Aesop Rock posted the flatland compilation video I did during my comprehensive exams. So, if you haven’t seen it, head over there and check it out, along with other fun stuff from Hail Mary Mallon, Jeremy Fish, Kimya Dawson, Rob Sonic, Aesop, and friends.

Mad thanks to Aesop Rock for supporting my silliness.

Whilst I was completing my comprehensive exams for my Ph.D. studies, I rode my flatland bike as much as possible in an attempt to keep my head straight. The video below is a compilation of some of those sessions. Some of the camera placement is pretty sketchy, and I’m basically just doing the same five tricks over and over, but here it is nonetheless [runtime: 2:41]:

I also neglected to thank Kip Williamson, The Clowndog dudes, Taj Mihelich, Sandy Carson, Brian Tunney, A.J. at The Peddler, Tommy at Ozone, as well as Chad and …

I finally have a new piece up on the ESPN BMX site. This one is about the generational differences between first and second generations of riders. Heraclitus once wrote that generations turn over every thirty years. Well, it’s about that time.

You’re right, Roy, you’re hopeless. Hopelessly obsessed with a time in your sport that died a long time ago… — McGoo

Here’s an excerpt:

The experience of a BMXer today is much more likely to be mediated by technology than it was in the ’80s. Given the proliferation of technology …

In the June, 1987 issue of FREESTYLIN’ Magazine, underground BMX rider and zine-maker Carl Marquardt described a ramp trick he called a “flakie”: a backflip fakie air. His friend and fellow rider Paul Mackles had offered him $100 if he pulled it. Three years later, Mat Hoffman did the damn thing at a contest in Paris. In his usual methodical style, Mat worked on it in secret in Oklahoma for months beforehand. As he puts it in The Ride of My Life (Harper-Entertainment, 2002), “To make it, I needed at …

When I was six years old, I propped a 2×4 up on a brick in our driveway and jumped my Evel Knievel Signature Schwinn Stingray a few inches less than a foot off the ground. My grandfather saw me trying to achieve escape velocity and told me to keep it up, that it would “earn me some money one day.” Well, I’m still pedaling toward inclined planes attempting to leave the earth’s surface, but I’ve never earned a dime doing it. The point is not my inability to parlay my propensity …

I just scribbled this little piece over on my bike site, HEADTUBE. Here’s an excerpt:
I was walking to class today, and I was almost mowed down by a guy on a fixed-gear. I was crossing a street, in the crosswalk, where I clearly had the right of way, but he rang his bell and blew by right in front of me, running the stop sign on the corner. I’d already been conceiving this post in my head and that was the last straw. Being a frequent rider of bikes on …

Longtime BMX homie and amazing photographer Sandy Carson has a show on display here in Austin at Okay Mountain Gallery. The opening on October 23rd was a bicycle scene reunion. We all gawked at Sandy’s photos, and geeked out on bikes, parks, and trails. A good time was had by all.

Here’s what the Okay Mountain site says about the show:
“Paradise Has Relocated” attempts to capture the lifeless remains and emptiness of a once thriving and historic island devastated by Hurricane Ike in September …

The skate zine show There Is Xerox On The Insides Of Your Eyelids is headed to Southern California at the Torrance Art Museum. The show opens July 24th and runs until September 4th.

I need to get in on this…
With thanks to Andy Jenkins and The Skateboard Mag.

Bob Osborn, owner of Wizard Publications, which published iconic magazines BMX Action (née Bicycle Motocross Action), FREESTYLIN’, and briefly Homeboy, as well as the book The Complete Book of BMX (1984), is a the kind of person the world could do to have a few more of. His free spirit and eye for talent indirectly influenced the course of my life. By hiring younger, kindred spirits on little more than a hunch (e.g., Andy Jenkins, Spike Jonze, and Mark Lewman), he changed the face and voice of BMX bicycles, as …

My recent feature on Russian Circles for DIG BMX Magazine has hit the stands. It’s in issue #72, if you’re interested. Also be on the lookout for their new record, Geneva (Suicide Squeaze), which hits the stores and sites on October 20th.
The full text from DIG is as follows:
The subgenre of instrumental post-rock has grown into its own over the last several years, and many of the bands emerging to represent the subgenre sound remarkably similar. The inherent irony of classification is that even as the category grows (i.e., the …