the return of raw footage/anchorage reminder

Just a reminder that the Anchorage premiere of two thirds of no bikes seven is tomorrow. That may seem a bit strange, but David and Dane rented out an arena to do a demo and video premiere, so I wanted to give them what I have done at this point. It should be a really fun day. The bmx demos are at noon and 3:00, and there is a combined demo at 6:00. The video plays at 8:00. Everything costs $5 according to ADN, and it’s at the AT&T Pavillion, which is the arena by O’Malley and Old Seward.

I’ve been really busy lately, but as the video gets closer to completion I’ll try to post lots of leftover footage here. This edition consists of three clips of me from the trip this summer. The first clip is from a spot that Brent and Nick took us to in Squamish, it’s apparently the only street spot in town, but there’s a few versions of those ledges around the building and it’s a really fun spot to ride. That was my first sprocket grind down a stair ledge and I was really stoked on it. The second clip was also a first for me; Travis took us to this really awesome wallride in Vancouver and we sessioned it for an hour or so. The last clip is from the Igloo – somewhere I had always wanted to go, and it lived up to my expectations. Considering the bowls around Vancouver, the locals have high standards, and this place is especially amazing for the small amount of space they use.

bmx and insurance

This post is a response to this blog post on the come up.

“And just for the record, the reason why people like Ben have such a hard time in situations like this is because we’re one of the only country’s fucked up enough to not have public health care. If you oppose Obama’s health care reform plan you should kill yourself.” -Adam Grandmaison

I appreciate the bmx community taking an interest in politics (although on this particular issue it may come off as a bit self-serving), but if you make a remark as strong as that one, you should at least get your facts straight. First, Obama does not have a health care reform plan. At this point, the Obama administration has not submitted a plan to congress – read through this article for some good discussion on that issue. Second, the plan that is currently making the rounds in the senate does not include any version of public health care. It is nowhere near the single payer system used in other Western countries, and at this point it still has co-ops in the place of a government run insurance company. The only plan that it really resembles is the one currently in place in Massachusetts, which is “an incomplete result for an unsustainable cost”.

I would love to launch into a full-scale healthcare debate on this blog and bum you all out with seriousness, but it would be nice to keep things relatively fun here. I will say this – of you want to talk single payer health care, research the good and bad things about it. Also note that the United States faces the additional challenge of having healthcare costs that are significantly higher than the rest of the world, and we don’t have unlimited resources. Many of the reasons for this are legit, and some are unfotunate, but I’ll give you a hint – it doesn’t have much to do with insurance company profits.

Also, I think it’s awesome that the rider in question had his bill waived. I know some hospitals will set up fairly generous payment plans, but I’ve never heard of them waiving fees almost entirely.

New Toy

Here is the up-ledge I finished building last night. The ‘coping’ is composite decking like at the Spenard park. I am going to paint it tonight.

Dimensions: 1.5′ to 2.5′ high
8′ long
16″ wide

anchorage premiere/video details

There will be a premiere for parts of the video October 17th in Anchorage. David is organizing it, so I don’t have a lot of details yet, but that is the date and it will correspond with some kind of demo in an arena.

We will likely be showing two out of three parts of this video, “7500″ which is the roadtrip video I put together this summer (it’s about 12 minutes long) and “The Hinterland”, which is a documentary style edit about bmx in Alaska (it’s running around 28 minutes right now).

The traditional edit (i.e. rider sections…) is coming along. Andrew is filming his last clip this week and then we’ll have all of the footage, most of the edits are well on their way. This video will be called “burn this”; it’s about 80% footage from the other two edits and 20% new footage. It should be about 25 minutes.

So, if that is confusing, the entire project is kind of three separate videos. The running time for the entire project will be over an hour so I wanted to split it in a way that made sense.

I still have hard drives full of extra footage so I will continue to post bits of it periodically.

review: let’s get mystical

Just two years ago, Mutiny released Stoked on Being Pumped. They had a killer ad campaign, a great trailer and cinematography that left any video maker with their jaw on the floor. Yet miraculously the average rider didn’t care for it that much. I believe the word “boring” was thrown around a lot (I didn’t share that opinion, but it was a fairly common criticism).

Let’s Get Mystical should bring the naysayers on board this time around. Not only is it visually stunning, but the Mutiny team really brings it riding wise. The three major standouts in this video are George Boyd, Hanson Little and Brandon Hoerres. George and Hanson are newer on the Mutiny team and Brandon, for back of a better term, is back. Hanson Little is kind of a bike rider’s bike rider, he does lots of classic tricks and enjoys sending a good sized gap. Brandon Hoerres and George Boyd are on the tech street side, but they ride primarily rails, and not ledges, which makes it awesome, and not boring.

Let’s revisit my predictions from the Shola review. I did, in fact, like this better – by a whole bunch (and not because Shola was bad). I didn’t think I would like any of the sections better than Chester Blacksmith’s or Darin Read’s, but I absolutely liked the Pennsylvania trails section better than both of those. To be fair, it was trails, and it was shot on film stock, so as long as the riding was decent the other sections never had a chance (call it a personal bias).

The structure of the video is loosely based on trips, and goes well with the image they’ve set up for their team. There are trips to the Northwest, England, and the Midwest, followed by a really long texas section. Normally all the motages would give me a webvideo vibe, but this has enough structure before breaking down into the Texas section that it still feels like they’re telling a story.

Anyways, buy this, it is the best video that will come out this year. (that’s, of course, assuming that Anthem 2 and Empire will Dave Parrick their way into 2010 – then I wouldn’t be so sure of my prediction)

slocan bowl/mat ridgeway

Slocan is a village of about 300 people in the Kootenay region of BC. Somehow this tiny town raised the money for an incredible concrete bowl, and we stopped there on the trip this summer. Right before we left for the weekend, we discovered that there was some kind of grand opening there on the day we had planned to go, so a few of us stayed at Andrew’s parents’ house the night before (waking up really early) and the braver of the group went and slept by the bowl. The bowl has a mix of metal, pool and rock (!) coping, boasts a decent speed line and has a few nice hips. Ridgeway and Andrew were both going off here; Andrew did some of the bigger tricks and Ridgeway just has a way with bowls. I’ve said it numerous times this summer, but Mat knows how to separate bowl riding from hitting quarterpipes. Take a look at his line here, which is on the website because I missed an angle. Immediately he found a drop-in line where he jumps out of a wedge into a big quarter, he never pedals, finding a good speed line, and keeps enough speed to hit a line out of the bowl too. Watching him ride Penticton bowl was one of the best things I saw all summer, and he barely did any tricks. Actually, I’m going to throw a clip of that up too now that I think of it.

Things I’m stoked on about this:
1. It’s pretty much dark
2. He basically pedals as fast as he can and drops into a corner
3. The slasher carve on the extension

Photo

This is my new baby (Nolan aka “Wolf”), and my 2 year old (Levi).

Chillin

presence online

In my opinion, this was the best Canadian video to come out this year (and in a long time).

“i think i can obama my ford before he can obama his ford”