Below is a video I shot with my phone.  I think my editing skills have gotten better since The Steve Nowak 39th Birthday Extravaganza.

Kyle Kelsey Country Bikes from Ryan Davis on Vimeo.

No, Really, This isn't a Five

So, BMW decided to jump on the hot “four door coupe” bandwagon that its European competition has been pushing for years now.  It decided to do it with this, the Six series Gran Coupe, making a sedan out of a coupe.  Brilliant.  Except for one small detail, the Six series is already a coupe based on a sedan, the Five series.  So, what they’ve done is given the Five series a slightly less formal roofline and called it a new model.

Oh wait, they did that, already, too.

Don't Look Directly At It, You'll Turn to Stone.

So now we have four cars based on the same platform, two of which that look pretty much the same, one of which is an abomination against good design and on that has two doors.

Really? Is there a hair left after all of that splitting?

Not really, but there you go, the new BMW Six Series Gran Coupe, a Five with less rear head room.  Exactly what the world needed.

ZERO GRAVITY X PHILTHY FILMS from Philthy Films aka Phil Jones on Vimeo.

SOUL VID’ / FLAT & STREET REVOLUTION from Soul Bmx Magazine on Vimeo.

It’s hard not to like it.  The riding is solid, the music is good, the filming and editing are top notch.  People lost their shit over it, “the evolution of BMX” people said.

is not

Ride had the presence of mind to call out Dave Voelker, Chad Degroot and Paul Osicka.  Truth is this isn’t that much different than the stuff that Corey Furmage or Rob Ridge do (to be fair, Corey and Rob mix more 80s/early 90s style and these guys are more modern) and, let’s be honest, if you were a flatlander on Standard between about 1997 and 2003 you were contractually obligated to ride like this. Hell, I’m sure that Catfish is like, “The hell, I’ve been doing this stuff my entire career and people think I’m a joke!”

The fact isn’t so much that this is the great revolution of street riding but that it’s not boring.

Five or so years ago everyone in BMX decided that they didn’t want to use brakes anymore.  The average 15 year old kid on the internet declared that not having brakes “makes me more creative,” which didn’t make any sense.  If you’re a rote rider with no originality, giving yourself less options was not going to help matters any.  But, the proof is in the pudding.  Let’s play a game.  How many street videos have you seen in the last week that contain all of the following:

• Riders going at a moderate speed towards an obstacle that’s roughly handlebar height to jump over
• Gap to double peg
• Hangover toothpick down a rail
• 360 down a set
• Bunnyhop barspin for no apparent reason
• Tailwhip down a set
• Long nose manual
• Long hang five

If you answered “all of them” you’re probably right.  To be fair, even this one included a decent number of those things but it included something else – finesse – which is largely missing from the grind and barspin school of modern street riding.  Even if it’s not as revolutionary as people are saying, I hope this video is insanely influential.

The idea of camping out for a piece of built on demand, constantly depreciating technology just seems dumb.  The idea of putting your self worth in said device, even more dumberer.

Oh Lord.

You see those badges on the side, by the door?  There used to be cooling ducts there.  Functional cooling ducts.

This is.

wow.

It’s not any better around back.

I may need to get a new car.

Well, yeah, that’s Devon.

Felt Bikes: Devon Smillie – More BMX Videos

Anyway, feathers were ruffled this week when The Albion published an interview with The Greatest Vert Rider of All Time.  In the interview Jamie Bestwick said somethings which resulted in Ben Hennon referring to him as “a fucking prick.”  Well, that’s harsh.  What did Jamie say?

In speaking about Mathew T. Hoffman:

He’s a year younger than me!

This is actually fact, Jamie is 40, Mat is 39.  I am 38, but that is irrelevant.

Here I am, just won X Games 17, just won five in a row at 40 years old. And then there’s Mat behind the scenes running the event and I’d bet he’d cut his right testicle off to be where I am.

That first statement is definitely true.  Jamie did just win his fifth straight X-Games vert title at 40 years old (which, according to some guy who interns at some website is too old to be in the X-Games).  The second statement, also true, Mat does, in fact, help run all of the BMX events at the X-Games.  The third statement is mostly conjecture, but as far as assumptions it’s a safe one.  Mat Hoffman, the former reigning Greatest Vert Rider Ever would, in fact, probably give his right testicle to be the current reigning Greatest Vert Rider Ever.  Is there any doubt that if Hoffman didn’t have the body of a 90 year old that he’d still be actively competing in the X-Games?  No, not really.

He’d give anything to be riding at the level that I am, and the level that he was.

Duh

I read the interview in the first Albion and after that and his documentary, I got the impression that he had a very rough up bringing and he had to fight hard for things he had…

This is a very common, and very deliberate, misconception about the early days of BMX.  There’s been this fairly successful re-writing of history that everyone in the old to mid school was some poor, punk kid who lived this hardscrabble life.  However, in this interview (audio) Krt Schmidt (who, you know, was there) admits that for the most part they were all upper middle class kids.  If you were going to travel around the country going to contests your parents had to have money.  Mat’s dad was a doctor.  He wasn’t hurting.

…but I know I sure-as-shit didn’t grow up with a vert ramp in my back garden and my Dad didn’t give me my own private building to stick a vert ramp inside. Yeah he made money through his sponsors and his bike company, but his foundations are all built on his own private vert ramp.

Again, all true.  Mat had a vert ramp in a barn in his back yard growing up.  It’s right there in his autobiography.

So, Jamie Bestwick said somethings about Mat Hoffman, all true and, well, as they are wont to do, people involved with BMX went insane. Because, I guess, the truth hurts or sacred cows can’t be slaughtered or a guy can’t say things about another guy unless it’s that other guy.

Oh, wait a minute.

In the same interview the writer took pleasure in Chad Kagy breaking his leg at the X-Games for a perceived slight.

Well, That's Kind of Dickish

This resulted in two grown men having an argument on Facebook (I’m not judging, I’ve had fights on this very website…OK, I’m judging a little).  So, what we have is a quote by Bestwick which according to The Albion’s twitter was taken out of context (I don’t know what they mean, I mean I never saw the question he was responding to, any statements prior to it or any statements after it but who needs context when you can have blind rage).  We also have a magazine editor taking delight in someone else’s injury because they wouldn’t grant them an interview.

So, I gotta wonder, who’s the fucking prick?  I think I know who gets my vote.