The Union

This video rules, found on Skavenger.

Josh Heino

I love Josh Heino, he just fucking rules. I could'nt find his full section from Nowhere Fast so this lot will have to do.

Penicuik Skatepark, Scotland

This past saturday myself, Wally, Jo, Chris, Sean and Marty chanced the weather and headed up north across the border to ride Penicuik skatepark. Marty and Sean had been before and were raving about this multi hipped mecca and a quick search on Google confirmed what they had been saying. The park looked amazing, loads of hips, big wallride, nipple/volcano thing and a few blocks and flatbanks.

We set off early doors and got up there pretty quick thanks to Jo gunning it at every chance he got (while avoiding the countless speed cameras on the way to Scotland). When we got there the park was completely empty, could hardly believe it! No glass or chavs (neds!) to be seen. Happy days. The park was quite imtimidating at first but after a few hours we all got into it. One thing that was a shitter though was the amount of midgies up there, my arms are covered in bites and I'm still itching as I type this!! Fuck. 

The park is super good and well worth a visit, it even stayed dry all day until the rain finally caught up with us on the way back to good old Newcastle.

David Lang photo blog

Can be found here. There are some amazing photos on there, not least this shot of Darren Berrecloth who rides BMX as well, think he used to ride for Diamond Back back in the day? Aye its on a mountain bike but that is some super man seatgrab! It looks like some sort of massive step down off that platform on the right, nuts.

Zoo York Bomb down broadway

Zoo York recently held a BMX race through the streets of New York City in the middle of the day with a $1500 prize for first place, looks pretty crazy especially since the vast majority of the riders there are brakeless! A full edit is due to be dropped soon, can't wait to see it..

Olly Olsen and Ratty's Pizza Party

Good times. More photos here and here.

Micreation- Eli Platt

Dave Jacobs the man behind Micreation has put up a couple of high quality HD edits online, one by Brad Simms and one by Eli Platt. The Brad Simms section is $2 to view and download and the Eli Platt one is free to view after you sign up. The quality is second to none and the riding is solid as well. It will be interesting to see if other videographers and editers follow Micreation's lead by making pay per view videos only available online as DVD sales continue to drop and more and more grainy images of their hard work  end up on Youtube and Google soon after release. After all if the rider and filmer are going to all that trouble and effort don't they deserve a fair return? Plus, no one likes a knock off Nigel now do they?!

Rolling deep on the streets

Had a nice lazy morning and some good quality smoked back bacon to start the day, it set the tone for the rest of the afternoon. Met up with Marc Bell and the rest of the South Shields locals at the park across the street from North Shields Police Station. We messed around there for a bit, Adam was doing some sweat tables out of the slide and using it as a hip.

Adam- table

Next we went along to this wierd cobblestone banks spot which is tricky to ride because the banks are rough and there isn't much run out at the bottom, but Marc didn't have any problems doing the gap to opposite wallride from the path to the wall.

Marc- gap to wallride

Next we went up to ride some more banks in New York dubbed rather aptly Brooklyn Banks. This spot is a lot of fun, it is basically a long concrete hump that can be ridden like a hip or a jump box. We met up with Wally, Marty, Sean, Chris, Paul & Caris and rode there for a while.

Alex- decade nosepick

Mouse- turndown

We rode this manual pad behind the swimming pool for a bit while we waited for Rob and O'Grady to complete the crew for the day, can't remember the last time we had this many riders out in Shields.

We coasted down to black park in Whitley Bay but the session didn't really get going there because there were a few families with kids running about but Marty was nearly pulling the curved wallride to manual to whip which he apparently pulled the other night, too good. Rob fell off on his first run ripping his arm up pretty good, second run well straight on his arse. Chin up lad!

Rob's gonna have a tasty school boy scab tomorrow!

With it being a Sunday we said goodbye to the South Shields lot because the last ferry is at 6pm and the rest of us headed down to the chippy near the spanish city for some much needed bait. If your ever down there don't go to Pantrinis' as it is a fucking rip off and not even any good! Go to the Arcade chippy or Seashells instead. So before I go off on a tangent about scampi and mushy peas I shall finish the story. We went across to the site of the new skatepark here in Whitley Bay to eat our chips and got excited with the progress that the builders have made. Although I'm not convinced the hips have been built to spec, look a bit low to me but we'll soon see I suppose once its complete..

We went up to one of the best grass banks to wall known to man and sessioned there for a while, lot of tricks getting thrown out most notably Wally pulling a perfect footplant tailwhip and coming so close to a double footplant seat grab thingy, he'll definitly get it next time. Marty was going nuts too with his usual array of tricks as well as a couple of Ruben-rides for good measure.

Marty x3- down table, invert, Ruben

Wally x3- tailwhip footplant & Ninja wallplant

We fannyed about in Sainsburys car park for a bit and I elbow dropped the ground on a wallride, buzzing! That was the end of the session, one of the best in a while. Cooked a cracking red Thai curry just before as well, king prawns the lot! Mint day :-)

Kevin Robinson..

You've probably heard by now 'K Rob' has broken Mat Hoffmans world record for highest air on the Red Bull super ramp, in Central Park NY. 27 ft air anyone?

Bow down: Mark 'The Gonz' Gonzalez

The Gonz has to be one of my favorite all time riders and also one of the most influential street riders of all time. He was the reason I took my brakes of in 98' and learnt barspins and fakie tricks. All of his tricks looked amazing from the simple (frame grab fakie) to the insane (tree ride to flair). He is almost as well known for being a bit of a character in BMX from his acting debut on On The Down Low, to his various outfits at the MTV & old Hoffman BS series to his odd ramblings in his interviews. BMX certainly needs more characters if you ask me, everything is so serious and hammer orientated in mags and videos these days, where is the fun?
Here is a time line of the Gonz over the years which I nicked from 23 Mag, if you are a younger rider and you dont know who I'm talking about get a copy of On The Down Low, still one of the best videos to date.

1992 Cover : Ride US #2 december 1992

1997 Mark Gonzales is now riding for S&M after using them on his own for as long as he can remember.Gonz also got hooked up with Puma shoes. Above at the MTV street contest in Austin, one of the best 'real' street courses to date.

1998 Classic Gonz. One-footed frame-grab fakie at ESPN X-Trials round 1. Photo by Mark Losey.

1998 On The Down Low- still can't believe its 10 years old!

Mark Losey, www.ridebmx.com : At the MTV Sports and Music Festival in 1999, Gonz completely lost his mind. He took a bus for three days to get to Memphis, TN, from Phoenix, Arizona, for the event, and he brought one very important item with him: a chicken suit. The night before the event began, MTV held a riders' meeting where Gonz got on the microphone and said, "I have a few social issues I want to talk about," and then he rambled on about Chicken McNuggets for ten minutes. Later he went to the MTV Real World house, hung out in the hot tub while still in the chicken suit, and then he ended the night by running down the street naked. The story doesn't end there. The next day Gonz went to the motocross jumps, got naked on top of a landing, and then got punched by MXer Mike Jones. Gonz got banned from the rest of the event, but he still managed to get beat up by Danny Way before the weekend was over.

Cover and interview in Ride US #51 august 2000.

Mark Losey, www.ridebmx.com : I always thought Gonz was crazy, and while shooting his interview for issue 51 it was confirmed. One night while we were at his apartment at two in the morning, he was playing all kinds of instruments through a loop machine while chanting, "Do you love Satan?" Half of what Gonz does is just to mess with people, but I can honestly say that he freaked me out. A few years later we did a story about dads and asked pros to send in photos of them with their kids; Gonz sent a photo of his son that looked like he was dead in an alley.

Mark Losey, www.ridebmx.com : In 2001, Gonz came by our office and said he wanted to shoot an x-up fakie footplant on a wallride in Huntington Beach. The only thing wrong with this scenario was that he didn't have a bike. To him, this wasn't much of an obstacle, so he went over to S&M and "borrowed" Chris Moeller's bike for a few hours. Gonz was riding for S&M at the time, and he's the only rider I know that would steal his boss' bike.

2hip has added the GONZ from Arizona to the flow-list in october 2004.

2006 Holy Gonz on the cover of Ride US september 2006. Shopping-cart mower while wearing Z's jacket. Photo by Jeff Zielinski.