Rough riders

Ugly Ass Bikes HQ isn’t the prettiest place in town, but for BMXers, it’s a beauty

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG
photos by RACHEL GRANOFSKY

With their messy hair, rude t-shirts, clownish pants and guerrilla approach to public-space appropriation, skateboarders are generally relegated to a pretty low spot on society’s ladder of respectability. It turns out, though, that in the realm of “action sports,” there are even lower rungs on that ladder.

“Bikes are kinda the third-class citizen type of deal,” says Liam Mulroney, the entrepreneur behind Ugly Ass Bikes, which is his custom BMX-part company and also, with an “HQ” affixed, the indoor bike park down in the city’s southwest sector.

“We get mountain bikes here, they’re like fourth- or fifth-class. I feel really bad for them, the BMXers don’t even like them.”

What that means in practical application is that spaces where bikers can ride ramps and perfect this trick or that are at something of a premium. Skateboard/rollerblade parks, protective of their precious ramps, keep the two-wheeled terrors at arm’s length.

“We’d kinda got the shaft from some of the local parks—I wouldn’t say local, Orcus up on Decarie is good to us. But South Park, off the island, I’ve got no good things to say about them. You could replace ‘South Park’ with ‘the Devil’ in the paper—I don’t even want to see their name in print.

“So we needed a place to ride. We said, screw it, we’re gonna try it. We had a bunch of ramps that were supposed to be donated by the City of Montreal—from Benny Park, a park most of us rode—but that fell through at the last minute. But we just kept going. We’d signed a five-year lease, so there was no looking back.

“April 1, 2004 was when we first got a hold of the place—and it was a fucking dump. A shithole. It was in really bad shape. Not that much has changed—a couple of layers of paint, some fixed windows. But we’re still here two years later, so that’s our greatest accomplishment so far.”

Did it themselves

The Field of Dreams principle applies—Mulroney (and friends) built it, and they came. “There’s a few kids from around here, but we get a lot of people from all over the place. We’ve had people from all over the world here already. Montreal’s a well-known city to come to ride street.”

The space is a big, spare, gritty, split-level concrete box under the highway at the outskirts of Verdun, full of jerry-rigged infrastructure held together with a few nails, some duct tape and a prayer. At any given time, you’re liable to find Mulroney hard at work on UAB—fiddling around in his workshop, stocking the snack bar, loading in for an all-ages hardcore show, updating the space’s Web site or decked out with safety goggles and power drill, assembling yet another ramp from scraps of wood he and his pals have scrounged and scavenged.

“The original plan was not to make it so much of a business, but rather more of a hangout—everyone puts in a bunch of cash and we all have a place to ride. That’s no one’s issue anymore—everyone has a place to ride. Done. Perfect. And I’ve got my company, Ugly Ass Bikes, so my plan was, if I’m paying $500 out of pocket a month for heating and electricity, that’s just so I have my shop, my space to do machining.”

Amps among the ramps

What stands out about UAB is that the joint just screams “punk rock DIY attitude.” Where other indoor parks might have flashy banners for this extreme-sports product line or that, UAB boasts sloppy, hand-painted grim-reaper murals. Admission fees are pocket-change cheap. Mulroney, at 24, is pretty much an elder statesman among his peers. And then there’s the all-ages shows, largely by word of mouth—what could be more punk rock than that?

“I’ve been listening to music like that for well over 10 years and I have friends in bands and stuff. We promote them, they promote us, it gets more people in here, we make a few bucks and get to watch a good show.”

Plenty more such gigs are planned, as are various bike competitions and events, a possible merch booth and even—provided, for safety’s sake, that the ramps can be adjusted to handle the smaller wheels—doors open a bit wider for skaters and rollerbladers. One thing that has to happen, come hell or high water, is a sequel to the recent, ridiculous UAB-hosted Röck Fight band battle. “For sure, one of the things I’ll think of on my deathbed is someone hitting someone else with those dildo nunchucks. By the end of Röck Fight, I had like 15 guys going, ‘Okay, sign us up for the next one.’ They’re not in bands or nothing! They just want to beat the shit out of each other!”

Ugly Ass Bikes HQ is at 1935 de L’Eglise. For more info, go to www.uglyassbikes.com