A cool day's adventure in Malaga, Spain

After yesterday's crazy new school BMX jumping video, I decided to mix things up today on the blog, and find a cool mountain bike adventure somewhere.  Scrolling through a bunch on YouTube, this one stuck out because, well it's an attractive woman in a swimsuit.  Hey, I'm a guy, I gave it a watch.  This is just a cool video to remind you to find a bike adventure today.

Our video host here, Anna Glowinski, gets a goodie pack from Clif Bar, encouraging her to take the stuff and go have an adventure of some kind.  Much to my surprise, she decides to pedal to the top of a nearby mountain, and then ride back down.  As a crusty old guy from the BMX world, I still ask myself, "Why do people pedal UP things?"  Yeah, it's a challenge and all that.  Maybe it's the sore knees from years of being a furniture mover, but pedaling up stuff just doesn't seem fun to me.  But Anna's tougher than I am.  Here she rocks it, and then does some skillful single track back down... back into town, and to the beach.  Now that's the way to end a day of biking.

The moral of this story?  There's an adventure out there every day just waiting for you to find it.  And if you need a mountain bike, the BlocK Bikes shop here in Lancaster, CA can hook you up in this area (a bit north of L.A.).  If you're a BMXer anywhere, we've got you covered with...

Block Bikes Online BMX Store

Toyota BMX Triple Jump Best Trick Jam

Quick edit of a recent best trick jam, not sure exactly when this happened.  About a month ago, I think?  Anyhow, just uploaded this morning by Our BMX.  It's new school egg beater time over a small mountain range called three double jumps.  As an old guy getting back into things, I don't know most newer riders names yet, but I do know it's little Ryder Lawrence who's a decade younger than most of these guys, nearly making a 360 over this huge set at 1:20.  This is four quick minutes of video game trick in real life.  And if you break your frame trying something nearly this ridiculous, you know where to get a new one, right?

Block Bikes Online BMX Store

Classic Brian Foster- Holy Fit

While this Bock Bikes Blog is new, I'm an old guy.  My biggest riding days were in the 1980's and 1990's, then I faded when I became a taxi driver.  Whatever era you start riding in, that sets up your perspective of what's good riding, what's cool and what's not.  We tend to carry those perspectives on as we get older.

In the 1980's, when we called it "BMX freestyle," we'd go to contests, and see 40 different people doing tricks that none of us had ever seen before.  Originality was a key factor.  In those days, 15 novice guys would be busting new stuff we'd never seen.  The problem is that, you can only have that scenario at the beginning of a sport.  After a while, the foundational tricks have mostly been invented, and riding usually turns into combining variations, or doing the same tricks bigger, or on different terrain.  Contests, unfortunately, kind of turn into gymnastics.  When I started working at Cirque du Soleil in 1993, I soon realized that any aerial sport, BMX airs, skate airs, freestyle ski jumping, whatever, eventually turns into circus acrobatics.  You have flips, you have spins, and you have flips with spins (corked 360 flips, for example).  Then you have whatever basic maneuvers are allowed by the vehicle itself.  By that I mean, on a bike you have barspins, tailwhips, tabletops, and on a skateboard you have indy airs, methods, judo airs, in addition to flips and spins.

So the high level (big money) contests turn into guys doing the most flips, spins, corked flips, barspins and tailwhips possible.  But style, good old epic style, doesn't score well in a major contest.  It doesn't matter what sport.  But style is what it's really all about.  You learn a trick.  You get a trick dialed, so you can do it every time.  You learn to STOMP that trick.  THEN you do it with style. Hopefully.

So for years now, every time someone on Facebook or YouTube shared the latest video of some rider doing a quintuple barspin, triple backflip, corked out 1440, quadruple tailwhip... or whatever, I would watch a video afterwards that just had good style.  Usually that video was one of my old roommate, Brian Foster.  Most of the time it was this Holy Fit section.  This is just one of those epic edits, oozing with style, that makes you remember why you ride.

Block Bikes Online BMX Store

BRAND NEW- Trey Jones: Backyard Brawl

What is it with Florida guys and fire?  Who cares, really.  It makes for good video.  Here's The Shadow Conspiracy living up to their name... Trey Jones getting creative with the sketchy carpentry and the bike in his backyard.  And fire.  Had to have fire.  Some pretty crazy riding, and I love the skateboard as a lip/landing idea to mix things up.  It's funny, as the big promoters continue to take bikes in a big, stadium sport-like direction, the hardcore riders are going the opposite way with Steve Crandall's DIY World Championships (with its Ghetto Jam roots), and Trey's recent Swampfest, back to fun, crazy, goofy, riding jams.  Love this stuff. 

The use of the skateboard, and the whole fun feel of this video, kind of reminded me of this guy I rode with in the 80's.  He was always telling us to relax, try new stuff, and just have fun with riding.  He's the guy you see blending bike and skateboard at 23:25 in this video. 

Check this video out.  Then go forth an schralp.  Oh, and you know we got your Subrosa and Shadow Conspiracy stuff at this link below, right?  Yeah, I thought so.

Block Bikes Online BMX Store

Team Tom Dugan at the Battle of Hastings

This Battle of Hastings happened late last year, and this edit hit a couple months ago, but hasn't found much online love yet.  That kinda sucks, because Tom Dugan and his team blow it up in this clip.  British Battle or American Heavy Metal Weekend?  You decide.

This contest started back in January of the year 1066, when the Anglo-Saxon King of England, Edward the Confessor, died.  He didn't have any children, so there wasn't an obvious heir to the throne.  A handful of men vied for the spot, and Harold Godwinson was crowned King of England shortly after Edward's death. 

There were some skirmishes by others, even Norwegians, trying to lay claim to the crown.  All this bad blood led to an invasion by William, the Duke of Normandy, and his Norman-French forces.  Things escalated, and on October 14, 1066, about 7 miles outside the city, the Battle of Hastings took place. 

William's army is believed to have been bigger, maybe 10,000 fighters to Harold's 7,000, but no one knows the numbers for sure.  Harold had mostly infantry, with some artillery (cannons), but William had a lot more cavalry, which meant guys on horses in those days.  Some believe that stirrups on the saddles made a major difference that day, as William's Norman army rode into battle, with many more horses,and stirrups that allowed them to better control the horses while racing around, fighting Harold's infantry. 

It was a brutal battle, with an estimated 2,000 invaders killed on William's side, and 4,000 Englishmen dead.  No BMXers were killed in 1066, mostly because none existed then.  They didn't even kill mountain bikers or scooter riders, again, because none existed.  But they did kill Harold Godwinson.  William became the King of England, and the Norman domination began. 

In a much less bloody battle, Tom Dugan's team tore up the park and rails, and no horses were killed in 2018.  You can't buy a medieval suit of armor, stirrups, or horses at Block Bikes Online BMX Store.   But you can buy a Fit Bike like the one Tom Dugan rides, and a whole bunch of other cool stuff, like the new Jimmy Levan documentary Go Fast, Pull Up.  My Club White Bear T-shirts are available, as well, for you old schoolers out there.  Click below for all that BMX goodness...

Block Bikes Online BMX Store

Taj Mihelich has a book out

Here's an old video featuring Taj that I bet most of you haven't seen before.  Taj, of course, is on the BMX bike, and has the light blue helmet on.  This was a video contest where a BMXer and a MTBer had to shoot a video together at Ray's MTB in Cleveland.

Taj Mihelich is the guy who got the very first Block Bike ever made.  He's also known for going huge, and being innovative as a rider.  Now comes a story about a guy who builds bicycles.

Bernie is a master bike builder, and makes bikes for elite riders.  But his friends want bikes designed more for them, so Bernie puts his skills to the test to make awesome, affordable bikes for all his friends.  From legendary BMXer Taj Mihelich, comes a story and pictures about Bernie, a character named after his grandfather.  You can order one and check out an interview about the book at his website: tajmihelich.com

One for the women racers out there...

All's fair in love and racing.  Maybe...

Block Bikes Online BMX Store