etnies

Weekly BMX Team Report 12-15-03

Mike Escamilla
has been at home in So Cal running errands and delivering copies of the Samurai video to various people and distributors. Mike was at the Grand Opening of the etnies Skatepark of Lake Forest and shredded the hell out of the place with other members of the etnies team, as well as various other local Cali pro riders.

Taj Mihelich
has been at home in Austin for the last few weeks since returning from Cali, where he competed in the LG Action Sports Championships. Hes been taking it easy because heҒs a little hurt right now with a couple of tweaked fingers, as well as his wrist. Taj has been working at T1, setting-up shows at the Ritz, as well as actually playing a small ad-lib show himself with some other guitar players.

Joe Rich
spent the beginning of the week at home in Austin working at T1, hanging-out with etnies / T1 teammates Taj Mihelich and Ruben Alcantara, as well as Sandy Carson. Hes been riding trails at 9th street, as well as the T1 ramp and also the Skatepark of Austin. Joe shot photos of  Sandy for an etnies ad, which will be coming out soon. Joe has also been riding his motorcycle.
This past Thursday, he came out to California to attend the Grand Opening of the etnies Skatepark of Lake Forest, where he killed every aspect of the virgin park. Joe returned home Sunday.

Ruben Alcantara
is keeping up with the Joneses--or should I say the Joeses--by buying a motorcycle at home in Spain. Ruben has been in Austin for the last couple of weeks, hanging-out with the T1 crew and enjoying the riding down there. Ruben flew out to California this past weekend for the Grand Opening of the etnies Skatepark of Lake Forest, where he showed the crowds
and skaters his special brand of riding and that BMX definitely has its place in this and every skatepark. Ruben flew home to Spain on Sunday, where he will spend Christmas and New Year's with his family. He will return to the States in mid-February.

John Heaton
has been home in Toronto freezing his nuts off in the snow and getting very limited riding in. He did go on a street mission on one of the clearer days, as well as getting a session in a snow-covered concrete park. He also got some Christmas shopping done and played some hockey. It was quite a welcome break for him to come out to California to the nice weather and the Grand Opening of the etnies Skatepark of Lake Forest, where he killed it with some huge transfer lines. John returned home to the cold weather on Sunday.

Sandy Carson
has had some friends in town hanging-out and riding. Various spots have been sessioned, including the usual T1 ramp and 9th street trails, as well as some new trails at Jason Sunday's place. Sandy also enjoyed a new ditch in North Austin featuring some ghetto concrete touch-ups. Sandy has also been hiking, playing music with Taj and, as always, working hard on Dig magazine. HeҒs currently working on a Scotland article for the mag.

Brian Terada
is mere weeks away from getting his driver's license back after having it taken away thanks to his lead foot. Hes been riding some street up in the Ventura area and sessioning Skate Street skatepark. Brian came down over the weekend to attend the etnies Skatepark of Lake Forest Grand Opening, where he hung-out with the rest of the team and shredded it up for the crowds.

Nate Wessel
has, thankfully, been riding as of late, as opposed to building ramps that he rarely gets to ride. Right now, heҒs road-tripping and had a chance to session Section 8 Skatepark this
past week during a demo to raise money for some serious flood damage the park recently suffered. Nate has also been filming for a Chenga video. His leg and ankle are doing well.

Jason Enns
has been settling into domestic life in his new house, doing all kinds of chores--including raising the height of the back fence to keep his dogs in the yard. The weather has been surprisingly nice, so he has also been getting some riding in at the many concrete parks in Vancouver. His good friend Dave Osato just rented some warehouse space, so Jason has also been helping build some ramps there for those bad weather days during the Winter.

Josh Stricker
has made a break for it. Getting out of the East Coast is his goal and hes heading West for Christmas. Josh will be stopping in Louisville to session the skatepark there, as well as Albuquerque and Austin on his way out to California--not necessarily in that order, though. Garrett Byrnes has been enjoying his time at home, even though his wrist is still not well and the weather is sucking pretty bad.

Edwin Delarosa
got the "all clear" on his wrist by the doctor. Supposedly, it has healed, but only time will tell for sure. HeҒs been out in Cleveland for the last couple of weeks, enjoying the indoor sessions at Chenga World. The Animal Bikes video is done and should be out soon. Edwin and the Animal crew will be doing a video promo tour pretty soon that will include demos in New York, Boston and Ohio. Edwin is now co-sponsored by Red Bull.

Edwin Delarosa Interview At BMX Online

There's a new interview with etnies BMX team rider Edwin Delarosa
at bmxonline.com
. Check it out RIGHT HERE
.

Baco Tour Story

After being postponed a few weeks, the Baco 10 Premier Tour finally went down in the third week of November. The first demo / premiere happened at Rampage Skatepark in Davenport, Iowa on Wednesday, November 19. The crew consisted of myself, Chad Degroot, Brian Kachinski, Axel Jurgens, Mike Ardelean, Jay Miron, Tony Mortenson, Kevin Porter and fellow etnies rider, Brian Vowell. Nate Wessel was MIA due to a ramp-building job for Seventies in England. I'm going to keep the riding play-by-play to a minimum, just check out a future issue of Props for the entire tour report, and Transworld BMX for Budman photos and an Ardelean story, if that's your thing.

After a couple hours of "clockin' footie," as the beast would put it, we played a rough copy of Baco 10 (minus an intro and credits) and, of course, there was the mandatory product toss to cap it all off. An evening of beer, pizza and bubble hockey was all that Davenport had to offer on a Wednesday night. Also on board the tour was Minnesota shredder Josh Nenza, who decided to bellysurf a car from the roof straight to the parking lot. After an unusually low number of management complaints, we settled in for a good night's sleep while dreaming of the Cracker Barrel breakfast awaiting us in the morning.

Thursday brought us back to Scrap Skatepark in suburban Chicago. The Scrap demo was a sort of homecoming for The Beast, who had hardly been back to the park after the three amazing years of BS Comp finals back in the early '90s. As if I hadn't heard the story enough, Chad also told the entire crew about the time he was sessioning Scrap on an old Schwinn tour when a rollerblader that Jay had been giving a hard time decided to call The Beast on all of his shit talk. Jay then put on a pair of rollerblades and proceeded to blast the vert ramp and 360 flip and backflip the box in only a matter of minutes to the disbelief of everyone in the park. Afterward, all Jay could say was, "I knew it would be easier than ice skating."

The crew that runs Scrap these days are always so nice to us. Every time we've been there, Jay, Orlando and crew roll out the red carpet and take such good care of us. Big thanks. Definite highlights of the demo were locals Shawn Arata and Jamie Spritzer. These two couldn't possibly be farther apart in the BMX spectrum, but both are some of the most talented riders I've ever seen. The usual schedule again: shred, shred, shred, video, product toss, props, goodbyes and off we went for a night on the town in good "Old Milwaukee"!

I'd like to say that our Thursday night in Milwaukee was uneventful, but that was hardly the case. Mainly for fear of getting fired from MacNeil, I'm going leave out all of the good parts. But next time you see Jay, ask him why he got kicked out of the diner, how he got back to the hotel and how much it cost him. Better yet, ask Axel, because Jay probably doesn't remember. Also ask Chad how he got us on the roof of the Holiday Inn (heh-heh).

With no demos planned for Friday and Saturday, all we had to do was hang-out in Appleton, check out the new, nearly finished Area 51 skatepark and party like rock stars. Mission accomplished.

Someone had the bright idea of taking a group shot for the Transworld article in front of Lambeau Field on Sunday afternoon during a Packers / 49ers game. Well, actually, it may have been my idea, which was a bad idea to be honest. After spending the following three hours in traffic, we finally arrived in Milwaukee for our last stop at Four Seasons Skatepark.

For some reason, the BMX scene in Milwaukee and the surrounding area is amazing. I can only attribute it to having really good street spots and parks in the area and an incredible BMX-only shop, C4BMX of Milwaukee. As usual, the demo at Four Seasons was packed. Due to technical difficulties and a VCR that was older than me, the video could not be shown. Sorry, kids. But to make it up to you, we're working on having another Milwaukee premier at C4, so be sure to check it out.

I'd love to thank all the sponsors of the tour: etnies, MacNeil, Haro, Snafu, Red Bull, 661, Osiris, UGP, Standard, and Profile for hookin'-up all the gear and parts we gave out at all the demos. Hopefully, no one left empty-handed. Also, thanks to the parks for having us, and, most importantly, thanks to the riders--it's you who make these trips so amazing and worthwhile. Takeitforbaco.

BMX Team Report--Dec 1 - Dec 8, 2003

Mike Escamilla
has been spending a lot of time playing golf lately, as well as attending the LG Action Sports event in Pomona, California, where he placed a phenomenal 26th. Mike did one of the moves of the comp, though, with a 270 onto the banked wall ride to opposite drop-in. He also shot photos with other guys from the etnies team for catalogs, ads, posters, etc. After the LG thing, then it was off to Texas to spend Thanksgiving with his wife Jodies family, where he enjoyed some fishing and shooting guns. Mike returned home at the beginning of the weekend and spent Sunday building shelves in his garage. The up coming Samurai video will be available through TIP Distribution for Christmas.

Taj Mihelich
came out to California to enter the LG Action Sports event out in Pomona, where he placed 19th out of thirty-two riders. He spent time out in Cali shooting photos for etnies, as well as a feature about his bike for Transworld BMX shot by Keith Mulligan at the Ride BMX office in Tustin. Taj rode Skate Street in Ventura last Sunday with a bunch of other etnies riders in a not-so-private session. He then left for Austin on Tuesday, Novem
ber 25 to get some work done, but his day ended-up being a nightmare, as his connecting flight into Phoenix was cancelled due to the President of the United States flying in there (they donҒt want any other planes in the air when he's flying in the vicinity). This was just one more reason for Taj to dislike the man. If things couldnt be bad enough, TajҒs computer came up positive for some kind of chemical when it was tested. His day ended-up twice as long as it should have been, but he still kept his calm, miraculously. Taj has been back at work at T1 and riding with everyone.

Joe Rich
is in Austin working at T1, riding the ramp and the Skatepark of Austin, as well as riding the 9th street trails with etnies teammate Sandy Carson. Joe went motorcycle riding on November 30 with etnies / Terrible One teammate /
employee Ruben Alcantara and Spains other BMX phenomenon, Sergio Layos (who placed 9th at the LG Action Sports event in Pomona). Joe finally got his new Apple G5 computer to edit the Terrible One video.

Ruben Alcantara
was out in California to enter the LG Action Sports event in Pomona, where he placed a 29th. Following that, Ruben shot pictures with the rest of the etnies team in various obscure spots around So Cal with etnies skate photographer Lance Dawes. Ruben also started shooting with Jeff Zielinski for an interview that has been long overdue in Ride BMX magazine. Ruben rode Skate Street skatepark out in Ventura on Sunday, November
23 with the rest of the etnies crew at the not-so-down-low session. He flew out to Austin on Thanksgiving day with good friend Sergio Layos to hang-out with his new bosses at T1, Joe and Taj, as well as Sandy Carson. Ruben went motorcycle riding Sunday with etnies teammate Joe Rich. Ruben plans to fly home to Malaga, Spain on December 14 after doing the etnies skatepark Grand Opening in Lake Forest California on Saturday, December 13.

John Heaton
was in town for the LG Action Sports event in Pomona, where he placed 25th. He was just glad to get out of the horrid Toronto weather. John stayed out in Cali to shoot photos with the rest
of the etnies team, as well as with Jeff Zielinski for upcoming issues of Ride magazine, He was out in Cali during Thanksgiving (not that he would have celebrated it anyway), enjoying plenty of nice weather. He flew home on Sunday, November 30.

After getting back from the Baco 10 promo tour, Dave Freimuth
dove head-first into building the new Area 51 skatepark that he and the rest of the crew plan on getting completed by the beginning of 2004. Check out DaveҒs version of how the Baco 10 tour went down right here on the etnies site with a story
that he wrote himself. Besides that, it has been getting pretty cold in Appleton, Wisconsin, and Dave has been spending quality time with his wife, Pattie.

Nate Wessel
is back from England (where he built the Seventies warehouse skatepark) for a few days for Thanksgiving. He says its been kind hard riding because of the long days building and lack of riding while over there. Nate also spent some quality time with his grandma, who turned 80 this last week. He and good friend Tom Stober are working on getting some custom pads made that hopefully people will like. If Nate's ramps are anything to go by, you know heҒs going to put some serious thought into them, so they should be good.

Jason Enns
finally moved into his new house with his girl Portia on November 29, 2003. He had new carpet put in, and has been doing some decorating to get it how he wants it. Jason has been on a solo mission working on the house, due to his girl's serious work schedule. He has been getting some riding in here and there--it just depends on how the weather has been.

Brian Terada
has been without his driving license for a while now (due to his lead foot), so he has been getting his girl and other friends to run him around like a limo driver. He gets his license back in January. Brian rode at the LG Action Sports event in Pomona, where he placed a wonderful 31st. He has also been shooting photos for etnies ads, posters, catalogs, etc., and also shot photos with Jeff Zielinski for Ride magazine at Skate Street skatepark in Ventura.

Edwin Delarosa
was invited out to Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago to attend a teen appreciation event (I guess Edwin is some kind of role model?). He had the opportunity to go rock climbing, as well as drive in some serious off-road vehicles, doing 100-plus mph in some dune buggies (Nate Hanson would have been jealous). Edwin has also been working on getting his part finished for the Animal video out in the Midwest and East Coast. Currently, he's in Ohio with some good friends to get some riding done before the bad weather sets in.

Fort McDowell Contest

Photos by Dustin Welch

On November 13-16, the 8th Annual Fort McDowell (aka the Arizona X Games) Contest went down. This is the same place that was in Road Fools 11 and held the 2-Hip Burning Bike festival a few years back. I actually started getting ready for this contest the week after Interbike. This year, we decided to build all-new dirt jumps, change around the street course and add some new, weird ramps. Greg Litecky, Chris Faix, Jeshua Constantine, Jack Nourse and myself were this year's build crew, and build we did every day for almost a month.

The dirt jumps were built first and the set-up was really fun. There was a BIG set of quads on the left, in which we measured the first set to be twenty-seven feet and pretty steep, too. A bigger six-pack down the middle to replace the older, smaller one (Road Fools 11) and an even smaller six-pack with a roller between the first and second set. There was also a downhill set and
berm that melded into the small six-pack. All of these led into a big berm that basically featured the Vans Triple Crown set-up coming out of it. Two jumps, then crank your ass off and huck yourself on the last one--perfect contest style. The jumps ruled, until Mother Nature decided to dump rain on everything for two days straight the day after we got the trails finished. Rain for two days in Arizona is a crazy thingand it destroys dirt. The trails were soggy and spongy the whole weekend of the contest.

The major changes on the street course included turning the box jump into two street spines. One street spine into no flat bottom into another street spine with a box jump landing so you could ride it as two spines or jump the whole thing like a box jump, if you wanted. And then we also made a little box and a new wall ride and moved some roll-ins around. The new layout is awesome and led to some new tricks being done this year.

The contest weekend started on Friday. I got there at about 11:00 to try and see if I could do anything to save the dirt jumps. When I arrived, there were already about twenty kids there waiting to ride. Practice was supposed to start at about 12:00, but due to the rain the previous days, we still had ramps to paint and coping to put on. Needless to say, we were a little behind schedule. Practice opened around 3:00 and the kids swarmed the new course like bees around a honey jar. Practice went until about 10:00 at night, and there were already kids taking themselves out.

Friday night, Adam Baker, myself and Dusty Welch went to down to Tempe, the local college town, to have a couple of "sodas" and see what the ladies had to offer. Good times were had and we ended-up back at my house at about 4:00 or so after a nice long adventure throughout most of Phoenix. Dusty ended-up passing-out in a pile of my dirty clothes, and Baker
decided to skip the wrath of my dog Chuie for the back of his dad's truck, nicknamed "Pizza". I can just imagine the looks on my neighbors' faces as they went on their morning walks and came across Baker sleeping in the back of the truck.

Saturday, we woke up and slowly got motivated enough to head out to the contest. Saturday was Beginner and Intermediate am for both Dirt and Street. Honestly, I donŒt really know what happened in Beginner, because I am a slacker and slept through it, but during Intermediate Street, some serious stuff went down. There were more than twenty riders and, as usual, there were a few sandbaggers, but that just made for an even better comp to watch.

Some of the highlights included one kid doing 360s both ways over the street spines, and grinding up the handrail and doing the big wall ride. Another kid did 360s on the six-foot spine, then there were the other kids who did good flowing runs and didnt fall. Pretty much this whole class should have been in expert. I got pretty sick on Saturday, so that night I just went home and slept. I heard some stories about some good partying that night from some other people, but not me.

Sunday morning, I woke up and felt like I was going to die. I REALLY didnҒt even want to go out to the contest, but this only happens once a year, and its basically the only time we get to ride the Fort. So, I wasnt gonna miss my chance. Sunday was supposed to be Expert and Pro Dirt and Street, but since the jumps were still really soft, the Dirt events were canceled and they just held the Street contests. Expert Street was crazy: twenty-two riders--all of whom could have ridden in the pro contest--especially Sean Sexton. He owned Expert Street with his awesome flowing style, blasting everything with super clicked turndowns, 360 variations (including 360 whips) and huge wall slaps and foot plants. I guess moving to Washington for a while teaches you some serious stuff.

Other highlights were Josh Bentley doing hand plants over the spine, huge tail whip airs and basically anything else he wanted. I think a few fist pumps may have kept him out of placing higher. BJ from Casa Grande did some smooth stuff, as well, like no-foot can cans on the first spine and 360s on the next one, plus downside tail whip tire taps and good icepick variations.

Pro Street was next and it was entertaining, to say the least. There were about ten riders, and we rode in a jam format for what was supposed to be an hour, but it seemed like we rode FOREVER. We all decided that we would judge ourselves and it would be winner take all. So, some serious
hucking would definitely go down. Most of us didnҒt really get much hucking done and had fun with the contest instead. I chose to ride the dirt jumps that were now finally running. After three days of my patience, I wasnt going to miss the chance to ride some dirt.

When I finally ventured over to the street course, some shit was getting done. Billy Franevsky was doing some crazy lines, which all included a flair in there somewhere. Scott Foster disastered the big wall (same one as Baz Keep in Road Fools 11), downside whipped the hip, along with some other bangers. Jack Johnson did the biggest gap on the street coarse--seriously gapped across the whole park. He even had to make a runway in the desert to get speed for it. It was NUTZ. We all thought he was gonna take it, but he proved us wrong.

Dave Taylor wasnҒt so lucky. He was riding super good until he tried to gap from the wall ride to the 45 hip. It looked like he was going to pull it, but he came up just a bit short and ended-up hurting his ankle pretty badly. Ratboy did some street stuff like gaps to flat and the usual Rick Moliterno slider tricks. He even pulled a truck driver off of the deck of a ramp. Chris Faix was blasting huge airs on the eight foots and the hips and looking super smooth. Elliot Hart was tail whipping everything in his path and doing big wall slaps to tables.
Adam Baker was, well, having a good time, and even if he tried to be serious, Gordy (the announcer ) made sure he got back on the right path of messing around and not taking the contest too seriously.

Danny Williams was going as high as a vert rider on the eight foots and doing good 360s on the spine. He even pulled one of the best tricks of the weekend, the illusive 540 tail whip tail tap. Not to be outdone was Greg Litecky. He seriously killed himself for this contest. Well, he did it more for himself, but what better an excuse than a contest? He 720d the spine, landing so flat one time that his wheel exploded. He then proceeded to borrow a wheel and pulled it perfectly. After that, he fired the wall ride to tail whip on the big
wall. Straight from pulling that banger, he started firing off some double tail whip attempts on the eight foots. We all thought he was going to die, but he somehow managed to live through landing on top of his bike three times in a row from trying double whips.

He even got up laughing one time, saying, " I seriously can't get hurt!" Thats where he hung it up. He may have realized his impending doom after saying those words. Needless to say, we all voted for Greg and he took home the $500 dollar cash prize. We all really wanted to vote for Gordy because of his excellent announcing skills. He did do the best job of announcing a contest I have ever witnessed. He made fun of every single person. ThatҒs what BMX is all about, so we thought he might deserve the money. But since Greg killed himself and his bike, it was decided that he did, in fact, deserve it and was handed the win.

Thanks to Kink Bike Co., etnies, Industrial Ride Shop, C&G Bike Shop, Adventure Bike Shop and Gordys Bike Shop for being such great sponsors and supporting the Arizona scene. Also thank you to Jack Nourse, Steve Patea, Joshua Constantine, Greg Litecky, Chris Faix, Jerry and his brother. A lot of hard work goes into this contest every year and I feel that sometimes that is overlooked.

Check out www.psychicflyingmonkey.com
and maybe Jason will have some more photos from the comp up. Until then, I'm looking foreword to next year already҅

X Dreams Skatepark BMX Jam

December 19, 2003
7:00 p.m.

* Beginner
* Intermediate
* Advanced

Live bands
Lots of prizes

3195 Brighton-Henrietta Townline RD
Rochester, NY 14623

For more info:
http://www.xdreamspark.com

Nate Wessel Interview On Abercrombie & Fitch

Check out the cool video interview and footage featuring Nate Wessel and Richie Spare on the Abercrombie & Fitch web site RIGHT HERE. Enjoy!