review: solid steel

Next up in this ongoing series of awesome local videos is solidsteel. It appears to be Austin-based, but there is a bunch of footage from the Northwest as well. This video was rad! And it was free. There’s a thread about it over on bmxboard, go there for info on how to get one, and to see what other people thought as well.

Ty Z said this in the comments for the Dilly video: it must be weird to be a pro, and watch a video made by a bunch of youngsters, who have more creative and interesting style than most popular pros today... That rings true with so many videos this year, including solidsteel. There is some awesome original riding in this including, but not limited to, riding rocks, handjam variations, and a couple incredible fastplant tricks (Think new-school Ron Kimler). Past the creative stuff, there’s a whole bunch of solid street riding that strikes a nice balance between big and tech.

I really enjoyed the spots in this video. There are a ton of ditches, which rules. Ditches, spillways, and pools are pretty much te best thing you can ride besides trails; two out of three of those show up in solidsteel.

The editing is low-key, kind of Scerbo-esque. I can watch the whole video and not notice the editing at all, which is awesome. There are a couple individual rider parts; it’s mostly split parts and mixes, but in a way that doesn’t annoy the crap out of me like that sometimes does. The way the whole thing is structured it feels like a video about a group of friends, rather than something focused on individuals. Of course, it probably doesn’t help that half these kids look exactly the same…. at least I can’t tell them apart. The soundtrack is basically an 80′s dance party, so you’ll hate it only if you hate fun.

If you’re not interested yet, the last section is entitled “Johno and the Church Gap”. If you know what that refers to, you should already be trying to find a copy.

desson 64 edit

Matt’s been filming for this for a while, it includes a roof drop and probably the biggest 360 I’ve seen him do. There are some ridiculous tricks in here and Matt just keeps getting better… I would keep your finger near the mute button though. Seen on 1664

links

I did an interview with Gabe over at IR Minus, check it out, and take a look around while you’re over there.

Also, there’s a killer new trails website up called Build the Woods. It’s basically a trails blog where a guys from a bunch of different sets of trails around the UK have an account.

dig 68: the trails issue

BMX magazines are a tricky business. For as long as I can remember, it’s seemed like they only fall into two categories: mass appeal/crap or really good, but too specialized for anyone to make a lot of money (thus constantly fighting to survive). Dig has always fallen into the latter category. They’ve been through countless publishing issues and it used to be available nowhere, but it’s always been an awesome magazine that’s loosely based on riders telling their own stories as opposed to journalists “reporting” things.

taken from digbmx.com

Is it weird that I’m reviewing a magazine? I’m writing this so that more people will go out and buy it. Dig 68 is the best issue of a bmx magazine I’ve seen in a long time.

Not only do I love trails, but I think selecting this theme was genius. You don’t see a lot of trails in the media these days, and not a lot of people ride them because they require a lot of work. Despite all of this, they are awesome. I can think of nothing I would rather watch or look at involving a bmx bike than trail riding. I hope this issue makes at least a few people look at trails in a new way, and maybe even inspires some digging.

People always seem to think that trail riding is limited trick wise compared to other disciplines, and that’s true in a sense. The creativity of a trail rider is most often excercised in the building of terrain; where creativity can be limited in the riding sense, it’s often made up for tenfold in the digging. Dig captures a lot of the behind the scenes aspects of trails. There are photos of rain-soaked rhythm sections, broken tools, makeshift trail shelters, and they actually talk about maintaining a set of jumps.

The three main articles within are almost entirely made up of interviews, and the diverse landscape of riders sharing their viewpoints gives an incredibly accurate portrayal of trailriding culture. I want to buy 30 copies and make every mountain biker in Anchorage read it.

The magazine contains three main articles. The UK trails article really conveys what it takes to run a set of trails. Riders talk about digging strategies, dealing with landowners, and coping with English weather. The Austin trails article presents the full spectrum of trail policy, from 9th street (which is in a public park, and anyone can go there) to “Eat Skull”, which has a guest policy of “None. Zero. You Weren’t even here. You Know what I’m saying? You were in a helicopter, and you happenned to take a photo.” The Pittsburgh article brings in a bit of history, many of the riders interviewed are still hoping for a return of a Push type scene, and some are attempting to unite a trailriding community that’s divided into many smaller spots.

There is some cool front matter, especially the article by Joe Rich, an interview with Magilla, and some amazing photos in the gallery. They finish it all off with a Brian Foster “backchat”, which is both appropriate, and awesome.

If anyone from Dig reads this by chance – feel free to narrow your scope like this any time you want. It may alienate some of your readership, but it rules. Personally, I can’t see why anyone wouldn’t like this particular issue and I would love see more strongly themed issues like it.

review- team dilly: it do

This is the year of the scene video. I’m calling that one right now.

It Do is Kyle Stark’s new video (check earlier posts for an interview), and I loved it almost as much as a Dom Mach Canadian nosepick. I’ve seen a couple videos lately that really succeeded in taking a different approach to the bmx video; bmx is cute was one, and this is another. I know Kyle hated Etnies Grounded, and I can tell in this video that one of his influences is whatever the opposite of that movie is. I liked both, but It Do definitely had better music. Tom Jones, Rod Stewart, Kenny Rogers, Young Jeezy… that was probably the happiest I’ve been because of music in a bmx video in a long time.

There are a lot of tongue-in-cheek video moves in here; on top of being full of impressive riding, it’s genuinely funny. Some things that made me smile were: one guy bunnyhopping all the hurdles in a 110m hurdles course, a guy named “pirate bmx” doing grinds like supeman feebles and seatstand cancan doublepegs, Brandon Morcomb’s white jeans/white shirt outfit, and my wife’s reaction to Landon Anderson peeing in public (“just because you have dreadlocks doesn’t mean you can pee anywhere you want”).

The riding is a mix of creative guys like Riley McMaster and bink, and straightforward street dudes like Kyle Stark and “Tallboy”. The riding is good! I believe I saw a backwards derek duster and an alley-oop curved wallride (the wall’s slanted a tiny bit, but it counts to me), both mid section at some point in the video. The two best parts came from Seth Peterson and Reed Stark. Seth’s part is a mix of creative stuff and burly stuff; he has a rad moustache. Reed Stark is just amazing. His part really confused me at first. At some points he looks 12 years old, others he looks like a lost highschool basketball player. The entire time I wondered how a kid this good could go unnoticed for as long as he has. Both those guys started getting flow from Sunday based on their parts in this video, if that’s any indication of how good they are.

It Do is available at Empire right now. If I didn’t get a copy for free I totally would have bought it, and you should to. As soon as Futu comes out, Empire is going to be offerring a “bmxboard 3-pack” featuring Futu, It Do, and Yo Guy! with some kind of discount (if it’s not $30 shipped I’ll be disappointed). Don’t miss that, These are three of the best local videos to come out in years.

“hartford whaling it in”

Best title ever suggested in the comments. Ron Francis and a few dozen other mediocre ex-NHL players agree. I will make my triumphant return to blogging this weekend, unless anyone wants to dress up like me and take a mathematical statistics test in two days.

I’m posting from Hartford on an iPod, which is only a bit inconvienient… Thanks for the kind words in the comments below. Being in a new city always gets me excited. It’s an entire city of new spots to explore and ride. Not to mention the fact that the worst hockey team of all time once called this place home. I still don’t know where we’re moving, but part of me is really looking forward to it.

mailing it in

Gabe sent me this video that Rick Nicholls made. I’ll be gone for a few days, and it’s kind of been a lackluster week of blogging anyways. Lots of more important stuff going on…

macneil video

I just watched Dom Mach’s part in the Macneil video. Seriously forgot how amazing that was. Thanks for sending that Shawn. The guy does like a ten foot gap across a bowl to fufanu… possibly the best thing I’ve ever seen.

four corners: mat ridgeway and ryan hiebert

I actually don’t have too much to say about this one. Ryan, Evan and Ty filmed most of it. I shot a few clips with Ridgeway in the summertime; he’s one of my favorite people to film with cause he’s super patient and he does rad stuff.