::MATCH VIDEOZINE NEWS::

9-13-06: Today is a really important day, it's been an entire year since our lovely dog Pixel entered our lives (and then pooped all over our carpet). Happy one year, Pix. Instead of a birthday cake, we're just going to let you chew on the couch for 5 minutes without being punished. Big thanks to Steve Cominski for taking care of Pixel and Gonzo while we've been on the road!

Well, it's been a fun trip. I left Liberec on Sunday morning and we drove to the Prague airport. As I walked down the jetway to get on board my flight to the USA, I noticed that this was one of the first long trips that I had been on where I was actually sad to leave. Most times when I'm on the road for 2-4 weeks at a time, I'm more than ecstatic to leave. Although I was super pumped to see Nina and eat American food again, I was super bummed to leave as well.

Last view of Prague.

Thanks again to everyone that made my trip awesome. I had a great time and I took a lot of good memories and (over 1,200) photos with me.

Oh, but the excitement doesn't end there. Oh no. This was just the beginning...

So we were about 150 miles from the Newark airport when all of a sudden the plane starts flying erratically. They have a little map and plane image on the tv screens that shows the direction of the plane--all of a sudden, it starts making Nike swooshes and heading North....then back east....all over the place, until I finally turned to the guy next to me and said, "Is the pilot lost?" At first we thought it was just a holding pattern, but the way our plane was spinning around was just plain weird. Anyways, about two hours later we finally landed in Newark. Apparently the President was making his grand entrance into New York and everyone had to wait patiently in the air. My 2.5 hr layover turned into an hour layover, which is bad news if you are trying to make a transfer from an international flight (which means that you have to go through immigration, pick up your bag, go through customs, put your bag back onto a transfer cart, go through security again, then run to your gate). I ran as fast as I could to make it to my connecting flight, just in time to see the door close at the gate.

To make an already long story a little bit shorter, I waited for five hours at the airport trying to catch a flight. Unfortunately I couldn't get on one and I had to spend the night on the east coast. Adam Hauck wins the "best friend award" for picking me up and letting me crash at his place for the night (and then braving NJ traffic in the morning to take me back). THANKS BIG ADAM!!

Anyways, I'm back on the west coast, just relaxing in San Francisco with Nina and her family while my jetlag wears off. We're heading back to Portland on Friday at which point I'll be able to finish off the Atomlab teaser. Stay tuned.

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9-9-06: Today was a super productive day. The weather finally cooperated and Jaromir was in the zone. I've been giving him a hard time over the past few days, so I have to redeem myself by posting up a picture that does him justice. Our first stop was his local skatepark..we shot a bunch of stuff, including a huge fufanu on a rail that had a solid 10' drop on the other side. I didn't shoot any digi pics of it because I wanted to make sure that I got the video to look as good as the riding. We did shoot a few other things with my digi, though:
-fufanu from the wedge
-nosepick
-360

After that, we swung by a gas station to get some snacks and Jaro grabbed Czech's main drink, Kofola. Kofola is destroying CocaCola in the Czech Republic, although I doubt anyone in America would like it (its basically Coke with mega sweetners and a lime/vanilla flavor). On the way to the 2426i freeride park we saw the new Mercedes wagon...we passed it with ease, got to the park and banged out a couple lines, like this curved wallride (both ways) and a huge pocket wallride.

We'd had enough park riding, so we decided to head back to Liberec to check out some street spots. Jaro was telling me about the new promotion for the Author A-Gang frames where you get a free car with each complete bike. I didn't believe him, so I rounded up my cash and went into a bike shop and got a new bike....and what do you know, they hooked me up! Also, while we were in the square, there was a couple that had just gotten married. Apparently it's a Czech custom for the groom to walk around after the wedding with a horse collar and a ball-and-chain.

We found this wallride, but the posts were just a *little* too close for comfort. Check out this sweet bus stop, too.

You may have noticed in a few pics, there is this crazy pointed building at the top of the mountain above Liberec. It's called "Jested" and it's a hotel/restaurant as well as a landmark and cell phone tower. It also has some historical significance. The view is pretty ridiculous...check it out.

Today was my last full day in Czech. Tomorrow I'm getting on a flight at 12:30pm to head back to the USA. I had an awesome time here in Europe and hopefully I'll be back soon. Big thanks to Jaromir and Princess, Damjan and his family, Petr Kraus, Mike Flaherty, Greg Hill, Froggy, Tarek Rasouli and everyone else that made this trip possible. Also, a BIG thanks and much respect to Nina for putting up with me being gone on a roadtrip for this long. You're a trooper, babe!

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9-8-06: We drove back to Liberec, CZ yesterday after a mellow day at Petr's house. Liberec is Jaromir's hometown and it's in the northeast corner of Czech, right by the German and Polish borders. We checked out a few street spots today, but the weather wasn't cooperating, so we decided to add a few stamps to my passport by driving an hour to Poland. I figured as long as we were this close, we might as well check it out.

We got over the border with no hassles and had to drive through a mountain pass. All of the mountain towns looked like third-world country style, it was so crazy. We stopped at the first big town and just walked around for a bit, then got back in the car and came back to Czech. Nothing too crazy, but now I can say that I've been to Poland.

After we got back to Czech, Jaro took me their local freeride park, called 2426i. They have a website, but here are some pics that I snapped while we were there. It was too wet to ride, but it looks like a great spot to practice.

Liberec is awesome. Check out their town hall....plus they have mountain biking on TV.

God's beer.

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9-7-06: The last two days have been good, we've been traveling a bit more around Czech. Big thanks to Damjan's family for their hospitality over the past few days. The food was amazing and the company was good too! Thank you!!

Damjan and I did a little sight-seeing around his town before we left...we went to Dom, which is a super famous church in Czech history. In August of 1306, the last Czech king was murdered inside the church, bringing an end to the rule of kings (and the birth of democracy) in the Czech Republic. This place was crazy and absolutely enormous...the entrance to get there is a sketchy little alley, and once you get through it, you're just blown away my the beauty and size of such a beautiful church.

Next on the list was a freeride park en route to Petr Kraus' house. Damjan brought out both bikes and slayed both the dirt jumps and the stunts. The weather was off-and-on, but we managed to get some stuff done.

Todd Bosch must be huge in Czech, they named a city after him.

Damjan and I tried to get some lunch at a gas station on the road, but it wasn't doing the job. I'd been traveling for a while in Europe and I needed a taste of home...some "comfort food" if you will. Whenever I travel in Europe (or anywhere for that matter), I try my best to eat what everyone else is eating. But you can only do that for so long, so we stopped in a random city along the drive and I bought the most American-looking food I could find.

We got to Petr's town and hit up some dirt jumps. While we were waiting for Jaromir and Petr to arrive, I borrowed Damjan's helmet and full suspension bike for a short session. The jumps were pretty beat but it didn't stop me from getting a little riding in. After sitting through a full week of Eurobike, I needed to pedal a bit...amazing how a few minutes in the air makes it all better.

Petr and Jaro showed up eventually and we went back to Petr's house. He has a big barn with a skatepark inside, just a few feet from his front door. A couple of his ramps are actually his mobile demo setup, which only takes a few minutes to assemble.

This is me being a Grom: Petr Kraus has always been one of my favorite riders, so it's a trip for me to be chilling at his house with him. He made this video WAY back in the day called "Gooseneck" and I remember how hard I tried to score a copy of it when I was growing up. Since then, I've never seen the video...something always happened that prevented me from seeing it. It's literally the only trials video that I haven't seen, so once we arrived, I begged Petr to show it to me. Not only did we watch it, but he gave me a copy to take home. Even though it's in PAL format, I'm just stoked that I got to see it. It was well worth the wait, and who would've ever guessed that when I finally did get to see it, I would be sitting next to Jaromir Spesny and Petr Kraus!

Damjan had to go home today, so after a good session in the warehouse, we said goodbye to him. From here on out, I'll be traveling with Jaro back to his hometown and his freeride park. We might even make a sidetrip to Poland so I can put another stamp on my passport. Big thanks to Damjan for being my chauffeur this past week. I had an awesome time with Damjan and hopefully I will see him again soon! (Damjan, I still owe you an american breakfast!! haha)

Ross Measures claims that this is the best video segment ever produced. Definitely check it out.

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9-5-06: Dorian Chapman hooked up a photo gallery from Bearclaw's Invitational event....and here's a pic from him of Jordie working on his trick...errr....no clue what the name of the trick is, it almost looks like a 720 backflip in this pictures. He stuck this at the contest and won best trick..

While you're checking out pics, here are a couple of Walker Wilkerson. He's getting flow from Black Market and has a couple clips in the upcoming Atomlab movie "Tough As Hell". I only got one day to shoot with him, but I'm sure we'll be shooting together more in the future. Walker slays it.

Last night marked the first (and last) time that I'll ever drink Absinthe. Damjan and I went out for a little pub crawl and sampled the local nightlife. If you've never heard of Absinthe, it's because it's illegal in the USA. Czech is one of the few countries where you can get it ($12 for a 1.75L bottle). It was made famous by a ton of authors and artists (Hemingway, etc) back in the day because it apparently makes you hallucinate. It smells like vanilla but the second it touches your throat, you feel like you just swallowed a grenade. I think its 180 proof...Google it.

Another Czech tradition is shooting gold tequila with cinnamon and oranges instead of salt and limes. They still use the salt and limes with silver tequila, but for the gold stuff, they break out the oranges.

Metal Mulisha is HUGE over here...Bike 'Em All!

Back to bikes...we woke up this morning and met up with Michael Matys. We were going to session a miniramp but it was super windy so everyone left. Damjan decided that he wanted to get some stuff done, so after some discussion, we turned around and rode it for a bit. Walltap // Fufanu // Table air

On the drive home, we saw a wallride off the road. Damjan barspun out of it, but I was holding my video camera in one hand and my digi in the other hand...so I kind of cut him off. Ah well, the video came out a lot better, and that's more important.

Siesta!

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9-4-06: Damjan and I drove 11 hours yesterday to get to his hometown of Olomouc in the Czech Republic. We drove until about 4am and when we got into town it was raining, so I didn't get to see much until I crawled out of bed at noon today.

Before I continue with this post, I'd like to say something to my good friends back home who always give me a hard time about driving the "rental car" at such safe speeds: I'M PINNING IT ON THE AUTOBAHN IN A MERCEDES AND YOU'RE NOT!!! Pffffffffffftt!

Anyways, we got organized this afternoon and headed into downtown Olomouc. This town is in eastern Czech (Moravia) and has about 100,000 citizens. We ran some errands and then went to the town square to see what was up. On our way there, I saw a poster for the ever-famous "Royal with Cheese", which is the "McRoyal" here...for all you Pulp Fiction fans.

Damjan cashed in his prize money from his third place finish at the Eurobike dirt jump contest...after seeing one of the walls in his room, I realized that maybe killing it at contests isn't such a new thing for him. I knew Damjan rode trials, but I had no idea. Before he made the switch to freeriding and dirt/street stuff, he was a Master level trials rider in the BIU and UCI. Master is the highest ranking on the world circuit for a 26" trials rider.

We stopped by a tiny market today on our way out of town and I wanted to get something to drink. I figured that I could get one of those tiny Red Bull-sized cans of Coke or something, but the SMALLEST bottle of Coke they had at the market was THIS! On the way out, I took the opportunity to remind Damjan of how much Americans get harassed by Europeans for all of their oversized-ness. Holy crap...I'll be lucky if I finish this bottle of Coke by the end of my Euro trip...

Our plan for the rest of the week is to rest up today, then ride and shoot tomorrow around Olomouc. Wednesday we are going to Petr Kraus' house to meet up with Petr and Jaromir, then after a few days there, I think we're going to Jaro's hometown to do some more riding. It should be a good week, I'm just psyched to be away from the tradeshow and experiencing the REAL Europe...away from all the tourist stuff.

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9-3-06: Last full day of Eurobike today...they let the consumers in to check everything out and it was SUPER packed. They had the dirt finals today...Chopper (Grant Fielder) won and Damjan got third, Timo got fourth and the Breinstein brothers picked up fifth and sixth. Second place was a local German kid who did a double barspin, tuck no-hander to barspin and a bunch of other good stuff.

I had a couple meetings today and then we packed up and headed back to Czech. Before I left, I tried to make the rounds to say goodbye to everyone...I hadn't seen Carlo Dieckmann all week, and we finally connected about an hour before I left. Unfortunately, he's such a supestar in Europe that I had to wait out an autograph-hungry mob before we could chat it up. Timo and Carlo are HUGE over in Germany!

After a few goodbyes (sorry to everyone we missed, see you at Interbike), Damjan and I piled back into the van...we stopped at a gas station/restaurant to grab a quick bite before we got on the road. They had this menu item called "What Americans Eat" and it was the WORST MEAL EVER. It was mystery meat with a side of potato salad covered in eggs. I was so hungry that I just sent it, but I hope that I can avoid this kind of food for the rest of the trip. Damjan assured me that Czech food is much better. I told him the last time I saw an American eat food like this was when I walked through the middle school cafeteria at my dad's school.

Here's a few pics from the day:
-The taxi that picked us up today...how's this for calling shotgun?
-Bacardi and cola pre-mixed in a can!
-Obligatory German Smart Car photo
-Deity Components is getting a lot of great press over here...they got the coveted 10/10 in MBUK this month! Congrats Eric and Sadie!!
-Eastern's new full suspension frame
-Eastern's new complete singlespeed bike
-Eastern's aluminum complete bike (why aluminum, guys?)
-Check out the top of the Red Bull cans in Germany

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9-2-06: Today we just basically wandered around the show...Uwe from Mountain Bike Rider was doing a photoshoot with all of the bikes from Eurobike. Jaro and I took Michal Prokop's bike to the photo booth and I got to do the thing where you balance the bike and then take your hands away super quick. STOKED.

After that, we watched the dirt qualifying...Here's a few pics from the event:
-Trond Hansen: barspin / tailwhip
-Damjan Siriski 360
-Chris Smith suicide

I remember that Scott Hart posted pics of a cigarette machine from Nuremburg, but I've got the one-up here. You can buy BEER from a Coke machine!! CHECK IT!

Here's a couple more pics from the day:
-A zepplin over Eurobike
-2007 Iron Horse Sunday
-Trixer hydraulic gyro
-Jaro's second liquid breakfast

Bearclaw Invitational results (thanks Dorian):
1. McCaul
2. Bearclaw
3. Porter

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9-1-06: Here comes the second Eurobike post. Finding a good connection around here is nearly impossible, so bear with me on this. Thankfully I have a 9 hour jump on most of you...here are pics from my first full day at Eurobike:

-Atomlab Trailking cranks, these are as stong as Profiles but as light as XTRs. Mike doesn't have a price on them yet but he says that they are probably going to be expensive.
-Here's the view from the hotel we stayed at the first night
-Michal Prokop's World Championship bike in the Author booth
-Damjan's signature bike from Author
-Trailpimp and General Issue complete bikes from Atomlab
-Close-up of the Trailpimp complete
-Close-up of the General Issue completes
-I had perma-grin for like four hours after this pic was taken
-XXX WHAT?
-Black Market "BadaBing" bars
-Black Market seat and seatpost
-Black Market's section in the SportsNut Distribution booth
-Nico from Ride-It, sporting a fresh t-shirt
-Cannondale's Perp frame
-Is this for your car or body?
-Commencal booth
-Commencal DH frame
-Bodypainting ONE TWO
-SRAM Totem
-RB (Czech) Gearbox
-Diamondback prototype DH bike
-Here's what South African money looks like (featuring Morewood's Richard Carter)
-Mick Hannah's World Championship bike
-Switzerland's mountains
-Spaceman had a liquid breakfast today
-Yours truly in Germany with Swiss in the background
-The Zepplin Museum

Eurobike is definitely cool, there is so much stuff that I've never even seen before. In fact, there are SO many bike brands over here, I have no idea how they all get traction in the media and stuff. It's really overwhelming to walk around and look at everything...honestly it's just TOO big. The booths are all pretty sweet, and as you can see by the photos, there are definitely some fun toys floating around.

Tomorrow there will be the qualifying for the dirt jump event. I'm not expecting much...the dirt is more like finely ground gravel. A lot of the top riders aren't even going to ride because they are SO bad.

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8-31-06: Well, get ready for another solid block of crazy updates. I am in Germany as I type this update and the last 48 hours have been insane. I'm honestly amazed at how well I kept it together after not sleeping at all on the flight over...but we'll get to that. Let me keep it in order....I shot over 150 photos since my last post, so this is going to be somewhat of a slideshow.

-Sunrise in Wisconsin (this marks the official beginning to my journey)

I made it to JFK in New York and got the full tour as I transferred around from terminal to terminal. I thought I was going to miss my flight because my previous one left late and I had to take a train and walk two miles to get to the next gate (not to mention passing through security in NYC again). I ran to the security zone and as soon as I got to the front of the line, they told me that I had to go back to the Czech Airlines counter and check in again...so then I ran back, CZECH'd in (haha) and ran back to security. I made it through and boarded the plane with no problems. I even texted Porter one last question for his upcoming interview from the plane prior to take off (it's a question about robots).

One last look at the USA...won't be back for another 12 days...

Sunrise over the UK, I was having tea and crumpets when I took this picture!

The flight was uneventful, except instead of those tiny tvs that they usually have on international flights, they had these monsters hanging down from the ceiling. It wouldn't have been a big deal, but there was one right in front of me and it kept me awake for the entire flight (Hello Jetlag!). To add insult to injury, the movie that was playing was "The Cutting Edge 2" which is a figure skating movie. I was ready to grab the girl's skates and stab myself in the eye after no sleep and crummy tv.

But I digress, all of my frustrations melted as soon as I saw this sign. The airport in Prague is pretty sweet, you can pretty much fly anywhere in the entire world from this airport on a direct flight.

Damjan Siriski picked me up and we began our drive to Eurobike (650km). We made a quick stop in Prague so I could be a super-tourist for a bit. Here's where the real photo action comes in.

-Hey Nina, someone painted a mural of Pixel! (lower right)
-Pointed Cathedral
-I tried to grab the wheel and drive us in the direction to the left, but Damjan persisted
-Czech IKEA
-Buildings in Prague that were built in the Communist era

Here's what money looks like in Czech. They are slowly converting to the Euro, but at this point they are still using money called Korun. 200 Korun is about $20 US, I think.

Hi Mom! I give Prague two thumbs up! Here are some pics from the Charles bridge, this is the most famous bridge in Prague, built in the 1300s. Damjan told me that they used eggs as an ingredient in the cement when they built this bridge. It seemed pretty sturdy to me, though.

-Priest statue
-Saint statue
-Jesus statue
-A view of "the castle" (parliament building) from the bridge

If you're a trials geek, you've seen the Libor Karas movie "The Bouncing Czech"...this is the same bridge that he was riding on, and I could be wrong but maybe this is the same band from the movie?

Random park photo while we were walking down the street...

It's no problem if you can't bring your toiletries with you in your carry-on, they have "toiletries" here in Prague. Get it??

Prague is a super sick place to be...all of the buildings are really old and beautiful. Everywhere you look, there is something that will absolutely blow your mind. Like this Frank Gehry building, called the Dancing Building.

-Czech Republic's national theater
-The Torture Museum
-A shot of Prague from the Charles Bridge

We kept walking and found another town square, this one had a HUGE clock tower, it was super intricate and if we would've had time, we could've watched it go off (apparently it's a giant cuckoo clock and mechanical people come out and dance). More cathedrals, statues, etc and my mind is completely blown. Not only have I not slept in two days, but this place is incredible.

Right now, I'm sure the question on everybody's mind is: "Hey Aaron, what's the food like in Prague?" Funny you should ask...
Damjan and I swung into a local market and picked up a quick bite for lunch. I was pretty confused, so I let Damjan take the lead. I told him to pick out his favorite foods and I would try those...so here is his favorite sandwich (well, second-favorite...the In-N-Out Double-Double is sitting at number one). It's a sandwich with what looks like four chicken mcnuggets, drenched in big mac sauce, mixed with lettuce. It was actually pretty good, and to be honest it looked like the safest bet for food in this market.

Damjan topped it off with these cakes. You can find these anywhere in Czech, so if you ever get here, don't hesitate to pick these up. They are little biscuits with jelly, covered in chocolate. SUPER TASTY. I'm going to definitely bring a few boxes of these home with me. Oh yeah, we washed it down with Cokes the size of Red Bull cans!

We finished eating and headed back to the van so we could get our roadtrip on. We had 650km to drive to get to Freidrickshafen, which is where Eurobike is held. Shortly after we left Prague, we were at the border for Germany. Crossing country lines over here isn't much more complicated than crossing a state line in the USA, except they stamped my passport (thank you) and gave me a friendly nod.

Here's a little digi cam video that I put together from our drive on the Autobahn yesterday (right click + save as). Keep in mind that we had it pinned...and if you can't see this video (only the audio plays), it's because you don't have the newest version of Quicktime. Download it at quicktime.com for free. Or, just listen to the audio, it was on the radio while we were driving through Germany!

-The autobahn....no speed limit...
-This is the only Ferrari we saw on the Autobahn
-Hey Carter, you're right...this is pretty funny...its like the joke that never gets old. I think I chuckled quietly to myself every time we passed one of these signs (so that's about 600 times in one day).
-Adam Hauck poster in DirtBiker magazine (Czech)
-Follow the sunlight to Eurobike!
-German roadsign
-I showed this picture to Uwe from Mountain Bike Rider and he thought it was pretty funny, so I'm reposting it for Monika in hopes that she'll get a kick out of it too.
-Is this Germany or is it Wisconsin?
-Semi-familiar beer truck (Czech)

We finally arrived at Eurobike around 7pm...everybody was gone, but we got to walk around and check out the zone. The Atomlab booth looks awesome. Check back tomorrow for pics of that...and the rest of Eurobike. Here's a shot of the "test track" from the pavilion...this place KILLS interbike. I told Damjan that the worst booth at Eurobike is better than the best booth at Interbike. Wait until you see the pics from tomorrow's update. This place is amazing.

That's it for the first update. Cheers from Germany!

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8-29-06: Well, you can thank our good friend "General Error" for the lack of Atomlab video teaser. I spent the other night hacking away at the teaser but for some reason it wouldn't render properly. It's going to have to wait until after Eurobike...sorry to get everyone all amped up, but you're going to have to wait until I get home. It will be worth the wait, I promise. The vid came out great and you're going to Eurobike you can see the full thing in the Atomlab booth in the Pavilion.

Porter is going to have an interview coming up in the Interbike issue of Mountain Biking. I just saw the text and it came out super good. Porter talks about big mountain riding, cooking with appropriate music (imagine that, question about food!) and everything else that keeps him busy on a day-to-day basis.

I'm just getting ready to leave for Prague. In a little over 12 hours, I'm going to be rocking out with Damjan in Czech!! I'll probably get bored on the flight and do another big update...and with any luck I'll find an internet connection and update daily at Eurobike. Stay tuned for live coverage!!

In the meantime, here's a link to the first Monster Park clip...courtesy of Yonathan Arava (Right click + save as)

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8-27-06: Check out the new Black Market Bikes website: www.blackmarketbikes.com

Happy birthday (yesterday) to Steve Cominski of GoHuckYourself.com and thanks again for dealing with Pixel and Gonzo.

I am in the process of editing the teaser for the Atomlab/Blk Mrkt video today, so check back and hopefully I'll be able to post it tonight.

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8-25-06: I completely forgot to post the front side of the Atomlab party flyer that had the date on it. My bad....here it is! Be there or be square! The Wednesday of Interbike...it's GO TIME.

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8-22-06: Get comfortable, I've been sitting on an airplane for three hours and I haven't had a good update in a week or so...here comes my attempt at redemption:

Monster Park Final Results:

1. Bearclaw
2. Cam McCaul
3. Paul Basagoitia

It's time for an update. Sorry about the lack of updates lately, it's entirely due to the fact that I've been buried with work trying to wrap up Atomlab/BlkMrkt "Tough As Hell" and put a few more projects together in time for Eurobike (check the RST booth specifically at Eurobike if you're going to be there). The Atomlab video is all done, authored, and on its way to be duplicated right now. It came out really well, lots of bangers...especially Adam Hauck's part. An unnamed fellow video producer saw Adam's segment and claims that it's the best mtb-street segment that he's ever seen. Adam did a lot of extra-credit filming for his part and definitely delivered some knock-out footage.

It looks like we may or may not have copies for sale at Eurobike (although we will be showing it off at the Atomlab booth in the pavilion) but we will DEFINITELY have copies ready in time for Interbike. Furthermore, we're having a big party in Vegas at the Double Down to show off the video. It's not really a "premiere" so much as a party with live music and PBR with a bike video playing all over the place. That's the vibe we're going for, if you decide that you'd rather pay $12 for a vodka/red bull than bro down and drink cheap beer, there is a video premiere on the other side of town earlier in the night. As a matter of fact, I think our party is going to outlast the rest, so feel free to scope out the other premieres and join us afterwards if you want to check out the other premieres. I can't vouch for the PBR supply, though...it might be gone if you put our party in the #2 spot on your list.

On a completely unrelated note, I've decided to embrace the harassment that I've been getting for all of the food photos on this website. I plan to celebrate the culinary diversity which is offered by the constant domestic and international traveling that I do in the midst of my work. I figure if guys like Scott Hart, Cam McCaul, Jeff Lenosky, Eric Porter and Harookz are giving me a hard time about it, I must be doing something right. Besides, WHO ISN'T STOKED ON IN-N-OUT?!

The Worlds are going down in New Zealand right now...best of luck to everyone down there. Check out Peaty's bike...and the water hazard on the course!! Pics courtesy of Kathy Sessler.

Ryan Denehy just got back from England, he was shooting with the DMR team. He sent me this pic of one of the UK riders boosting the foam pit. I think there is a DMR promo DVD in the works. Check out Ryan's site for more info.

Also, if you're over in the UK right now, you can check out a couple episodes of Match Videozine on the Extreme Channel (thanks Chris Ratcliff). Go here to check the schedule. The Extreme Channel took all of our roadtrips and made a show out of it. Cool.

Justin Schroth, Seth Lolli and a couple other guys from Boston are participating in a fundraiser for the Arthritis Foundation. I figured that since we're probably all on a short path headed in the direction of arthritis from all of the crashes and stuff, we might as well be forward-thinking and pitch in to help out the foundation that is probably going to be hooking us up in about 30 years. Go here if you want to make a tax-deductible donation to their team. Oh yeah, and they're racing Karts at F1 Boston for the fundraiser if you want to go check it out.

The Cut Slopestyle event was called off at Diablo, if you haven't already read about it. It sounds like The Cut has something else in the works for the future, though, so hopefully this event will happen at some point...somewhere. I think it's great that Cannondale has stepped in and is helping advance the slopestyle events worldwide. If you haven't been paying attention, The Cut has been putting on a slopestyle series over in Europe all summer with the help of Mountain Bike Rider magazine. Hopefully we can get something going soon in the USA...

On a semi-related note, DH Productions just released a video called "Tricktionary Vol. 1" and it's really good. I didn't get a chance to work on this vid, but I saw it the other day and was really impressed. Chase and Lenosky are the hosts and they do a great job of breaking down every trick from Wheelies to 360s...the bonus out-takes are pretty funny, too. Definitely worth checking out, get it here.

Big thanks to those of you who have donated to Sergio's Fund. Check out the website for reports and videos of his progress!

This update marks yet another post written at 35,000 feet. I left Portland on Sunday and I won't be back until September 15th...I was in San Francisco for the weekend and now I'm headed back to the midwest for a couple days to spend time with my family (Happy 35th Anniversary Mom and Dad) and then I'm off to Prague to meet up with Jaromir Spesny, Damjan Siriski and hopefully Petr Kraus. We're going to Eurobike for a couple days and then back to Prague to do some riding/shooting. I am stoked...the Czech Republic is on my top five list of places that I wanted to visit, so I am looking forward to crossing it off the list. Plus, Pilsner Urquell has been on a media blitz lately and I want to see how the Czech version compares to the USA version.

I spent yesterday in San Francisco with Nina, we went people-watching down by Pier 39 and were surprised to see a three-story banner for SOAP. If you haven't seen this movie, Alex says that you should stop what you're doing and go watch it. Moving on, we saw the infamous San Francisco Bushman. He has these two branches and he sits on the sidewalk and scares pedestrians. It's actually a pretty good gag, you should see how some people jump when he yells "BOO!" at them. Even funnier was that he had a full audience of easily 30 people standing about 20 feet behind him just watching the reactions of people. This one guy almost jumped into traffic he was so scared. We watched for a good 20 minutes until our faces hurt from laughing so hard.

Check this out: INTERMTB.com

Allow me to vent for a moment...Northwest Airlines is a mess. Not only were there flight attendants outside of the SF airport this morning handing out fliers that said, "We're going on strike on Friday, but feel free to continue flying NWA" but in addition, they didn't have ANYTHING to eat on my four hour flight today, unless I wanted to pay $5 for a crummy snack box. What happened to the free pretzels and stuff? Northwest (or NorthWORST as I've affectionately referred to it lately) gets two thumbs down. Meanwhile, Delta has choices for snacks and they actually taste pretty good...and Continental was still serving meals the last time I flew them (a couple weeks ago). Especially with the new restrictions on carry on items, I would strongly encourage all of you to keep this in mind next time you book a flight.

Anyways...with all this traveling we should have plenty of good updates on the way. Stay tuned and bring a friend.

Top five songs on my new iPod Nano (thanks Neen):
1. "Tyrant" - The Bravery
2. "Cheat On The Church" - Graveyard BBQ/Guitar Hero
3. "Spanish Castle Magic" - Jimi Hendrix
4. "Jesus Walks" - Kanye West
5. "Behind Closed Doors" & "Prayer of the Refugee"- Rise Against

p.s. BIG HUGE THANKS to Steve Cominski from GoHuckYourself.com for taking care of Pixel and Gonzo while I'm gone!!

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8-21-06: I just had a quick second to get online...apparently finals got rained out yesterday at Monster Park so today is the big day. Steven Bafus called and gave me a quick report. The usual suspects qualified for finals (Paul Bas, Bearclaw, McCaul, etc), although yesterday Kirt Sorge (who made the finals) was practicing on a drop and broke his collarbone...so Steve Romaniuk took his spot in the finals. From what I heard, Zink and Strait aren't at the event, so if you're betting on Littermag's site, keep that in mind!

There is a much bigger update on the way. Sit tight.

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8-17-06: The news bin is overflowing with information that I need to post up here, but I'm in the final stages of finishing off the Atomlab video, so it's going to have to wait. The new Atomlab/Blk Mrkt video is turning out ridiculous, I honestly think it's some of our best work (riders and shooters both). Get your copy at Eurobike or Interbike, whichever continent you prefer. I am stoked because I'll be at both premieres.

Good luck to the riders at Monster Park this weekend!

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8-14-06: Here is the Bend Bike Rodeo report, courtesy of Landon Holt. Big thanks to Landon for shooting the photos and writing the following report:

“Everything in moderation, including moderation...”-Rob Lindberg.

With a purple Volvo loaded to the point of bursting, Tonic Fab embarked on a journey east over a mountain on fire to the Bend Bike Rodeo. It’s well understood that desperate times require desperate measures, and as usual Tonic Fab found itself bent over a barrel. Trading Match Videozine’s Aaron Lutze the use of his camera for my photojournalism services potentially worth thousands to any legitimate publication felt like a brutal Singapore Caning, but it’s shrewd deals like this that have helped Mr.Lutze build his media empire.

Despite the mountain and fire, the journey east proved to be the easiest portion of the trip. At Tonic Fab, we seldom have the ability to exercise self-control on any level, and passing Don Guido’s Italian Restaurant in Zig Zag looked too good to pass up. We where serenaded by the restaurant’s romantic atmosphere and live acoustic music. Feeling perfectly out of place, a gentle version of Guns and Roses “Sweet Child O’Mine” brought tears to our eyes as we struggled to contain ourselves and maintain the tranquility of the evening for the benefit of the other restaurant patrons. I may have had to spit out my drink at one point, but I was determined to contain the spray entirely by the glass. This was, after all, a Classy Joint.

From Don Guido’s it was straight shot to our remote destination, approximately 20 minutes outside of Bend. We couldn’t have wished for a more perfect hide-out. Plumbing issues required the use of a bucket of water to flush the toilet, but beyond that, the we had everything we could have possibly needed. Except a shower. With Tonic Fab’s executive accommodation secured, we eagerly awaited the arrival of our athletes to discuss strategies for the next day’s event. Required tricks, outfit coordination, and a ribbon cutting ceremony at a used car dealership opening all need to be organized. Unfortunately Team Tonic Fab (arriving from Seattle) found themselves stranded for evening on a remote stretch of freeway, and their arrival would be delayed for the evening. We discussed the possibility of recovering our team from this potentially dangerously situation, but the lure of a comfortable couch and a fridge full of beer made their problems seem puny relative to the maintenance of our own sweet comfort.

The next day we arrived at the Rodeo and discovered the following course set-up: 20 foot roll-in to a collection of 3 wooden booters to dirt landings and finally a bank to banked wall set up in excess of 20 feet. And a very vertical spine. All of this was contained in a asphalt parking lot which approached near Hades level of temperature.. Miraculously, Team Tonic Fab survived their night in the lawless wasteland surrounding Bend and joined the other riders who had arrived to notch their names in Bike Rode history. Besides organizing the event, and drumming up an incredible prize list, Rage also organized a Helicopter to film a few of the pro runs. Meanwhile, Tonic Fab executives took sponge baths in the Food 4 Less bathroom in preparation for a day in public.

The Bend Bike rodeo is unique because it’s based on the “Run What You Brung” theory. There are no separate categories for Mountain Bike, or BMX. To the Ski Movie producers who organize this event, it’s all one thing. 20, 24, 26..it’s all just bikes. Probably the most unique category at the Rodeo were the Groms.. 13 and under, and nearly all of them riding enormous DH bikes. 70 lb. Riders on 45lb. Bikes. These kids rode all day, and impressed everyone with their gumption. If they are the future of the sport, the future looks strong. Literally.

Despite the utter oppressiveness of spending 10 hours in a GI JOE’s parking lot, the event was laid-back, and fun. Rage Films did a great job. On to the event....

With Seattle heavies Phil Sundbaum, Travis Erickson, Andy Sundbaum, Guy Marsh, and Billy Lewis rounding out Pro, the level of riding was very high. Phil rode flawlessly; enormous 3's, back flips, tailwhips and a 3-whip to first place. Next, Bend local Devon, riding a 20. Big turndowns, 3's , pendulums, and some creative use of the spine to 2nd. Travis Erickson wound up 3rd with big flips, tuck-no handers, and a cool wall run/plant combo. Rounding out the money winners was Guy Marsh. Guy easily rode more than anyone. From Guinea Pigging all the jumps to riding in Pro finals, Guy simply didn’t stop riding for 10 hours. Guy fought fatigue and clicked turn-downs, huge boosts, and no-cans to 4th. Rodeo turned out to be a good term for the event, as a lot of riders wound up getting “bucked.” Notably last years winner, Chris Johnson, Andy Sundbaum (pulled a double tailwhip in practice), Billy Lewis, and Simple Bike’s Carl all got taken out early.

In Ams, Portland Local and Diesel Jeans wearer, Paul Laclava took home first prize. In this case, a new Santa Cruz Jackal frame. Was it the jeans, or his riding that swayed Judge Kurt Voreis decision? We may never know..In second, “Dude on a dual suspension bike whose name I forgot.” Rode well, pulled some nice tricks, so word. Sliding into 3rd, Tonic Fab’s Aaron “I don’t do tricks” Nachtrab. Maintained his trick celibacy (good work), but boosted everything (including the wall ride) with his usual smoothness. Probably the only rider to race DH the next day too?

That evening, we retreated to our remote and primitive compound for pizza, beer and pain killers. A fine ending to week-end of fun.

10-4,

Landon.

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8-10-06: Wow, two posts in one day...pretty rare these days with the madness that's been going down lately in my schedule. Maybe this is the calm before the storm. I have 9 days to finish off the Atomlab/BlkMrkt video...my schedule has been cleared and most of the footage is already imported...now it's just a matter of putting it to music and making it look good. Maybe you're wondering: "What goes into making a bike video?" The real answer is right HERE. Big thanks to Ron over at Red Bull for hooking me up. Who wants to bet that I can make this whole stack of Red Bull disappear before the video is done??

My amazingly beautiful and extremely tolerant girlfriend Nina just bought a Macbook last week and it has a video chat function. Jeff Lenosky also has one of the new Macbooks, so instead of bothering with the archaic cell phone technology, we've been video chatting it up. He's in Wisconsin right now with Doug Smith, Smutok and Ebbett doing demos for Camp Jeep at Elkhart Lake. This morning he got a wireless connection in the demo area and I got to watch Ebbett guinea the dirt jump (great camera work, Jeff).

Here's a few more entertaining screen shots that I snagged:
-No clue on this one
-J-Lo reppin' the Two-Six?!

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8-10-06: As promised, pics of the new 2007 Blk Mrkt MOB frames...I honestly didn't think this frame could get much better, but Carter managed to pull it off:
-Engraved headtube w/ removeable gyro tabs
-Laser cut seatstay and chainstay bridges (the chainstay bridge doubles as a bottle opener)
-Built-in seatpost clamp

Here's a pic of the new Underboss zero rise stem...also, Carter says that there is going to be a very limited run of 22.5" top tube frames for Sundbaum-sized riders. All of the 2007 frames will come with a sticker pack, which will allow everyone to sticker up their bikes as they see fit.

The Atomlab/Blk Mrkt video is coming out at Eurobike. I'm working on it right now, so expect a teaser in about two weeks.

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8-8-06: I just got back from a full day of shooting with Phil Sundbaum to finish off his segment for the upcoming Atomlab video. We went out with Walker Wilkerson to ride street and hit up a few parks. Landon from Tonic Fab brought out his two team riders, Billy Lewis and Guy Marsh. Let's just say that it was a full day with plenty of good stuff going down. I handed my digital camera over to Landon and he snapped a ton of good photos while I was shooting. Here they are:

-Andrew Carpenter rode with us for a bit, he did a lookback across the entire skatepark
-Then Andrew and Phil trained the same gap
-Guy Marsh came through with a turndown at Fenwick
-We went street riding and Phil found a good wallride
-Guy hit it up, too
-Walker Wilkerson boosting on a street spot that we found near an offramp
-Guy blasting it way farther than everyone
-Billy Lewis' new Tonic Fab Fall Guy frame (check out the painted headset cap and mid bb caps)
-Bonney Lake has a sick skate-only park that Phil invaded
-Tailwhip transfer from a two foot transition
-Billy inverted the same transition then blew it up with some sick style

Also, head over to Decline's website and check out Scott's latest post under the "Community" tab. Lots of good pics and stories from his trip to the Nuremberg District Ride. There are even two pics dedicated to this website! There is also a pic of McCaul holding a hydraulic gyro on the update...here is a close-up view of the gyro...if you want more info, go here.

There is going to be a contest in Bend, Oregon this weekend (the 12th). Go here for more information. A lot of NW people are heading down to it, it should be a pretty awesome event. Definitely check it out if you're in the area.

There is a huge slopestyle event going on in New Jersey in a couple weeks, presented by The Cut (Cannondale). Go here to get all of the information.

Our roommate Alex had to head back to Minneapolis to get back to his college education...although I'm sure we gave him quite the education while he was here. Haha...thanks again for coming out Alex, see you next year!!

Lastly...here's a pic that was on my digital camera from the last import...Timo boosting it huge at Crankworx

I have spy photos of the 2007 Blk Mrkt MOB frames on my desktop...look for tomorrow's update with the official pics...

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8-4-06: ADAM HAUCK WINS the Oakley Sick-O-Trick in Nuremberg! Day one qualifying is over and McCaul is in first...read on for the official press release:

After a great training session this morning at Nuremberg’s awesome urban freeride course, the riders were ready to throw down their first run of qualifying at 3pm. The sun came out right for before the 1st rider and the crowds were piling up to catch the great show. In fact 15,000 people already came for the qualifying day. Who knows how many will come tomorrow for the finals!!!

First real impressive run got thrown down by Timo Pritzel from Berlin, Germany. He was already going off in the dirt district in practice, but in his qualifying run it went nearly all perfect. Just at the big drop which is going down almost 9 meters (over 25ft.) which he cleared on his hardtail, he slipped the pedal. After some backflips on the course and some great style he finished in the dirt jumps with a flip, table top-one foot and a 360. 3rd place for Timo.

The 2nd place rider was a big surprise. Amir Kabbani who is 17years old and the youngest competitor in Nuremberg. He already showed great performance in Catania, Italy three weeks ago. But today he impressed many more people. He turned some people’s heads when he jumped out of the wings district with a barspin to fully extended x-up. At the Up’n’down step up box he jumped up with one more barspin and jumped down with a 360, which was the greatest performance in that district. Heads up to this young fellow, we are curious what he will show us in the future.

Just like in Catania. the day 1 qualifying 1st place goes to Cameron McCaul. He had most tricks to show like a x-up down the big drop and couple of barspins and no foot cans. In the really difficult and big dirt jumps he jumped a no-foot can at the first set and another one to the opposite side on the 2nd set and a tailwhip at the last set. Big points from the judges and 1st place on Friday for Cameron.

A few hot shots had bad luck in their first run. Andreu Lacondeguy (2nd place form Catania) crashed hard with a big backflip just before the finish at the first dirt jump. Crankworx Winner Cameron Zink also had a scratch in his first run, because he crashed at the big drop.

Right after the qualifying the top 5 riders that impressed the judges the most in the street district went for Oakley’s Sick O Award. It was killin’ time for last year’s winner Aaron Chase, Lance McDermott, Cameron McCaul, Grant Fielder and Adam Hauck.
Aaron did great 360 nose picks but ended up in 2nd-place tie with Lance McDermott who did awesome handplant 360’s over the spine as well as a huge backflip over the spine.

The winner was the 18yr. old youngster from New Jersey, Adam Hauck. Adam killed it in the street district, he cleared tailwhips in the quarter and even went for wallride to tailwhips which impressed the judges most and he finally won the Sick O Award which was a pretty sick prize: the Oakley O-ROKR Bluetooth glasses together with a limited edition Motorola phone in gold!!! On top Adam earned himself 1,000 Euros and we are curious how the rookie will do in the future, but much respect for the amazing performance.

We can expect a really exciting 2nd run tomorrow just before lunchtime, since quite a few riders crashed and it is still tight in the top 15. So who will make it into the top 10?

And more important who will be on the podium? The FORD pick up truck is waiting, so come and check it out tomorrow in Nuremberg and start betting your money on who will win that one!!!

Here are the top 15 from the 1st qualifier:

1. Cameron McCaul
2. Amir Kabbani
3. Timo Pritzel
4. Paul Basagoitia
5. Carlo Dieckmann
6. Darren Berrecloth
7. Aaron Chase
8. Pascal Breitenstein
9. Niels Windfeldt
10. Gee Atherton
11. Lance McDermott
12. Adam Hauck
13. Andreu Lacondeguy
14. Grant Fielder
15. Joscha Forstreuter

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8-3-06: This week is the Red Bull District Ride in Nuremburg, Germany. Here are some pics of the districts:
-Drop District
-Street District
-Step Up and Down District
-Wings District
-Downtown District
-Dirt District

I'm not there, but Tarek does a good job of sending out press releases, so aside from pictures of German food, it should be just as good as my Italy updates.

Qualifying starts at 3:30pm on Friday and Saturday will be the second qualifier and finals. You can click here to watch the segments:

The overall winner is going to get a super pimped out Ford truck...Paul B and Andreu Lacondeguy are both favorites for that, obviously...but here is the full rider list:
-Aaron Chase
-Adam Hauck
-Amir Kabbani
-Andreu Lacondeguy
-Cam McCaul
-Cam Zink
-Carlo Dieckmann
-Chris Hatton
-Darren Berrecloth
-Gareth Dyer
-Gee Atherton
-Grant Fielder
-Joscha Forstreuter
-Kyle Strait
-Lance McDermott
-Timo Pritzel
-Mischa Breitenstein
-Niels Windfeldt
-Pascal Breitenstein
-Paul Basagoitia
-Thomas Vanderham
-Trond Hansen

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7-31-06: Here comes a mega Crankworx post. Finding internet around our hotel was impossible...our hotel didn't have internet and Crankworx hates media people. Probably the most frustrating thing about this event is the way everyone gets handled. They lost my media pass application so I've been going back and forth with them trying to get onto the course for the slopestyle and dirt events.

Anyways, administrative hassles aside...Whistler is amazing. Let me start from square one:

Wednesday morning I arrived in Whistler after spending Tuesday night at Harookz's house (thanks bro) and promptly met up with Cannondale's Doug Dalton and the cream of the mountain bike media crop. Cannondale is releasing a freeride version of the Judge frame called the "Perp". Double-D arranged for a heli-trip on Rainbow Mountain so all of the editors could try out the new bike.

There were a ton of big trailers around the helipad...apparently Mark Wahlberg and Danny Glover were shooting for a movie called "Shooter"...they had 70 people up on the next mountain and all of these helicopters marked up as "FBI" were flying around. It was pretty sweet. They also used the helicopters to transport some....uhhhh....

Anyways, back to it. The Perp was a really fun bike that handled really well. Everyone on the trip was super stoked on it (and the fact that most of us were on our first heli trip)...the trail was really challenging and there were a handful of good bails (get well soon Alan Davis!)...I even took it once with my big camera bag on my back, but thankfully everything was ok. There are a ton of riding pics on PinkBike. Check out the one of me sending it with the huge camera bag still on my back!

THE RAINBOW MOUNTAIN VIEW IS SICK

Big ups to Cannondale and Doug Dalton for organizing the trip! Definitely keep your eye out for the Perp...

After we got back, the slopestyle course opened up for practice and everyone hit it pretty hard. The course was really big and there were a lot of HUGE stunts throughout. The big step-up proved to be a rider favorite, it gave riders plenty of airtime to try what they wanted. Cam McCaul even attempted (and ALMOST landed) a barspin to tailwhip on the jump in the slopestyle finals.

Check out a few course pictures:
-The last drop (20 feet tall)
-Another shot of the last stunt
-Overview of the entire course
-The quarterpipe

After practice, there was a premiere for the movie "Stripped" which was good. I only saw a few parts, but the shooting and editing was super dope. I can't remember any of the riding stuff, I just remember being impressed by the editing magic. After the premiere, T-Sage stuck a copy of "Git Sum" in the DVD player at the GLC and the whole place went off. It was the first time I've seen it and it was hilarious. There was actually some legit riding in there, too...definitely worth checking out!

The next day was qualifying...80 riders get two runs. Look how stoked I was to stand out in the blazing hot sun all day watching 30 dudes kill it! Check out some pics (all of these photos were shot by Nina Small):
-Carter Holland table on the quarter gap
-Vanderham getting steezy and sideways
-Dylan Korba pedal-kick dropped the side of the Giro box
-Luis Lecondeguy flipping the step-up jump
-Someone is about to be not stoked
-Phil Sundbaum 360 spine
-Andreu Lecondeguy 270 spine to the dirt hip
-Blurry shot of Bearclaw table
-Zink with the best style

Andreu Lecondeguy qualified first, then Paul Bas and Bearclaw. Here are some random shots from the rest of the day:
-The swiss cheese bike
-Me, Nate Adams and Carter Holland
-Darcy Turenne and Joe Perrizo
-Carter Holland's slopestyle bike
-Ryan Leech's trials demo (amazing, I might add)
-Mike Reid got run over by a car and annihilated his ankle

Friday was just a chill day, I got to ride with Lenosky for a bit which was awesome. Over the years we've literally ridden EVERY STYLE of bicycle riding imagineable, except downhill. So Friday we took care of that and sessioned Garbanzo. We ran into Shaums March, Smutok and Ebbett about halfway through the day and rode with them as well. I've been watching Shaums at Bike Battles and freeride events for the past few years and I briefly forgot that he is a SUPER FAST racer....that is, until we rode together in Whistler. Holy crap this guy is goooooooooood. He was throwing down style even through the tech sections!

Speaking of racing, mountaincross went down on Friday evening and it was super exciting. The best part was watching Deity's own Emily Johnston race in the final against Fionn Griffiths, Jill Kintner and Leana Gerrard. She podiumed with style...Nate Adams was super stoked!

Smith threw down a party on Friday afternoon for everyone, thanks Chopper for hooking it up!! I didn't have my camera with me for that one, but it was definitely good times. After the Smith party, the GLC cleared out for a bit and then it was time for the CKD premiere. Tickets were mandatory and thankfully we got hooked up by Cory Leclerc and Harookz.

The CKD premiere definitely went off. They had a camera setup in front of a white sheet for people to do funny portraits and stuff at their leisure. Carlo Dieckmann was going to do a Hans Rey style "statue of liberty" move on one of the little bikes that was sitting around, and I suggested that he take it to the next level and do it with a beer in his hand. I think the real pics from the night are on the Sombrio website...but either way it was pretty fun to watch.

Before CKD premiered, Harookz showed a slideshow of his photos from the making of the video...as always, Harookz's photos were epic. There are some good shots from CKD on his website if you look in his portfolio. After Harookz's slideshow, the NWD7 trailer dropped. I think everyone's jaw was on the floor...it was absolutely mind-blowing.

Post-CKD pics:
-Porter gets beered
-Danny Brody in rare form
-Harookz trying to leapfrog me (unsuccessfully--he landed in the same position)
-Cedric and T-Sage
-Nina helping Darcy cool off
-Carlo Dieckmann and Nina
-Cheers shot
-Nina and T-Sage
-Jordie Lunn and Lenosky

Saturday was slopestyle finals. The lady at the media center tried to screw me over one more time by telling me that if I left my car keys and credit card behind, that she *might* be able to give me a media pass (bear in mind that I followed all of the proper steps to register for a media pass over two months ago AND Hampton called from France to back me up). I walked out in absolute disgust after that...but thankfully Lenosky had the hookup on the PERFECT zone to shoot video from...a 5th floor balcony right above the Longhorn. I probably got better shots up there than I would've if I would have been on course.

The event was pretty crazy, they had 23 riders qualified who had two runs to make the "super final" which was the top ten riders, doing two more runs. The qualifiers for the super final were relatively mellow in terms of the final drop...but then once the super final started, everything went crazy. Ryder Kasprick stuck a tailwhip off the 20' drop, so did Kyle Strait...Bearclaw 3'd the road gap and Zink 360'd the final drop. Andreu Lacondeguy was riding really well until he flipped the big step-down and landed flat and flipped over the bars, which ended his run. Cameron McCaul went into the super final in first place and everyone was anxious to see what he had up his sleeve. In a surprising move, he went for the exact same line that Andreu went for and flipped the step down...but he landed it perfect and then went for a barspin to tailwhip on the step-up jump. He was SUPER close to landing it, but ended up sliding out on the landing. Zink came through with two great runs, both capped off with dialed 360s and he took the win.

Top Five Slopestyle:
1. Cameron Zink
2. Cameron McCaul
3. Kyle Strait
4. Ben Boyko
5. Darren Berrecloth

Up in the balcony, we put in a friendly wager for the winner of the event prior to the super finals. AC ended up taking the win...

After slopestyle, we headed down to ground level to meet up with the rest of our crew. There was this CRAZY guy who was REALLY enjoying the slopestyle event. We managed to film Carter's into for the Atomlab video, Caveman got choked out and then it got way out of hand. Everyone was surprised that this guy didn't get tossed out....instead of posting all of the photos, I just put together a little collage.

The rest of the night was a blast, celebrating with everyone. Check out a few pics:
-My beer + Cue ball = Thanks Travis
-Darcy and Nina
-Patrik from Cannondale

Sunday we woke up and headed over to the Elevation jumps for the dirt contest. Timo ended up taking the win...he flipped the first super tight/tech jump and hit up the big transfers. Cameron McCaul took second place and I think Paul Bas got third...here are some pics, courtesy of Alex Mehl:

-McCaul table
-Evan Holmgren flip
-Nate Adams dripping with steez
-McCaul tailwhip
-The Timocan
-Timo hip table
-Evan Holmgren 360 table
-Kyle Strait

Andy Sundbaum is now killing it on the Space fork.

This is the end of my Crankworx report. I'll leave you with a good quote from our dear friend Danny Brody. (right click + save as)

Go over to Harookz's site for the rest of the story...

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7-27-06: If you want to get online in Whistler, I would not recommend the Best Western. GRRRR...

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7-25-06: Not much news to report lately, just been logging and capturing footage for the upcoming Atomlab/BlkMrkt video. So far, so good. I'm particularly stoked on the intro to Phil Sundbaum's segment right now, but we've still got a couple more weeks of shooting before the real editing goes down, so I'm sure we'll get some more crazy stuff between now and then.

It's been so ridiculously hot here in Portland lately...that's the real reason for the lack of updates (or maybe I'm just saving up for the Crankworx posts?)...topping out at 108 degrees...nothing you can do except chill poolside and wait for it to pass.

Here's a pic from the District Ride press release vault, photo credit: Carroux. In this picture, Adam Hauck is still severely jetlagged (he literally stepped off the airplane, put his bike together and started riding) and scared that he's going to end up like the guys in Hostel...but he still managed to tailwhip the quarter.

Check out Tonic Fab's blog...there are all kinds of cool photos of their workshop and stuff on the latest entry.

I'd like to personally congratulate Harookz on his "mega" update! Check out harookz.com for the money shots from Saalbach!

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7-21-06: When the Matrix first came out, everyone was stoked on it...except for real ninjas.

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7-20-06: I am finally back in Portland...I arrived Wednesday morning at 1am and my bags arrived Thursday morning at 2am. A little bit of a hassle but well worth it when you consider that I just spent the last week in Italy with all of my friends watching what was probably one of the best contests of the year.

The good news when I came home was that I had a big box of Match 8 bro copies waiting for me when I came home (and a box from Smith--thanks Chopper!)...so Match 8 is officially out. Stop reading this blog and order your copy NOW!!

Tonic Fab-ulous is sponsoring a new rider from the Pacific Northwest by the name of Guy Marsh. Check out this picture...this bowl is NINE FEET DEEP, which means that Guy is somewhere in the stratosphere.

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7-18-06: As as any seasoned veteran of contests and roadtrips will know, the real excitement happens AROUND the event, not AT the event. Allow me to illustrate...after yesterday's panic with the taxi strike, today got even richer.

After somehow managing to bribe a ride to the airport at 4:30am (which was nearly 30 hours ago now that I think about it) the computer system at the Catania airport was down. I waited for nearly two hours as the agents had to write each boarding pass and luggage ticket by hand. I finally hopped the flight, got a killer view of Mt Etna and Catania, then proceeded to Rome where the customs people were not impressed by my hand-written boarding passes.

Fast forward another 10 hours and I'm being hustled around for two hours by Newark's finest as my baggage needs to be specially re-checked at the main counter because of the hand-written luggage tickets (right over here to the end of that extremely long line, sir). Thankfully I had a ray of light in the form of good conversation during the Newark-SF flight. The fun didn't end there, though...I'm currently sitting in the San Francisco airport waiting to hear when I will be able to catch my last flight home--there was a huge blackout at LAX today and all of the flights on the west coast are messed up for the evening.

Even though I'm technically stranded after more than a full day in transit, I can't complain one bit. I would wait twice as long if I had to...this trip was well worth it. I had an amazing time and it was awesome to see the international talent pool up close. Big thanks to everyone that made this trip possible (DH Productions, Red Bull, Tarek, etc) and it was great meeting the esteemed members of the international media as well!

Oh yeah, I just heard that the Crankworx dirt jumping contest is being held on the Red Bull Elevation dirt jumps...

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7-17-06: Sweet. Everyone has gone home, the Red Bull people are gone, everything is over...all I need to do is get to the airport tomorrow morning. No big deal, right? Errr....literally the *second* the final shuttle left for the airport today the taxis in Sicily decided that they would go on strike for the rest of the week.

I guess I'll start walking now...if I'm not at Crankworx, send help!

Here's one last nugget from Italy: Harookz is compiling a video called "Don't Get It Twisted", which is a video of only digital camera footage. We did our part to clock a couple clips for him while we were here. Porter did the majority of the camera work since my hands were full with the "real" camera. Anyways, here's a little nastiness, courtesy of Aaron Chase, Adam Hauck and Luca! (please right click + save as)

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7-17-06: Alright, here it comes...the last big update from Italy (I think). Yesterday was the finals for the District Ride, and it was out of hand. Paul Bas went nuts and shut down the contest. Sometimes you go to an event and it's a toss-up for the top three, but at this one, Paul was so far ahead of everyone else, there was absolutely no question. He had a dream run and no one could touch him.

Here's the top ten:
1. Paul Basagoitia
2. Andreu Lacondeguy
3. Lance McDermott
4. Cameron McCaul
5. Timo Pritzel
6. Darren Pokoj
7. Niels Windfeldt
8. Carlo Dieckmann
9. Darren Berrecloth
10. Cameron Zink

Zink 360'd off the highest drop, which was ridiculous. He barely over-rotated (probably the best 360, but at that height even 1 degree past 360 is too much) and blew out his rear tire. He rode out of it, but he couldn't finish his run after that. Either way, I give him a lot of credit for 3-ing that drop...most people didn't even hit it...

Paul Basagoitia tailwhipped the sniper line...then he 3-whipped the last dirt jump to pedals...he flipped and 3'd everything else in between, but those were the two highlights. Before his run, the nastiest thing to go down on the sniper line was an x-up....it was off-camber and super huge...everyone went nuts when he stomped it!

During the awards ceremony, everyone was going nuts and spraying champaign everywhere...I'm not sure how it happened, but Paul broke the top of his bottle off and glass went flying everywhere...look closely at the pic and you can see the top of his bottle missing!

After the event, we all got on shuttles and headed to the beach for a big party. At first it was just the riders and we were bummed that it was going to be a mega sausage fest, but then someone opened up the flood gates and TONS of people rolled in.

Alright, on to the pics!
-Darren Pokoj 360 on dirt
-Adam Hauck 270 toboggan (he clicked it, I just snapped late)
-Damjan 360
-Pokoj 360 spine
-Italians love Aaron Chase
-They closed down this street for the event and the restaurants were not stoked
-Pokoj tuck no-hander
-Adam 540'd the wedge in flip-flops after the event
-McCaul 360
-Chase 360
-Adam huge toboggan on the spine
-Chase alley-oop wall slap
-Niels tailwhip on the quarter
-Carlo tuck out of the mini
-Carlo spine 360
-Pokoj barspin step-up
-Andreau Lecondeguy superman
-Adam Hauck's new MySpace picture

Check this out...in Italy they have a book with illustrated street spots with photos and directions!

Party pics:
-Chris Smith and the best cheers shot ever
-Carlo dancing
-The stock of Red Bull behind the bar
-Adam and Cam McCaul
-Me, Raymond from Freecaster and ???
-Adam with the local flavor
-Adam with Timo's girlfriend and Sari
-Uwe from Mountain Bike Rider Magazine (Germany)
-Tarek and yours truly
-Gee Atherton and me
-Adam and Timo

Go to Freeride.cz and check out the pics from the event, they had three or four guys here from the Czech Republic shooting photos and videos and everything looks amazing. There are shots of the flip drops and everything...

I think that's about it from Italy...the event was amazing, there were over 25,000 spectators and the course was super sick. No one was hauled away in an ambulance (just cuts and scrapes) which is always a good thing. Tarek and his crew did an amazing job with the event...thanks so much to Tarek and his crew, Don Hampton, Red Bull and everyone else that made this trip possible!!

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7-16-06: Today was the first day of qualifiers for the District Ride. Since I was shooting video all day, I only had time for a few photos...I just snapped them off the jumbo-tron on the street district. Better than nothing, right?

-Carlo x-up on the sniper line
-Paul Bas 360 on the second spine
-Chase no foot can
-McCaul barspin on the big drop
-Carlo table
-Adam Hauck tailwhip
-Carlo 360
-Bearclaw no can on the big drop
-Damjan giving it up for the jumbotron
-Carlo flip
-The crowd in the street district
-Gnarly Italian gangster

Dear Mrs. Hauck,
Getting a phone card here in the Catania is super difficult, but here is proof that your son made it safely to Italy. He is riding really well and doesn't seem to be having any trouble adjusting to Italy. He made an effort to get a phone card so he could call you and tell you that he's ok, but everything was closed today. I'll keep an eye on him for you!!

The first round of qualifying went down today and it was quite interesting. Here are the top four:

1. Cameron McCaul
2. Lance McDermott
3. Darren Pokoj
4. Darren Berrecloth

Lance McDermott killed it in his run, he stuck a flair, frontflip and a cross-footed flip, along with plenty of tailwhips and other assorted nastiness. I had him pegged for first place, but apparently the judges thought Cam was shredding harder.

Bearclaw went down super hard on a corner today in qualifying and landed on his hip (directly on a curb)...it looked like he was down for the count, but he eventually pulled it together and finished out his run. Aside from the crash, it was definitely one of the strongest runs out there.

Lance McDermott also won the Dainese dirt jump contest tonight, which was worth 1,000 euros. Andreu Lacondeguy nearly landed a flipwhip, but it was Lance that came out ahead with the front flip, tuck no-hander and turndown flips.

I met the guy who runs Freecaster.com tonight, he's super rad! Go there tomorrow, there will be clips on there from qualifying (and probably finals).

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7-15-06: Here comes another big update...but before I begin, I just want to take a second to dedicate all of the food photos on this site to Cameron McCaul. He took me aside this evening to thank me for all of the interesting photos that I've put on this website over the years of all the crazy stuff we've eaten in foreign countries and stuff. This one's for you, Cam!

Alright, back to business. Today was the first day of the event, where the course was opened to the riders for practice. I got to check out a lot of international talent that I hadn't seen before, and while I still think that the USA is where it's at, there is A LOT of international talent that is blowing it up. Andrea Lacondeguy and Darren Pokoj are two of my new favorite riders...style for miles and super deep bags of tricks.

Today started with all of the riders' bike boxes showing up in Catania...everyone went to build their bikes, and Carlo found his bike box completely annihilated by a combination of rain and airline fabulousness...yikes!

Damjan Siriski is here! Scroll down a few months if you don't recall his name, he joined us for the Sea Otter roadtrip. Damjan is from the Czech Republic and he kills it!

Course pics from today:
-The alley district from the bottom
-Sniper line in the alley district
-Completed start ramp
-Top view of the alley district
-Roll in for the dirt district
-Another top view of the alley
-Two spines (in between the start drop and the alley district)

Random pics from today:
-Carlo and Sari (Check out Sari's website)
-They get points for effort, I think
-Before I left, everyone told me to drink some red wine for them...I'm trying to get everyone covered, but so far I've only answered a few requests!
-Bearclaw is so huge in Italy that he can't even eat without getting on TV
-My breakfast (the green stuff is pistacio)
-Random 10 year old tagging in front of the police (the flash blew them out, but they are 5 feet away)

Riding pics from today:
-Chris Hatton 360
-Luis Lecondeguy drops the start ramp
-Kyle Strait moto whip
-Darren Pokoj moto whip
-Timo sending it on the start ramp

After the practice, riders went over the course to find spots that were naturally lit so they could keep riding...which led to a pretty serious session on this quarter right before the alley district:
-Darren Pokoj footjam nosepick
-Darren Pokoj air ONE TWO
-Porter big air on the quarter
-Darren Pokoj barspin
-Niels Windfeldt tailwhip
-Andrea 1 ft table air

Seriously, Darren Pokoj is killing it. He's from Australia and I guess he races World Cup as well. This kid has style like Nate Adams and a deep bag of tricks like Goldman. He is ridiculous...definitely a rider to watch out for!

Andrea Lacondeguy was shredding today...every time he would hit a lip, he would go WAY out of my frame on the camera. He has some SERIOUS pop and a huge trick list as well. I had a lot of fun watching Andrea and his brother Luis ride.

The following tricks went down in practice today: flip whip, three whip, truckdriver, front flip.

You may be wondering why you haven't heard anything about Adam Hauck yet...well, it's because he hasn't arrived yet. He had some problems with his passport back in the states and then after he got that sorted he had some problems with his flights....so he's going to arrive at 11am tomorrow and somehow attempt to compete at 1pm. I'm sure that everyone will do their best to help him out...thankfully the qualifiers happen over a two-day span, so maybe they'll let him sleep tomorrow and then qualify on Sunday. Either way, this course suits his riding style really well and he could definitely be a contender, so my fingers are crossed that he can pull it together and show the international scene what he's got.

Walking around the course today, one thought that keeps nagging me is that Phil Sundbaum isn't here. I honestly believe that he could win this event. He was in the dirt finals for The Gathering (which was my criteria for a top 5 spot in this event) and he kills it on huge stuff like this. I hope that in the next year we can get Phil out to these events, because he would be wrecking shop!

Alright, it's 2:15am here in Italy. Time to post this and catch some sleep before tomorrow gets here and I'm chugging Red Bull to keep it together.

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7-14-06: Alright, so here's a post specifically for those of you who are trying to make educated guesses on the Litter OTB site. By the way, Bearclaw just got in last night (with his bike).

The course overall is really well suited to a hardtail dirt jumper with good flow and an extremely deep bag of tricks. The start ramp looks JUST like the start ramp from the Gathering, so right away the guys who qualified in the dirt finals back in January have a big advantage (Paul Bas, Bearclaw, Watts, McCaul, etc). I can almost guarantee that someone is going to flip that thing, even though it's 35 feet in the air. The landing is bigger, plus for 20,000 euros (compared to $2,500 that they hand out at most US events), there are some hungry riders in the mix.

The course is riddled with box jumps and wallrides into transitions...no sniper lines at all, so right there you can basically write off any of the concentrated freeriders. That may be why Cedric decided not to come, because it's a jumping course more than anything--not much technical stuff or huge hits.

Here's the official riders list for the event:
-Aaron Chase USA
-Adam Hauck USA
-Alberto Accetuli ITA
-Amir Kabbani GER
-Andreu Lacondeguy SPA
-Cam McCaul USA
-Cameron Zink USA
-Carlo Dieckmann GER
-Chris Smith UK
-Chris Hatton FRA
-Damjan Siriski CZE
-Dan Atherton UK
-Darren Berrecloth CAN
-Darren Pokoj AUS
-Eric Porter USA
-Gee Atherton UK
-Giacomo Bisi ITA
-Greg Watts USA
-Kyle Strait USA
-Lance McDermott UK
-Luis Lacondeguy SPA
-Micha Breitenstein FRA
-Niels Windfelt NOR
-Kiki Leitner AUT
-Pascal Breitenstein CAN
-Paul Basagoitia USA
-Rob Jauch GER
-Ryder Kasprick CAN
-Sebastian Schlecht GER
-Taulan Dernbach GER
-Timo Pritzel GER

So there you go...good luck picking your top five for Litter OTB! My best advice would be to look at the top five from The Gathering dirt and match it up with the top five from the 26Trix dirt jumping contest...that should give you a good cross-section of good dirt jumpers from the international scene plus how well our USA guys faired against them.

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7-14-06: Day two of Italy...after spending the majority of the day shooting establishing shots and burning through some Super8 film, Porter and I decided to head down to the Mediterranean and kick it at the beach for the afternoon. The water was super nice and the view was pretty good too.

We also checked out the Nike store right across the street from my hotel:
-What country are we in again?
-The wall of shoes
-Shiny balls

Everybody has been e-mailing me since the last post asking about the "view" here in Italy. All I can say is that I have never seen so many beautiful people in one place at one time. There must be something in the water....take for instance, this girl...she's "average" for Catania--no joke! Just for comparison, this is a photo of some serious hotness.

So far the following riders have arrived: Aaron Chase, Eric Porter, Paul Basagoitia, Cam Zink, Kyle Strait, Cam McCaul, Greg Watts, Timo Pritzel, Carlo Dieckmann, Andrea Lecondeguy, Louis Lecondeguy and Chris Hatton.

Cedric Gracia is the only rider that I know of on the list who is not going to be here.

So far the following riders' bikes have arrived: Eric Porter and Timo Pritzel.

I'm doing double duty here for the Litter site. They are hosting "off track betting" for the District Ride, check it out (if you win, you get a copy of Match 8 and an SDG setup!). Also, Dainese is going to have a winner take all (1,000 euros) dirt jumping contest in the last district prior to the finals.

Here are a couple pictures from today:
-The miniramp section (there is a step-up ramp into this mini-ramp)
-A "real" Vespa
-Italian MTV was doing something at our beach today
-Check it out, the Red Bull Pinzgauer's little brother!
-View from the roof of my hotel (that's Mt. Etna in the background)

Tomorrow is practice day, so I should have a lot more photos of the completed course as well as some actualy riding shots. I'm psyched to see this course get ridden, I think some nasty stuff is definitely going to be throw down this week...

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7-13-06: Alright, here comes the first official Italy post. I haven't had a decent night's sleep since Monday so bear with me here. Jet lag is setting in..

Since I typed the last post, we landed in Rome and caught our connecting flights (check out the Ferrari store in the Rome airport). It wasn't half as hectic as I imagined, the guy at customs didn't even look at me while he was stamping my passport. We had a super tight connection so right after I got my passport stamped, I started running towards my gate, which was a big mistake because the police rushed me because they thought that I was being sketchy. We sorted it out quickly and I was on my way...but "note to self" for next time...don't make any sudden moves around the boys in customs!

We arrived in Catania around 11:30am and met up with the shuttle. We checked into our hotel rooms (my view....Porter's view) and then went out for lunch. I thought this place would be a bit more tourist-friendly, but not so far. No one speaks English whatsoever. It's not too bad, though...we just point and smile a lot. Thankfully the Italian Red Bull crew has our back most of the time. One of the guys is like the Italian version of Mike Steidley--it's uncanny!

After lunch, the Red Bull crew had to get back to their shuttling, so we decided to walk around the city and check it out. We managed to sneak into a bunch of super old buildings and check them out, so we got a pretty good snapshot of what Catania is all about. Here are the pics from our daily meandering:
-Italy smells good...there are flowers and trees EVERYWHERE
-Coastal buildings ONE TWO
-Random cathedral
-McDonalds! We peaked in and it has a chandelier...pretty classy!
-The obligatory Smart Car photo
-The elephant statue...I'm pretty sure Catania was invaded by an army with Elephants...someone help me out with the country that did it...
-This is the normal width of a street here...even walking is an adventure
-The Duomo cathedral
-Random fountain
-Faces on the wall of the Piazza University
-The party bus
-I think this is Piazza Mazzini
-Random building
-Porter doing a rail slide at Piazza University
-The archway at Piazza University
-Yours truly posing in from of the arch in Piazza Mazzini
-Water fountain near Piazza Duomo
-Catania statue
-Yours truly checking out the red wine (which was mind-blowing, by the way)

Ok, here are some course pictures for the District Ride. They are working feverishly to get the course finished before practice starts on Friday. It looks super fun and flowy...definitely a hardtail-friendly course.
-Check out the Gathering-inspired start ramp
-The cathedral district
-Step up bowl ONE TWO
-Ramps in an alley ONE TWO THREE
-A panoramic view from the top of the roll in

That's the daily update...hopefully I can find a solid internet hookup so I can keep posting up everything. This whole venue is awesome and I know that the riders are going to be stoked when they get here. Catania is awesome...

Hi Mom!

p.s. I heard that Harookz has been saving up all of his pics and stories from Saalbach for one big gigantic update that is going to put my updates to shame. Harookz......BRING IT!!! hahaha...wish you were here bro!

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7-12-06: I'm actually not sure what day it is right now. My computer says 9pm on Tuesday but I think it's actually about 6am where we are right now. Either way, what better way to pass the time on an international flight than to do a little update.

Tonight was the second night in a row that I slept in an airplane, I'm actually starting to get the hang of it. The first few flights were kind of boring (although there was a James Lipton special with the voices of The Simpsons on the second flight) but once I got to Newark everything turned around.

I had no more than sat down at the gate for my flight to Rome when all of a sudden BUSTA RHYMES walks by me and sits down a few chairs away. He had the full entourage and was blinged out like crazy...those Jacob watches are no joke! Right as I contemplated snapping a quick picture of him, some other guy tried to take a picture with his camera phone and one of Busta's bodyguards chased him through the terminal. That sapped my motivation right there, as his bodyguard was easily twice the size of Phil Sundbaum and I had two bags of video equipment (weighing almost as much as me) strapped to my back. So...sorry, no pics of Busta, you'll just have to take my word for it.

The good news was that a few minutes later, Eric Porter strolled up to my gate and we managed to score some seats next to each other (the lady at the counter even gave us an extra open seat between us for all of our stuff). I didn't know that Porter was on the flight before he showed up today, but I'm definitely stoked because flying solo internationally like this can be a bit stressful--especially when you arrive and have no clue what's going on. Plus we're going to get there a day before everyone else, so I'll have someone to hang out with and check out the city with before everyone else shows up.

The movie selections on the flight were pretty good, check out this new Bollywood flick!

Time to catch a bit more sleep...we're going to arrive in Catania at 11am, so we'll have a full day ahead of us after nearly two days of travel. Here's a shot of the sunset over the Atlantic Ocean...somewhere around Greenland, I think.

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7-10-06: It's 11:19pm and I'm sitting in the airport waiting for my first (of four) flights to Catania, Italy for the District Ride. The best part was that NO ONE in the airport could pronounce Catania and they all butchered it (it's Cah-tahn-ya, but I heard Katana, Catalina, etc). A little late-night entertainment, I guess.

If you ever get the chance to fly through Portland, we've got free wireless. Hence this last-minute update.

Our crew went out tonight for one last American meal before my flight. Landon demonstrated the proper way to drink Italian wine so I would know what to do when I got there. Thanks Landon!

So yeah...here I go. 26 hours in transit. I've got a fully charged laptop, two Hunter S. Thompson books and a fresh battery in my digital camera. I will try to find a wireless connection as soon as I get overseas. Stay tuned to this site, I have a feeling that we're going to have some great updates this week!

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7-8-06: I just got confirmation last night that I'm going to Catania, Italy for the District Ride next week. I'm leaving Monday night (well, Tuesday morning at 12:30am) for Italy...so there's going to be a brief break in the action, then we'll be pinned wide open for the full week that I'm over there with the crew. Big ups to Don Hampton/DH Productions for getting me over there, I am stoked!!

Carter is shredding Oregon...and we met up with Kirt Voreis yesterday as well. Here are the pics:
-Kirt folding one over
-Carter on the hip
-Carter rail hop

We took Carter to Falls City to hit the freeride trails. He didn't seem to have any problems hitting the booters on his hardtail.

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7-7-06: Buy Match 8! SHIPPING TODAY!!!

It didn't take Carter long to adjust after he walked off the plane yesterday. We went back to The Grotto and things got going quickly...here are some pics, courtesy of Alex Mehl:
-Joe Perrizo, superman
-Carter turndown
-Carter tiregrab
-Three whips from Carter, I couldn't decide which one I liked best so here's three: ONE TWO THREE
-Carter's Riot

Joe didn't have a helmet when he got to Portland, so I dug through my closet and found the helmet that Timo Pritzel was wearing when he won the Sea Otter dirt jump contest (he forgot it in my car when we drove him back to the airport in SF). Anyways, I was going to be shady and sell it on eBay, but for some reason I kept it...and now I'm glad that I did because it motivated Joe to step it up on the dirt. Flip and an x-up flip on an unflip-able jump at The Grotto.

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7-6-06: BUY MATCH VIDEOZINE 8 RIGHT NOW!!!! IT'S SHIPPING NOW!!! GO HERE AND ORDER IT!!

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7-6-06: Hooray for bicycles! Carter Holland, Caveman and Joe Perrizo are visiting this week to do some shooting with me for the upcoming Atomlab video. Joe Perrizo just got hooked up with Atomlab, so he built his new bike on my porch. Caveman gave him a hand...and I never knew why they called him Caveman until I saw him install a headset with a screwdriver. Yup, it must come from his ability to use primitive tools on complex applications, such as headset installation.

First stop, The Grotto. Joe was slaying all of the treerides. He found this crazy transfer where he went up to walltap the tree, then he pedal kicked from the tree over into another super steep transition. I've never seen someone actually get distance AFTER a walltap, it was amazing.

Yeah, then he flipped out. Holy crap.

After that, we picked up Carter at the airport...then came back to my place for lunch (so I could update the site). Stay tuned, this week is going to be nuts.

Oh yeah, here's a wallpaper from our drive back from Whistler. This is somewhere around Squamish, I shot it with my point-and-shoot from the passenger's seat.

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7-4-06: Happy Fourth of July! Hope you all had a good one...as I stood by the waterfront today watching the fireworks, all I could think about was an e-mail that I got earlier in the day from one of my friends, AJ Lea (who also happens to be the 1997 Junior National Trials Champion), who is over in Afghanistan right now.

I figured that I would repost his e-mail. Whether you agree with our administration's politics and decisions is one thing, but you can't deny that many of our friends are putting their lives on the line to do what they think is right. Here's what AJ had to say:

I will be celebrating the 4th of July on a TINY and remote forward operating base in the middle of the mountains in Northern Afghanistan. It will no doubt be one of the most memorable 4ths in my personal history. This time I understand what the 4th is all about.

230 years ago the first American Soldiers freed our nation from the oppressive rule of England. About 120 years ago US Soldiers kept this Nation in one piece. Just over 60 years ago US Soldiers fought the Axis powers striving for world dominance. US Soldiers fight at the will of the President and the Nation. We have fought for our own freedom, fought for the greater good of our nation, fought against the oppression of others, and today we are fighting for a combination of reasons: we are fighting for freedom from oppression for the Afghan people, and we are fighting for your peace of mind.

As you sit in lawn chairs, enjoy a beer, watch the fireworks, and spend time with family, I want you to remember not only the original victory of US troops over England and the signing over the Declaration of Independence on the 4th of July 1776, but all the battles in between.

Most importantly, think about how since 9-11 there has been little, if any, fear in your mind about the possibility of another terrorist attack on US soil. That peace of mind didn't happen by accident.

The Americans who died in the towers on 9-11 aren't the only victims of terrorist attacks against America; they are just the victims of the terrorist attack IN America. Every day US Soldiers are seeking out and destroying would-be attackers of America.
Every day US Soldiers are dying in terrorist counter-attacks over here.
This war isn't about revenge for the tower attacks; it is about stopping future threats. There is a battle going on for your peace of mind. We want you to have that peace of mind.
So, on the 4th of July, please remember where we are:

In Humvees on patrol, wary of imminent explosions.
In towers watching for imminent threat.
In bunkers as mortars explode near our location.
On foot with 100 pounds of gear on our backs storming dark caves in the Afghan mountainside.
Personally I spent last night on tower guard. I heard a mortar launch, arc towards me, and watched it explode in front of our position. Our fireworks aren't as beautiful, but they can certainly be more exciting!

We are here for you, but come the 4th I have a request: Have a drink for us, watch the fireworks, and spend time with family... enjoy those freedoms.
Hopefully next year we will be at your side sipping one with you, watching the same show, and spending time with our own family. I am looking forward to that time, and I think about and miss those simple freedoms everyday.

Thanks all,
AJ
or
1LT Andrew J. Lea
3rd BSTB S6 Task Force Vanguard
FOB Gardez, Afghanistan
APO AE 09354

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7-2-06: Bearclaw got 9th at Elevation! Top three was Bohan, Parslow and Nyquist...nothing too crazy this year, no new bangers or triple tailwhips, but it was still fun to watch. I got a few snaps of Claw riding..360 TRANSFER // TURNDOWN // SUPERMAN SEATGRAB. I was super impressed watching him ride, he's even more smooth on a 20" than his 26". Bearclaw rules..

We had some great riding yesterday, we met up with Trevor from Diamondback and Jaymo from Nike to ride. Here's a pic of Jaymo on A-Line. We didn't really shoot that many pictures during the day because we were so stoked to be riding. Whistler is still super fun and there are some new improvements that are really fun. Freight Train has this new step-up step-off thing that is really fun.

More pics from yesterday:
-Me on the chairlift.....stoked!
-Danny Brody and Ryder Kasprick
-Up top
-Down below

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7-1-06: Happy Canada Day to all you Canadians! To honor your country, I've decided to come visit for the weekend and shred Whistler and watch the Elevation contest. Bearclaw is not only in the contest, but he qualified 10th (out of 35) for the finals!

On our way up to Whistler, we stayed with Phil Sundbaum in Seattle and woke up early Friday morning to shoot for the Atomlab/BlkMrkt video. The following pics are only a little bit of what went down, and all of these pics were taken in a 20-minute span: TAILWHIP // TIRESLIDE // 360-TABLE // 360-TABLE // AIR // AIR // MOTOWHIP // BACKFLIP // BUNNYHOP-TAILWHIP

Here's a couple pics from the drive to Whistler: ONE // TWO

And a public service announcement.

Nasty Nate Adams sent me a few more pics from the Woodward West session. Here is Nate doing a 55-ft x-up and a big stepdown.

Alright, enough updating, it's time to ride!

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6-28-06: George Ryan's bike was stolen yesterday! Be on the lookout...here is his full description of the bike and stuff:

My custom blue Cannondale Chase hardtail was stolen last night along with the entire bike rack off my car. It's got a custom blue paintjob and has the Cut graphics on the bike. Sram/Avid/Truvativ components, Manitou fork and custom blue/white Industry Nine wheels. Please keep a lookout on the internet forums, ebay, and even myspace I guess. I'll try to reward the person that returns it to me.

E-mail George if you hear anything about his bike!

Here's a pic from the dirt session yesterday at Meldrum Bar. Steven Bafus broke his derailleur, so he took his chain off and kept riding. Here's a chainless whip!

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6-27-06: Steven Bafus swung through Portland on his way home from a successful week at Woodward West. He learned tailwhips and hung out with Nasty Nate. Here are a few pics from the session:
-Nasty Nate flip on his fully
-Chris Craighead (camper) dumped 360
-Nate Adams' roommate, Luke Probst. What is in their drinking water??

Today we went out for sushi and I finally convinced Steven to send it and try some "real" sushi. California rolls just weren't cutting it anymore. He stepped up and shut down the salmon (and liked it!). For the record, this is the best sushi restaurant in the world.

After lunch, we met up with Patrick and Landon for a session at Falls City. It was really fun aside from the lengthy hike to the top. The trails are the freeride trails that IMBA uses to teach trailbuilders how to build freeride trails (for lack of a better term), so you know they're legit. Here's my new roommate Alex sending it, and one of me doing a drop.

This photo is Steven Bafus hitting the road gap. I hit this gap later in the day, but I pinned it just a little too hard and landed way past the landing...literally in the berm at the bottom of the landing (check it out in the pic). Thankfully I was able to grab the brakes in time and rode away safely, but it was a close one!

Everybody is headed up to Whistler this weekend for the Red Bull Elevation contest. Be there or be square!

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6-25-06: Carter Holland hooked up the inside track on the Braun 26Trix contest in Leogang, Austria and the Adidas Slopestyle in Saalbach. I read a lot of reports online, but this was my favorite one and Carter was kind enough to hook Match Videozine up with the exclusive. Without further ado, I am proud to present Carter's Report:

Here's a brief account of my trip to Austria for the Braun 26 Trix and Adidas Slopestyle events. The flight from Cali to Munich took 14 hours, during which I was lucky enough to sit with Bryson from Marzocchi and his two kids on the plane and they helped me out with a ride from Munich to Leogang which was another 4 hours, thanks a ton Bryson! The World Cup was just about to start in Germany, so every other person on our flight was wearing their team colors.

We arrived in Leogang at about 10pm and it was still somewhat daylight, so I checked into my hotel, built my bikes and went to bed. At about 4am, a drunk Cam Zink crashed into the bed next to me and thankfully didn't move for the next five hours. The next morning was my first chance to see the Leogang dirt jumps, which for the most part was pretty sick: 20' first set into a lefthand berm, followed by three more sets that varied from 16' to 20'+ then into a right hand hip to a berm, long–roller and the final set...8' lip with a half circle landing all the way around the lip, this set was probably 15'. Due to weather problems before we got there, the lips were a bit soft and needed a thin layer of plywood to get things together. There was quite a turnout, everyone from Andrea to Zink was there!

Who is Andrea you ask??? Just wait, you'll see....

After practice that day, there was an indoor jump contest on some wet, shady-ass jumps in a huge tent while a party was going on around us! It was pretty sick, Lance McDerrmott from the UK was there busting REAL front flips at will and Strait went for the ever-illusive double tailwhip.
I wound up breaking a rib in my back during a backflip gone array, which put me out for the rest of the week.

I'm sure you've all already read the updates about how everyone did in the Braun 26Trix, so I won't say anymore then: Cam McCaul 1st, Andrea Lacondeguy 2nd, and Jamie Goldman 3rd...onto the party!

PICS FROM THE LEOGANG EVENT:
-Bearclaw
-Ben Boyko
-Paul Bas
-Louie Lecondeguy
-Carlo Dieckmann

That night was pretty wild, it had it all... naked guys in the Redbull dance barrel which ended up breaking during the night due to way too many people in it at one time. A one eyed guy who told me he has trouble seeing the trails...well, NO SHIT!!! Crazy Spaniards...Gareth...and coming home with the sunrise!

I spent the next 2 days in a haus...Spielberg Haus to be exact...with Trond, Carlo, Rob J, Mark Eaton and Marcus Greber pushing our bikes to the top of the world and doing single track beautyshots...oh yeah, and trying to bang in nails with the claw end of a hammer in one swellfoop...er...fell swoop.

I would like to thank Walter Spielberg and his wife for taking good care of us at their haus!!!
Next stop...Saalbach! The course was sick!!! Drops, wall rides, big jumps, little jumps, quarters, fruit bowls and the Yeti (which I jumped on my 4" bike)...it had it all. Once again, my update is a little late so I'm sure you know who did what and where. If you don't, check out Adidas-slopestyle.com and I'll just give you some dirt and photos from the party and an injury report...there were a lot of those!

(Injured Reserve List)
Jamie Goldman: broken hand, messed up face: gone wrong off the Gondola
Matt Hunter: broken leg: getting down from the side of the Yeti during practice without his bike
Trond Hansen: broken collarbone: during 360 off the Yeti in the Finals
Dave Watson: separated shoulder jumping the gondola in his qualifying run, caught by the wind!

Too many others to mention, there was a bunch!

My highlights of the contest:
Cam Zink: flip over the Gondola and 360 off the Yeti...on loaner hardtail.
Ben Boyko: 360 off the biggest drop on the course in qualifying followed by his 360-Xup attempt off the same drop in his final run!
Lance McDerrmott: 2 fronties into the fruitbowl...sick!

More pics:
-YETI ONE TWO THREE FOUR
-Paul Bas' wheel after flipping the Gondola
-This means exit but it makes me laugh

The last party was more insane than the one in Leogang! JJMF and I led the North American team to defeat Europe during the Austrian games...log sawing, yodeling and some other events I can't even remember...The Europeans were lucky we didn't include the nail driving game in the contest because we had Bordo who has that game on lock! You should have seen CG's authentic leather Austrian shorts and clogs with suspenders and no shirt...style!!!

That's all I've got for ya...
I hope I can do it again next year...Thanks to Tarek, Mike and Sophia Hamel for all their hardwork!!!

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6-24-06: Steven Bafus and Nate Adams are currently at Woodward West teaching the next generation of riders to be nasty. Here's a few pics that they sent in. Nate borrowed one of the kids' 24" full suspension bikes to test the middle line at the dirt jumps there.

Tomorrow I'm headed back to Portland, so the updates should be back on track then. If you haven't picked up on it, I'm on "vacation" right now. Ha ha...not to worry, though, I've got some stuff up my sleeve in the next few weeks that'll make up for the past few days.

The new Red Bull District Ride site is up and running!

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6-20-06: You may have read over on Litter that Smutok won semi-pro slalom at Mt. Snow recently, which is awesome, and here is video proof that he's still got his bag of tricks when it comes to jumping (right click + save as). Video courtesy of Justin at Lucent Productions.

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6-19-06: Here's a quick video clip of the past five days of trials demos (right click + save as). Also, do yourself a favor and download some tracks from Rhapsody.

Adam Hauck sent me some better pics from his graduation. Check out this banner!

There is going to be a street jam going on in Grand Rapids, Michigan on the 29th of July. Contact Scott if you want more info.

Landon, Jaymo and I are cooking up an event in Portland before Crankworx....details coming soon....but it's going to be fresh. It's not going to be your standard contest, in fact, far from it. Mark the weekend of July 21st on your calendar and plan to be in Portland! Perfect timing for everyone heading north for Crankworx!

I saw this bumper sticker while I was in Minneapolis, although by doing some quick research, the number is more like 53-56%.

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6-18-06: Happy Fathers Day to all you fathers out there!

We had an interesting day on Friday...one minute we're making fun of Robocop here, the next minute we find our self in a near-apolcalyptic storm. The rain was coming down like crazy, but then the fun and games stopped when it started hailing! Needless to say, I got to take the rest of the night off from riding demos.

Bearclaw won at Saalbach again if you haven't already read all about it. There is a really good video clip on the Adidas Slopestyle website and Harookz has some pics posted up on NSMB. Jamie Goldman knocked himself out and broke his hand...it's been a rough year for Jamie--first his knee and now his hand...heal up soon Jamie!

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6-15-06: The best part about doing trials demos is that you get to travel to tiny little towns in the middle of nowhere. Even better is when you do a little exploring before the shows and find sweet stuff like MEAT RAFFLE!!

Big congrats to Adam Hauck, he graduated from high school today...and here's a pic from his cell phone to prove it!

So....I guess I've been graduated from college long enough to fall off the back. When I graduated, the big deal was this video game called "Dance Dance Revolution", but now it's "Guitar Hero". I'm staying in Minneapolis in college housing with my buddy (and soon to be Portland local) Alex and he showed me the ropes. The best part is that they have almost every track from New World Disorder 6: Unchained on the soundtrack!

On a more serious note, there is now a website up to help out an east coast downhiller that paralyzed himself at Plattekill Mountain last year. Go to this page and check it out...everyone should pitch in to help out, just think how stoked you would be if the bike community pitched in to help you out if you became quadraplegic. Please help out Sergio--it can only be good for your karma, and we all need a little extra bit of that, especially when we're pinning it down the trail.

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6-14-06: I'm in Minneapolis doing trials demos...while I was wandering around this morning, I saw the FIRST EVER Chipolte that I ever ate at. This place changed my life....haha

The new LITTERMAG is out! Check it out, it's rad!

There are video segments on Freecaster from the 26Trix contest, including a video of Greg Watts' double backflip!

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6-13-06: I got an e-mail from someone listed as "Ueeeeee" today and they had some good shots from the 26 Trix event (THANK YOU)...These are from the actual event and those jumps look huge. It was hard to tell who's who on some of these...I only labeled the riders that I was absolutely sure of...

-Andrea Lacondeguy 360
-McCaul tailwhip
-Goldman backflip
-Bearclaw ONE TWO
-One hand can
-Paul Bas Superman seatgrab
-Flip / No can / Backflip / Flip nac-nac

The Czech Republic beat the USA today in the World Cup. I have a feeling that I'm never going to hear the end of this from Jaromir and Damjan.

I am headed back to the midwest to do some trials shows...if anyone reading this is in the Minneapolis area and wants to ride or hang out, swing over to the Nature Valley Grand Prix and look for the Red Bull stuff. I should have internet access, so this site will continue being updated. Don't go anywhere, we've got all sorts of stuff coming out in the next week or two.

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6-12-06: Sweet, here comes the hookup, courtesy of Joscha Forstreuter. He posted a bunch of info and pics on the Blackbox site, so definitely go there and check out the full report. In the meantime, here are the direct links to a couple videos from the event. There is also something up on Freecaster if you want to check that out.

THESE CLIPS ARE FROM BLACKBOXLABS.NET (right click + save as)
-Andrea Lacondeguy (Spain, 17 years old)
-John Cowan
-Nikki Seidl
-Trond Hansen
-Lance McDermott (this is the guy who landed two fronties the day before)
-Jamie Goldman
-Grant Fielder
-Bearclaw

Top Five for the Braun 26Trix contest:
1. Cameron McCaul
2. Andrea Lacondeguy
3. Jamie Goldman
4. Paul Basagoitia
5. Ben Boyko

Best trick: Greg Watts, double backflip!

Timo, Joscha and Carlo are organizing a dirt jam on the first of July in Berlin. Click here for the flyer.

Oh yeah, and we got our videos working on Myspace (thanks Justin). Go to the Match Myspace page (myspace.com/matchvideozine) and check it out. I was uploading the trailers the other day and watching some of our old ones. I think my favorite trailer so far was the Match 6 trailer. Check it out, I think you'll be stoked. That was a fun issue.

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6-11-06: Holy crap....Carter just checked in again from Austria. You're not going to believe this one:

Greg Watts just pulled a perfect double backflip over a 20' double out of a turn!!! Cam McCaul won, Andreo 2nd and Goldman 3rd. Sick stuff went down fo' sho'. Anyway, gotta go for now.

If anyone out there has pics from the 26Trix contest in Austria, please send them in! It sounds like Europe is blowing up right now!!

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6-10-06: Carter Holland is over in Austria with the rest of the US "team" representing at the 26Trix contest and also at the Adidas Slopestyle in Saalbach. I just got a message from Carter, here it is...unedited and mildly censored:

Lutze,
my camera is missing right now but last night was f----n' sick!!! there was an indoor jump contest held in a tent in leogang in the most f---ed jumps ever!!! but it went off! goldman won with a flip to whip and flip to superseat, the rut onthe lips were at least 6" deep! Lance Mcdermount(spelled so wrong) got second pulling 2(count them...2) perfect front flips....not front brake stizzz with no practice!!!!! and theres this little Spainard who is killin' it!!!!! Today is the real dirt contest on the big jumps...downhill...nothing less than 20' but most around 25'...Gnarly!!!
carter

Sounds like Carter is stoked...hopefully he finds his camera soon, or someone else sends us some shots!

We do have some shots here from a halftime show that Steven Bafus and Joe Perrizo did in Spokane for an indoor football game. SNAP CRACKLE POP.
-Joe Perrizo using his star status to rope in the cheerleaders
-Bafus has his X-Cans so dialed that he can throw it in front of 20,000 people

Don't forget...Sunday is the Summer Softies Jam in Seattle.....Gohuckyourself.com for more info.

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6-6-06: I nearly forgot to post this weekend's activity...the summer jump jam at Softies! This Sunday, it's on! Go to GoHuckYourself.com for more info...

I was just looking through the UCI website for the World Cup standings when I came across THIS on the front page. Are you serious?

Happy birthday Aaron Nachtrab (yesterday)...we joined Aaron out at the new (still unnamed) jump spot to do some digging yesterday. Patrick, Landon and I all threw dirt in honor of his 18th birthday. Check out this zone...these jumps are going to be floaters!

The other day I posted a pic of me riding some trials back in the day. Go here to see how far trials has come since then. Neil Tunnicliffe. (Thanks for the link, Justin.)

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6-5-06: The TEVA Speed Trials in Vail went off last weekend, Lenosky won the event, followed by Kirt Voreis, Cam McCaul and Kyle Ebbett. After the event, they had a dirt jump jam. Check out two pics, courtesy of Kevin Shiramizu: Ebbett Tailwhip, McCaul 360.

Alright, if you live on the west coast and want to do something super fun this weekend, join us in Bend, OR for the second annual freeride photo scavenger hunt!! Saturday June 10th...$20 to enter (which goes directly to the IMBA and COTA). Bring your bike and digital camera!

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6-3-06: Looks like I have some catching up to do on this site...We took a mini-vacation this week because the next few months are going to be INSANE.

First things first, I just got an interview in MBUK magazine...I'm definitely glad that they recognized what we're trying to do..thanks to Alex over there for hooking it up and thanks to Patrick La Valley for the photos.

On my list of other magazines that are killing it...Spoke Magazine in New Zealand. Caleb and his crew down there are killing it. I just got the new issue and it's a good read. Caleb also just hooked me up with a link to some pics and info about the largest skatepark in the world. Sweeeeeet....who wants to go to China to shred?

The Blue Ridge event in North Carolina went down last week and the Union Street Bikes crew was on hand...Joe Prisel won the pro park event (Nick Soloninka got 2nd and Peter Mills was in 3rd) and Sal Wood won the Golden Shovel award for killing it at the dirt jumps. The event was sponsored by Eastern Bikes, RaysMTB, Sponsorhouse, Zero Gravity Skatepark, Variant Clothing, and Back Country Sports.

I think I posted this earlier, but check out Eastern26.com, it's the Eastern Bikes mtb site...

Also, go to Union Street's website and check out Sam Miller's new pics...this kid is killing it!

Steven Bafus won an open class downhill race last weekend and then there was a huge jump session afterwards. Check out this shot, then go to the Digital Daredevil's page and see the rest of the jump pics. Looks like Mike Metzger, Joe Perrizo and Bafus were all going off!

Mike Reid just posted a slideshow here. If you have an account with NSMB, go to this page and vote for Mike to win the photo contest. We definitely need to encourage him, he has been stepping it up all year and coming through with some great photos.

Nate Adams and Emily Johnston went to Whistler recently and got to hit up the trails....luckyyyyyyy....pics courtesy of Ian Millar..

The US Open just went down and of course there were tons of guys there with cameras. Check out these two videos....one from Justin at Lucent Productions and one from Ryan Denehy at Eastern Front.

I think that's about it for now...so I'll leave you with one last tidbit. My friend Alex sent this poster to me the other day and I had a good chuckle over it. Some vintage (2002) riding...this is from when I was in front of the lens, riding trials/street. Enjoy!

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5-29-06: Happy Birthday Teegan!

My new downhill bike has arrived and is now assembled, so the only logical thing to do is take the next shuttle to Hood River with the 503 crew! We decided to hit up Post Canyon in Hood River, and it was spectacular. Any pro rider that comes to visit me this summer will instantly be whisked away to this trail! So good!!

Here are the pics from today's session:
-The view of Mt Hood from the top of the trail
-Multnomah Falls from the car on the way to Post Canyon
-Charlie scored Jolt chewing gum (2 squares=1 cup of coffee) and promptly chewed all 12 pieces at once!
-Yours truly testing out the goods at Post Canyon on my new rig: DRIP DROP
-Landon boosting the road hip on his XC bike
-Charlie Sponsel moto whip
-Charlie sessioning the step-up
-This booter is something like 35 feet...only one guy in our crew (Rocker Dave) hit it and it was ridiculous.
-Check out these jumps...they were being sessioned, but they are MASSIVE...

I managed to flip over the bars in a soft corner today, but aside from that, everyone came away mostly-unscathed. Good times...and finally some blue skies! Big thanks to Scott Sponsel for driving the shuttle...thanks to all the other 503-ers that rode (Landon, Aaron N., Charlie, Scott and Phil).

Charlie also blew my mind with some new music....check out Rhapsody. The lead singer *kind of* sounds like Iron Maiden on a couple tracks (ironically, he's actually the lead singer from the band Europe)...I don't even know what to say...just download this track: "The Mighty Ride Of The Firelord"....it's labeled under the "epic metal" genre. Just listen to it and you'll either shake your head or throw the horns.

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5-26-06: Last night we drove down to Salem to check out the new park that just opened. To our luck, we were the only two riders there all night, so we had plenty of time to snap a few shots and even test out the video option on my new digital camera.

It was $8 to get in and here is the address if anyone wants to check it out: 1768 13th St SE, Suite A, Salem, OR 97302. Mapquest that place, it's definitely worth the drive if you're in the 5-0-3 zone. From Monday-Thursday they have bike sessions from 6:30p-11:30p, Friday the bike session is 9:30-12:30, Saturday there are two: 3p-6p, 9-12p, Sunday there are two: 12p-3p, 6-9p.

Anyways, here are the goods. We had a fun time there, for sure...it's one of those parks that you can pedal hard at everything. The spine is a little mellow but still pretty good. I'll let the pics and video explain the rest:
-Landon table transfer
-Me on hip #1
-Landon on hip #2
-Landon fastplant
-Me on the spine
-Park pics: ONE TWO THREE
-Video of Landon riding the park...from my digi camera! (right click + save as)

As I typed this entry, I got a knock at the door and my new DH bike was delivered!! Pics coming soon! Whistler, here I come!!!!!

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5-25-06: It's been raining for three days straight, so we're getting the crew together tonight for a session at the new indoor park in Salem. I've never been there but Harookz went there once with a crew and said it was legit. I heard that they have vert walls up to the ceiling in every corner. I'll be snapping some shots tonight, expect a full report tomorrow.

Smokey hooked me up with this shot. Go to Halifax, Nova Scotia (Canada) if you want to ride it!

I was reading through Leelikesbikes.com and found this link to a speech that Steve Jobs gave at a Stanford graduation. I was really into what he was saying (especially about connecting the dots), so I figured that I would post it up here. If you have a few minutes, check it out.

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5-25-06: Littermag is back online! Go check it out if you haven't already...

Also, there is another online mag from South America worth checking out....go here.

I'm a little off that back on the CUT slopestyle series updates...but here are pics from #2 in Germany. Chris Hatton got 3rd place in pro and in the process, earned himself a wildcard for the Red Bull District Ride. Check out The Cut's website for all the rider blogs that have more pictures and stuff (will someone please teach GNR to rotate his pictures before he posts them??). Speaking of GNR, it looks like he's been killing it over there, which is great to hear. Flairs on brick quarters!!

I got an e-mail from Ryan Smith yesterday, he just built a mini-ramp and a spine in the backyard of his new house. His sister is dating SE pro bmxer Chris Gerber and he came over for a visit. He didn't have his bmx bike with him, so he just borrowed Ryan's bike. After about 30 minutes, he tried (and landed) a flair.

A while back I posted a picture of a Giant STP with the caption "Guess what pro bmxer's bike this is?" Well...it was Taj Mihelich's bike. He just wrote a little editorial on the Etnies blog about it, too. It's a good read, but even better are the shots of him nosepicking a road bike and doing a tuck no-hander to fakie on a cruiser.

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5-23-06: Sunday apparently was not a good day for mountain bikers...right after I posted that news about Scott getting broke off, I got e-mails informing me that Sam Burkhardt did almost the exact same thing in Park City, Utah. Porter gave me the scoop, apparently he was going to come up short on a dirt jump and he decided to ride off the side of the jump. The details from here are a bit hazy but it sounds like his front wheel jack knived and sent him over the bars, and he somehow also managed to break his hip. Get well soon Sam!!

In much happier news...we managed to get a link to the video segment that aired on CNN about Ray's MTB. I can post up all day about how amazing this place is, but this segment helps illustrate even better. Check it out.

If you get some free time, track down a copy of "Okie Noodling"...it's a documentary about guys in Oklahoma who fish with their bare hands. Pretty sweet!

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5-22-06: I want to send two shout-outs today. One to someone who is probably having the best day ever, and one to someone who is probably having the worst day ever.

First, today is Harookz's birthday!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAROOKZ!!!! If you haven't hooked up Harookz with a cool birthday present already, go here and say something nice about him on this PinkBike thread. It's basically a thread where someone was looking for more pics from Harookz and then every kid on the board decided to post their opinion of how amazing Harookz's work is. Good stuff....add to it!

Secondly, 503 local Scott Stanton broke out his hip yesterday. He's in surgery today getting it fixed and I want to wish him a speedy recovery...he's in the hospital for two weeks and then twelve more on crutches. Check out what happened:

"I went off a jump doing mach 3, over shot the landing by a metrical ass ton, went off the trail and hit a tree doing warp 2. My super steezy grey deity bars hit the tree first, which then shot me forward and my knee was ultimately what took the full impact. Upon doing so the ball of my leg bone blew straight out the back of my hip."

Apparently Scott hasn't taken any pain meds yet......whew! Get well soon, Scott!!!

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5-20-06: I just had the gnarliest week ever, I managed to not sleep from Tuesday until Friday (well, I took one or two naps, but nothing that I would consider "sleep"). So my lack of daily updating has been due to the fact that I hadn't seen the light of day for nearly a week. Oh well, it was worth it.

Thanks to everyone that checked out the Match 8 trailer and posted nice things about it on the forums. After watching it a couple times, I realized that the teaser kind of leaves out the bulk of street riding that is featured in the video. While we've added a lot of dirt and slopestyle riding to the video, there is certainly NO SHORTAGE of street riding in the video!

To celebrate my recovery from a self-imposed editing exile (a.k.a. "Reign of Terror"), Landon and I met up and hit a local park in Tualitin. This place is super tiny, I think the biggest quarter is three feet tall, but it was just good to get outside and ride my bike. Landon didn't seem to have any trouble with the tiny quarters...

I also put a few new goodies on my bike....check out my new Space fork. Also, Eric at Deity Components hooked me up with a prototype 25.4 bar/stem combo (thanks Eric!!). It's more low-profile than the oversize stuff that's out now...I think these bars are going into production soon. They are REALLY nice...plus they match my new fork!

Looks like I wasn't the only person with cabin fever this week. Here's Justin Schroth and Seth Lolli exercising the cabin fever demons!

Watch this clip...it's insane....

Glen Landberg sent in a couple pics of Steven Bafus riding a wall that they built up behind the bike shop in Idaho.

Doberman Bikes is having a jam up in Canada on July 1st. I heard that Much Music (Canadian MTV) is going to be there shooting video, so it should be a good time. Pro purse is something like $500. Check the flyer for details.

Ryan Denehy is opening up pre-orders for "The Big Deal"....get a free t-shirt with every pre-order.

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5-16-06: Here it is....the long awaited Match Videozine 8 teaser. Match 8 is at VAS being replicated as I type this. We had a few snags here and there, but everything is finally on track again. It should be out for sale in about two weeks....we'll post more info here when it comes out. Enjoy the teaser...Madison Sylte edited this trailer, big thanks to him for putting it together.

Also, in other DH Productions-related news, Hampton called from Germany this afternoon to give me the scoop on The Cut crew. George Ryan pulled a flair on a brick quarter in the streets of Dusseldorf and Chris Hatton landed a 3-whip over a dirt spine. The Cut is getting it done!!

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5-15-06: Happy Birthday Mom! Here is a pic of the sunset that I took today on my flight home to Portland. I hope you like it!!

Today we woke up in Cleveland hoping that we might catch a break in the weather so we could street ride a bit more. Unfortunately Mother Nature really had it in for us on this trip (rain from arrival to departure) so we ended up heading back to Transitions Skatepark by the Detroit Airport for one last session. Even though everyone was beat up from crashing and riding nonstop, we still managed to knock out a few things. Just LOOK at this. Adam Hauck was up in the rafters AGAIN.

We had another adventure because Thomas forgot Adam's bike bag in Ann Arbor, so we had to pile our luggage, bikes and ourselves in Jess' van and meet him at the airport. Carter and I squeezed in the backseat in between bikes, bags and miscellaneous roadtrip items. Adam and Phil took shotgun and Jess pinned it to the airport. Thankfully it was only ten minutes away!

So Carter and I get on the Detroit to Phoenix flight (after I got robbed $130 to send my bike one-way back to Portland) and we sit on the runway for half an hour in line to take off. When we finally got to the front of the line, they drove us back to the gate...we were all trying to figure out what was up when the cops rolled up on our plane and "escorted" an elite member of the first class cabin off of the plane in handcuffs. I guess he got too wasted while we were waiting to take off and then became unruly to the stewardess, so they gave him the boot. Either way, we left almost an hour late from Detroit and both Carter and I got to sprint across the Phoenix airport to catch our flights home. I nearly missed mine, they had already closed the door, so I had to pour on the charm to get on the flight. Thank goodness for good manners and a winning smile!

Big thanks to Thomas Hosford and Jess Richard for driving us around all weekend, also THANK YOU to Joe Prisel and Ray Petro for hooking us up in Cleveland. Big thanks to Carter and Mike Flaherty for making this trip happen and of course to Phil, Carter and Adam for absolutely slaying it on this trip, despite the difficulties with the weather. The Black Market/Atomlab team video is going to be incredible.

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5-14-06: We woke up "early" today and dodged the rain for a little street ride. We got a few things knocked out during the street session, then tried to get out to the trails. The exact second that we opened up the doors to get out and ride, the skies opened up and shut us down.

After diving back into the cars, we drove back to Rays for another session. Check out the pics:

-Joe Prisel took us to this curved wallride
-Carter on the wallride
-Adam on the curved wallride
-Adams High
-Adam made some art for this mother this morning at Dennys
-Carter boosting the Red Bull ramp at Rays
-Me on my jump at Rays
-Adam in the rafters
-Adam and Carter
-Phil and Adam shredding Rays on four wheels
-Top view of the pump track
-Carter turndown on the Red Bull ramp
-The new S-curve at Rays, before the expert jumps
-There is a brewery going in next to Rays!
-Union Street's new Molly Maguire frame
-Union Street team rider Sal Wood

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5-14-06: Happy Mothers Day Mom!!! Happy Mothers Day to all of the riders' moms that check this site, too. I know for a fact that Smutok's mom, Carter's mom, Adam Hauck's mom and a bunch of other moms keep tabs on their boys by reading this site, so happy mothers day to them. Thanks for letting your kids take their bikes off of big jumps!!

Today we made it to Cleveland, unfortunately the rain decided to tag along as well. We rolled in mid-afternoon and checked out Rays MTB....I hadn't been there since last summer, so there was a lot of new stuff. I used to go through there all the time and every time there would be something new and improved, so imagine how much it has changed since last summer! It was like an entirely new park to me....and soooooooo good.

We had so much fun shredding today. Carter and I were racing on the pump track, and after I wore myself out, Carter went to take a victory lap at mach ten. He came out of the first berm way too fast and somehow snagged his wheel on the frontside of the next roller, causing a massive EJECT up and over the bars. I seriously think he was six feet in the air, off a little 8" roller. It was crazy!

We went to check out the trails in Joe Prisel's backyard, but the rain came down right as we rolled up. We chilled at his place for a while and then headed back to Rays for a night session. On the way back to the park, Joe and I were listening to the metal channel....check out the band and song titles!! "Dude, tanks are so rad, I think we should write a song about how sweet they are."

Pics from today:
-I found a sweet way to get a smooth rolling shot of Adam manualing to 180
-The Captain was here?
-The elevator...Adam demonstrates
-Here's a pic of Rays before and after

Tomorrow we're going to try to hit Joe's backyard trails again, maybe some Cleveland street, then possibly another session at Rays (fingers crossed). Seriously, if you haven't been to Rays park yet....you NEED to go. Even if you don't live in the midwest, get yourself to this park when it reopens in the fall. It's something you need to experience.

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5-13-06: Yesterday was a good one aside from the rain. We're in Michigan and it's cold and wet! We made due by hitting up two parks in the Ann Arbor area. Zero Gravity and Transition Skate Park. Everyone got stuff done (including me, I learned 360-tailtaps on a street spine) and we shot a bunch of new lines.

Transition skatepark had this SUPER tight bowl and when we got there, Adam and I challenged each other to loop the bowl 10 times in a row to see what would happen. We both nearly puked afterwards because we were so dizzy. It was hilarious..

We rode Transition Skatepark until 2:30am, and didn't get back to the house until almost 3:30am. Normally, everyone would be bummed, but since we're all still on west coast time, everyone is ok.

Pics from the last 24 hrs:
-Rob-o in siesta mode
-Carter and his new friend John Deere
-Adam found this issue of Bicycling at RiteAid...Lenosky is in it!
-Full pipe session!
-Yours truly on the vert wall (photo:Rob Rebholz)

Today I think we're packing up and heading down to Cleveland to meet up with Joe Prisel.

5-12-06: We made it into Michigan last night around 1am...we headed to Thomas's house and checked out the scene, grabbed a bite to eat (Carter and I were still on west coast time) and then sessioned the mini-ramp in the barn. I think we ended up crawling into bed around 4:30am or something. We're going to session the Ann Arbor indoor skatepark scene today (due to rain) and then tomorrow I believe we're heading down to Cleveland to meet up with Joe Prisel (and hopefully sneak in a session at Rays).

Pics from the last 24 hrs:
-I guess I can't blame Mike Flaherty for "missing" his flight to Michigan. Would you want to sit between these two hooligans?
-Aerial shot of the mountains in Arizona
-Bike building in the barn
-Adam's bed: The gorilla has handcuffs that say, "I am a prisoner of your love."
-Carter rocking out the chopper
-Schwalbe Table Top tires....Timo Pritzel signature tires..
-Hauck vs. Lutze....Adam completely p3wnd me at 007!
-After Adam slayed it in 007, he moved over to the real thing

Black Market NEW STUFF:
-Zero rise Underboss stem
-Black Market Bada Bing Bars (Sopranos fans know....)-->2" and 3" rise, double butted aluminum, 25.4 clamp, 28" wide
-Black Market Revolver Sprocket - .28
-New Riot frame
-New Riot frame graphics
-Riot vs Mob green colors

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5-11-06: Day one of the Atomlab/BlkMrkt video trip....Carter and I are in Phoenix, Mike got bumped from the flight. We're not even there yet and it's already getting interesting!

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5-10-06: Before I get started, Phil Sundbaum wanted me to clear the record on this photo that I posted the other day. This rider is named Guy Marsh...he was boosting it on a brakeless Tonic Fab Fall Guy. I thought it was Sean Massai, but according to Phil, it's only Sean's bike...he claims that at the Softies Jam, Sean was too wasted to even think about dirt jumping, which is why Guy was shredding on his bike. Sorry for the confusion!

On the subject of boosting, I have three photos of Carter Holland. Justin Kozman snapped these pics yesterday while Carter was having his first real 20" session in three years. Imagine....three years without riding a 20", only 26" wheels...then you pick up a 20" bike and instantly start doing this. Must be nice!!

Check out this photo of Steven Bafus from the Softies Jam, taken by Loreto Julian. If you want to see the rest of Loreto's photos from the jam, check it out here.

And while you're at it, rate my table!!!! hahaha...just kidding. Jaymo and I went out to the Meldrum Bar dirt jumps to shred. We had a good time and Jaymo made me man up and do the bottom set of jumps. I think we've got a couple more pictures on the way.

There is a trials rider up for a video contest on the USA Network. Go here, check out the vid and click the "vote" button to hook him up! Even if you're not into trials, vote for this kid...I watched the other videos and they were awful. Let's at least get a bike rider to win the contest!!

Tomorrow I'm headed to Detroit with the Black Market/Atomlab team. I've got a spankin' new digital camera (Canon Powershot SD450--recommended by Harookz) to document all of the action and mayhem, so stay tuned!

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5-9-06: We've got a short clip from the Softies Jam, courtesy of Kyle Thomas. Click here to watch it!

Atomlab has a new home! Check out their new office: ONE TWO THREE FOUR

Jeff Lenosky is briefly going back to his trials roots (helmet and all)...back in the day it was all the rage to make huge kickers out of little rocks and curb cuts to see how high you could get up on ledges and rocks and whatever. It's a lot of fun, plus once you start finding little kickers here and there to boost super huge, the whole game changes. Look how high Jeff is going to boost off a little six inch rock!

Next, 10 questions with Eric Porter. Porter's in Utah right now filming for the next Kranked, but he was kind enough to take a few minutes out while waiting for the golden Utah light to answer these questions:

1. 5 places that you've been so far this year:
Puerto rico, Alaska, Southern Utah, Las Vegas, California
2. 5 things in your refrigerator:
(going off memory, been on the road) corona, cheese, oj, skim milk, leftover pizza
3. Last 5 people you rode with:
Rode with Mike Kinrade and Steve Romaniuk today. Before that was Bearclaw, Gully, and Cam McCaul
4. What's your favorite part on your bike?
Probably the frame, if the frame sucks the whole bike sucks.
5. What phrase do you overuse?
What's up! - I say it anytime I see anyone I know.
6. Top 5 people you want to meet:
Not sure really, it's weird meeting famous people, I wouldn't know what to say.
7. What's the best part about being a pro rider?
Not having a 9-5 job!!!
8. Who would win in a fight between Chuck Norris and Jean Claude Van Damme and why?
Are you kidding?? Jean Claude Van Damme of course! First of all he has 4 names and Chuck Norris only has 2, and second of all Chuck Norris is like 50 years old. And haven't you seen Bloodsport? Jean Claude Van Damme can fight without even being able to see!
9. Last book you read:
Under the Banner of Heaven (everyone should read it)
10. Top 5 places to hang out in Utah:
(in no order) My house, Matt Beringers house, O'shucks, Tanner park, Doug Dalton's house

Editors note: I saw Bloodsport on SpikeTV last weekend for like the eight-hundredth time. I love that part where he goes blind and takes out the other guy. It's heart-wrenching when he takes Ogre's bandana back.

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5-8-06: We've got more pics of Mick Hannah slaying the DH course in Vigo. The bad news is that Chris VanDine broke his left wrist in mountaincross practice and will be out for 6 weeks. Get well soon, Chris!!! Here's some pics, plus there are more at thecutriders.com.

Our Chex Mix riders have "czeched" in! They just had a huge contest in the Czech Republic and Damjan got 1st place. Jaromir came in six place, both were pretty stoked. Here's a quote from Jaro's e-mail:

"There was also happening the Freestyle BMX contest on the same course. BTW, I managed to do fufanu on first try on that biggest subbox in right corner. I almost shit in my pants! Hahahaha…"

I had to bail out last-minute on the Softies Jam, but apparently the weather was great and the trails were awesome. Landon sent me a pic of Sean Massai riding a Tonic Fab Fall Guy BRAKELESS at the jumps and boosting a huge transition.

Check out this video of Petr Kraus in Argentina(right click + save as)...there are a handful of crazy lines in here, check out the abubaca on the top of the bridge! Not a good time for your brakes to loop out!

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5-7-06: Big ups to Mick Hannah on his first World Cup DH win!!! Mick pulled the top spot in Spain and it's great to see him on top. Mick has been slaying it for so long, this win is well overdue. I hope that he spends a lot more time up there this year!

I'm told that we're going to have the Match 8 trailer up and running by Tuesday. We've been cutting through some red tape with the music rights, so hopefully we'll be on track soon to get that issue out in your hands. Sorry for the wait!!

If you live in New York, the annual NYC Bike Film Festival is going on later this week. Go here for information. Match 8 is in the lineup!

Thursday morning we are flying out to the east coast with the Black Market/Atomlab team to start shooting for their team video. We are going to land in Detroit and spend some time shredding that zone. I've got my fingers crossed that we can make it down to Cleveland to hit up Ray's MTB park and a few other spots down there. I will be posting pics and stuff on the site of our trip, so keep it locked here!

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5-3-06: So I flew into San Diego to do a little freelance video work today and I saw these things at the terminal. Has anyone sessioned these yet?!

Woodward is running a scholarship program if you want to go there this summer. Download the PDF for more information....right click + save as.

Check this out...obviously Halloween was a while ago, but this was on PinkBike. Pretty sweet....

Our Chex Mix riders (Jaromir and Damjan) have a new website up...check it....and also download the video of Damjan!

Yet another European slopestyle event has been added to the calendar, the Adidas Slopestyle event in Saalbach (thanks Porter for the info). Why can't we have a million slopestyle events over here? All the guys who are killing it at these Euro events are American riders. Why are we sending all of our talent overseas to ride when we could probably take all of that money spent on flights and make a bad-arse slopestyle series in the USA (or even Canada)???

Updated Event Calendar: (e-mail me if your event is not on here)
May 7th: Softies Spring Jam (Seattle, WA) GoHuckYourself.com
May 12-14: The Cut Pro/Am Slopestyle Series #1 (Winterberg, Germany) Thecutriders.com
May 19-21: The Cut Slopestyle #2 (Illmenau, Germany) Thecutriders.com
May 20-21: Blue Ridge Freeride Jam (Dirt jumps/skatepark-Asheville, NC) Click here for the contest flyer
June 2-4: Teva Mountain Games-Speedtrials (Vail, CO)
June 11: Softies Summer Jam (Seattle, WA) GoHuckYourself.com
June 15-18: Adidas Slopestyle (Saalbach, Austria) Adidas-Slopestyle.com
June 24-25: Freeraid Classic (Les deux Alpes, France)
July 15-16: Red Bull District Ride #1 (Cantina, Italy) Redbulldistrictride.com
July 21-23: The Cut Slopestyle #3 (Les deux Alpes, France) Thecutriders.com
July 26-31: CRANKWORX (Whistler, BC) Crankworx.com
August 4-5: Red Bull District Ride #2 (Nuremberg, Germany) Redbulldistrictride.com
August 18-20: Monster Park (Snowshoe, WV)
September 10: Softies Fall Jam (Seattle, WA) GoHuckYourself.com

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5-2-06: Did you know that it costs $0.0093 to make one penny?

More dates have been added to the event calendar! We've got all three dates for Softies Jams this summer (Seattle): May 7th, June 11th, September 10th. The 2005 Softies fall jam is featured in the upcoming issue of Match Videozine. Speaking of Match 8, we should have a teaser up here shortly. Hampton is in the process of dialing it in. I'm sure it will be worth the wait!

As long as we're on the subject of Softies and the Seattle scene, I wanted to post a pic of Andy Sundbaum. Andy is Phil's brother and is a super shredder, too (we should find out what their mom is feeding them). Andy has been killing it this year at events and I'm sure we can expect to see even more of him in the future. This guy was cracking me up at Sea Otter and hopefully I'll get a chance to shoot some more footage of him later this year. For now, check out this pic that Mike Reid shot of Andy.

Check out Eastern26.com, Eastern Bikes is coming out with a line of mountain bikes for street/dirt/park stuff. Leigh Ramsdell has been at a couple events this year, scoping out the scene and all that. Eastern already has a dialed lineup for bmx, so it should be cool to see what they bring to the 26" scene.

Last month we did that SoCal roadtrip with the Czechs, Steven Bafus, Carter Holland, Adam Hauck, etc. We had Glen Seelenbrandt on hand to capture it all on film...he must've been paying attention at Nasty's dirt jumps, because he sent me this shot of him at Hacksaw's trails in Reno. Hacksaw actually took this photo...

Check this out...Black Market is international like you wouldn't believe! I don't know who this is, but I do know that it's a Black Market MOB throwing down at a contest in TEL AVIV, ISRAEL!!!

Today I was taking Pixel and Gonzo for a walk and we found this Vet who was offering up laser surgery. I'm still trying to figure out what kind of surgery this is actually referring to. Any clues?

Updated Event Calendar: (e-mail me if your event is not on here)
May 7th: Softies Spring Jam (Seattle, WA) GoHuckYourself.com
May 12-14: The Cut Pro/Am Slopestyle Series #1 (Winterberg, Germany) Thecutriders.com
May 19-21: The Cut Slopestyle #2 (Illmenau, Germany) Thecutriders.com
May 20-21: Blue Ridge Freeride Jam (Dirt jumps/skatepark-Asheville, NC) Click here for the contest flyer
June 2-4: Teva Mountain Games-Speedtrials (Vail, CO)
June 11: Softies Summer Jam (Seattle, WA) GoHuckYourself.com
June 24-25: Freeraid Classic (Les deux Alpes, France)
July 15-16: Red Bull District Ride #1 (Cantina, Italy) Redbulldistrictride.com
July 21-23: The Cut Slopestyle #3 (Les deux Alpes, France) Thecutriders.com
July 26-31: CRANKWORX (Whistler, BC) Crankworx.com
August 4-5: Red Bull District Ride #2 (Nuremberg, Germany) Redbulldistrictride.com
August 18-20: Monster Park (Snowshoe, WV)
September 10: Softies Fall Jam (Seattle, WA) GoHuckYourself.com

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4-28-06: We've got some updates on the contest calendar....another US event (near Asheville, NC on May 20-21) and I had to update the date for the first district ride (Its in July, not June....Thanks Scott Hart for the catch!). I updated the calendar in yesterday's entry, but for more info about the North Carolina event, right click + save as.

Landon Holt has decided to go full-time with Tonic Fabrications after leaving Mountain Cycle. He has been blogging up a storm lately on the Tonic site...I don't want to steal his thunder here, so I'll just say that Landon has A LOT of really good stuff up his sleeve this year. Remember, this is the guy who designed the original slopestyle bike. Now he's got free reign to make anything he wants...I can't wait to see what he comes up with!

Big news, Atomlab and Black Market are working on a team video. I am going to be the lead videographer/editor on it and the first filming trip is going down in two weeks. The video is slated to be out later this year, hopefully in time for Eurobike and Interbike. I will be posting updates on this page for the video, so keep it here for more information.

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4-26-06: Black Box Labs has the first official Iscream Jam update...I love this shot...I wonder who won? Harookz and Hylands getting rough!

I seriously can't keep up with Rob Rebholz's content. I'm just going to put a link up on the main page so everyone can keep tabs. In the meantime, here's a Chris Smith interview and there's also an Adam Hauck interview on there.

Check this out...you know that you're killing it when Apple does a feature on you. The Collective guys on Apple (thanks to Alwaysmad.com for the heads up)!

Smith Optics just signed up to be the exclusive eyewear sponsor of the Whistler Bike Park. Read the full press release here.

Alright...I've gotten like 200 calls this month of people asking me about contest dates and stuff. I think it's time to work on a contest schedule page. I'm going to list all of the contests that I know about, and if I missed any, drop me an e-mail and I'll put it on the contest list. It looks like Europe is the place to be this summer...

May 7th: Softies Spring Jam (Seattle, WA) GoHuckYourself.com
May 12-14: The Cut Pro/Am Slopestyle Series #1 (Winterberg, Germany) Thecutriders.com
May 19-21: The Cut Slopestyle #2 (Illmenau, Germany) Thecutriders.com
May 20-21: Blue Ridge Freeride Jam (Dirt jumps/skatepark-Asheville, NC) Click here for the contest flyer
June 2-4: Teva Mountain Games-Speedtrials (Vail, CO)
June 11: Softies Summer Jam (Seattle, WA) GoHuckYourself.com
June 24-25: Freeraid Classic (Les deux Alpes, France)
July 15-16: Red Bull District Ride #1 (Cantina, Italy) Redbulldistrictride.com
July 21-23: The Cut Slopestyle #3 (Les deux Alpes, France) Thecutriders.com
July 26-31: CRANKWORX (Whistler, BC) Crankworx.com
August 4-5: Red Bull District Ride #2 (Nuremberg, Germany) Redbulldistrictride.com
August 18-20: Monster Park (Snowshoe, WV)
September 10: Softies Fall Jam (Seattle, WA) GoHuckYourself.com

Cannondale is going to have a pretty sweet RV at most of those euro slopestyle events. Check it out!

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4-24-06: Oh boy, I'm having a hard time typing today...I've still got Kung-Fu grip from yesterday's DH session. We shuttled BW's trail from 10am to 7pm with P-Funk, Nachtrab, Brant and BW's crew. Good times...except for Aaron Nachtrab trying to get in touch with nature by trying to wrap himself around a couple trees and P-Funk's slip-n-slide down the steepest and most technical part of the trail. Yikes!

The IScream Jam at Jordie's house went off without a hitch. Top three goes like this: Ben Boyko, Bearclaw, Cam McCaul. Boyko landed a 3-whip to pedals and everyone was slaying it as expected. Andy Sundbaum tailwhipped the smallest setup jump and someone did a 900 into the foam (on a scooter). I'm sure there will be some good shots on Harookz's site as well as the Black Box Labs website, so check those out...

Check out the Jamie Goldman interview on Rob Rebholz's website, this site is getting some good content, definitely worth checking out.

Rumor has it that there is another Softies Jam in the works for May 7th. Softies is in Seattle, check the GoHuckYourself website for more pics of it! I will post up the confirmed information as soon as I hear back from those guys. If you live in the northwest, you DEFINITELY need to go...the trails are amazing and it's always a good time with the GHY crew!

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4-22-06: Big ups to Nina, she just got accepted to Portland State University! We always shred PSU campus when our friends come to town, so when Nina pays her tuition, I'm going to try to get them to earmark it to make some fresh street spots for everyone! I doubt it'll work, but it never hurts to ask!!

Nate Adams sent me an e-mail with some good pics...here are two pics of his girlfriend Emily Johnston shredding some jumps on her all-white Black Market MOB. Nate also sent a pic of his roommate Luke doing a fufanu on their backyard ramp. Apparently this pic was taken during a big party at their house, and Luke was in the bag when he bagged this fufanu. If you go to the Fit Bikes website, you can probably find more pics of Luke, I think he's on their flow team or something.

My buddy Ron has a couple things he's trying to sell. He's got a 24 Bicycles LeToy 3 frame, front wheel and an '04 Sherman Firefly. E-mail him here if you want to make an offer on any of his stuff.

This weekend is the IScream jam at Jordie Lunn's house. Keep your eyes on the Black Box site as well as Harookz's website for updates and photos. They are having all kinds of crazy side-contests in addition to the jam, so I'm sure there will be some good stories and photos.

Check out Rob Rebholz's Sea Otter gallery as well as his interview with Carter Holland!

Lastly....CZECH this out (ha ha). Petr Kraus in Hong Kong..

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4-21-06: Sorry for the lack of updates...time flies when you're having fun, you know. We finally caught a break in the weather here and it's been awesome outside. After a full winter of rain, it's great to get back outside and shred! Later today I'm going to meet up with Tonic Fabrications head honcho Landon Holt for a shred session. It sounds like Tonic Fab is going to step it up this year, so I'm stoked to hear what Landon has up his sleeve!

Check of Lucent Production's teaser for Full Circle. He won two awards at last year's NEMBA video contest, and this is the follow up.

Union Street Bikes are adding some serious rippers to their team...they are also postponing the summer event that was going to happen at RaysMTB, but I talked to Joe Prisel yesterday and he said that they will be having it in the fall when Rays re-opens. Also, I heard there is some new construction underway at Ray's park...that place keeps getting better and better!

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4-17-06: Check out the Sea Otter report from Deity Components. Good stuff.

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4-17-06: I hope you all had spectacular Easters. Mine was good...I finally had some time to decompress after being on the road for so long, plus my best friend from high school showed up from Wisconsin completely unannounced! I was stoked...we showed him the Portland scene and I had yet another excuse to hang out at Cannon Beach.

Match 8 is in the final stages of post-production and we should have a teaser going pretty quick here. I just need to file the music clearances and then we will have the videos out for sale. Everyone at the premiere was super stoked on the progress we've made in the last year. Aside from the great response to the addition of the slopestyle segments, everyone was also stoked on the fresh music in the vid.

We're contemplating *potentially* making segments from Match Videozines 1-8 available online for download (for a small fee to cover the cost of bandwidth and all that stuff). One of my biggest questions right now is, would everyone rather pay a larger fee to download the entire videos at once or a smaller fee to pick out a few segments at a time? This isn't a for-sure thing just yet, I'm just trying to see if it's worth doing. E-mail me (aaron at matchvideozine dot com) with any input that you may have (about the online vids...).

Shino from NYC sent me this pic of his buddy with a freshly built Tonic Fab Fall Guy. I was stoked on the build, but even more stoked on the t-shirt he's wearing. Modestbike OG!!!

One of our new associate editors, Patrick La Valley, put together this clip (right click + save as) for the Portland Match 8 preview party. I was super stoked on it, he did this in like 3 days (shooting and editing). Imagine what this kid can do with the stuff we're going to be throwing at him! Riders in the clip are all Portland local shredders!

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4-12-06: NEWS FLASH: I am no longer affiliated with Ride-This in any way, shape or form. To anyone on this site who supported Ride-This because I was a part of it, thank you for your support.

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4-10-06: Our drive home from Sea Otter was loooooooong. Around the 8th hour, everyone started getting a little crazy. Observe: 1 2 3 East Bloc Reprezent!! haha

Joey Appleton just got back from a few days at Woodward, picking up a few new tricks, check 'em out: wallride table, cannonball, superman.

Cameron McCaul and the Aptos crew are about to release TopSoil 2. Here's the flyer for the world premiere!

Random Sea Otter photo: The Syndicate + their umbrella girls...

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4-9-06: Big ups to everyone who attended the Match 8 premiere, thanks for coming and supporting the cause. We had an awesome turnout and I'm stoked on that. Sorry to the under-21s that got booted halfway through the vid, it was out of our control...next year we'll get an all ages venue!

Dirt finals....what can I say? It was raining all day, so the organizers put roofing paper on the landings and let the riders hit it. Originally I was skeptical, but after watching Timo boost it and everyone else get comfortable on it, I broke out the camera. In the end, the contest went off really well and we got a good show. I think the only person who really got hurt was Jesme, he flipped the step down and landed sketchy, causing him to slam face-first into the second ramp. He got up pretty quickly and had a little blood on his chin, but aside from that he looked ok.

Timo killed it and took the win. Second place went to ADAM HAUCK...and Tarek Rasouli offered up a free ride to the District Ride in Italy for the highest place non-invited rider. So Adam is going to Italy this summer! I was seriously beside myself with excitement...when I met him a year ago, he was this kid from New Jersey who had barely ever flown on an airplane, now he's being sent to Italy to compete with the best riders in the world! Stoked for Adam, for sure! Adam's best run was a suicide no-hander on the step-down, then a no-footed double seatgrab (I think this is called a "cannonball") and then he stuck a 360-whip on the last jump. Paul Basagoitia came in third place...I'm not sure how the 4th-10th shook out, I'll post it up if I find out.

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4-8-06: Day three...dirt jump qualifying. Holy crap...we saw a handful of new tricks, including Carter Holland clicking a *perfect* turndown flip. I don't think he had done one on the resi ramp at Woodward, I think he took it straight from the foam onto the dirt. Adam Hauck pulled a 360-tailwhip, Jim DeChamp landed a front flip, Damjan landed his first tailwhip to pedals on dirt, and both Greg Watts and Paul Basagoitia threw down the tailwhip backflips. In the last ten minutes of qualifying, someone dropped $500 for the best trick, so all attention was instantly averted from qualifying to dropping the best trick. I'm not sure what was crazier, the best tricks or the best trick attempts!

The following people qualified in dirt: Greg Watts, Cameron McCaul, John Jesme, Andy Watts, Phil Sundbaum, John Cowan, Timo Pritzel, Adam Hauck, Trond Hansen and Paul Basagoitia.

Last night we had the Match 8 premiere. We had a great turnout and aside from the people running the venue (who threw out all the under 21s about halfway through the movie) it went pretty well. Here are pics from last night:
-Dakoda and Tony Osusky
-Sundbaum in lady killer mode
-Jeff teaching Damjan how to be a baller
-Travis Erickson, George Ryan, Eric Porter
-Nina made the trip down from SanFrancisco for the premiere!
-Jay Hoots and Nina
-Yours truly with Phil
-Hans Rey showed up! I grew up watching his videos, I was stoked that he came
-There was a HUGE fight at the bar (not mtb guys) and it was almost as entertaining as the movie! This guy started fighting with the bouncers, then he got tossed out (Aaron Ingrao has the money shot of him being dragged by four bouncers--one per limb--out the door). Even better was when he ran back in the bar and got thrown in the sleeper hold until he passed out.
-Travis Erickson getting comfy on my hotel room floor!

Today is the dirt finals...I will try to update with the results before we head back home.

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4-7-06: Day two of Sea Otter...it started out with blue skies and ended in a complete downpour. The wind was crazy..the weather was so bad that most of the top-end photographers didn't even break out the gear: Spomer | Harookz | Nicolas LeCarre.

I was all psyched up to see the Roam World Premiere last night. There were signs everywhere around the venue for the "World Premiere" but apparently we all got duped by the oldest trick in the book: the bait and switch. All of the information on this flyer appeared to be correct, except the price! When we walked into the premiere, they were charging $10 per person to get in. I busted out the flyer and said, "What the crap?!" and one of the head guys pointed out the date and walked away without any more discussion. How lame is that? Our crew of 15 decided to skip the premiere as a result. I wanted to see the movie, but not THAT bad (and especially if they were trying to pull a stunt like that!).

For the record, the Match 8 premiere tonight is FREE.

Enough ranting, here's the shots from yesterday:
-Rock Shox Argyle fork...steel and burly for the street/dirt guys
-Danny Brody flew off a jump and landed in a huge mud bog
-The roll-in view of the dirt jumps
-They had to do the MTX course in a different spot because of all the mud
-Chase's '07 bike...Chase is already rolling around on his bike, looks like he's making a fast recovery
-C-dale Prophet with "The Cut" graphics
-Nate Adams green with "Envy"

Marzocchi and Commencal threw a party at the end of the day...it was cool to bro down with everyone but the rain definitely put a damper on it. Nate Adams lifted our spirits after he snatched this bling from Cedric's neck!

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4-7-06: Sea Otter is a mudpit! They had to make a secondary mountaincross course because the first one was just a mess! Today was pretty mellow, just meeting up with the bros and scoping the scene. Tonight we met up with Harookz and took him out on the town since his ride left him hanging (we may have to take drastic "Measures" to correct this). Anyways, we're on the drive home...but we didn't have directions. So we pulled into a Travelodge parking lot and poached the wireless...got the Mapquest hookup and decided to do this little update in the process.

The venue has proper internet access, so stay tuned for regular updates from Sea Otter!

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4-6-06: We're at Woodward West, getting ready to head over to Monterey for Sea Otter. Here's a few pics from yesterday's session:
-Aaron Lutze (me) upside down...I finally non-penciled my flips!
-Lutze bench abubaca
-Carter Holland flip turndown
-Damjen's bike
-This is California?
-Porter's new Haro Thread-1
-The view from The Lodge at Woodward West

For the record, we posted up a pic of Damjen on the roll-in at Nasty's trails with Cory Nastazio and Timo (on a Czech forum) and all the Czechs are calling it out as a photoshop job. It's not, I have the footage to prove it!

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4-5-06: The roadtrip is going along pretty smooth, although we got bogged down by the rain today. Tomorrow morning we're waking up at 5:30 and heading over to Woodward West for a quick session before Sea Otter.

So anyways, the main reason the "Chex Mix" (as we've dubbed them) came over for this trip was to introduce us to the new RST Space Fork. Check this thing out...it's pretty sweet. A few of the riders have been testing it out (at Nasty's trails) and so far it's been well received. The other cool thing is that there is an adaptor for quick release, so you can use a QR or 20mm front hub with this fork. All you have to do for the QR wheel is pop in the adaptors and use a rear wheel skewer on the front. Good stuff. With any luck, we'll have these forks available in the USA relatively soon.

Don't forget, if you're going to Sea Otter....8:30pm at the Blue Fin Cafe on Saturday night....Match 8 premiere!!

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4-4-06: We've been staying at Carter's house over the last couple days (thank goodness we're not still stuck in that shady hotel in Anaheim!)...every time I hang out with Carter, I learn more about him, but this trip has been crazy. Not only did I learn even more, I got pictures!! Check these out:
-Carter's been doing turndowns since before you took your training wheels off
-Did you know that Carter skated with Apollo Ono?
-Top Gun
-Carter's military volleyball team in Somalia
-Carter boosting it
-Not only was he a cop, he graduated at the top of his class and also gave the graduation speech!

Back to the roadtrip...we rode with Nasty and Luke Parslow again yesterday, then shredded a few more spots. Here are a few more pics:
-Damjen Siriski barspin
-Last frame (German)
-Adam Hauck tailwhip
-Carter hip (I think I snapped this one late)

Damjen found a pair of skates in Carter's garage, unfortunately Carter's dog Sierra had to shut him down.

Anybody want some King hubs?

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4-3-06: Adam T.H.auck guest post:

Today was dope, we woke up pretty early and went and rode Nasty's trails again because they are that amazing. A bmxer named Fernado front flipped the last jump first try perfect. Chex mix shredded--he killed it today. After Nasty's we came back to Carter's and watched Joe Kid on a Sting Ray and if you haven't seen it you should get on that. After that we went and rode some street but got kicked out by the police pretty quickly but still found time to shred this sick curved wall ride which one of our bros from Japan (Akira) was going 100mph at it "INSANE". We're headed to Woodward West tomorrow. Check out the Woodward mountain bike program that's going on this summer. this guest post probably sucks, so sorry...get offline and go shread!

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4-2-06: Ok, as promised...here are a handful of pics from yesterday:
-I missed this sign at our hotel when we checked in
-Overview of Cory's trails...
-Adam Hauck and Cory Nastazio
-Carter eurotable on the 25-ft hip
-Photographer Glen Seelenbrandt
-Bafus signing the waiver for Nasty's trails
-Adam Hauck 1ft table
-Timo tabling the hip
-Timo 360 on the last set

Big thanks to Cory for having us out at the trails (and Carter for getting us hooked up). Cory was a super nice guy, we hung out with him for a while and it was a treat to watch him ride. He was corkscrew flipping the 25' hip and it was absolutely ridiculous.

Nate Adams just got back from a little roadtrip, here are some pics from Nate:
-Nate Adams: 270 turnbar
-Emily Johnston at Hidden Valley
-Nate flipping at Nasty's trails

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4-2-06: Holy crap, Nasty's trails are amazing. Timo surprised us and joined the trip for a few days, too! Pics to come as soon as I have more than 5 minutes to myself. It's been crazy with all the riding and driving around. Last night we met up with Teisuke, the Black Market dealer for Japan...we took 13 dudes out to all-you-can-eat sushi. It was crazy!! I think our bill was like $430 or something...lots of pics to come...stay tuned.

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4-1-06: Happy Birthday Monika!! A huge thank you to Nina's parents for once again extending their hospitality to a basement full of stinky bike riders. They hooked us up in San Francisco and we had an awesome session...we managed to find a couple spots right on Lombard (the crooked street). Jaromir did a bump-jump fakie wallride off a curb and stair to a huge brick wall...super dialed...the tourists even stopped to watch, it was insane. After that we made our way to the waterfront to shoot a few more lines before finally packing it up and heading down to BroCal.

-This was on the back of a bus in SF
-Glen has alien fingers, check these out....Jaro and I could barely stop laughing long enough to snap a picture!
-The "Czechs Mix" with the real deal

So we got to Anaheim tonight and Carter told us to catch a hotel room, then we'll ride Cory Nastazio's trails tomorrow. We were all pretty stoked on this until we tried to find a hotel room. Anaheim = Disneyworld, so finding reasonably-priced hotels is pretty difficult. It seemed like every hotel was booked up, until we found the "Rainbow Inn". I've spent some nights in sketchy hotels, but this one takes the cake. Right about now, I'm WISHING that this was some silly April Fools joke, but I'm dead serious. We're trapped at the Bates Motel (and even though our room wasn't supplied with soap, clean sheets, pest control or a clock, we somehow have wireless internet--figure that one out!)

I doubt any of us are going to sleep much tonight...thankfully we're meeting Carter tomorrow morning at 8am to hook up and ride. Wish us luck!

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3-31-06: We made it to San Francisco! The drive took about 12 hours (13 if you count trying to find a place to park..) but it was well worth it! We got some riding in today, then the rain hit and we were forced to switch back to tourist mode. Pics from today:
-Damjan barspin 180 off a wet rock into wet grass (photo: Glenn Landberg)
-Damjan at In-N-Out...stoked on the double-double (doing an "eye x-up" according to him)
-Random photo of bread shaped like a fish
-Jaromir pedal gap at Fisherman's Wharf
-Sea Lions from Pier 39
-The umbrella crew....tourists!
-Bafus--right before the wake-up call hit yesterday morning...6am

Glen Seelenbrandt just arrived as well as our friend Nico from Ride-It Magazine (France). Nico showed up with a crap-load of tartlettes, so I'm stoked!

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3-29-06: The Match 8 premiere party was off the hook! We had over twenty people crammed into my tiny living room and a huge display on the wall. It was a pretty ideal setup! Big thanks to Nina for letting all the boys invade our humble abode. I think she was pretty stoked that everyone obeyed the shoe rule.

Prior to the premiere, the 503 crew took our two Czech visitors to a new skatepark that opened up in Salem. I had to stay behind to prepare for the party, but judging by this pic of Damjan 360-ing the spine, I'm sure it was a good session!

Tomorrow we're headed south to San Francisco...then it's on to Orange County to meet up with Carter Holland and Adam Hauck. Adam's segment was extremely well-received tonight at the premiere, I can't wait to see the reaction at the Sea Otter party (8:30 on Saturday the 8th, at the Blue Fin).

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3-25-06: PAAAAAARTY!!!! Mark it on your calendars, Saturday April 8th, 8:30 at the Blue Fin in Monterey, CA! We will be premiering Match 8 at Sea Otter, the same place we premiered Counterparts last year. BE THERE!!!

Jaromir and Damjan (damm-eean) are here from the Czech Republic. They were stoked to find Pilsner Urquell at the gas station down the street from the Ride-This shop! Steven Bafus just rolled in with his buddy Glen, so by Thursday we should be all set to head down south. In preparation for this trip, I hooked up a new laptop so I can do updates from the road again. I've been laptop-less for the past six months and it sucks to travel without one...so now I'm back on the program!

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3-25-06: Here's a picture of my new bike...it's a 2006 Black Market MOB with Deity Components and Atomlab stuff. I just dialed it in for the Sea Otter roadtrip...fresh tires and a few new bits here and there...good to go! We're going to try to re-break it in tomorrow at Meldrum, weather permitting.

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Click the pic for more info.

3-24-06: That's right. If you live in Portland and you want to ride with us on Wednesday, we are going to have a little pow-wow in my living room afterwards. Match 8 is still being wrapped up at DH Productions, but I have a large majority of the segments on tape. Join us at 9pm on Wednesday at my apartment if you want a sneak peak of Match 8. E-mail me for directions and BYOB. If you trash my apartment or attempt to steal Pixel, you will get dropped head-first off of my second-story balcony. We're instituting martial law for the party...and Hacksaw will be there to back me up, so no funny stuff!!

Wednesday night's party is also the launch for our next roadtrip. Hacksaw, Steven Bafus, Glen Seelenbrandt (photographer), Jaromir Spesny and Damjan Sirisky will be driving down to southern California to meet up with Adam Hauck and Carter Holland for a pre-Sea Otter roadtrip. Jaromir Spesny and Damjan are both coming over from the Czech Republic, so we're stoked to have them on our roadtrip. They are coming over here to promote Jaromir's new signature fork from RST, check it out. Here's some pics of Damjan for the uninitiated: 1 2 3.

Ever wonder where Modestbike came from? Here's the story. Ian Millar was really interested in doing a print magazine, but wanted to gauge the reaction to (and see how much it would take to put together) a high quality design-based mountain bike magazine, so he made a webzine with the style and content that would eventually become Modestbike's trademark. After 10,000 views in a handful of days, Ian decided that he would step it up to print (trivia: Modestbike's first webzine inspired Littermag...it said so on the Litter site). ANYWAYS, here's the original issue of Modestbike on the web...check it out.

Rob Rebholz has a photography website up...check out these pics from a recent skydiving trip over Moab. CRAZY!

Lastly, Sam Miller is on the Union Street Bikes team. Check out their updated website..

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3-21-06: Aaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.....it's finally done! Match 8 is on it's way out the door to be authored onto DVD today. Expect a teaser within the next week or so, then it's GO TIME. I've been working on Match 8 for about a year now and editing since last November to make sure this thing turned out right (we're estimating something like 300+ hrs behind the computer). It looks amazing...I've never been as psyched on a video as I am on this one. Big thanks to Nathan Blades for the music hookup, too!!

Here's the main sequence list:
-District Ride
-Traffic Jam
-Teva Speed Trials
-Links Jam
-Crankworx
-Softies Fall Jam
-Rye Airfield
-Monster Park
-Super Sessions
-Cross country roadtrip (Joe Prisel, Ryan Smith, Hannah Steffens--as seen in Modest #3)
-Utah (Porter, McCaul, Goldman, Watts)
-Revolution (EVERYBODY)
-Adam Hauck (this segment is extra ridiculous)

Keep your eyes on this site, I'll post the teaser as soon as it's ready! Now it's time to focus on our Sea Otter roadtrip...we're bringing over Jaromir Spesny and Damjen Sirisky from the Czech Republic to meet up with Steven Bafus, Adam Hauck, Hacksaw and Carter Holland for a west coast roadtrip down to Sea Otter.

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3-17-06: Happy St. Patricks Day and thanks to everyone who thought I was on the west coast for my birthday and called me ridiculously late on the east coast! I'm back in Portland and Match 8 is getting wrapped up this weekend, I just have to put the final touches on some segments...then it goes to DH Productions to be authored and then into everyone's hot little hands. In the meantime, I've got an update to catch up on:

Woodward West is going to have two sessions this summer for mountain bikes. Here is the PDF file with all of the information about getting into the sessions. The dates for the sessions are as follows: Session One: June 11-17, Session Two: June 18-24.

Union Street Bikes...I don't know if we've posted up a complete bike photo on this site yet, so here goes. These frames are USA made (I think it's the same guys who do T-1) and Joe Prisel is designing a 26" bike with them called the "Working Class Hero". Not sure when it will be out, but we'll post up when it becomes available.

Mongoose is fine-tuning the Ritual frame. I believe it will be available frame-only this year as well. The frame comes out to 5.3 lbs, which is pretty light for a steel bike. They refined a bunch of stuff on it...I think Joe Prisel was riding a prototype of this version on the Match 8 roadtrip.

Check this out...a couple weeks ago when they had that big event at RaysMTB, CNN showed up. The footage from that will be on Anderson Cooper's 360 show, here are the dates/times: Saturday March 18th, 11am/2pm/5pm; Sunday March 19, 9am/4pm/7pm.

Hcor.net reviewed the Tonic Fabrications Fall Guy frame on their site, check it out!

Myope is back!

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3-12-06: I'm going to be in North Carolina for the next few days to celebrate my birthday on the east coast, so Nina threw a big surprise birthday party for me on Saturday night. Thanks to everyone that came!! I'd also like to let the Seattle GHY crew know that they're going to have to step it up if they want to party with the 503 crew!

Earlier on Saturday, I went to Syncline to ride with Steve Cominski...it was blue skies in Portland, although it had been raining for the majority of the week, so we had no idea what to expect. It was a little snowy but it looked rideable. Well, about halfway up the fire road, we found outselves in about six inches of snow! We ended up driving back down and then hiking up the trail a mile or two until the trail was completely covered in snow. It was super muddy but well worth the hike!

When I get back from the east coast, we'll be putting the final touches on Match 8, then we'll release a teaser and then copies should be available around Sea Otter.

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3-10-06: One of our bros in Brooklyn, NY got broke off last week, go here if you want to help him out and go here if you want to see pics of the gnar. He fractured his wrist and a few other things here and there which resulted in a nice $15,000 bill from the nice folks at the hospital. Get well soon Shino!

Man, bad news today...first Shino, then I get a call from Steven Bafus who just cracked his collarbone. He's looking at getting back to business by the end of the month (in time to kill it at Sea Otter), but until then, he's going to hang out with girls and rest up (that's what he told me, at least).

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3-10-06: Check out "The Cut", it's the name of Cannondale's new team. For weeks they've been releasing info on their new team riders and now the team is complete. Check out www.thecutriders.com, there's a bunch of info and videos up on the site. It should be an interesting year, for sure. If you look at the schedule page, it looks like there is some sort of slopestyle series going on in Europe this summer!

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3-10-06: Only three more segments to edit before Match 8 is done! This computer is getting quite a workout this week during our self-imposed "reign of terror"...here is the advertisement that was in Modestbike Four for Match 8.

8 seems to be a popular number this year. Check out the trailer for Super 8 the movie. Also, I just want to take a minute to let Phil Sundbaum know that it's not called "gymNICEtics". Emily Johnston is now rocking a custom-painted Blk Mrkt, courtesy of her buttery smooth boyfriend, Mr. Nate Adams.

Carter Holland released the Underboss stem last week and then did this darkside table at Stephen Murray's house to celebrate (photo: Justin Kozman). Kyle Strait is on the Deity Components program for 2006, read the official press release here...Deity also revamped their website and is preparing to release this new shirt...countdown to my closet: 17 days.

Any idea which 19 time national trials champion is now riding a Diamondback Assault frame?

My birthday is next Tuesday (Pi day for all you mathletes), so I'm going to ride hard this weekend. Here are five songs on my playlist for the weekend:
1. "Shut Me Up" - Mindless Self Indulgence
2. "Combat Baby" - Metric
3. "First Of The Gang To Die" - Morrissey
4. "C'mon C'mon" - The Von Bondies
5. "What Else Is There?" - Royksopp

If you want to get a listen to the music for Match 8, track down "The Fish Hook Is Fine Print" and "So Stay In Love" from the band Kissing Tigers.

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3-5-06: Back from an absolutely epic weekend...cosmic bowling, insane DH trails and plenty of editing. Where to start...how about with Black Market Bikes' newest addition to the product line, the UNDERBOSS STEM. We've got them in stock at Ride-This for $65. Here are more pics of the stem: ONE TWO THREE

Also, I posted the other day about the Union Street contest in Ohio on June 3rd, which is now moved to June 10th so that everyone can go to Vail, Colorado for the speed trials event. We're going to have a segment in Match 8 about the TEVA Speed Trials event...aside from the snow/rain, it was pretty sweet. What's cool about Match 8 is that you can look up each segment's progress on the website. For instance, if you scroll down to June 2005, you can see the process of the trip to Colorado in order to shoot that Speed Trials segment. Thanks again to Dan Drain for being my personal chaffeur for that weekend...fun times.

We went out bowling with Paulbas.com webmaster Scott Stanton and Match Videozine associate editor Patrick Lavalley (as well as some lovely ladies). They turned off the lights and everyone got cosmic. I started out the first three frames with three strikes in a row (my lucky ball was chosen because it was the same color as the cover of Morrissey's "You Are The Quarry" album) but then it was all downhill from there. I won the first two games and then Nina took home the third win...this place was right next to the indoor bmx track where we held Big Wheels if anyone is interested in being crushed by yours truly. Just watch out for the girls and their odd bowling techniques.

Alright, so then fast forward to Saturday, we went to a top secret DH trail outside of Portland. The trail was about 6-8 minutes long at full pinned speed, it started out above the snow line with some super tech stuff and then as you got down further, you got to hit the fast and flowy stuff with nice fade-away jumps. This single trail combined every single thing that I love about Whistler into one run. Believe it!

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3-3-06: My updating has been a bit sporadic lately, mostly due to the amount of editing going on over here. At this point, we could probably release Match 8 and everyone would be stoked...but we have 8 more segments to edit. This issue is definitely going to be the most packed issue yet. There are going to be two sequences this time around, one action and one "info" sequence, then hopefully a "play all" option (and of course, plenty of stuff in the Bonus section). The action sequence is going to be straight riding, no industry profiles or anything like that. It's for those of you who watch videos right before you shred, just straight action with no slow parts!

Speaking of straight action, Union Street Bikes will be holding a park contest at Rays MTB on June 3rd. Registration and more information will be available at the USB site on April 1st. There will be classes for amateur and pro, plus a healthy session before and after the event. Also, check out the Union Street Bikes website for a good clip of Joe Prisel. He's currently working on a signature bike with them and they have a pretty stacked team in development right now.

Want to see Kyle Ebbett and Alex Dunstan duke it out on 50s? Justin from Lucent Productions captured it all in THIS segment. (right click + save as)

Here's another video from our buddies in Poland...right click + save as

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3-1-06: Big ups to Scott Hart and everyone at Decline Magazine for giving props to Match 8 on their site today. Click here for more info on Match 8 as well as a sneak peak at one of the bonus video clips that will be included on the Match 8 DVD.

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3-1-06: Happy unbirthday Mike Reid!! Mike Reid was born on a leap year so he's S.O.L. this year, but we can just pretend that today is his birthday instead. Wish him a happy unbirthday if you see him shooting photos up there in BC today.

Our condolensces to the family of Carey Bokser and everyone at Freeride Entertainment. Check NSMB or PinkBike for the complete details.

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2-28-06: We are in the thick of editing right now...Match 8 is coming along really well. Be prepared, there is more "mountain" in this issue than previous issues. Mostly slopestyle stuff, though...you're not going to see any soulful shots of riders feeling the vibe while they throw double-handed toboggans. It's all good riding, I wouldn't put big mountain stuff in the vid unless I could sit back and really enjoy watching the riding, so I have no worries that these few slopestyle-ish segments will go over really well.

Adam Hauck is going to have a full segment in Match 8. Get ready. THE most progressive stuff I've seen all year, Adam destroyed it...at times I would be shooting and I couldn't even believe what was going down. This kid is going to annihilate your expectations of top notch street riding, guaranteed.

We setup a Match Videozine page on Myspace. Add us if you're on there: www.myspace.com/matchvideozine. There's no real bonus to visiting that page, since this website takes priority, but I just figured it would be cool to have. In a couple days, all of the trailers and clips will be up there for everyone to check out, similar to the setup they have for music groups. Add us if you're a myspacer...and check out Evan Holmgren's journal entries while you're at it.

Big props out to Nate Adams, he won his first Arenacross 110 race. Scott Hart told me that he was going to make a t-shirt that said, "I'd rather be watching Nate Adams ride." I think I might ask him to make an extra one for me, I wholeheartedly agree with that statement. You can't argue with this..

We had a great shred last weekend, thanks to the local crew that made it out!

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2-24-06: Find a buddy that has a copy of Earthed 3 and make him fast-forward to Chris Akrigg's section!! Probably the best street/trials segment to date, this guy is absolutely amazing. I got a copy of it yesterday and I've already watched Akrigg's section like eight times. The rest of the video is racing stuff (which is actually semi-entertaining when you have Fionn Griffiths sitting on the couch next to you, telling you all about each course).

Speaking of, Fionn Griffiths and Jay Hoots came through Portland last night and crashed at my place. This morning after a session at IHOP, they swung by the Ride-This shop to check it out. I made Jay sign my Hoots poster on the wall next to my computer and I showed them a few segments from Match 8.

My old DVS shoes needed to retire, so I'm rocking the new NKE 6.0 Air Mogan shoes. Porter, McCaul and Adam Hauck are all running these shoes as well and so far I really like them. ( SIDE // BOTTOM ) The shoes I got were designed for bike riding and last night when I hopped on Rocker Dave's bike, my feet instantly stuck to the pedals. Stiff, grippy soles along with the "shank" that runs inside the shoe to keep your foot stable when you get sketchy mid-shred. Definitely check into these shoes if you're into the market.

Oh yeah, I guess these soft-shell helmets were banned since they aren't safety certified helmets, but we got a small batch of them here at the shop, so if anyone wants to get this helmet before some government agency bans them...now's the time.

Lastly, we are going to ride again this Sunday at Syncline. If anyone wants to join our crew (I think we're about five or six deep already) just meet us at 10am at the Ride-This shop. If you have a truck, bring it because we're going to need more than one truck for shuttling! Rain or shine, it's on!!

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2-22-06: I don't know how many of you have seen THIS yet, but this kid has a super good clip in Match 8. His name is Peter L'esperance (from Canada, eh) and there is a clip in the Revolution segment that I can *guarantee* will make you all press rewind. Here's a hint.

Eric Baker hooked me up with a few UAB contest photos...go to ESFR for the rest of the pics and info.
-Seth Lolli dumping a 3-Sixer over the spine
-Seth Lolli, swellbow...
-Adam Hauck boosting the spine (It looks like he's either bar-humping or getting ready to do a tuck no-hander. Either way, he's up there!)

Benoit Gori from France sent me this photo sequence of a wallride to manual to 180 on his new Black Market.

Speaking of Black Market, their newest team member Phil Sundbaum just made a trip to the emergency room last night after bottoming out in the Thrill Zone foam pit. Rumor has it that he was working on flipwhips...get well soon Phil!

Check out this vid of Ross McMaster...a lot of us have known Ross from the old school trials scene, but he's on the freeride program now. He lived in Whistler last summer and put together a segment with some locals. Check it out..

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2-20-06: I have something to brag about! Nina came out with us this weekend to the Syncline trail, we got her all dolled up in the latest Dainese gear and set her up for the ride. I was really nervous that my girl was going to hate mountain biking, but as it turned out, she had a great time and was shredding the gnar with the rest of us!! STOKED!

More pics:
-Paulbas.com webmaster and master shredder Scott Stanton
-Syncline sunset ONE TWO
-The view of Mt Hood from Syncline ONE TWO

My good weekend continued as copies of Modestbike Issue Four came in...soooooo hot right now. Go to Modestbike and get a subscription, this mag is en fuego!!! The new one is packed with some epic shots from all the top photographers, definitely my favorite one so far!

Match 8 is coming right along, I just finished the roadtrip segment with Joe Prisel, Ryan Smith and Hannah Steffens. So far, so good! As long as everything goes according to plan, we'll have the video put together in the next few weeks and you can all get copies at Sea Otter.

New York riders, go to www.grindstate.com and get plugged in!

Also, thumbs up to Adam Hauck for winning the UAB Jam in Montreal this past weekend. Not only did he win the contest but he took home top honors for the best trick contest. I asked him which trick he won with and his reply was, "Uhhh...I actually did three tricks, I'm not sure which one won it....wallride-to-tailwhip, 3-whip over the box and a handplant to 180." I don't have any more info or pics from the jam, but hopefully we'll have that info shortly.

Today is the one year anniversary of Hunter S. Thompson's exit...the year went by pretty fast. For those of you who aren't in the know about HST, he was definitely one of the most groundbreaking authors of the last 100 years. He inspired me through college as I got my journalism degree and I still get inspired to this day by reading his colelcted works. Read this article that he wrote for Rolling Stone about the '04 campaign...if you like it, I strongly recommend "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", "The Rum Diary" and "The Great Shark Hunt".

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2-16-06: Good news from everyone today!! Hacksaw dropped an e-mail the other day saying that Peanut's bike had been stolen out of their locked garage and that he was on a rampage to find whoever stole it (you can read the whole e-mail over at Modestbike.com). Less than 24 hours later, Peanut got his bike back! Hacksaw should get a job at Whistler, they could use a guy with that sort of effectiveness tracking down stolen bikes!

My good news is that I finally finished importing all of my DV tapes and now it's just a matter of dropping everything onto the timeline...then we can all sit back and enjoy Match 8! Nate Blades is helping me locate some fresh music, too, so I'm stoked on that.

I remember that Chase was getting into bowling pretty heavily before he got broke off in Aspen. Most would think that having a broken leg would prevent you from doing such activities as bowling, but Jeff Lenosky was able to prove otherwise...hopefully AC can use this tactic (right click + save as) and continue on with his new hobby!

Check out the new issue of Frontline Magazine, it's especially good if you can read German!! Also, here are two more vids from our friends in Poland: ONE TWO (right click + save as).

Right now we are working on a pre-Sea Otter roadtrip down the coast...looks like our friend Jaromir Spesny is coming over from Czech with Damjan Sirisky. It should be a good trip!

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2-14-06: Happy Valentine's Day!

Here's a couple more pics from Big Wheels night on Sunday, courtesy of Erik from Stump503. Ryan Fullmer won the high jump contest and Ross McMaster won the best trick contest with a perfect 360 over that huge box jump. I don't think anyone 360'd the box at the Traffic Jam, it has a short run-up and it's got a huge lip, so props to Ross for sticking that clean! More pics:
-Eugene guy 3-pointer
-The gate
-Event organizer Landon Holt: ONE TWO THREE

Ever wonder how much footage it takes to put a full-length video together? Here's about 3/4 of the tapes that it took for Match 8. Each tape equals at least three hours of post-production time before we even get to editing, so hopefully this will give you guys a snapshot of why videos take so long to come out!!

I got an e-mail from the Poland crew...check this out, this is 16-year old Papiez...(right click + save as)

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2-13-06: Last night was the final night for Big Wheels, we had a great turn out, a high jump contest and of course, a party. Big thanks go out to Landon Holt for organizing the whole deal and getting the Stumptown scene together for weekly sessions. It was a great way to pass the winter!! A bunch of people were snapping pics last night so I'll post a few when they roll in. The guy who won the Sinister DNA frame at the Ride-This Traffic Jam won the high jump contest, so that was cool...that kid has been improving a lot this year, it's cool to see that frame in use!

Here's some more pics of the RedBull Skyride event in Minneapolis. Hylands was there shooting, so definitely check out the pics!

There is a contest in Worcester, MA on April 30th. No cost to enter, it's just an informal street contest called the Greenhill Pro Am Jam. We'll post more info when we get it...and if you're a MA local, track down Dan Bowers for more info!

If you live in Vancouver, the Vancouver Mountain Film Festival is on Thursday, February 23rd. They are going to play Match 7 and a bunch of other mtb flicks.

Speaking of mtb flicks, Clay Porter's Hypnosis just dropped. Swing on over to DeclineMagazine.com and check out the release party pics!

Harookz just called to let me know that he posted "the biggest news update of his entire life" on his website...he just got back from a trip that was supposed to end up in Utah but left him and the boys in southern Oregon! They picked a good week, it was the first full week down here that it hasn't rained in like three months!

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2-9-06: Check this out...my buddy Adam held an event in St. Paul, MN. Apparently St. Paul has the longest stretch of skyways in the USA, so Adam organized a race from one end to the other...indoor mountain bike racing!! Check out the video clips ONE TWO. Props on a good event, Adam, it looked awesome!

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2-8-06: There is going to be another UAB jam in Montreal, QC on the weekend of February 17th. Craig Robinson is organizing it with the guys from Eastside Freeride. Go to the ESFR website for more info! E-mail craigrobinson [at] eastsidefreeride [dot] com for registration information!

Dan Drain brought his iPod Nano to The Gathering this year and I was checking it out. It looked super flimsy but he claims that it's taken a beating. To take it a step further, check out this iPod Nano "stress test".

Looks like Volume BMX is going to test the 26" waters...although this is a far cry from a Blk Mrkt frame, Volume is releasing a "Sledgehammer" frame in late 2006.

I was digging through some websites today and I came across Hannah Steffens' online journal. Seems that she's headed back to the USA this week and she's engaged to Mick Hannah. Congrats Mick and Hannah on your engagement!

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2-7-06: I need to go to Rays...every time they have an event, I regret not being there more and more. William Kirk hooked me up with more sweet shots from the weekend, check them out here. Also, Ray dropped me a line to let me know that CNN was at the park with their cameras shooting something for Anderson Cooper 360, which will air sometime in early March. They shot with all of the pros at the park, so we've finally got a good excuse to watch CNN!!

For those of you who were at the contest, you may be curious about the "Croatian Sensation", Mislav Mironovic. Mislav is in the states for a while checking out the scene and practicing at Woodward. Here are a few pics (courtesy of Don Hampton) of Mislav in action in his home country. ONE TWO THREE

The sun has finally broken through the clouds and we are in full bluebird mode here in Portland. That means everyone is getting out and shredding on their new rides for '06. Check out Portland local Charlie Sponsel's new Tonic Fab..

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2-6-06: I must've missed an epic weekend...the first pic I got from the Rays 3Ride contest was this one...it's good to be the king, eh?

More pics are coming in...here is the first gallery set from the event.

Here's a big GET WELL SOON to my buddy and co-worker Victor who's down with pneumonia right now. Get well soon!!

We are getting the northwest crew together on February 20th for a session at Thrill Zone (near Seattle). It's Charlie's birthday and we want to get together and rent it out. E-mail Charlie if you are interested...

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2-5-06: The end of DV tape importing is near! Just a few more submitted DV tapes, a few more Sea Otter tapes and one Rye Airfield tape, then it's on to editing this beast!! There is probably enough footage here to make a couple issues of Match, but I'm just going to cram it all together to make a "Mega-Match" haha...

Here's a few screen shots from the latest:
-Shawn Spomer vs. Aggro Goose
-Aaron Chase, double tire to 180 on the subrail

Ross Measures must have a permanent burn on his shoulder from all those inverts. Photo by Sam Honch, The Gathering '06.

If you haven't already read this on any other websites, Aaron Chase broke his femur snowboarding in Aspen right after taking the #2 spot at The Gathering. He's already had an operation and is in physical therapy. Reports so far are putting Chase back in action by Crankworx...GET WELL SOON, ACE!!!!!!!

Speaking of recoveries...Griz is out of the hospital from his lacerated spleen incident...all you MySpacers, read "Griz 2, Death 0", it's hilarious...his spleen must be working just fine now, since he's "upper deck"-ing like a champ.

Final results from Ray's MTB 3-Ride event: Jamie Goldman won the jump contest and Greg Watts took the overall win!

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2-4-06: Lenosky called me up this morning so I could post a real-time update about the Ray's 3Ride event this weekend (thanks Jeff!). The first event was the speed trials event and Lopes took the win, followed by Jim DeChamp and Greg Watts. Lopes also won the pump track event, followed by Rich Houseman and Greg Watts. The jump event is about to happen and if Watts can hold it together, I think he could take the overall win.

Here are some shots from Hampton's footage for Match 8:
-Monster Park: Lenosky tries to take out the announcing booth
-Monster Park: Chase handplant over the 15ft wallride
-Links Jam: Places to not attempt backflip-to-manual, demonstrated by Carter Holland
-Links Jam: Unknown superman sillouette

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2-2-06: Go to Modestbike.com and get all of the songs on the "20+ Greyday" playlist. I'm kind of into the Louis XIV song on there, but the whole list is pretty good if you're into that style of music. I was in this Morrisey zone for a while and was stoked to see a fresh playlist...unfortunately there was a Morrisey cover in the list. Oh well..

Not much other news today so I'll just post up a few screen shots:
-Look at this...one hand nothing, it looks like Steven Bafus is about to die! Not only does he stick it clean, he tricks the next jump, too!
-The insanity does not stop from this kid...ONE HAND PENDULUM! That was ridiculous in person..
-Cam McCaul corked flip at Cowan's
-Nate Adams x-up at the Oilfields
-Evan Holmgren 360table over my fisheye lens (get well soon, Griz!)
-Phil Sundbaum tailwhip at the Softies Jam
-Steven Bafus one handed no can

The reason you didn't see Steven Bafus on the podium at The Gathering is that he got taken out the day before the event by a no can over a hip gone wrong. He didn't get back on the bike and landed straight on his face, knocking himself out instantly and landing himself a two day stay at the hospital. He's ok now, just bummed because he had some big stuff up his sleeve for The Gathering. I'm confident that he will be back in full force very soon and you'll all see what he's been working on. All I can say is that it's absolutely ridiculous.

Nina's mom hooked me up with a group shot that she took while we were staying with them in San Francisco...this was on the way home from Super Sessions and right after our sweet tour at Alcatraz! Thanks Monika!!

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2-1-06: Alright, so remember how I was saying Aptos, CA has a new super shredder? I wasn't kidding. Alex Reveles: BANG BANG BANG. Alex took home the gold in expert dirt at The Gathering and I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot more from him this year.

Editing continues for Match 8. Here are three shots from the Super Sessions Jam at Woodward:
-Phil Sundbaum tailwhips a huge gap
-Steven Bafus front flip in the rafters
-Adam Hauck tailwhips the quarter

Joe Prisel signed a deal to ride for Union Street Bikes to develop a signature 26" frame with them. It will be singlespeed with a bmx-spaced back end. It's going to be called "The Working Class Hero" and Joe will be riding his prototype in about a month.

Did you know that in 1847, Portland was nicknamed "Stumptown"? Specialized didn't. More on this later...there is a storm brewing here in Stumptown!

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1-31-06: For those of you who missed The Gathering, Justin from Lucent Productions has already got a short segment online for your benefit. Check it out here... (right click + save as)

Kathy Sessler also sent in some pics of Jamie Goldman, who was the overall champ for the weekend. Read his report here...and check out the pics:
-Goldman flipping the gap at Skate Barn
-Goldman native american air
-Goldman 360-ing the spine (he flipped the spine, too)
-Goldman flipping the step-down
-Another shot of Goldman flipping the step-down, check out his front wheel in the rafters

We might as well move to Aptos, CA now...Alex Reveles is the next super-shredder to come out of that crew (he won expert dirt and is improving at light speed lately), which brings the Aptos crew one step closer to being the only scene with a double-digit roster of pro riders.

Our spanish tour guide and world champ trials rider-turned-street rider, David Cachon, has signed with Mondraker bikes for 2006. He's also riding for Atomlab, Fox and Marzocchi. FUFANU // TABLE

Wayne Goss made The Cut with Cannondale for 2006...I saw him tailwhip this weekend like it was no big thing. Can't wait to see what else he has in store this year with the C-dale crew!

Jim Dellavalle was also at The Gathering this year and is going to be with Mountain Cycle for a second year. MC is just down the street from us here and it sounds like they've got a bunch of stuff up their sleeves for this year. Come to Big Wheels night this Sunday and see for yourself, they've been bringing the slopestyle bike for everyone to play with.

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1-30-06: I don't even know where to begin with this one...The Gathering was out of control. It wasn't like the typical contest where you know in advance who is going to do what...it seemed like EVERYBODY had something up their sleeve. Chase is barrel-rolling gaps, Paul Bas/Goldman/McCaul are backflipping step downs, Phil Sundbaum is 3-whipping and his brother Andy is double tailwhipping, Travis Erickson is hucking front flips and Andrew Carpenter is doing 720s and 540s brakeless. This year's Gathering was the cure for the common contest.

Here are the pics...big thanks to Nina and Dan Drain for snapping these. I was running around like crazy as usual trying to get it all on video. After scrolling through some of the footage already, I am happy to announce that the loud "BRAAAAHP" that happened when Phil Sundbaum's rear tire hit the roof of the Skate Barn is totally audible on my footage.

Here come the pics:
-Porter's new Haro (Porter learned flips over spines in his pro final run...he also stuck an opposite tailwhip to pedals in the finals)
-Joe Prisel showed up at The Gathering looking like Grizzly Adams. I thought he should've made the pro park final, he was killing it.
-The pro crowd on day one
-Evan Holmgren made the finals in dirt but lacerated his spleen at the park contest (so far I've heard reports that he's ok)
-I don't know who this guy is, but he was riding expert and tried a front flip
-Here's the full view of the dirt course
-Yours truly and Hylands completely stunned by the pro dirt final practice session
-Phil Sundbaum mid-360 tailwhip on dirt, he eventually broke both his thumbs by the end of the night
-Cameron McCaul backflipping down the step-down gap
-Peanut is going to be riding for Eastern Bikes this year
-McCaul barspin
-Jamie Goldman 360ing the roll in
-A shot of the dirt course from the "VIP Room"
-Eric Davies and Cameron Zink
-Hi, my name is Phil Sundbaum and I'm going to win pro park with two broken thumbs
-I don't know what's happening here...Carter ambushed me and Nina snapped the pic
-Jordie Lunn representing the Canuckistanians
-Hacksaw and Eric Davies in the VIP Room
-Nate Blades, Carter, Eric and Hacksaw in the VIP
-Sadie Davies showing off her new kicks
-The Deity crew
-Carter table at the Skate Barn
-The new Blk Market RIOT frame...the production frame is going to be offered up in raw with a matte clear coat (and a few colors, too)
-Leigh Ramsdell from Eastern was in attendance checking out the 26" scene
-Hacksaw and Seth Lolli
-This gap got SESSIONED at the event. Everyone was unloading on it...barrel rolls (Chase), tuck no-handers (Peanut) and 360s were at the top of the list.
-Ebbett flowing the spine
-Travis Erickson was trying front flips at the park event and got one around, but the landing was so mellow that his hands blew off the bars. Either way, it was epic and a sign of things to come from Travis.
-Here are three shots of the Space Needle that I took the day after the event: ONE TWO THREE

Go to GOHUCKYOURSELF.COM for the event results! Also, check out DeclineMagazine.com, they've got a bunch of video clips and pics on their website. Scott and Spomer were on hand with the new issue and it's solid. They have Voreis, Vanderham and Eric Carter writing the columns that Zink/Cowan/Lopes used to write.

Thanks to the GHY crew for putting on another great event...now it's time to catch up on sleep and finish off Match 8!

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1-26-06: I picked up Nate Blades from the airport last night and he was showing me how much of a gamble he took with the flight. Not even boxed up, Nate zip-tied his wheels together (with discs still installed) and handed his precious wheels to the powers that be at Southwest Airlines. Amazingly enough, on his arrival to Portland, his wheels were perfectly fine.

Anyways, we're headed up to Seattle right now...see you all at The Gathering! Here's a pic of Carter Holland from Rye Airfield to tide over those of you that aren't going to be with us in Seattle this weekend.

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1-25-06: I got this e-mail from Dave Smutok last night: "This past month has been the worst ever. At Taunton skatepark on Dec 27th, I was done riding and just rode half way up a quater then pulled a manual down it and started looping out. When I grabbed my brake I guess there was an air bubble, cause it didn't work. I put my foot down and it made a few loud cracks and pops. I was surprised because I wasn't even going that fast. I went to the ER and stayed in the hospital until Dec 31st. I had surgery on the 29th...The verdict was that my tibia broke into many pieces 2 inches above the ankle joint, then my ankle dislocated which caused 2 pieces to chip off my Tibula. So I got a plate w/ 7 screws putting my Fib. back together and 2 screws reattaching the chips to my tibula. I attached some pics from about 2 weeks after surgery. So I will have 100% recovery with time. 12 weeks total on crutches, almost 4 down 9 to go. I will be able to start riding by the end of April. I will do a lot of cross-country and road riding to strengthen my leg again. School is going alright, its hard to go party at a crowded bar with crutches but I'm getting by. I got a handicap parking pass for campus so I drive right to the building, which is dope. I also got these sweet crampon type tips for my crutches in the snow and ice."

Heal up soon Dave!! I am bummed that he's hurt, he was a lot of fun to shoot with last year because the guy shreds nonstop and is nasty on two wheels. I think he has clips in almost every section of Match 8 as a result. Here's one of him doing a truckdriver at Woodward. This is his FIRST truckdriver on a ramp, look how clean it is! Get well soon, Smutok!!

FSA just announced their Gravity Team for 2006. Porter is the team manager and the other guys on the team are as follows: Phil Sundbaum, Randy Spangler, Evan Holmgren, Ben Boyko, Dylan Tremblay, Dave Smutok and Chris VanDine. The Gravity line is a full line of components like bars, stems, cranks, headsets, and seatposts, designed to take the abuse that freeriders are dishing out! Check out Porter's bike this weekend at The Gathering, he'll be sporting the full kit...here's the full press release if you want to read more.

Speaking of components, Eric from Deity Components just sent me to pics of his latest builds. This is his wife Sadie's Sinister Splinter MX rig with the grey Deity kit (which is supposed to be available within the next few weeks, I think) and Eric's charcoal grey Blk Mrkt frame. Check out the white Atomlab rims on his bike, they're made of "un-obtainium"...haha

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1-24-06: Kyle Ebbett, flip-to-manual at Rye Airfield (right click + save as)! This is going to be in Match 8, Justin Schroth shot it at Big Wheels this year.

Here's an e-mag that a bunch of riders in Chile put together...Cedric is down there for a 4X race, so their next issue should be "interesting."

Only a couple more days until The Gathering...I heard that Lenosky cancelled his flight to Seattle because the Coldplay concert was sold out. I guess we'll see if it's fact or fiction on Friday.

Justin at Lucent Productions put together a video with some footage that he had lying around from this winter's indoor park sessions. Check it out here. It must be 80s day, because when I posted this update I was listening to Europe "The Final Countdown"...

Check out the cover for Modestbike Four!

So...occasionally I check the webstats for the Match page. Sometimes if people link to the site, I can go check out the link and see what people are saying or where the pics are being reposted (feel free to do that, by the way, I don't mind). But, today I got an entertaining link. It's just a profile from some girl in Canada, but in her profile page, she says that SHE WANTS TO MARRY CAM MCCAUL! Yeah Cam, hook it up!!

Alright, since I slacked off and didn't post up a top ten list for 2005 stuff, I was thinking about maybe getting everyone to participate in a TOP TEN CAMERA PHONE PICS OF 2005. E-mail me your best pics (they don't have to be 100% bike related, just entertaining) and I'll sort them out. Deadline is next Friday!! Get on it!

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1-23-06: Check this out....bmx is getting out of hand!

Speaking of getting out of hand, here's some madness from the Super Sessions event at Woodward West:
-Aaron Lutze (that's me) backflip
-Steven Bafus, no-foot can backflip on RESI...this was so ridiculous in person. He took it a few times but eventually rode away..

Last night we had yet another successful Big Wheels Night. The crew keeps growing...next week we'll all be at The Gathering, but the following Sunday, it's on again! The Tonic Fabrications guys brought out their new Fall Guy prototype with a mid-bb and an integrated headset. They were also running the new Profile Madera cranks/hubs (I built the back wheel at Ride-This!) If you haven't checked out that Madera rear hub, you should...it's super tech!

Doug from The FRONJ dropped me a line the other day to let me know that not only was it George Ryan's birthday, but his mother's as well. So I guess Happy Birthday to half of the Ryan family!! I heard that George finally got his wrist fixed over the winter, too, so heal up soon GNR!

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1-20-06: Happy Birthday George Ryan and Rob Lindberg!!

Here's a few pics of a new indoor dirt park that is opening up in Germany. Big thanks to Ben Kijack for the hookup on the pics!

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1-19-06: Here are some pics from Anson Wellington, he competed in a contest in NYC and was the only bike guy there. I think he placed 3rd in this contest...check it out (and remember that he's not riding with any brakes, either!)
-->Anson airing it out, table, bunnyhop/tuck over cement bench and 50/50 down the rail

Here's a handful of screen shots from the Banger in the Hangar contest that went down last month at Woodward:
-Adam Hauck tire grab air
-Travis Erickson tuck no-hander off the wedge
-Smutok truckdriver (get well soon, Smutok!)
-Bearclaw boosting out of the bowl...this looks so cool on video, wait until you see it!

Deity Components just released a new hoodie, titled "Retribution", check it out here...

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1-18-06: Carter Holland sent me some fresh pics of his new Riot prototype in action. Justin Kozman shot these beauties:
-Carter table at Rick's house ONE-TWO
-Carter boosted higher than all the local pros out of this dirt quarter, except for Nasty (but since that's Nasty's house in the background, Iwould expect him to boost this thing every day).

Big props to Steven Bafus on his first full-page Diamondback ad!! *I TOLD YOU GUYS* this kid p3wns it!!

Match 8 editing is coming along, I'm knee-deep in epic Canon XL2 footage right now, courtesy of Don Hampton. We are still looking for legal music to use in the video, so if anyone has any music hookups, please e-mail me with the info!

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1-17-06: Here are some pics from the first park contest in Poland. I don't know any of these guys' names, but from the looks of it, it was an exciting contest! Check out the pics:
-Miniramp wallride
-360 sequence
-Backflip transfer gone wrong
-Barspin to tailtap
-Handplant
-50/50 grind

Match 8 is coming together...I have a bunch of footage of Ryan Smith going into this issue, loads of tech style. I put together a short clip of his "easy" tech lines that we shot on the roadtrip earlier this year. You'll have to pick up Match 8 to see the hard tech stuff.

Adam Hauck hooked me up some more pics from that abandoned school that he found. Maybe he's trying to make up for taking my lunch money in Whistler. Either way, look how high this kid is going on the wall, waaaaaay above the bleachers...if only this school would've let Adam tailwhip during recess, it might not have been abandoned!

I posted this kind of late yesterday, so if you didn't catch this on the previous post, check it out now. Ian Millar just got back from Japan and posted all of his pics on a new website: www.deeplikepow.com

Holy crap, I just saw this online....worlds fastest bike! Oh, and check out my new computer. These things were supposed to come out in 2004...(read the caption for a good laugh)

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1-16-06: RaysMTB hosted a jam this weekend with Jeff Lenosky, which capped off with Jeff gracefully giving his bike away to the raffle winner. Jeff had this to say about the winner: "The anticipation was at an all time high as we drew the final ticket and the winner was a local kid named Joe Koenigsmark. This was my forth trip to Ray's, and every time I've been there Joe, his brother Austin and their dad have also been there, riding and helping out at the park. I was psyched to see the bike go to such a nice kid, especially since he's a local and it was replacing an STP he bought used at the end of last season and was looking a little rough."

After I got Jeff's e-mail, Ray sent me a spy photo of Jeff's XC bike along with this text: "Aaron, Jeff brought his XC bike in to the park during his visit. This is not a joke, that is his normal seatpost setting. Everyone was asking where Paul Bunyon was this weekend. I thought you might get a kick out of it."

Big Wheels night went off last night...we had 28 riders out, including Slope Sistair organizer (and new Portland local) Stephanie Nychka. Everyone was killing it as usual! I heard a rumor that we might have some super pros coming out to the indoor park next Wednesday.

Adam Hauck dropped me a line to tell me that he found an abandoned school in New Jersey with ramps in it. Here's proof. Also, if you haven't seen this yet, it's a video of Adam taking my lunch money.

Ian Millar is back from Japan and he has a new website that will certainly entertain all of you shred-stickers out there. Deeplikepow.com!

Lastly, we here at Match Videozine would like to give Danny Brodie a big pat on the back. Raise your glass to this man, and from now on it's just DAN Brodie.

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1-14-06: You are looking at Match-exclusive photos of the first prototype Black Market RIOT frame. Carter will most likely have this frame at The Gathering for further inspection. He says that it's "perfect, just needs a few tweaks" so it shouldn't be long before Black Market rules the world.
-Carter's Riot frame
-Riot BB
-Riot headtube
-Riot seatstay
-The new Underboss stem

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1-13-06: Happy Friday the 13th to all of you! In the spirit of the 13th, I have some news from Deity. They are having a contest for the limited edition Misfits shirts. If you're a Misfits fan, swing over to the Deity site and enter the contest to win the shirt. Also, while you're there, check out the new media page, there's a piece on Donahue that's pretty sweet. In other Deity news, the new grey parts should be out by the end of the month!

The Gathering information is posted on GoHuckYourself.com, including pics of the course layout as well as information for hotels and stuff. Also, if you live far away, my friend Dan found this website for Frontier Airlines that has ridiculously cheap flights. See you at The Gathering!

Also, it's my friend Dan's birthday on Friday the 27th (first day of the Gathering). I would REALLY like to organize a field trip to Wing Dome after the dirt event to celebrate with Dan and EVERYONE is invited!! Find me on Friday and we'll get plans dialed in for the birthday session. For those of you who have just gotten onto the Match program, Dan was on the cover of Match 3. If you want a piece of history, e-mail Don @ DH Productions and ask him to dig it out of the attic in the DH office!

Check out this teaser...I'm not exactly sure what this vid is going to look like, but judging by the sponsor and rider lists, it should be amazing. Thanks to my bro Stijn in Belgium for the hookup!

I got a picture of Anthony Deangelis sent from Porter's phone the other day and this was his reply to my return e-mail:
yeah, thats an indoor pool in durango! it was me, anthony, and clif. anthony is tattoo lou's son, hes rad and clif owns pedal the peaks bike shop in durango. we rode for like 15 minutes and then got trespassing tickets from the cops. it was worth it though. its a 13 foot deep oververt pool, so fun!

Justin Schroth is taking time off his Imperial to absolutely kill it on his pit bike. The best thing is that when he comes to The Gathering, he'll probably be able to fit his entire bike in his suitcase without even taking his wheels off....hahaha

Chris Ratcliff sent me this link to an English video...this is what's up over in the UK, it's a mix of street and trials stuff (read:SUPER TECH). Go to this site and download the TM2 video.

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1-12-06: Ha! I scored a server to post video clips on!! Here's two good ones to get it started (right click + save as):
-One angle of Cam McCaul's gap in Utah (same one in the picture above)
-Adam Hauck taking my lunch money

McCaul, Goldman and Watts were in Vegas shooting for a TV show, here are a bunch of pics, courtesy of Kathy Sessler:
-McCaul superman seatgrab
-McCaul flipping his fully
-Goldman 1-ft table
-Goldman shredding the go kart
-Greg Watts flip
-Goldman no foot can
-Goldman x-up 1-ft backflip

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1-11-06: The biggest news today is that PAUL BASAGOITIA'S WEBSITE is now online. Go check it out!

Here are some screen captures from the trip to Utah with Porter/McCaul/Goldman/Watts:
-McCaul no foot can
-Greg Watts did this 10' drop and his front wheel managed to find some REALLY soft dirt...ouch
-Porter mid-flair
-McCaul superman seatgrab
-Sequence of McCaul's canyon gap from the lip of the takeoff

Rays MTB is having a Giant event this weekend and Lenosky is raffling off his very own bike. If you're over 6'5" and looking for a bike that actually fits you, now is the time to head to Cleveland!!!

Don Hampton and Aaron Chase both got interviewed in Edge Online Magazine while they were over in London. You can download the mag at this site. Thanks for the Match plug, DH!

Stump503 has a bunch of pics from Big Wheels on their website. Erik is finally healing up after that unfortunate topside-berm-to-roadgap-to-hit-by-car accident at the end of last season. They say that pain inspires good art, so if that's the case, the '06 Stump503 stuff should be off the hook!

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1-10-06: The editing frenzy continues! More screen shots...plus, check out this sweet South Park version of Carter Holland. I made it especially for his MySpace page! Thanks Katie for the hookup on THIS LINK.

-Crankworx spectators
-George Ryan mid-360 at Lenosky's Links Jam
-Smutok table at Lenosky's (get well soon, buddy)
-Bearclaw's 360 from Crankworx
-Trond Hansen about to eat it hard
-Chase and Taylor Sage

If anyone has Crankworx footage, we're looking for more stuff to add to the Match segment. E-mail me (aaron at matchvideozine.com) if you have any good Crankworx footage (must be DV footage). THANKS!

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1-9-06: Big wheels night went off last night! We had a great turnout and everyone had an awesome time. The boys from Mountain Cycle were in full force and they brought the new Slopestyle bike out. I got to ride the track and the ramps with it...it's so good...let me just say that it rides just as good as it looks! Here's a few pics from the night:
-The racetrack
-Heat 1 of the races
-Matt McNutt demonstrating proper curved wall steez
-Landon was seriously boosting OUT of the curved wall
-The crew ran a train on the curved wall at the end of the night

Here's the flyer for Big Wheels with all the info if anyone else is interested in joining us on Sunday nights this winter.

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1-8-06: Here are a few more nuggets before I head over to Big Wheels night...a couple pics from Rye Airfield's Big Wheels comp. How fitting!
-Carter Holland table
-Cam McCaul tailwhip
-Smokey walltap

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1-7-06: Here it comes...Match 8 editing is underway. I've got some screen shots from the Black Market Bikes Team section and Monster Park for today's update. Also, before I post the pics...I know a bunch of you were looking for those Manitou Gold Label Jump forks in WHITE. They come in black only, except we managed to score some white ones at the shop here...so if you need a WHITE Manitou fork to make your bike look pretty...look no further! Use the coupon code: PB1006 when you order and you'll get 10% off, too..

Alright, back to business, here's the pics I promised!
-Adam Hauck railride to 180
-Adam Hauck, tailwhip out of a 2' grass bank
-Adam Hauck, pedal stall on the most rideable building in New Jersey!
-Paul Basagoitia testing out his tailwhip drop theory at Monster Park
-Thomas Vanderham superman at Monster Park
-Morgan Meredith demonstrating to me why the pics in Bike Mag are always so clear
-When Cam Zink crashed, I threw up a little bit in my mouth, wait until you see this clip on video...ridiculous...a double scorpion!

Ian Millar left me a message the other day, he was stuck in some Japanese airport. He said that Modestbike Issue Four is done and will be sent out as soon as he gets back to Whistler. I got a sneak peak at the issue and it's incredible. If you don't have a subscription to this mag, YOU SERIOUSLY NEED TO. Ben Boyko has an amazing interview in this issue...they shot almost the entire interview in the rain and it's still smokin'...

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1-5-06: Happy 2006...I hope you all had a good 2005, I need to compile some sort of "best of" list for '05, we had all sorts of interesting times (most of which ended up on this website for all of your amusement). For the past few days, I've been stuck dealing with airports, fog and extreme delays, so now that I'm back in Portland I have a bunch of catching up to do. This is the official calm-before-the-storm...the "reign of terror" that we know as the final stages of editing is on the brink. I'm hoping to have the bulk of it done by the time The Gathering rolls around, that way I can celebrate with everybody.

Big ups to Porter for sticking the deal with Haro! He's also helping out with the Gravity program this year and from the looks of things, it's going to be awesome.

Carter Holland mentioned that he might have one of the new Riot prototype frames done in time for The Gathering. I've also been working on a new bike, check it out and let me know what you think. I bet I could boost dirt jumps like a mofo on this thing!!

The Red Bull Bike Battle: Baltimore DVD is out!! I did the cover art for it and I'm psyched on the way it came out...the vid definitely captured the event, it's super-pro. Check it out...DH-Productions.com.

I am really happy to announce that Ian Hylands has redone his website...not only that, but he made this new area called "Chronicles" which is like the "backstage pass" for all of his trips. It has stories and a bunch of pics and Ian says that he'll be continually updating it as his travels continue!! Check it out!!

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