Tuesday, November 6

BMX Update 11.06.01

By Josh Root
EXPN.com

So the final results are in, GT/Schwinn was bought by Pacific. In adition to owning Mongoose, Pacific makes the quality bikes found in K-Mart and other such stores. Both teams were completely dropped and haven't been paid in at least 3 months. This has created a huge surplus of really good riders without a major bike sponsor. Bestwick, Osato, Voelker, Homen, Snowden, Weed, Wilhilm, Haugen, Garcia, Nolli, the list goes on and on. Some of the riders will probably walk into new deals pretty easily. But some will have a much harder time, and the money sure won't be as good.

"BMX Action" magazine had to change it's name to "Faction BMX", because the owners of the original 80's magazine held on to the copyright and were causing problems. Editor/owner John Paul Roberts said "If you don't stay away from my sister, I swear I'm going to hunt you down and....oh hi Josh. I thought you were someone else."

The Primo La Revolution contest will be held November 2-4 at Four Seasons skatepark in Milwaukee, WI. Judging by the other Primo contests, this one should be pretty amazing. If I lived nearby, I would sure be there.

Taj Mihelich has moved back to Austin, Texas to run Terrible 1 while Joe Rich is recovering from knee surgery. But since I saw Joe hanging out at the Baco contest in Wisconsin, I'm not sure how much more recovering he has to do. Taj however cut his hand pretty deeply while making his Halloween costume and had to get some stiches.

Van Homen is now riding for Fit bikes. It sounds like this might have been in the works before the Schwinn/GT problems. But in any case, it's good to see him get hooked up again.

It's the time of the year when bike pros get to do some traveling for themselves and not just because they have to get to a contest. Allistar Whitton took a riding/surfing trip up the west coast, Fit bikes owner Robbie Morales and Federal bikes/seventies distribution kingpin Ian Morris made their way up to Vancouver BC to visit friends and look at BC's giant trees.

Portland Oregon is finally going to get an indoor skatepark. Considering how much it rains there, I'm very suprised that it has taken so long to get another one going since the long ago demise of City Skate. The Cal's Pharmacy crew is putting this one together with much help from the local BMX/skate community. Bikes will definitely be allowed.

Derby Cycles (parent company of Diamondback) wandered very close to the cliffs of bankruptcy, but somehow the company heads were able to buy the company themselves and keep it going. Aparently the Derby cycles name will be changed. But as of now, there is no change as far as the BMX program or team.

Adam Strieby has been pulling a couple of amazing tricks recently. The tailwhip backflip and a 360 x-up to half decade thing. What's even more amazing is that he swears up and down that he learned them on dirt, and not on a resi jump box. Not that I have anything against resi, but it's nice to see people still learning and progressing the hard way.

It sounds like the guys who make 411 skateboarding video magazine are going to be making a BMX video magazine with Robbie Morales doing the hosting duties. Issues are scheduled to come out quarterly. Props (www.propsvisual.com) has long been BMX's high quality video magazine. And this will be the first well funded competition that they have faced in a long time. But the Props guys are excellent at what they do, and I think there is easily room for two vid magazines in BMX.

Impact skatepark in East Providence, Rhode Island is now closed. The parents of a 13 year old skater sued the park after the skater broke his ankle while riding the park. Although the lawsuit likely will be tossed out of court, since everyone at the park has to sign a legal waiver like at most private skateparks, Impact lost it's lease because the building owner was spooked by the lawsuit. I don't know, I'd sure hate to be that skateboarder right about now. I'm sure he's got a couple of hundred angry riders and skaters looking to kick his ass. Even though it's his parents who deserve that punishment.

If you live in the south, there's still time to get to the Dirty South Dirt Comp on November 10th. Mosh bikes and Andy Jordan's Bicycle Warehouse are sponsoring the event which will be at the Westview trails. Call 706-724-6777 for more info.

Dan's Comp, the infamous BMX mail order company has reportedly been bought out by the same company that owns CCS (California Cheap Skates). I don't know what this means, except that Dan is now a very, very rich man. Even richer than he was before he started selling counterfit Terrible 1 t-shirts. Support your local bike shop, mail order is for sissies.