I had heard tales of intrepid local fifth-grade-skateboarders kick-flipping and grinding their way down the treacherous paths of the LoRise courtyard. Intrigued, I ventured from my dorm room in the hopes of finding these figures of legend.

After a two-week-long stakeout of LoRise, I finally managed to catch these elusive tricksters in action. I was a bit disappointed, though, to find them not standing on skateboards, but straddling colorful bicycles.

I approached the motley crew: Mateo Sanchez, age 13; Kaleib Drake, age 11; Jordan, age 12; Jyqay, age 8; and Asonte, age 9. Jordan seemed vaguely familiar to me, though this could be due to the air of debonair, middle-school confidence invoked by his rugged mohawk.

The five members of this intrepid band all attend different schools. They live near campus, mostly in Traverse Square.

“So, do you guys do any…sick tricks?” I asked.

I was rewarded with a montage of dramatic accident stories. Jordan had to be quickly fetched for an interview. He had stopped biking for the day, recovering from a recent misadventure.

“I just fell down the hill,” Jordan said. “My chain popped halfway down.”

He glared accusingly at his cohorts.

“All you guys ditched me.”

Sanchez’s story was a bit more graphic.

“I tried doing a jump and I hit my stuff,” Sanchez said, gesturing towards his crotch.

Sanchez wasn’t the only one.

“I busted my balls like five million times in the past weekend,” one of the boys said proudly.

The young bikers, displaying admirable street smarts, were reluctant to give their full names and were wary of being photographed. The five have occasionally been reprimanded by the University’s Public Safety (PSafe).

In fact, Drake said, a PSafe officer told him off just this morning.

“He caught me, and he was like ‘Nope. Don’t do that. I don’t want you gettin’ hurt,’” Drake said.

The officer’s concern is understandable: none of the boys were wearing helmets. Even eight-year-old Jyqay rode bareheaded.

I visited PSafe Supervisor Thomas Harrington to inquire about the University’s stance on the youths’ misdemeanors.

“We tell them to leave,” Harrington said. “If they return, we call the police, and they can get a ticket for trespassing.”

Despite this policy, none of the boys have ever received more than a stern rebuke, so they continue to frequent LoRise. Fortunately, none of the students living in LoRise seem to mind their presence.

“I haven’t really found them annoying,” Adam Rashkoff ’13 said. “If anything, it makes LoRise seem more like a neighborhood.”

Kevin Brisco ’13 was even more enthusiastic in his appraisal.

“It’s awesome,” he said. “I’d rather there be kids around here skateboarding instead of sitting around antagonizing people or something.”

As a former skateboarder himself, Brisco recognized the unique topography of Lorise—characterized by numerous ramps, stairways, and railings—as ideal grounds for boarders.

When asked if he had anything else to share with the paper, Sanchez volunteered some golden advice.

“When you try to do a jump, wear a cup,” he said.

With these words of wisdom, I left the boys to their daring stunts. Only upon parting did I recall from where I had recognized Jordan.

Driving through campus one day I had witnessed this boy leave his skateboard on the sidewalk and cartwheel across the street through traffic. As I drove past, he gracefully pirouetted back across the road to rejoin his friends on the other side, mohawk silhouetted in the descending dusk.