operating a supervised obstacle course is nearly impossible because of the high cost of insurance, said Joe Witzman, owner of Chatsworth Cyclery, which sells BMX bikes and used to sponsor BMX teams in tournaments.

“It’s terrible because the kids don’t have these venues to play in,” Witzman said. “This is healthful. It’s not drugs. It’s basically a safe environment.”

Still, Jason and others have at times been carted off the tracks in ambulances. Jason said that last year he wiped out after an airborne maneuver and wound up in the hospital.

“My parents don’t want me ever to ride a bike again, but you know how that goes,” he said.

“I’ll keep riding. It keeps me out of trouble. Everywhere I go, I’ll build another track.”