Archive for February, 2008

The weeks have been flying past recently, so much going on. Having a blast! Really enjoying riding again, shoulder is getting stronger everyday. Getting lots of the old stunts back at last. Had a real good session up at Llanishen park.

Got a couple of quick snaps of Gaz shredding!

Tables

More Table

Toboggan air

Not very exciting, but only had camera out for a few mins. Weather looks good for tomorrow, minging today!

Just a quick update with a few photo’s that I’ve taken lately and thought were grand. Enjoy.

Butler table air - savaging it at the moment

The golden child going upside down

Shitbag

Vic Murphy eat your f-in heart out - shitbag’s shoe

Wafting it sideways

Old evening photo out my back garden - the tree’s been felled and no sunflowers at the moment either

I thought this evening I’d update with a few random photo’s and ramblings about different things which may or may not be of any interest to anyone. Broken limbs are strange in their recovery. I am now two weeks out of the last X ray, and everything seems ok apart from the X up position of my arms, still can’t make them happen. Aidan is a week behind me, and his ankle seems in the over exerted state my arm was this time last week. Here’s a photo of something I have been trying to get good.

Fun trick, Mike Lynette snap

Whilst I waited for my arm to heal and I was jobless without means of getting anywhere fun, I went on a few walks in the countryside, like a right country gent. I used to hate the slow pace of walking, but I now appreciate that it let’s you take more time to take in the surroundings and have a right good think with your brainbox. Here are a few snap’s I took on my adventures.

Opening to the heavens

Arch of sticks and twigs down a little valley

Old railway building at my chilhood woods

I also checked out my old woods, where I used to dig every Sunday afternoon with my good buddy Gregg. Never the most ideal spot or the best jumps, but they were fun to have just across the fields from your house. We had a few nice afternoons down there, nice and peaceful.

Jumps, done with that place for good most probably

This week the Brits were shown on the telly box, and I watched it so as to catch a bit of Winehouse. She did a medley with Mark Ronson, along with a couple of other singers, and then did a song off her newer album, can’t remember which one, Love is Losing Game possibly. Bloody rad whatever it was, go watch the Ronson set on youtube for a bit of musical entertainment. There she is, very coherent for the first time in a while. Excellent.

Winehouse and Ronson, a genius combination

Last night I went to a private session at Epic run by an old school website, Radbmx. All in there were nine people who headed up with our crew, and an awesome session was had by all. We met some super sweet dudes there too. Everyone I was with did something to get stoked on I think, including Gregg’s big drop gap, Chris’s sub box fufanu, Ray’s front brake nose picks and me convincing John to send a pretty gnarly first hand rail. Yes John. I stole the show however with a jump off the bike to bum slide down a ledge to land on another bike at the bottom. Progression. Didn’t get any pictures but my words should be assurance enough it was splendid.

Will Hermannator kicking one out in Texas

So thanks to Aidan I found this photo of Will doing a mega kick out in Austin. Looks like he’s having an amazing time out there again. For another picture of Will living the high life, and other wonderful images, go check out the lightwoods. Pipe just did an update.
Today Aidan and I did some mud piling, slapping and smoothing. The woods are looking really good at the moment, should be a treat come riding time. Now that the arms fixed up and Aidan’s ankles well on the mend, lots of stuff should get done, which I am really excited about. I am however yet to see Yak since I got back from Australia. He seems to be somewhat elusive these days, send me a message if you read this boy! This afternoon, Aidan told me about these weird dreams he’s been having about waking up in strange places alongside Stephen Fry. Just dreams of waking up in chapels, busy parks, building sites, and even in scenes from the TV show the Office. Who knows what goes on in that kid’s noggin? That’s anyone’s guess. There he is to finish off this update, farewell. x

Aidan, Cotdeath, circa July 2007

Greetings fine persons. The past few days I’ve been working at an old airbase moving cars around. My preconceptions of this job were rad, drive around in flash new cars all day having fun. The reality is not going over 40 Mph most of the time, and driving up and down the same few routes all day getting really repetitive and brain numbing. Need to find a fun job now I’m done with uni. Thought I’d update with a bunch of photo’s from our Northbound journey at the start of our Australian trip.

Shepparton bowl tabletop

The first park we stopped at once we bought our van and hit the road was Shepparton in the North part of Victoria. This place was just a small town, but had a super rad park. It had a few big bowls, some good hips, random little boxes, banks and ledges, all sorts of rad obstacles. Good start to the trip’s riding, and just the tip of the spot iceberg.

Eddie laying it over

Don’t expect much more than table pictures!

Bar turn right out the park

Just another of the good little spots we hit up on our journey North through Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. This day was ridiculously hot, and made us dehydrated after each few minutes of the session. We had the place to ourselves, and had a real good time just pumping about and riding the two hips. We also eat some dialled pasties that day, I asked for a Cornish pasty and the shop keeper replied “they’re meat pasties; I don’t know if they’re Cornish though”. Pretty sure she didn’t have a clue what I was talking about.

Garrett inspired carve, the best fun on Cairns conrete

Eddie in the smaller cradle

Cairns Skate Park was probably the most obscene park I’ve ever seen from a distance unexpectedly. It was the type of place that I’d only ever seen before on Building the Underground, massive trannies, cradle bowls, clover bowl, vert walls, hips, tonnes of ledges, banks and street influenced obstacles around the perimeter of the bowls, everything anyone on a bike or board could dream of. These photo’s only really illustrate the main big bowls which linked together in a loop, which was probably just a quarter of the amazing concrete the place had on offer.

Big cradle, absolutely nuts. Has this photo been on here before?

Another table, this time on some big bowls

Cairns was always portrayed as the ultimate party town by all the travellers and travelling information I had heard from or read. When we got there, the place’s centre was not as big an area as we had expected. Also, the weather was nothing like the pictures on the post cards! Plus there were crocodiles in the ocean so you couldn’t swim anyway. We did have a real good time riding there though, sessioning the park in the town and also sneaking through the fence for an early morning ride at the private race track.
We did party a bit in Cairns, one night we went to some club called Soho, had to pay 15 bucks to get in and it turned out to be a cheesy dance club. We got real wild in there, rave dancing and meeting a whole heap of awesome people. I met this chick from Finland who was pretty much heaven, she was one of the most amazing girls I’ve ever met. Sadly, I didn’t manage to get in contact with her after that night though, which I was pretty devastated about. That night was so much fun.

Opposite carve in the cradle

Another night, we went to see some band called Katchafire in a music venue in Cairns. We thought they were going to be a rock band for a wild night, turned out to be $37 to see a reggae band who were only really popular in New Zealand. Everyone was in a state of tranquillity, rarely moving their feet, even at the most exciting points of the gig. Did meet a drum and bass raver from Wembley though which was rad, plus some skaters and some girls complete with incredibly protective other halves. There was also a pokies bar downstairs (poker machines), so after the gig we went and chatted shit to some older women in there. Ended up getting real lost on the way home, and losing Eddie, he slept in a bus stop with his leg through his frame so no one stole his bike! Legendary as always.

Levi, super nice guy from Cairns who shredded the place to pieces

Aerial

To conclude young sirs and madams, that was some stories and pictures from a nicer climate. Hope you like it. The end. x

This weekend was so rad. It was my old house mate Ed’s birthday, so went out for a couple of huge nights out. Didn’t manage to ride on Saturday but went and hit up Barry on Sunday. A bunch of guys were down from Swansea who were right shredders.

Marcus 360

Wild flip by a Swansa person (Dan?)

Jim and Marcus both got 360’s on the box, so good to see. I need to man up!

The usual wild airs

Me table

Me turndown, got Marcus to take these last two photos

Party trick, wall hop…

Well good session all in all, I got a few old tricks back so that’s rad. One of the other funniest parts of the weekend was Baz getting chucked out of the Welsh Club for being sick on the dance floor into his hat. Legend.