Insight – Liam Mulrooney
Posted by Prashant - 31/05/09 at 07:05:32 am
Liam – no footer over the UAB box jump
In a continued series of interviews conducted by Rich Redmond, I wanted to shine a spotlight on one of the hardest working riders in Montreal, Liam Mulrooney. Liam is the owner of the only bicycle specific park in the country, Ugly Ass Bikepark. After UAB materiliazed, and Liam and poured himself in to the opening, running, and growing the park, I realized how much he must love BMX to keep his doors open and provide a place for riders all over Quebec (and Eastern Ontario) to come to year round. Knowing that I am no expert on Liam, I asked Jeremy Deme to write an intro to the interview, which would make this the intro to the intro (kind of redundant, isn’t it?). Nevertheless, click below to read about Montreal’s Liam Mulrooney.
It’s hard to Describe Liam in a couple of sentences. A few words that could describe him would be; dedicated, motivated, disciplined, relentless, devoted and awesome. He is single handedly responsible for having kept the best bikepark/skatepark in Montreal running for the last 5 years. Most of the time he has worked numerous jobs just to keep the place running. On his days off, he’s usually at the park working on something or building new stuff. I think that everyone who knows Liam and UAB would agree that Liam is the man.
- Jeremy Deme
RR- What is your full name and where are you from?
LM- Liam E. Mulrooney, I lived in MTL till I was about 6 months old, one day my dad was going to buy baby formula and the corner store was being robbed at gun point, he moved us to the Laurentians, I moved back to MTL for cegep and never looked back…
Spinning
RR- I remember you from L’Orignal way back double pegging the sub and telling me it was easy and I should try it. Just how long have you been riding? And you had a racing seat on, gross!
LM- I’ve been on a BMX bike a long enough time I guess, I started riding flat around 17, on a 40 lbs Hoffman, looking back I shoulda just dug some trails, but that’s not how the story goes. I started riding parks at Taz at about 18 years old. I haven’t got to ride much for about 5 years cause of HQ, but since Nov. 08 I’ve been on the bike much more, and the love of riding is back, so I’m happy to still be around. I had a race seat????? Damn
RR- Since we’re on the topic of how long you have been riding, how long has “Ugly Ass Bikes”, the name or “company”, been around? I remember hearing about it; that this kid TJ was sponsored by some bike company.
LM- I started UAB at around 19 years old, I had been talking to people in my class about started a bike company named Ugly Ass Bikes. One of my classmates thought the name was too good, and said he was gonna go steal the name. The girl I was seeing at the time woke my ugly ass up early the next morning and made me register the company. I started making parts around that time. Although the bike company, has unfortunately been put on hold for over 5 years to keep my attention on HQ and the park.
Overview of UAB
UAB construction
RR- Where is that kook TJ? He got into freestyle mx didn’t he? Can he still do flip to manual to crankflips?
LM- TJ randomly showed up as we were working on the new 9’ ¼ pipe. He was racing MX, became a semi-pro in Quebec I believe, but it got too expensive. I’m sure if he showed up at HQ he would be throwing flips by the end of the session, regardless of the fact, that his bike garbage, and he hasn’t touched it in six months. Kid has some skills.
RR- Explain for the kids exactly what you are doing for work these days, and where has it taken you so far?
LM- I’ve been assembling flight simulators for CAE since August. I basically do 2 things, tighten nuts and bolts all day, and make things fit. It’s cool, but pretty hard work. It’s the making things fit part that really sucks, sometimes stuff is so fuct, I’ll spend a day or 2 cutting and filing pieces so they fit perfect. We also don’t get a lot of time off, days from 10 up to 18 hours long. My last trip was 45 days, I had 3 days off, one of which we spent driving around, cause we partied the night before and left the Jeep parked in Dallas. Ravers or Hobbos broke the back window and stole stuff, including our Red Bulls and my Combos (addictive Yankee snack food) I can’t complain though, I’ve already been to Japan, France, and chunk of the South Eastern states.
RR- Any interesting yankee sightings? Mega Madness WalMart stories? 900lb women driving v12 trucks?
LM- I haven’t lived through too many crazy Yankee adventures yet. The usual conversations about igloos, and living in them etc… But Texas is full of huge trucks and equally as huge women. I worked in Houston, and I arrived the very first sunny day after Hurricane Ike this past summer. Our lunch break was spent at Jack in The Box, an American fast food place, of equal or lesser value than a McDonalds. It was the only place around the airport open and had a pretty big line-up for both counter and drive through. As we waited for our food, about 15 minutes, a large women, filled her super sized drink, 1.5L of cola. My food arrives before hers and I sit. When her food arrives she walks by the machine and fills her drink again, which I assume was empty because it takes forever to fill again. We finish eating, sit around and talk a bit, because no one wants to get back to work anytime soon. The women finished her meal, filled her drink again, and left. 4.5 L of soft drink seems like a good amount in a month, but with-in an afternoon? And what’s up with Wal-Marts having their own zip codes? Those things are huge!!!!
Box jumping
RR- How long exactly has UAB the park been open and when can we expect a real jam or something? I miss those.
LM- We past the 5 year mark as of April, GO TEAM!!!! We wanna do a few cool things, I’ve had a few things in mind for a couple years now, we’ll see how the next few months go and if I got the time I’m gonna work on a jam or 2 this summer.
RR- You put out some new shirts that look great and I was riding some aluminum pegs that were really great for park riding. Anything else coming out in the future or is it just “nose to the grind stone” and work hard to keep UAB alive and running?
LM- Right now UAB is slow going. We got a shop opening up in the lobby that’s something to be stoked on. We also have a lot of renovations to the park to do. We’re building the vert wall wider and taller this summer, and also gonna beef it up, so it’s bomb proof like the other newer ramps. We also need to bring back the ¼ to slant wall set-up and build a new tranny to tranny box jump. But you can probably except a lot from us with in the year, maybe a fork and some other parts. Well see how things go with our other projects.
RR- What happened to the mohawk and why do love NOFX so much?
LM- I guess I had to get rid of the hawk for work. It’s the lamest haircut ever, unless it’s up, then it’s a chick magnet. I’m growing out my hair so I can bring it back if I get a month off in the summer. I don’t know what my deal with punk rock is exactly, I guess it just speaks to me. I think it’s because in my experience a live punk show always ends up in some form of crazy adventure
RR- UAB is probably the grimiest place in the best kind of way. Like people can ride, listen to music and sleep in the their own puke in one night. There have been some sketchy situations no doubt, but nobody has died. Care to reflect on any cool stories?
LM- With the amount of parties, events, etc. We’ve put on a HQ, the list of madness seems never ending. The story that has always stuck out the most for me was during the 1st month of July at HQ. We hosted a little B-day party for a girl’s 18th B-day. Most of the kids were under age. Playing dodge ball and nearly killing themselves on skate boards. The girl liked the idea of us having live bands at our events, so I was asked to hook something up. With less than 24 hours to find a band that would play for free, Trigger Effect says they would be glad to help out. At around 1am, the 2nd wave of cops is showing up. The band is still playing at this point, and Trigger Effect only does things loud and fast. As the band chats with the 2 female officers, I franticly pick up empties and try to clean up. The band starts to play Pearl Jam and Beatles covers for the cops. I see something strange and have to take a 2nd look, Jeanme the guitarist is on his knees playing for the cop and she is somewhat grinding up close to him and his guitar. You probably had to be there, but I’ll never forget that night. We drank in our parking lot till like 4am, a true punk rock night.
Liam brings the party.
RR- Now that shady Rob is back riding and owning a vehicle, can we expect to see MTL riders shred in Ottawa for a change?
LM- Rob-O is my personal chauffeur. We plan on making it to Ontario much more these days.
RR- What was the best year of your life?
LM- I think it’s a tie between, the 9 months in the womb, and this past year at HQ. Since we got things going again last Nov. We made a lot of progess on the ramps, and put on and hosted a bunch of seriously rad parties. I got into bike riding much more, and got to travel a lot.
RR- Just how sketchy is the Verdun area?
LM- Were actually located in Cote St. – Paul. But judging from the kids that show up to our events from that part of town, I’d say pretty sketchy. They do offer some good looking ladies sometimes though. I love MTL.
360 sequence
RR- When can we expect some sort of Liam edit with you actually riding in it? I know I would like to see one as much as you would hate doing one.
LM- We could more than likely hook something up. It would be great for people that like seeing double peg grinds and watching people fall on their face.
RR- I have been up since 5am for no reason and have run out of questions. Thanks for all you do man. Any last words for your viewers?
LM- Thanks to my staff, past present and future, for their help with all the work at HQ. Thanks to all the Quebec riders that support our place, and to the Ottawa scene for constantly showing us how hard we suck, but you have to love us for poutine. Thanks to all the bands and punkers that come out to play and trash the place. Thanks to the Presence guys, for all the footy and work for the MTL scene. Thanks to 10Pack for hooking us up at the shop. Thanks to you guys at CapitalBMX for years of BMX entertainment. Thanks to anyone I may forgotten. And finally thanks to BMX for giving me something to look forward to everyday, regardless of everything else.
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Legend! Thanks for all the good times! And may there be plenty more!
Comment by cockmaster — May 31, 2009 #
Dude is just plain Rad!
Comment by Roland — May 31, 2009 #
Fucking awesome.
Comment by jorden — May 31, 2009 #
liam is the man!
kevin from apebmx.com
Comment by kevin — June 5, 2009 #
Liam! in my books is the strongest, toughest, most deticated guy I know on this planet.. If it wasnt for him keeping the park alive, i would not have a place to ride over the winter and i would not have learnt anything.. your the best man
Comment by sylvain aubichon — June 7, 2009 #