Finally – Mat Hoffman is being honoured by a documentary that covers his legendary status and contributions not just in BMX Freestyle but for extreme sports in general.  I kind of feel like although he’s revered by most people who know about bike riding, he doesn’t always receive the wider recognition that he so badly deserves.  Hopefully this will help set the record straight.

Mat is awesome as shit, so we decided to make a movie about him.
—Spike Jonze, Jeff Tremaine, Johnny Knoxville

I’m super stoked on the trailer, right from the opening with Fugazi and of course Tony Hawk this seems like it’ll be spot-on.  Can’t wait.

Naa, not really.  But most people are only too aware of this whole “skateboarding vs. BMX” bullshit that’s been going on for some time now, brought to a head more recently by both sport’s popularity in the wake of the X-Games as well as irresponsible articles by the likes of Thrasher Magazine.  As a direct result, in recent years BMXers have faced ever growing levels of marginalisation from those who promote skateboarding and those who provide “skateboarding facilities”, in the form of bans or restricted sessions at various skateparks.  This is worse in the US where there are so many good parks that simply do not allow bikes under any circumstance, although I’ve witnessed it in the UK as well.

Anyway, I noticed today on Ride‘s site that Fudger put up an email chain started by an angry parent that ended up with one park that was about to allow bikes in changing their minds on the back of these few emails and keeping them banned instead.  The parent concerned claims to be one of the old guard, someone who has lived in the area all their life, grew up in the whole Dogtown era surfing and skateboarding and so on.  It’s because of this that I’m even more amazed at the level of hypocrisy that’s exhibited and that goes seemingly unchecked by the people responsible for the parks to which BMXers should be entitled.

Do you think the pools that people originally skated and rode around were meant for skateboarding?  Do you think that the street furniture that’s played such a big part of both sports was intended for something so creative?  What would have happened if, back when it was all starting, empty pools had been policed so fiercely that skateboarders never had a chance to ride?

I can understand the whole ‘concerned parent’ point of view, but at the end of the day your kid is involving themselves in something where danger is a huge part of the fun.  If it’s not a bike in a skatepark, it’s a car in the street.  Understand what you’re involving yourself in, and don’t complain when you get bitten every once in a while.  Oh, and teaching kids some basic park etiquette really, really helps.  Respect your surroundings.

On the flip side, the attitude that’s prevalent these days is doing BMX no favours.  There’s a level of arrogance that’s been layered on in both over the years, kids don’t really appreciate their roots nor were they around to witness the dark ages where there was literally fucking nothing to ride in terms of skateparks or whatever.  It’s that complacency that breeds the attitude we’re seeing now and mentioned in the email chain, and it’s a real shame as it’s inevitably going to widen the rift between the two and ensure that they’re kept out for good.

I don’t have a solution for this, but I do think it’s something that both sides need to work on.  I grew up riding with skateboarders, some of my best friends in fact, and I’d hate to imagine what it’d be like if the animosity grew to the point that both were kept essentially separate and at arm’s length from one another.  Let’s cut the bullshit and work together.

There have been a couple of fun questions posed recently on Dig Magazine‘s site and on TCU regarding two of the most subjective (i.e style over substance) tricks in bike riding – tabletops and turndowns.  Sad thing is, even I overlooked this guy when it came to the last question – Keith Treanor.  Keith was one of my absolute favorite riders from back in the 90′s, ever since his section riding to Operation Ivy and Gorilla Biscuits in S&M’s ’44 Something’.  So anyway, I stumbled across this photo recently and I think, for me, that’s the question definitively answered.  Click to make big, and check out Keith’s part below. Chris Moeller seriously needs to come good on that old, old promise of re-releasing the earlier S&M videos.
  
 

Still trawling back through the old email archives, there’s some quality – and long forgotten – shit in here:

08/04/1997
“hi nick – i went to marseille skatepark last weekend. it ruled.
here’s a photo of fids and a girls ass.
later – will”

That picture of Fids is nothing short of classic.  Click to make big.

Back around ’96 / ’97, myself and Ben used to update a little website that we named ‘Dirt’, with some reviews of BMX videos, music, and information on various ‘scenes’ around the UK.  The inspiration came mainly from Kieran Chapman‘s eWire e-zine, and while it was fun to do at the time we lost interest and it never received the number of updates it deserved.  Fast forward a few years and I notice that I seem to have lost all the versions I thought I had archived :(

Fortunately, I’ve found the last version published up on the Wayback Machine and with the help of Warrick retrieved it complete and intact and put it back online here.  It’s pretty cringeworthy in places, from the design (made with NetObjects‘ Fusion 2.x!) through to our writing.  The photos were mainly stolen scans from Dig Magazine – although Will did kindly give us blessing to do so – or Big Brother, hence Jamie Thomas over there.  Good shit!

The past couple of years have seen the rise of a strange branch of motorsports, an uneasy alliance between the ‘Xtreme’ generation of sports sponsors and the motoring world that’s resulted in a new event in the X-Games and chaps like Ken Block (I still have a Blockhead cap somewhere, cheers Dennis!) earning the respect of a new audience world-wide for his amazing prowess on four wheels.

More recently, we’ve had a superstar of the FMX world – Travis Pastrana – garnering a stupid amount of publicity and Generation-X mindshare by jumping his Subaru Impreza a world-record distance over a river.  This is where I have to hold my hand up and say enough is enough;  The hype and publicity surrounding this sort of thing completely outweighs the act itself  – it’s basic and fairly well controlled mathematics and to me it cheapens the stuff that Travis does outside of this circus.  I’m not saying that jumping cars isn’t pretty fucking ace, it’s just the promotion that’s beyond ridiculous.

Anyway, If you want to see some real skill on four wheels, check out the two videos below.  Not only are these incredible in terms of the talent required to drive a car in such a fashion, the risks involved are real and up there with what it takes to flip a set of doubles on a motorcross bike:

So this post was inspired by a little video that I came across recently, which includes Ian MacKaye (amongst others) talking about how life as a skateboarder changes your perception of the world around you.

It’s funny because it’s this exact same conversation that I’ve had with so many other people (BMXers mainly) through the years.  For example, once you’ve been riding for long enough a kerb is no longer just a kerb;  you go through a mental checklist of all the qualifying critera necessary for a successful boost of said object.  Is it transitioned or merely flat?  How tall is it?  Is it short and tight, meaning it’ll pop you right up, or long and mellow needing some speed and a slow huck to loft anything out of it?

The everyday mundane street furniture that ‘ordinary’ people see takes on a whole new meaning and is interpreted in an entirely different way by both skateboarders and BMXers alike.  A bench, a rail, a bank to wall.  In most cases the original architect or whoever built the obstacle would have been totally oblivious to such potential, but every once in a while you have to wonder exactly what that person was thinking when they decided to building something like Dusseldorf University (RIP).

I think everywhere I’ve ever lived has gone through some process of mental categorisation by how much ‘street’ there is to ride.  Seriously, finding a wallride tucked away in some obscure part of town ranks in my mind far higher than, say, a decent shopping mall or a Starbucks.  In fact, I’d swap all that shit for a decent kerb to session.

So after some dicking about following the move from the old server (a decrepit IBM X330 complete with ATA/33 and other such nonsense) to the new one (a shiny Dell R200!) and reconfiguring my site I’ve also put my old gallery back online.  Anyone who uses Gallery2 will know that it can be a massive ballache to look after, to say the least.

So while I mainly update Flickr these days, there’s some amusing older stuff in there that I haven’t imported into my account.  For example, check out some really old riding photos, a random trip to the Strawbury Duck, and of course my first visit to San Diego.  All good times!

Inspired by this post from Taj Mihelich, I figured that as I have quite a few photos of various bikes I’ve owned over the years I’d do something similar. This list is far from comprehensive (I guess it helps when you’re in the media as much as he was / is) but there’s still a fair few on here and I definitely miss most of them.

This seems to be the earliest picture I have of me on a bike.  Never mind the shoes, check out how stoked I am.  Little do I know about the pain that is to come over the subsequent years.  And I wish I still had that hair.

This was my pride and joy for quite a while until it snapped around the headtube.  It’s a GT Pro Freestyle Tour Team (to give it its full title) with some pretty cool parts for the day.  GT 3-piece cranks (rebranded Profiles basically)  and Peregrine Super Pro rims.  Obviously this is back when chrome was popular.  Other details of note are of course the Garfield dust caps and the Sheep Store sticker on the downtube.

This frame was next after the GT snapped and started a trend for a number of years – it’s an S&M Dirt Bike.  Not the first one I’d owned, I did once have Scott Walker’s old frame (that was then sold onto Wes), but I remember getting back on this after that super short and flexy GT and being able to ride a hell of a lot better.  I can’t remember what happened to this frame though.

The third picture is of me spinning a 360 at the old jump at the back of Burnden Park on this bike.  If you’ve got a pretty keen eye you’ll spot the S&M Heavy As Fuck on the right hand side.  That piece of shit was Wes’s ride with a set of *massive* OG S&M Slam Bars.  And check that pony tail…

Next up is another Dirt Bike, this time the Aheadset version.  I loved this setup – Slam Bars cut to just the right size, simple weight saving measures of the day like just running two pegs, and so on.  Almost all chrome, except for the black Slams as I was copying the POW house trend at that time having watched Dirty Deeds etc.  Still mainly chrome though and with the obligatory Profile 3-piece cranks and Super Pro wheels.  Awesome stuff.  The next owner of this frame was Fletch who I believe still has it, but is too lazy to do anything.

Bit of a gap here as after the Dirt Bike(s) I had a Standard STA for a while.  For some reason I bought the 20″ version as I used to dislike long frames.  Anyway, I had a hard time riding it properly on anything except mini-ramps, so I ended up trading it in at a bike shop in Manchester for this Taiwanese-built Hoffman Deebo.  I think this had a 20.75″ top tube, but if there’s one thing I do remember for sure it was that it weighed a fucking ton.  It lasted a good while though and was pretty rad to ride once you were used to it.  The picture on the right is of me riding a legendary pool in the San Diego area sometime around 2002, and was taken by Chris ‘Carve’ Hardy.

Now we’re talking.  This is, hands down, the best bike I’ve ever had.  It’s a T1 Barcode with a 21″ top tube.  I bought this frame just before I came back to the UK after my first stay in San Diego and it was so dialled.  I was obviously copying Taj pretty heavily at this point, from the T1 Small handlebars to the gearing (36/13) right down to the anodized front wheel.  Sadly this bike was stolen from Revolt HQ in SD one day just as me and Ben were due to meet Paul Kintner at the newly opened Woodward West for a free stay.  Talk about shitty timing.

Anyway, the insurance money bought me the next bike:

As I loved the Barcode so much I went and bought another one, only this wasn’t in quite such a cool colour.  It’s basically the same setup, except I’m copying Taj’s changes again at the time with a Tree sprocket, 36h rims, Wellgo MG-1 pedals, and a few other things.  The picture on the right is of me blasting that mini at Bones Bolton (RIP) in 2004.  This ride lasted me a while until I was sucked in to the whole weight-weenie thing and fancied a change.  I sold it to a local RADS legend (Lynden) who still had it last time I checked.

Now that’s a good looking bike.  It was pretty fucking light at the time as I’d gone for various bits of Ti wherever possible.  I didn’t really get on with this thing though, the frame was a bit shorter (20.8) and I just felt really squirrely riding it.  I swapped it with another RADS local (Sensible Sam!) for a Barcode which lasted for a while until this happend.

After that I bought a Take Ivy in 21″ and that’s been my frame since.  Bizarrely I’ve no pictures of it, but to be honest given how my life has panned out over the last couple of years I haven’t really been riding much anyway.  That’ll change soon though I hope.

MIA:  Mongoose Californian,  Dyno Slammer (with built-in bashguard), Redline RL240, Scotty’s old Dirt Bike, Standard STA, Take Ivy.

Updates to follow, maybe.

Taking a cue from Wes, I recently picked up a Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/2.8 AIS lens off a friend of mine. It’s MF but produces some pretty amazing images and is super sharp assuming you nail the focus. Here’s a few ‘test’ shots I took of the Nike SB / Crazysmiles toys made to commemorate the introduction of BMX at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

While we’re on the subject (BMX, not cheap lenses…), here’s a few taken down at Seedless Clothing where me and Ry found a sick and almost totally original Mongoose Motomag lying around in Skeet’s office.

Here’s some photos taken for Revolt (http://revoltsd.com) Magazine from the X-Games XIV Closing Party on 3rd of August, 2008.  My first time shooting a ‘red carpet’ event, it was pretty difficult getting any subjects attention thanks to the FMX demonstration in the street directly behind us…

“You signed a petition asking the Prime Minister to ‘Prevent Portsmouth City Council closing Southsea Skatepark in September 2007.’

The Prime Minister’s Office has responded to that petition and you can view it here: http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page13600.asp“

The bit that we care about:

However, the Government understands that the council has had a change of heart and that Southsea skatepark will now remain open throughout the winter and beyond. Government further understands that the council is committed to the future of the park and is looking at a range of options both internally and externally.

Best get down there really and ride it before it does eventually disappear… KOC 2008 anyone?!

Some really bad news. I got an email from Taylor and there’s a bulletin on Myspace about this, so I’ll leave it in his words.

Recently our world lost one of its finest members. Gary A. Nesbitt’s body was found in the San Diego Harbor on Sept 29th. Gary has had a tremendous impact on many people. He has no close family so as his friends, we are all he has. We are making arangements for a memorial service at the Clairmont YMCA skatepark. If you would like to help plan or contribute to this event, please contact Taylor Robinson at 619 987- 7433 or email taylorpagerobinson@gmail.com. please foreward to any and everyone who was blessed to know Gary. We are all deeply saddened by this loss.
You are gone but not forgotten

A memorial service is planned for Saturday Oct 6th at the clairemont skatepark
3:30 pm-5:00 pm bike jam
5:00 -? memorial service
please bring food, drinks and stories of how gary impacted your life.

Gary wasn’t a myspace-er. I started this page after hearing of his death. I invite everyone to log on to his myspace page and make it “savage” style. Please sign out and re log on as garynesbitt@yahoo.com with the pass word savage1 and post any thing (pictures, stories, movies) that you would like to share with Gary’s friends.

http://www.myspace.com/garynesbitt

Gary was one of those people that you meet that you instantly consider a friend. He’ll be sorely missed.

RIP Gary.

Potentially the shittest news this year. Even shittier than the weather forecasters announcing that we’d be in for all this rain.

The future of Southsea Skatepark is looking uncertain. Portsmouth City Council is preparing to close the park in September of this year unless a suitable plan can be made in conjunction with a private party that would need to take over the lease of the facilities. A private party with the full support of current skatepark users has approached the council and their business plan was rejected due to out-dated views expressed by council members as to the usage and potential user groups associated with the park. The users of the park; skateboarders, BMX and inline have united to form a user group that will hopefully convince the Local and National Government that these facilities are a necessary part of the local community and that the park is unique and an investment in the future of all active members of the public young and old. Please add your support if you use the park, have ever used the park or if you value a genuine piece of British skate and sporting heritage and the right to campaign for adequate sporting and recreational facilities for the present and future.

I’ve got so many good memories from this place, and I was looking foward to making the trip there this year depending on weather. Make sure you sign the official petition here.

A trip to the physio this morning meant that I was diagnosed with a damaged disc in my lower back. Apparently it should heal in ‘about four weeks’, so in the meantime I’m dosing myself up with Ibuprofen and Paracetamol to numb the pain a bit whilst at work. Sitting in cheapo office chairs is apparently one of the worst things that I could be doing though :(

Not much else doing at the minute, unfortunately. Some good gigs coming up soon mind (Dan Sartain, Retisonic, Joe Lally, Trans Am…), which should mean some action on the photography front. Still debating what to do about a portfolio so I’ll probably continue to use Flickr for the time being…

An update, and it’s about time. So in the past couple of months I’ve moved down to London, started a new contract, and joined the gym. Pretty drastic stuff eh. I’ve had a fair bit more luck than my poor ol’ cuz whose having a hell of a time finding somewhere to live. Managed to find somewhere that’s a ten minute walk to work and just a few stops out on the Central Line to central London – score. Rent isn’t too bad either, although it’s still not cheap compared to living life back up Norf.

Not been up to all that much else really apart from seeing Enablers (more on that in a second), working and settling in. Not checked out anywhere to ride yet – Playstation Bay Sixty6 skatepark is more or less down the road (though that could mean a journey of at least an hour here) so I should make an effort – this is probably the longest I’ve been off my bike that’s not attributable to injury actually :(

So I did manage to see Enablers again at an awesome bar in Camden Town called Barfly. I walked into this place and they had Dirty Deeds on the screen, which is one of the greatest BMX videos of all time from back in the mid-nineties. That was followed by an old Wilkerson Airlines video, ‘Life on the Edge’. Unreal. So I watched both of those and then headed upstairs to see TODD and of course Enablers. I snapped off a few photos [ two, three, four, five, six ] although not too many because there were about four other people there at the front, all vying for decent pictures. I managed to take a few keepers so I stood back after that and just enjoyed the show. Enablers are easily one of my favourite bands.

Photography ‘portfolio’ site coming soon, I promise.

Here’s a couple of snaps I took on Sunday of how Central Skatepark in Manchester is coming along. Looks like it’ll be a lot of fun – there’s a couple of good sized mini / midi ramps towards the back and that ditch with a bowled out vert will be interesting to ride. Harry was on about putting some Jersey barrier deal in along one corner as it’d be the perfect transistion leading up to it.

The park is not far off completion and they’re opening officially on the 28th of October. Just as well there’s somewhere new and fairly local to ride, considering Bones Bolton is now shut down and winter is just around the corner…

I’ve uploaded some photos I took of our trip up to Oakland and back here – there’s a couple from Hollywood / LA, some from San Francisco, and some from the drive back along the PCH including a stop at the Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park which was unreal. The scenery along the coast is something that everyone should witness at some point in their lifetime, it really is that amazing.

The drive back on Monday took us literally all day, we set off not long after 10am and arrived back in San Diego at around 1am the next day. We did stop off at a fair few places though including some trails just south of Oakland, Capitola, and later Santa Barbara for some dinner and a couple of beers on State Street.

All in all it was an ace weekend, I got to check out a couple of different parks (Gilman Street in Berkeley and one in Alameda) as well as some awesome street at the UC Berkeley campus. Shame my back was too sore to ride for most of the time but it was rad just being there all the same, the campus was amazing – so much fun small stuff to ride as well as a crazy selection of rails to throw yourself down. And not a skatestopper in sight which is an amazing thing in itself – totally different to how downtown San Francisco is now for example, I still can’t get over the fact that they stoppered the Embarcadero considering how central that place was to the whole skateboarding scene there at one point.

Oh aye, and the new Giddy Motors album is awesome.

Crikey, I’ll have been back in the US for two weeks this coming Sunday but already it feels like I’ve been here alot longer. So far I’ve managed to get sunburnt, flood a Reverend’s toilet, spend an evening on a booze cruise courtesy of Reef and eat myself almost sick at EZ-J’s. I’ve taken a raft of photos although I haven’t gotten around to sorting and uploading most of them yet, although there’s a few recent ones of Steve Woodward here that are pretty rad, and I’ll have some surfing ones up soon.

Currently I’m in Oakland (Bay Area, right near San Fran and Berkeley) staying at Taylor’s mom’s place (which is siiiick!) for the weekend as he’s up here on some family business. We drove up yesterday from LA after staying the night in Hollywood courtesy of a friend of ours, and the drive up along the PCH around sunset reminded me how beautiful this part of the world is. I was supposed to spend today in San Francisco but dodgy guts and poor directions meant that it didn’t happen – so far. I think the plan for the weekend is to get in a load of riding at various parks, maybe some trails, and of course plenty of booze although I’m hoping to do some touristy stuff as well in Berkeley and SF. It feels like lifetimes ago since me, Wes and Ben were in this area in 2000….

Not much else to report on so far. The drama back home in Blighty is pretty grim, good luck to Fletch on getting himself home with the minimum of hassle. More updates with some photos soon!

Rode trails with a couple of people for the first time in about five years on Sunday somewhere down in Accrington. Pretty good setup, jumps were a bit dry and haggard in places and it looks like they haven’t been maintained by anyone in a while but they were good fun all the same.

As it’s a handy excuse when you don’t want to ride I took my camera down and decided to fire off a few shots. This was the first time I’d taken photos of trails so most of the time I was experimenting with what works and what doesn’t:

Oh and it looks like my visa issues are sorted as my trip down to London and interview on Thursday at the US embassy went really well. Was a bit mental going there, security was insane with police everywhere and two checks before you were even allowed in the building. Sitting inside meant waiting for hours (literally) in a sweaty room (no aircon) for your number to be called so that your application can be screened and then your interview progressed.

Anyways, just awaiting the return of my passport now and then I can rebook my flights and head out to San Diego, hopefully at the end of the month for a return near the end of October.