mysticnegro.com Kranky v3.0

Fall/Winter Mixed Edit from Eric Stewart on Vimeo.

Hey, Devon on crutches…

I’ve been in a pretty crap mood for the last couple of weeks and haven’t really felt like writing.  But, since I didn’t go to the King of the Animal House jam, instead putting in extra hours at the job (said my boss after I told him about it, “Man, you should’ve told me.  Hell, *I’D* want to go to that!”) I figure maybe, instead of not writing I should just write, madder.  Since I figure that I’ve shed all my readers now, anyway, I won’t offend anyone.

Local News
DevonSmillie.Com is now up, if lacking in content.  Right now it’s mostly just his Twitter feed (looks, like he’s finally getting his knee fixed) and some random vids.  Chuckles, get on that.  Also, am I interpreting this right, is Devon on DK flow?

There’s a rumor that a new rider owned shop/park is opening in Peachtree City.  Given that it’s hit both the 70s and the 20s this week, a new indoor spot would probably be good for those south of the city.

Cult
Apparently the Cult team is riding prototypes made by Solid and FBM and they’re “loving them.”  Which is surprising, you’d think one thing Solid and FBM couldn’t do would be build bicycles.  The bikes have higher top tubes and weigh more, because the riders were apparently tired of breaking stuff and looking stupid.  Also, half the Cult team still has Fit Signature models being sold.  Seriously, GT at least had the dignity to change the Bestwick model’s name after they shitcanned him.  But, then again, “Castillo Bars.” I wonder if they’re still getting royalties.

In other Cult news the “correct” spelling is apparently “Cvlt” like “Bvlgari” or “Stvpid.”  If people start replacing “s” with “z” again I’m fucking done.  Done with what, I don’t know, but I’m done.  Seriously, I thought “Kranky” was the most dumberest name ever, but I was wrong.

Giant
The biggest bike company in the world has never been able to get BMX right (I mean, they’ve produced quality bikes that have held up fine to the abuse dished out to them, put together great teams and given money to riders, publications and events over the last decade plus, but they’ve never gotten it “right”).  They probably should’ve stayed Mosh, but whatever.  Taj may have to get a real job, that’s all that matters.

Huffing
As I kind of expected, Eastern has spun Nitrous off into its own brand with the idea that they’ll be a budget, high value brand while Eastern becomes a premium brand.  Nitrous will have no team and its marketing budget will be relatively small in an attempt to pass savings on to you, the rider.  As a brand, it’s also very, very, orange.  I give this approach six months.  Not because it’s a bad idea, it’s a great idea…for not BMX.  BMX is extremely fashion conscious and inexpensive + no team = crap (even if its not).  Me, I kind of dig the Nitrous frame because it looks like something a normal human would ride.  It doesn’t, however, make up for the other, Killorado-ized frames in the Eastern llineup, the thought of which makes me want to harm myself and others.

My adidas
adidas finally killed off the last of its BMX program.  But its BMX program existed largely in Europe and consisted mostly of flatlanders and who cares about them anyway?  Whatever, I just bought two new pair of adidas yesterday, I’m old and my buying habits are set in stone.

Picking up the slack the guys over at WTP have decided to launch, Almond, their own shoe brand (because a bike company, two parts brands and a retail store don’t keep them busy enough).  So, we’ve got Orchid, Lotek, Almond, Caste is apparently still a going concern and SCG still exists (despite no one ever actually seeing a pair in real life).  I’ve even heard rumors that Inopia is trying to rise zombie like from the grave.  If my math is right, this means that there are now enough rider owned shoe companies so that every professional BMXer currently living above the poverty level on sponsorship money alone can have one all to themselves.

David Lang
Is the new Defgrip Blogger.  I’ve always liked Defgrip in concept if not in execution (which mostly comes down to the fact that my tastes and the tastes of the guys over there run, if not 180 degrees from each other, easily a good 90 degrees).  In fact, I think that Defgrip is probably a good template for the BMX print media going forward.  Of course, I so rarely buy BMX magazines anymore, it could already be the template.  Still, with this David officially has 94763 blogs, making him the busiest man on the BMX interweb.  Far be it from me to make a joke about Mssr. Lang living up to positive racial stereotypes…but everyone knows that Scots are hard workers.

Flick Trix
I’ve seen a lot of finger bike ads as of late.  While a lot of people look at finger bikes and say, “they’re gay,” I’d like to remind you that being attracted to someone of your own gender is gay, finger bikes are toys.  Judging from how Indy Nowak loves his they’re also good toys for kids on training wheels.  Love ‘em or hate ‘em teh licensing money that brands are pulling in from finger bikes is better than the no licensing money they pulled in without them.  Also, the fact that they’re running TV ads means that someone out there believes that there’s a market, which is a positive sign.

Well, crap, not nearly as pissed off as I am.  Whatever.

Remember kids, no matter where you go, there you are.

Dear Odyssey,

We’ve had a long relationship.  Way back when you sold gear that was cheaper than the OEMs but better than Pyramid Accessories I was a fan. These words I say, I say out of love.

Please stop lying.

My story begins a couple of years ago when, fed up with the lack of braking power (or lack there of) of the K2 I decided to replace the painted Sun rims with some Duralectra Hazard Lites that you had on closeout.  While I was doing that I was also going to replace my rear hub and sprocket with the then new standard 25/9.  I think everyone knows the end of that story, I ended up getting a new bike, which also had painted rims, so I put the Hazards on it.

Now, the word on the Duralectra rims and the Hard Anodized rims that replaced them was that they “brake as well as chrome.”  This is a lie.  I mean, they brake much, MUCH better than painter rims, but saying they brake as well as chrome is like saying I’m as fit as Usain Bolt because I’m in better shape than this guy.  But, I’d talked myself into thinking that the braking performance I had was as good as it got, primarily since I’m about twice the size of the average BMXer and I haven’t ridden a bike with chrome wheels in like 12 years (it was a Huffy Half-Ton if you’re wondering, I could lock up the rear brakes at will on that thing). Even after swapping out the stock Tektros for a full on Odyssey setup, my brakes were mostly “alright.”  That was as good as it could get thanks to physics I thought.

Then I rode a bike with pretty much the exact same brake setup as mine (Evo2s front and rear, gyro, the biggest difference is he has Colony levers instead of my Monolever/M2 setup) but with chrome rims and, by jove, I could lock up the rears, the hell?  The problem, I figured, was the rims, “brakes as well as chrome,” was just not true, and it was time for me to just give up on the black wheels and admit defeat.

Then I spoke to Devon on a completely unrelated note.  He wanted to sell his red, HA wheels.  I’m kinda over the black/white thing and am thinking about adding some color to my bike but I’d resigned myself to chrome wheels.  Devon said, “dude, try the clear pads, their made for painted wheels!” I said, “why should I trust you, you ride brakeless!” and he said “I rode brakes a couple of weeks ago!” And there was much exclaiming.

Still, I decided to drop the twenty bucks on a couple of pair of them last week and last night I put them on my bike (as an aside, Dear Brian Scura – I know that you’ve probably made all of the money you need by licensing the original gyro design, then providing Orygs to every bike manufacturer ever, but can you please turn your mad genius to making a quick release lever for U-Brakes so that changing my pads didn’t need to be a PROCESS.  Kthxbai).  In between buying them I noticed something on the Odyssey website, “clear pads are best for painted rims, hard anodized rims work best with black or red pads.”

LIES!

I used black pads with HA rims and they were a joke!

But

I’m hear to tell you that the clear pads with my rims is a revelation.  This morning I went to Bay Creek and I was able to lock up my brakes at will.  Maybe now I’ll learn fufanus and abubacas!  Probably not, but I was able to pull off an endo without my front wheel washing out from under me.  I now have very, very good brakes and its all because I’m doing something that the manufacturer said is not recommended.  I’m here to tell you, if you’re a little big around the middle, but still like having all the fancy colors on your bike, clear + HA rims is super awesome, regardless of what Odyssey says.

Odyssey, stop denying it, clear pads are the way of the future.

Young Mr. Smillie is apparently going to SLC to the Dew Tour/Free Flow Tour finals thanks to this video.  It’s not embeddable, so you’ll have to go to the Ride site to see it.  In order to not spoil the congratulatory mood I won’t even make fun of him.  Good going, D.

The Because I Grind tour hit up B&B in Buford today.  I took a metric shite tonne of pictures (as usual).  I’ll post up a proper gallery tomorrow or Sunday (depending on if I have to work/run out for building supplies/etc.)  But I figured I wanted to put some stuff out there tonight.

First off, can I say that Nigel Sylvester was wearing possibly the single most inappropriate piece of headgear ever in the history of man?

The Mama of Mama’s B&B talking to Mssr. Sylvester

It’s JULY, in GEORGIA and dude’s wearing a BLACK LEATHER BASEBALL CAP.  It could only be more weather inappropriate if it were an Elmer Fudd style hunting cap. Still, it’s easy to see why people are standing in line to give Nigel money.  Kid is the definition of hustle and he presents himself as both professional and relateable to his target audience.  The old saying is that “it’s called the music BUSINESS for a reason, a lot of people forget that.”  That goes for BMX, too.  A lot of people ride well enough to be “pro,” not nearly as many can sell themselves.

Other than that, some quick hits.

• At 4:55 everyone started asking “where are they?”  Beat me, but I pointed out that you were dealing with a group of BMXers, at least one who was Black.  So, you had BMXers legendary punctuality, mixed with the possibility of CP Time.  Then I had to explain to Chuck what “CP Time” is.
• Ratkid was rechristened Ratman at some point.  He does not own a VCR and yet had to buy Head First (I think) on VHS, because it was there.  Vern Smillie then spent like 20 minutes trying to get him into the system.  You can tell she doesn’t spend much time in the store anymore.  Also, I think Ratkid was flirting with her.  Ratkid also broke his chain after his first hit.  I did offer to buy him a new one as he was having a bit of a breakdown, but he said he had a spare, he mostly just hated his bad luck.  Oh yeah, dude was a block from a bike shop fixing his bike by slamming it into stuff.  Old habits die hard.
• Dave Belcher cannot ride a unicycle.
• The cops were confused
  
  No, seriously cop rolled by at like 3 miles an hour looked at the set up, looked at the crowd.  Looked at the setup again.  Looked at the crowd again.  Drove away.
• This is where I note that it is, in fact, illegal to ride a bike on the sidewalk in Buford, GA and that the owner of the barber shop next door to Mama’s hates, with an undying passion, the fact that people test ride their bikes past his shop, occasionally on the sidewalk.  He probably would have been even less happy that there was a bike demo set up in the parking spaces in front of his shop.
• The demo did seem to do it’s job as I saw several kids leave with new parts on their bikes.  Devon should get an extra sheckle in his allowance this week for setting this up.
• The box was built to specs, the specs where just a little…ambitious.  It took a while for everyone to get used to it, but once they did (and once they put a kicker in front of it, it was all good.)
  (This shot, pre-kicker)
• No, he really does talk like that, but he’s also a nice guy.
  
  I just spent a second talking to Glenn about Factory (I love Factory, but for the love of all that’s holy, can someone film something some place else.  Just once) and the half gajillion skateparks in Gwinnett County and how that’s getting a lot of old people back into riding and skating just as weekend warriors.
• The line of the day, “I just went to Best Buy yesterday and said ‘give me one of those digital joints.’”
• 
  This is a smith to table.  I managed not to capture the smith or the table.  I think it takes talent to do that.
• Wait, Vern has a tattoo?
• “Doesn’t Devon have an exploded knee?” Yes, he also managed to win the impromptu long jump competition with an ACL that’s more “ACL pieces.” It’s notable that in this picture, the ramp you see is not the kicker he hit, which was about three feet to the right of it and that, had he gone in a straight line…
  Also, maybe I shouldn’t have shot this from behind a stop sign.  Either way, a dude in the crowed walked it off, 28 feet.
• You know, you’d think that a Chocolate would be brown….
  That would be Ride Bikes’ Robert Ashton pointing and shooting at Nigel’s double peg to 180 bar.
• You know how I complained about DJ Metrognome at Twilight a couple of years ago?  If not, it went something like this.  After showing up late (due to traffic) there was a miscommunication as to what he was supposed to do, so after packing up his gear Mister Metrognome found out that he was being paid to still DJ, so he did what any self respecting DJ would do.  He connected his iPod to the PA and blasted a series of songs who’s lyrical content was “Nigganigganigganigganigganiggafuckshitfuckfuckdamnshitnigganigga” to an audience filled with 3 year olds.Today, realizing that music might help the demo, Katy grabbed the Mama’s PA and Eric Miller volunteered his iPhone after everyone else basically was like “nahhh” when asked to pull out their iPods  Eric then gave me his iPhone and said, “here, pick some rap.”  This was like giving a three year old a loaded .45.  The hell do I know about rap?  I know, I know, it’s hard to believe, but as a Black man I have absolutely, positively no interest in hip-hop.  Still, going through Eric’s iPhone I saw Birdman & Lil’ Wayne, which I figured was probably not a good choice.  Then I saw Jay-Z, which I was rolling the dice on.  On the one hand probably bad, on the other hand enough radio hits that it’s possible that Eric, who I think works or worked at a church, might have the clean version.

  “Nigganigganigganigganigganigganigganigganigganigganigganigganigganigganigganigga.”

  I was in Buford, GA.  Someone was screaming the “n” word over a P.A.  I should have been mortified, and I was, for exactly the opposite reasons.  I’m pretty sure I saw a 7 year old, White girl burst into flames.  The Mrs. was like “can’t you change that?”  No, I live an “i” free life, even touching an iPhone made my skin crawl, I have no idea how to use it and no desire to learn.  So, yeah at some point “Let Me Feel Your Tounge Ring” came on, but that was NOT my fault.

Anyway, it is late and I have a long day of something or other tomorrow.  More pictures coming soon.

Torn ACL, no problem. Hey Devon, where’s that gyro?

Devon Smillie from Eric Stewart on Vimeo.