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

Ever see one of those DK Random wrenches? I think they are such a cool idea, and so I decided to make something similar on my own. A tool for traveling that would include all the tools I need for my bike.

I started with an old fork and the tools I wanted to include.

"Hi, Odyssey, I'd like to warranty a pair of forks.'

Then I chopped up some tools to be welded on to my tool. After a little prep work I took all the parts to my friend Blaze who builds the Liquor Bikes made here in Austin.

This is a rough idea of what it would look like.

He welded on my bits and parts with the utmost perfection.

Next I carefully spray painted it and then picked it up and ruined the paint because it was wet.

If you check the picture above you'll see that it has a deep socket 17mm for pegs, and inside it has a 8mm, 6mm, 5mm, and 4mm allen sockets which are all the allen wrench sizes on my bike, and a Peregrine spoke wrench. Also welded on the outside is the adjustable wrench which works as a pedal wrench and as a wrench for brake adjustments. Basically every tool I need while traveling all in one Vision Street Wear hip pack-sized unit.

Its raining here today in Austin so how about another completely random blog from me? Well, I just sold my old Canon S-60 camera on Craigslist (which by the way was a great camera) so that I could get a smaller camera. Seems like I'm always missing taking a photo of something hilarious or weird 'coz my old camera was just too big to ride with.

I picked out the Casio Ex-S770 so I could always keep a camera nearby. It's a decent camera, maybe not quite as good of lens quality as the Canon, BUT, its tiny! Totally small enough to fit in a pocket and have it with you all the time. I searched around for a little camera bag for it, but they were all too big and made it too bulky. Luckily my mom was in town so she helped me sew up a cool little solution. We picked up a set of little girl socks for 2.99 and did a little altering.

Step 1. Get a sock and cut it to size.

Step 2. Turn the sock inside out and sew the bottom edge together.

Step 4. Drop in a camera and have a camera party in your pocket.

Step 3. Cut a little hole in the cuff and insert a draw string.

I suppose this kind of thing might work good for an iPod or all your D&D dice too!

Be warned, goats love these things!

We ran out of Skatelite for the new ramp section and even though I think I'm still sponsored by them I can't seem to get ahold of them. In desperation late at night I decided to start a Skatelite conservation technique of roaching the tiniest little bits of Skatelite into an almost mosaic like pattern to use every bit. It took some struggling, but we had just barely enough and were digging out the 5 year old scraps we had buried under the ramp from the initial build.

Ryan Corrigan made the scraps work for a really smooth corner. He's a master!

My band played last night and that was pretty cool. Or, actually it was the most stressful show I've ever played, but still cool in a way. Everyone in the band has been real busy and we haven't had much practice and maybe cause my mom and step dad were in town visiting or something, or maybe cause I got poisoned by my water and was sick but I kept forgetting songs.

The Snake Trap. Photo by Chris Hallman

Austin is so crazy, last night I randomly saw Wiz and Stricker ride down the street. Then Sandy Carson came to our show, and then the Homeless Trash crew came walking down the street. You guys ever seen Trash? Ground breaking! Sheps, Steve-O, Jeff (who is standing in for Ruben Castillo), and the Gute.

Its strange, we've played a lot of the songs hundreds of times, but for whatever reason we'd get to some change, I'd know it was coming and I'd forget what to do... and start stressing. Reminds me a lot of riding though. At least a couple times I had to just close my eyes and move my hand up into the general area I knew I was supposed to play and hope that muscle memory would take over.

Sandy is one of the funniest people you could ever know.

That kind of "diving" into it approach worked mostly... I had a few bad hangups, but it was still fun. Playing music is so humbling!

Riding the ramp has been so a awesome lately, everyone trying to figure out the new parts and what they're capable of. Of course Joe has the biggest lines already, but what's new.

We've been getting a lot of Rollergirls coming by to have fun on the ramp too... here's Venus Envy and Annie Afterparty.

Chris Hallman isn't far behind. You might need to be a little bit old school to be able to place Chris Hallman's name as a pro rider, but he's a rider/ photographer from Pennsylvania who grew up around Joe and all those PA guys. Lately he's been on a mission, killing the cement park, the trails and the ramp. Supposedly Joe is making him enter a vert contest with him this year, so that should be awesome to see.

Speaking of contests I just got an invite to this this crazy thing. Its the Red Bull Empire of Dirt at the Forte' bros house in England. Its been forever since I entered a dirt comp and I don't really think my bag of one footed variations will really hang with all the double flips and double whips, but even so I'm going to try and go. This thing looks sooooo fun doesn't it?

Red Bull Empire of Dirt Course

A few days ago the water at my apartments got turned off 'cause some road crew broke the water main. It was off for like 2 days and then when it came back on I thought everything was back to normal. I took a much needed shower, washed clothes and such. Well, after drinking a few glasses I started to feel sick. The next day there was an urgent email from the apartment complex warning us to not drink any for 10 days! I ended up with a bad fever and feeling shitty for a whole day. To stop boredom I changed the optical drive on a friends iBook.

Yeah, I computer nerded out!

Holy shit! I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I had to take out like 60 screws. It was fun taking it all apart I guess and scary that I was going to ruin it, but, so far, so good.

I hear the entire animal team is in town today and I saw Wiz ride by the bar last night, so I'm off to go ride and see who I can bump into.
Take care!
Taj

Unrelated to ramps! Roscoe got to chase this goat (Yagi).

The team news has been slacking lately because Mr. Povah, our beloved team manager, and his wife Jackie just had a baby boy. Congratulations! Garrett Gray Povah is now on the planet everyone!

Dad.

Well, since Povah's out for a bit taking some family time I am doing my best to get you some much needed etnies team news. Just remember Mr. Garrett Gray Povah, your dad was our (the etnies team's) dad first.

Ruben Alcantara

Ruben Alcantara is chilling in Chile now doing the usual things for a Ruben. Surfing and eating at all the cool spots. He has neglected to mention in his email if he's been riding, but I think its safe to say he's probably blown someone's mind doing something on his bike this week (that's always a pretty safe bet). He says the locals are really cool and that Chile is a great place. Ruben's been almost everywhere hasn't he?

Make your best motorcycle noise for this caption...

Garrett Byrnes hasn't gotten back to me either. I know he's up in Jersey, and he's probably been getting up at like 4:30 AM to go to work in the Union. Probably surfed and maybe rode some trails?

He has a new T-shirt out through T-1 that Joe Rich designed for him. Its a pretty cool design for sure. One time Garrett's dad sent me a picture of a Garrett Byrnes signature Barcode bike hanging from a crane 150 feet above a lake. Wish I could find it in my iPhoto.

Garrett's new signature shirt through T-1.

Sandy Carson has had a rough last couple weeks. His back has been giving him tons of trouble and he's be unable to do any riding (outside of transportation purposes).

He's done a bit of updating to Sandy Carson.com and he's been doing some photo assistant work with Austin superstar photographer Aubrey Edwards. He's also been stopping by T-1 most everyday to help us with some ramp work (probably much to Dr. Roy Mullins' (his chiropractor) dismay). He's also been under the gun finishing up editorial and photo work for the next issue of Dig Magazine.

Scrounging into my photo archives trying to find pics of everyone. Sandy Carson... yet another surfing dude.

Mike Escamilla called me the other day and is trying to work out a filming trip with John Heaton, himself and I to Finland. We all have to get cracking on our filming for the new etnies BMX video that will be out near the end of this year. After he did that crazy Gumball 3000 race thing he did a few other adventures. I have them all mixed up in my head right now though, so I don't want to give any of the wrong information. He's sooooo busy, its really hard to keep up with him.

I seriously think Mike is going to wrestle this thing.

I know he said something about trying to have a lot of "adventures" this year, and something about some 24 hour drive into the Mexico interior to go surfing. Then he told me something about going to hunt or wrestle wild boar... I swear that's what he said... I think. Anyway, you can bet that when someone like Rooftop says they are going on adventures, they really are going to be for real adventures. Rooftop is amassing quite a collection of good stories for his old timer days chillin' on the porch.

3000 photos on my computer and this is the only one I can find of Dave Freimuth (and it has Kevin Porter on the left).

Dave Freimuth is another team guy who didn't get back to me with news. Man, Povah has his hands full with us. I'm sure Dave's been hanging with his new baby (who I have yet to see pictures of so I'm not sure I believe it), and he ought to be just about healed up after his knee surgery a few months back. I've watched Joe rehab through some knee reconstruction surgeries and I know its a hell of a lot of work. Get well Dave and lets meet up to go filming at Chad's Park soon!.

This is Jamie back from when he was in charge of one of those Good Times Contests he was putting on at the Flow.

Jamie Bestwick hasn't had a chance to get back to me about what he's up to. I can only guess that he has gone higher then anyone ever on vert this week and landed so smooth and quietly that no one ever heard it (and he probably didn't even know it). Not sure if that means it doesn't count for the new world record.

John Heaton is on my MIA list as well. He's up in Canada though, so I figure that's half of an excuse right there (its like a whole other country over there... and I here they're tightening up the borders these days). If my figures are right the weather must be freaking spectacular about now up in Vancouver after a winter of rain and dreariness. I hope he's spending tons of time outside riding and not on computers writing team news, even if it does turn Povah's hair gray!

John Heaton, on top of a mountain in California, in what looks like mid-pimp limp.

Sergio.

Sergio Layos has been busy and is just back to Spain after winning the Australian King of Dirt Jump Competition. There is of course some heavy talent down on that side of the planet, so Sergio must have been riding pretty darn good, bravo! He said they had a big party and bands playing afterwards. Before Australia he was on a Fly Bikes road trip through France. He also did some vert demos with Eduardo for Red Bull at a music festival (man... another vert rider sprouting up... yes!).

He also wanted to give a congrats to John Povah for the baby making, "I just want to say that I wish him and his family all the best they deserve it...I think there should be more people like Povah and I'm so happy about him having a baby. I know he will be a nice person!!!"

Nice people are good, and Sergio might just win that contest too.

Joe Rich has his eyes- or maybe just one eye on you.

Joe Rich lives about 2 miles from me and I see him every day so I guess that excuses him from not answering my request for team news also. Joe's been busting his butt working at T-1 day in and day out. He's also been working with me everyday as we're adding a new addition on to the ramp. We've decided to approach the remaining space in the T-1 backyard like dirt jump trails, just connect the ramps with whatever seems like it would flow.

I don't have a single picture of Josh Stricker, but here's a photo of his awesome new grips from Primo.

Its been a wild scene back there the last few days... not sure who trusted us enough to go crazy with tools, but "ratty" has been the coverall word for everything we do. Joe's just got back from a mini California roadtrip with Ruben Alcantara too. They went surfing a lot and had a great time. What's up with all the surfing dudes on the BMX team? Man, I can hardly even swim and I'm terrified of jelly-fish. He did some moto-crossing as well this week and he's getting pretty good on that thing. He saw Mono and Pelican play last night and he's been doing some ramp shredding a bit each day (he's the king of the T-1 ramp though he won't admit it).

Josh Stricker lives in Austin too, but I haven't seen him too much. I guess I just stay holed up in the T-1 compound too much. He got back to me about news which is a step better then most of the team, but he said he couldn't type well as he'd just spent a while in Emergency room with some problems with his arm. Man, hope you're ok Josh and I do seriously still want go do some BMX racing like we talked about so long ago (while both of us were gasping for breathe after sprinting across the floor at some Backyard Jam a while ago).

I know this looks like a butt-ugly superman, but don't knock it just yet. Morgan is doing the bike flip thing a million feet high here!

Morgan Wade... what the hell is he up to? I can't remember if he's still hurt with his shoulder thing from a while ago, or if he's all better... is he on the new Road Fools right now?

Check these gruesome twins out. The first one is Morgan from about 3 months ago, the second is Morgan from about 3 years ago.

Man, who knows, but we all know that if he's riding he just did something crazy, and he's already turning around to do something even crazier.

Yep, my hair farming head on a cover of the latest Creme BMX Lifestyle Magazine This new issue marks their first fully translated to English version (its French), so check it out if you can.

Taj Mihelich... whew, this is a lot of work, I don't know how Povah does it. I've been, like I mentioned in Joe's news, doing a lot of work on the ramps in the backyard at T-1. My band had some practices and played a show in Austin with Megazilla and Gorch Fock. Gorch Fock, incidentally got some support from etnies during a little tour they had not too long ago... sort of teammates I guess. Megazilla was awesome to hear, if you like really loud music you'd probably like them. Other then that, I've been riding the ramp a bit. Mostly though, I've just been working on the new ramp section tons. We finished today on the first big change and I really need a break from building... gonna ride it now!

Granny bike with basket no-handed pocket air.

I have to admit, I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I've developed quite a collection of bikes and other wheeled objects and its fun riding all of them. BMX is my first and strongest love by far, but I wonder if a smile from my beach cruiser is worth any less then one from my BMX?

BMX, Big Wheel, Skateboard, Beach Cruiser, Road Bike, MTB, and Moped.

Bikes are the best! I wish everyone rode a bike, and I wish the cars on the road were replaced with bikes. Unlike snowboarding, skateboarding, surfing, or any other "action sport" bikes have a very functional secondary side; transportation (well, they're all forms of transportation I guess, but if you had to travel across town bikes would be the way to go... er, unless you lived in a city that was flooded with great waves!). Although this really has nothing to do with BMX exactly, riding a bike to somewhere can save you money, creates no pollution, and keeps you in shape (well, hell, it is National Bike to Work Day on Friday).

You can click the engine off so this thing pedals like a bike. 110lbs over the hip... or a few feet under the hip that is.

Carbon fibular 12th gear nose pick.

Last summer I rode some 4-cross MTB and had a blast. Its just like BMX racing used to be when I was a kid. Super fast, fun jumps, big berms and laid back atmosphere. I don't know if I'll ever do it too much, but it sure was great. The track was a hell of a lot more interesting then any of the BMX tracks I've seen in years. You could ride the 4-cross track on a BMX bike, but it wasn't nearly as fun. The track was just too bumpy and you got going too fast for a suspension-less little wheeled bike. So here I was, riding a mountain bike and it felt maybe even more BMX then BMX racing did. That kind of got me thinking about how there's tons of different bikes just waiting for whatever kind of riding you might want to do. If what you're riding is bumpy, downhill and fast having suspension and bigger wheels makes sense. If what you're riding is smooth and Skatelite or if you're grinding up a handrail ride a BMX. If you're riding to the grocery store ride a bike with baskets, or get yourself a touring bike to go across the country and go camping... ect.

Disaster shoot out... cruiser vs. MTB!

BMX on the ramp is cool because I feel like I can be creative and learn new things... on my skateboard I just feel like I'm going to DIE!

There's a whole new world of BMX "style" mountain biking happening right now. They are starting to have their own magazines, and their whole entire own sub-culture of cycling. On first glance it seems pretty lame to me, as it looks like most of the guys are just doing old school BMX tricks on big wheeled bikes (though for sure, there are some guys pushing it). On another hand though, I wonder if the guys riding those bikes aren't just doing it because they feel alienated by the "BMX Scene". Or maybe they're afraid of the little bikes 'cause they look too small? I don't know.

When you do a Greg Hill tuck over the spine and look down at the coping you can't tell what bike you're on.

After thinking about it all for a while my thoughts just turn back to the idea that there are simply different bikes for different applications. Sort of like how you use a different paint brush depending on what you're going to paint, you know, you use the one that fits. Looking at it that way I think its all kind of the same. BMX is about way more then just the bike and if its fun and you're enjoying it maybe it doesn't matter if its a BMX, a MTB or a skateboard?

Clearly the wrong tool for the job...

Also, and maybe more importantly, if I wear spandex under my clothes will anyone know about it?
Thanks Sandy Carson for the photos...