Taj On Transworld...

Taj has been blogging up a storm over on Transworld. Blogging, illustrating and riding... such is Taj. He and Sandy even came up with a list of

10 things BMXers say about a handrail that would really freak out the guy pissing under the stairs.

Good stuff. Check it out.

Sandy's Been Busy

Sandy Carson's been busy... and he's got the flickr tags to prove it:

Here's a wee photo gallery from my month long trip to Washington. Bmx, roadbiking, hiking, camping and goofing off. The captions are on the photos...

Seth Holton took the orcas photo. Jim Bauer shot the trails one.

Cheers,
sandy

Bestwick's Got The Skinnie

Skinnie Magazine did a little write up on Jamie Bestwick and his bike auction...

Morgan's How To: Tailwhip To Icepick

There's a certian quality to Morgan's voice that's so soothing... so reminiscent of kindergarten story time. Makes me really wanna learn everything he knows. Teach us, Morgan... teach us and we'll happily MySpace you all about it.

Spend The Day With Morgan!

Levi's and Tilly's have been hooking you up with demos and sweet giveaways. And now, on the Levi's/Tilly's table, is a TRIP FOR TWO to session an undisclosed park location WITH THE ONE AND ONLY MORGAN WADE.

Check the details and enter here.

Bestwick Takes 2nd!

Jamie came in 2nd place at Portland! That may lead you to believe—quite foolishly—that he gave one up to Kagy, but lemme stop you right there. Kagy's been after Bestwick's #1 spot since the first Dew Tour stop of '08, and our boy came out swinging! He's still sitting in 1st place for overall points and he'll no doubt go big to solidify that hold. Look out for Jamie at the next Dew Tour stop in Salt Lake City. As the Bestwick-Kagy battle continues, this next one's sure to be sick.

New Road Fools Trailer!

Hop on the bus with 13 of the world's most talented BMX riders as we trek across the desert of the Southwestern United States in search of the best riding spots this hell on earth has to offer—plentiful street spots, unreal cement parks, backyard ramps, and merciless heat are all on the agenda... after we do some push-ups and fill out the police report for all of the stolen goods from the motel. Join the crew as we hit up Phoenix, Tucson and San Diego in 110 degree heat that never lets up but doesn't even begin to slow down this crew.

Road Fools 16

crew
Anthony Napolitan
Brett Walker
Brad Simms
Corey Bohan
Chester Blacksmith
Aaron Ross
Nathan Williams
Corey Martinez
Justin Simpson
Dakota Roche
Morgan Wade
Rob Wise
Kurt Rasmussen

New Stuff & FREE Shipping!

Randy Taylor Footage

Mutiny Bikes footage of Randy Taylor... fixing his hair and then layin' it down. So typical.

New Bestwick Interview!

Holla atcha boy! Bestwick took some time to field questions from Vital BMX members... including one "BKachinsky" and some other names you might recognize. Good footage, good questions, good answers... all in a bloody good English accent. Cheers Jamie! Is Bob really your uncle and Fanny your aunt?

SOLD!!!!

Jamie Bestwick makes good on his word. As promised, Jamie is donating a total of seven one-of-a-kind bikes—each ridden in a different competition—to be auctioned to benefit the Stephen Murray Fund. As the season rolls on, the remaining events include the rest of the Dew Tour stops and the LG World Championships. The latest bike to fetch the prettiest penny? Jamie's X Games 14 Gold Medal System Cycle just sold for $10k! $10,000! That's 10 zero zero zero dollars! Pretty damn impressive...

Bedford Speaks!

"Live fast, pedal faster." Closing statements from the one and only Josh Bedford. See what else he's got to say in his new interview and sick photos—which could very well speak for themselves—at BMX Union.

Playtime For BK

It's playtime for Brian Kachinsky! This weekend he'll join the T-Mobile Extreme Playgrounds Summer Session in Hamburg! Yeah, that's in Germany. Das ist gut!

What? Can't make it to Germany on such short notice? Catch all the BMX, wakeboarding, Pennywise, Anti-Flag, Mando Diao action here with Freecaster's LIVE WEBCAST. That's this SUNDAY, AUGUST 24th. And don't Hassel the Hoff.

13:30 - 14:30 BMX Miniramp - 1st Round

14:30 - 14:45 BMX Miniramp - 2nd Round

15:00 - 16:00 LIVE: Anti-Flag

16:00 - 17:00 Wakeboard Cable - 1st Round

17:00 - 17:15 Wakeboard Cable - 2nd Round

17:15 - 17:30 BMX Miniramp - Semi Final

17:30 - 17:45 BMX Miniramp - Xbox 360 Contest

17:45 - 18:00 Signing Session: Wakeboard Rider

18:00 - 19:00 LIVE: Pennywise

19:00 - 19:15 Signing Session: BMX Rider

19:15 - 19:30 Wakeboard Cable - Semi Final

19:30 - 19:45 Wakeboard Cable - Xbox 360 Contest

20:00 - 20:30 BMX Miniramp - 3rd Place & Final

20:30 - 20:45 Wakeboard Cable - 3rd Place & Final

20:45 - 22:00 LIVE: Mando Diao

22:00 - 22:10 Feuerwerk!

Javier Photos!

Javi Ortega just sent in more photos to share with you... such a giver.

Levi's Demo

Were you in Irvine for the Levi's Demos? Or did you miss all of this? Yes, it went down a week ago, but here are a couple fresh ones of Brett Walker. There, you're not that far behind.

New Clothes & Free Shipping

Road Fools 16!!!

Road Fools 16 is coming!

Bestwick On The Daily Habit

Don't miss X Games 14 Gold Medal winner Jamie Bestwick on Thursday's Daily Habit! Check Fuel TV for local times.

Finally! Taj's Blog

Taj Mihelich's got a newish blog on the Transworld site. For a while it read, "This is the blog of professional BMX rider Taj Mihelich. Taj will be on here as soon as he gets his new computer and will post some very interesting things. Stay tuned…" The time slash new computer has come. Enjoy...

Levis Demo!

Some of our boys did a Levis demo today in Irvine, California. And that's one of the best parts about living out here. You get to see premium riding from the best dudes... all the time. Makes you wonder why more people aren't rushing out to California, huh? Anyway, Jamie, Morgan & Brett ripped, as did the rest of the Levis crew. Over the course of the day the team did four demos and signings, all with hundreds of stoked civilians watching. Safe to say everyone had a great day. Thanks guys!

Jamie Bestwick, fresh off some X Games gold last week, did some sick tweaked out 360s...

Then he got a flat... BOOOOOOOOO! HISSSSSSS!

Morgan Wade can do double tailwhips over prefab gaps easy...

Superman tailwhip? No problem for Wade. Macys might owe us a photo incentive on this one.

Here... let's pause that for a minute so your eyes can burn out. Seriously, Morgan? Are you okay?

Brett Walker is a beast!

... But a happy beast! You'd be too if you got free etnies and Levis!

Hey Portland! Dew Tour's Coming

Hey there Portland!

You lucky, lucky Oregonals... the Dew Tour's coming and our boys are coming with it. Witness, in person, the dirt and vert stylings of X Games Champ Jamie Bestwick and Ride in Style King Morgan Wade. How did such good fortune smile upon you? What did you do in your past life to deserve this? Don't question it... just drink in all the awesomeness. Drink. It. In.

2008 AST DEW TOUR – PORTLAND COMPETITION SCHEDULE- BMX

Wednesday, August 20th – Gates Closed
4:00PM – 9:00PM BMX Dirt Practice
5:00PM – 9:00PM BMX Vert Practice

Thursday, August 21st – Gates Open at 2:00PM
NOON – 2:45PM BMX Dirt Practice
1:00PM – 9:00PM BMX Park Practice
3:00PM – 4:30PM BMX Dirt Prelims
5:00PM – 6:45PM BMX Vert Practice
7:00PM – 8:30PM BMX Vert Prelims

Friday, August 22nd – Gates Open at 2:00PM
10:00AM – 3:00PM BMX Park Practice
4:00PM – 6:00PM BMX Dirt Practice
6:30PM – 6:45PM BMX Dirt Practice
7:00PM – 8:30PM BMX Dirt Final
9:00PM-11:00PM Music - TBD

Saturday, August 23rd – Gates Open at NOON
11:30AM – 3:15PM BMX Park Practice
3:30PM – 6:00PM BMX Park Prelims
6:00PM – 7:15PM BMX Vert Practice
7:30PM – 8:30PM BMX Vert Final

Sunday, August 24th - Gates Open at NOON
11:30AM – 12:45PM BMX Park Practice
1:00PM – 2:30PM BMX Park Final

A. Ross Bike Check!

Aaron Ross may just be a little more complex a character than you know. Consider this:

"Explain how you were afraid you weren’t going to like your signature frame because you got used to a different frame.
When I first got on Sunday it took me a while to get used to the new bike because the bike that I rode for so long before that was so different. So when I was designing my bike I was so pumped to get a bike I knew I liked. During the last few months that I’ve been waiting for my frame to be finished I’ve gotten used to the Sunday bike I first started riding and I liked it for a bunch of features that my bike wasn’t going to have. So I was worried that I wasn’t going to like my frame once I got it because I thought all the things I once liked a lot where going to be things I hated now. Once I put it all together it was the best thing ever—it feels amazing for manuals. Like I said, I was just scared that all the things I always liked I would not like anymore, but once I got back on to the bike that I always liked it all came right back and was perfect."

Valid concerns voiced so simply, then laid to rest by his very own signature frame... want more insights? It's all there for you in his Ride BMX Bike Check.

Bedford In Action

Have a look at these new shots of Josh Bedford... it'll change your life.

Taj's Method!

Taj tells DigBMX.com all about his ride...

New Shoes For Back To School

Summer Break With BK

Hey everyone,

It's the middle of summer and things are crazy but I thought I'd share a few recent pics! Locations include Cologne, Illinois and maybe a few in between! See you soon!

Brian

Randy Taylor Edit

There's new Randy Taylor footage out, courtesy of V Club. Have a look...

More BK X Games Photos

No such thing as too much Kachinsky action. Here's more from the street course at X Games 14.

Manual

Smith grind

Rail to bar

New Bestwick Video Interview

Bestwick's one on one is pretty interesting and includes some sweet footage, but it was clearly filmed before last weekend's X Games. Otherwise he'd have been talking about THIS. X Games Gold in BMX Vert is no small feat, that's for sure.

Ride In Style This Weekend

Enter online to win some cool stuff from Levi's & Tilly's, including a trip for two to hang with Morgan. And for you locals, the SoCal demos are happening this weekend at the Irvine Spectrum & Tustin Legacy so if you're around, come say hello. Morgan Wade will meet you there, along with X Games Winner Jamie Bestwick. Autographs, giveaways and demos await you.

Ryan Smith Contest!

Ryan Smith is big time. Nothing says you've made it like a prize for the best photo taken while riding a bike wearing a mask of your face. And we're backing that.

You've got 'til August 19th to send in a pic of your best Ryan Smith impression... and the cut out mask included should really help.

Details at Defgrip.com.

Taj's Empire Details

Taj reports from the Red Bull Empire of Dirt:

Just back from the Empire of Dirt contest over in the UK. The whole time I was there I kept thinking how lucky I was to be there! What an amazing event to get to be a part of. You dream about getting to ride a course like that and I'm so honored that I got invited over to take part.

Riding the course was a rush. It was so long that I found it pretty intense to even make it the bottom, let alone remembering to try and do tricks on the way. The course was built down a big hillside so that it was always going downhill. It started off with a drop off from a starting deck and then 4 normal-ish dirt jumps. Then a big roller into a dirt half pipe section that you would get 2 good hits in during most lines. The halfpipe section ended with a jump into a small, laid back curved wallride. From here you dropped down a big hill and the speed started picking up. First a bigger curved wallride to the right, and then you really started going super fast. That shot you into a monster-sized wallride to the left. After landing from that I felt like I was going way, way too fast to hit anything! If you kept your speed going though you could jump a gap up on to a deck that led to a street spine. Don't fall though, because as soon as you jump the spine you have only about 10 feet and then you have to bunny hop another gap. There was a bunch of funny crashes where people would disappear after the spine landing into the pit of the gap. From here things get complicated. You could split off a few different ways once you stepped up onto a quarter pipe. Any way you went, though, there was small step down that you had to brake like hell for (as the hill starts to get a lot steeper here). Then a decent sized double that feels like a curb because you're going so fast, and finally a huge mega-sized hip that you can hit to the right or left, or if you're a beast you could jump it straight (only Ben Hennon jumped it straight). Whew! I'm exhausted from even writing all that. Whenever I reached the bottom still rolling I was so happy. It was awesome just to make it down there.

We had a few days of practice out there and that was great. Just long days of riding jumps down a big hill with friends and not many people around. The brakeless riders all figured out that they needed brakes for the lower section and the rest of us slowly picked away at the course 'til we made it to the bottom (the 2nd big curved wallride to the left gave Adam Baker and I loads of trouble at first).

Red Bull also organized late sessions at a mini ramp in a barn and another awesome session at Decoy trails. The Decoy trails were a huge highlight for me. After all the intensity of riding the the big Empire course I was stoked to just be riding normal straight forward trails. I say normal, but I don't mean they were ordinary. The Decoy trails were better then last year and extremely fun. There's one 28 footer set with a huge lip that is especially amazing. I haven't spent enough time jumping big jumps that scare the shit of me like that in a while. It was good. I think I was the dirtiest, sweatiest kid out there because I rode so much, and after Toby Forte and I did some shoulder buzzing griz-air trains through the jumps I had even more dirt to spread all over my face. No worries though, it was fun! Tony Cardona won the Rider's Rider award out at the trail session thanks in part to a can-can 360 over the big doubles while wearing a chicken suit.

For qualifying on the Empire of Dirt course each rider got 2 runs down the hill. It worked out pretty good, but I felt some sympathy for the judges who must have had a hard time working out scores on such a long and different style course. I spent some time talking with Achim (the head judge) after the contest and I told him I thought that for the most part the scores were really pretty fair. It is such a unique and interesting course, scores were based in large part on just how the rider rode the course, a single trick over a double didn't seem tomatter much on a course like that when there would still be a 1/4 mile of BMX to go after the rider landed. I think it was pretty low pressure for most of the riders too. If something did go wrong and you fell there were a lot of places in the course where you could pick back up and keep going (thanks to how downhill the course was).

I was close to making the qualifying cut but I stomped my foot hard on the last jump and didn't ride my second qualifying run. It was so hard to watch from the sidelines because I really wanted to see what I was capable of on that course. Ruben Alcantara rode the course as only Ruben could, even though all he did is flow down the course not so much doing a single trick. He was having a good time and didn't seem bothered with worrying about the contest. Sergio rocked that course and had for sure the most stylish looking lines in the halfpipe. It's a mystery to me how he could make it look so smooth when I always felt like a ton of bricks landing in that part of the course.

Leo Forte and Scott Edgeworth had a super gnarly head-on collision during practice over one of the gaps in the course. The collision echoed through the hillside like a car crash and they were both pretty out of it and taken to the hospital. At the very end of the contest
Leo made it back and caught his last qualifying run. With no practice and no warm up (and just back from a crash that left him coughing up blood) he had one of the most exciting qualifying runs of the day. Just going super high and fast through the course, and he managed to make finals too!

Finals day was pretty chill for me since I was mostly just limping around and reduced to being a spectator. The contest was actually kind of strange to spectate since the course was so long you couldn't see the whole thing from any one point. I spent most of the time near the top watching the first 4 jumps and then turning to the TV monitors so I could watch the rest of the riding. Catfish did a really good job announcing and the sound was surprisingly really clear even though it was being broadcast down a mountain side. Kyle Forte, Gary Young, Corey Bohan and Dane Searls were the top 4 guys and so they had to ride a high pressure single run to determine the winner. Actually, given the situation, I don't think any of them felt too much pressure. The contest was pretty laid back and I think everyone felt a bit like me in that just making it to the bottom was cool enough. Still, they all threw down and did some incredible riding on the spot, knowing that this was there one and only run.

In the end I think if I rode course like that all the time I might wear a bit more safety gear. Going that fast can get out of hand quick and not having any pads on might leave you hurting most of the time. But, for once a year it ended up being a real treat. The whole
event was like a test of your ability to adapt to riding things in a way you never really have before. Like, I've ridden plenty of street spines, but never one I had to gap up to going 100 mph and then land well enough to hop another gap right off the end. It was fun, kind of
like being in a video game or something.

To the Forte brothers, all the builders and organizers thanks so much!

What a cool experiment to get to be a part of. -Taj

Catfish

Gary

Hunt

Hunt

Sergio

Jamie Bestwick Wins X Games 14!

He did it again! And after a gnarly slam too. Jamie Bestwick is the X Games 14 BMX Vert champ! But don't just take our word for it, check the video of all his runs from the contest.

BMX Big Air & Superpark

Morgan's ready for Superpark Finals today! He took a bad slam that kept him off slightly off his X Games A game yesterday, but he kicked ass nonetheless. Today's feelin' good and Superpark's coming up. Stay tuned.

Big Air Final Results
1. Chad Kagy - 96.00
2. Dave Mirra - 94.66
3. Kevin Robinson - 91.00
4. Steven McCann - 90.00
5. Allan Cooke - 89.00
6. Morgan Wade - 86.66. ETNIES
7. Anthony Napolitan - 85.00

Superpark Qualifying Results (Top 10 Advance To Finals)
1. Daniel Dhers
2. Gary Young
3. Diogo Canina
4. Ryan Guettler
5. Alistair Whitton
6. Chase Hawk
7. Rob Darden
8. Corey Bohan
9. Dennis Enarson
10. Morgan Wade ETNIES

Mini Who?

You may have sparked a trend in sawed-off golf clubs, Verne Troyer, but that etnies Lo-Cut Golf shoe in the back is having the Best Week Ever.

BK's Soooo Street

And so ends the BMX Street comp at X Games 14. After an impressive final round exhibition of what I can only assume were moves meant to intimidate dudes and attract ladies, Brian Kachinsky finished 4th and continues to intimidate and attract.

Full Story at EXPN.com