Well, would you look at that… 2011 is almost over. Where the hell did the year go? If there’s one thing I’ve come to realize is that the older you get, the faster the world turns. I’m not saying I’m old by any means, just after riding for nearly 12 years, the days fly by faster and faster and I’ve come to accept that as long as I keep riding, I’ll keep having good memories that I can look back on by the end of the year. I just went through my photos and selected out a few that stood out to me from the year. Due to life taking over, I didn’t get the chance to travel nearly as much as I would have liked, but I still managed to do a few cool things. Let’s take a peek…
Early in the year, I was able to join the Milwaukee crew of Jon Wells, Jeff Dowhen, Grant Castelluzzo, Tippy and Nerve to Toronto for the annual jam there thanks to Sun Ringle. We met up with Jeff DuPaul, Denny Pascasio, Chris Childs, Dylan Stark and James Lukas and packed tightly into a hotel. Yeah, that’s right 11 full grown men in a hotel room and some how we didn’t even get a phone call to tell us to keep it down. Not sure how that worked with power bombs and miscellaneous wrestling moves happening throughout the night. I think Jeff Dowhen ended up in the hotel kitchen or something as well.
Some how Denny was able to sleep through the hair cut of a life time. The best part was when this photo was taken he had no idea his hair was… missing. It was about 2 minutes later when he went to the bathroom he discovered this. He wasn’t even pissed. That dude is the best.
I had the chance to go to TRP in Detroit on the way to Toronto this year. I had seen the park in a ton of videos over the year so it was pretty cool to get to ride the place. I had the chance to snap this photo of Jon Wells mowing the lawn which was badass.
I snapped this shortly before we ventured back to the U.S from Canadia. The 15 hour haul was definitely interesting with parts of the highway being completely iced over leading to us passing like 30 cars in the ditches including one that flipped. It was super sketchy, but some how we made it through the terror zone. I remember getting back to Milwaukee at 3 A.M and saying fuck it, and made the remaining 4 hour drive back to Minnesota. It was kind of funny because I had to meet my girlfriends mom for the first time later in the day. I’m pretty sure she thought I was completely high off my ass or something too.
I’ve been lucky enough to put together a contest once a year here in Minnesota for the last like, 8 years. Other than this unusually not snowy winter we are having right now, last winter is was snowy as hell. Any excuse to get the Minnesota scene together when it’s -20 is a good excuse. I was able to hold the contest at the new Bluff Valley Skatepark this past year for the first time and it went off awesome. Tons of real good riding, good people and stacks on stacks of prizes to give away thanks to all the sponsors for the event. Above you can find a photo of “Pirate” doing one of his signature Tanya Harding ice pick grinds. Dude is on another planet.
This was probably the craziest thing that went down at the entire jam. This dude blasted the box and knocked a ceiling tile out of place. Why is this crazy? Well, it’s 25 feet up, off a 5′-5″ tall foot tall box jump. That’s some boost. It’s still funny how kids will stand on the box jump and stare straight up and say “How the hell did that even happen?”.
The tentative date for this years jam is Saturday, FEBRUARY 3RD. I should have a flyer and an announcement in the next week or so. Get psyched.
A few weeks at that was the annual Quality Bicycle Products trade show, FROSTBIKE. This was my… 3rd… time visiting this tradeshow. It’s similar to Interbike, but on a smaller scale. It’s cool because there’s a number of BMX brands there, which means guys like BSD‘s Grant Smith came from Scotland to be there. Above you can find Reed Stark, Sun Ringle’s Jon Wells, Tony Malouf and Grant hanging out. The BMX section tends to congregate at different booths throughout the day. This was just a few of the people that could commonly be found hanging out.
Imagine how many non-BMX shops and people came through the Odyssey booth and asked the same questions. That’s the look Nuno Oliveira had on his face only a few hours into the first of two days.
I’m hoping I get an invite back again this year.
On March 9th, I launched the new version of BMX Union. Between 2007 and 2011 I always had the site as a side project. Some of you may remember the twoish years I spent posting on The Come Up and then the two years I spent doing the DIG website. During those years, I learned a lot, met a ton of real good people and even kind of learned how to write proper sentences. I say “kind of” because I still suck. I also always wanted to do things for myself and see what could come from it. I decided last December that if I wanted to ever give it a shot, I’d have to do it soon or that chance would fade away. Andrew Brady and I worked out a new design, I gave him all the ideas I had for how I wanted the site to work and then a few weeks later, The Union launched. Since then, the site has grown in visitors, I’ve been able to pay filmers for their videos, 80 or so interviews and bike checks, a few photo galleries, a number of reviews and more were posted. The site also had the addition of the DAILY section which gets updated anywhere between 10 and 30 times a day with new videos, products, news and more.
Overall, I’m real psyched on the way things have played out and that the site ended up rolling over 1,000,000 page views this year. I’m more psyched to see what 2012 will bring. I’ve got a number of things cooking that should be pretty rad and hopefully, things will start popping up in the next few weeks. Big shout out to all the brands that have supported the site this past year. It has made keeping this thing alive and fresh that much easier.
Fast foward a few months to spring and I’m wondering where the last few months went. I didn’t have any photos so I already know I didn’t do anything that cool. However, this is one of my favorite photos I shot from the spring. This is my good buddy and new dad, Conrad Heppner getting crooked down a handrail that’s a few blocks from where I live. This has been a go to spot for me for years. I think this was also one of the first legit rails that Conrad ever did. Now days he’s got a few more tricks up his sleeve. Hopefully I’ll have a fresh edit from this dude here soon.
One day I got a text message from Micah Kranz asking if it would be cool to toss my name in as a photographer for an event the shoe store Journey’s was putting on in Minneapolis. Well, if Micah will be there it’s gotta be good. Turns out, a few of the dudes like Ruben Alcantara, Aaron Ross, Brian Kachinsky, Nathan Williams and Corey Martinez were brought in with some skaters and Moto-X dudes to do some shows for Journey’s Backyard BBQ. Other than the short period of time Micah and I were supposed to film a video interview with the band Plain White Tee’s (Hey there Delilah?), it was a real chill day. I was more psyched on watching Ruben ride the mini ramp than I was to meet a band that’s known around the world. At the end of the day I had to turn in any photos / video that I compiled from the day to the dudes in charge of the event. When I got home, I discovered even the photos I took for some projects I had planned for the site were deleted off my cards to ensure I didn’t use any of “Journey’s photos”. It was a bummer. Oh well. Shout out to Rob Dolecki for taking this photo that appeared on the DIG site.
Over the summer I slacked pretty hard. Not on the site, but travel wise. I didn’t make it to any big contests, didn’t really get time to travel much due to work and really just spent too much time at the local outdoor skatepark. I’m going to make sure I make some more time to travel in 2012.
Fast forward to September and my 4th time visiting Interbike in Las Vegas. Here we have Ryan Chadwick and Ben Hucke eye balling some new product. This particular trip has been a must the last few years and each year it gets better and better for me. I have a pretty good system down, but some how still manage to be running out of time on the 3rd day each year. Regardless of how much I say I hate Las Vegas, I’ll always enjoy seeing everyone at Interbike. I’ll be there again this year to fire out yet again an assault on as many booths as I can hit before mentally and physically collapsing.
Go to The Union for more videos.
Too good not to repost. Love how tired everyone is in this.
A few weeks after Interbike was the Red Bull Dream Line contest. First off, I still can’t believe this contest was happening 40 minutes from where I live in the middle of no where Minnesota. Second, this was by far one of the BEST contests I’ve been to… ever. Amazing jumps, stacked line up and minimal people running around trying to make sure each rider knows there run has to happen at precisely this time or they will ruin the entire day. I’m praying that this one keeps happening because it is definitely good for BMX. A HUGE shout out to Red Bull for letting me come in a shoot photos. It was supposed to be a secret event and other than Red Bull photographers and filmers, I was the only non-Red Bull “media”. Luckily, I was able to produce these two photo galleries – QUALIFIERS and FINALS.
Best dirt course in BMX history….
Three dudes hitting one jump at once (even though Doyle is bailing out) mid “contest”? That’s what I’m talking about.
I don’t think I ever published this photo of Hucker. It’s just him jumping… but with the smoke from the heaters / lip dryers it turned out really cool. If I could relive these two days… I’d be a happy man.
One of the biggest pizza parties I’ve ever been to…
Shortly after Dreamline, I got word that a buddy who used to ride was getting back into BMX and was going to build trails in his backyard. I thought it was too good to be true since, well, that’s kind of one of those things you dream about as a kid but never have happen. I was wrong… So wrong. Bob had borrowed his friends Bob Cat that we had free use of for a few days. In that time, we were able to pound out a few doubles to get the set going before winter hit…
The trails got dialed in and we managed to get a few sessions in before the cold weather hit. If there’s one thing I’m counting down it’s spring so I can start putting in work on the rest of the yard. If anyone is wondering where I am next summer… This will probably be where I am.
Overall, the year wasn’t as busy or crazy as the past year. I’ve been given a ton of opportunities that I’m sure a lot of other people would kill for and I’m more than thankful for the opportunities. I’ve set some goals like make my way on the road more in 2012, go out of my way to hit a few more events, start shooting more photos, film more videos and learn some new tricks for the first time in too long. Like I said before, I’ve got a ton of plans for 2012 for the site and I’m really excited to start announcing these things as they become ready. I’m also going to be looking for a few contributors in the form of writers, photographers and filmers so if you are interested drop me a line.
Thanks to everyone who has checked out the site over the year, all the brands and people who have supported the site through interviews, videos, photos and advertising. Let’s make this next year awesome.
– Kurt
