BMX Union

Shinebox – Chapter Five

April 21, 2017

The Shinebox are back with a new mix edit featuring the crew getting down on skateparks and street spots over in the UK. This video is filled with a ton of grinds, jibs and more, making for an interesting watch from start to finish. Take a peek!

“With the shinebox crew growing, we figured it was time to do something worthwhile. This will hopefully be our last internet outing. Footage all clocked between october til now. Now go home and get your fuckin’ shinebox.
Song – Casisdead – City Slicker“

“Back To Civilisation” Mix Section

April 21, 2017

Marv decided to upload the Mix section from the “Back To Civilisation” video online for your viewing pleasure! This section features Dan Benson, Timeel Lewis, Joe, Fox, Charles Darroch, Dan Niles, Daniel Hasnip, Matty Glover, Clarky, James Cox and Orlando going to work on the streets. As you can imagine with a line up like this, you get a good mix of styles and spot usage. Plus, the film work is on point, too. This is a really good watch, so get on that play button and start your Friday off right!

Zack Cooke – iPhone April: Side A

April 21, 2017

Zack Cooke has been collecting clips on his iPhone all month and decided to whip up this rad little edit from some of the sessions he has been catching with his friends like Chris Childs. This mix features a ton of sweet East Coast spots, a handful of riders and a bunch of dialed riding. The video has a pretty laidback vibe to it, but there’s plenty of heat to take in. Hit that play button and enjoy!

Dan’s Comp – How To Air Out

April 20, 2017

Have you wanted to learn how to air out of a quarterpipe, but you haven’t had much luck? Here’s a new How To video from Dan’s Comp where they give you plenty of advice and examples of how to properly air out of a ramp. This is a pretty basic trick, but it can take a ton of practice to master, so don’t expect these to be perfect right away. Hit play, take it all in and then go send a few!

“Learn the ins and outs of airing out with the Dan’s Comp YouTube crew. Flow Team riders Austin Zentmyer and Mike Barrow break down each step from basic quarterpipe carving to blasting your favorite transition. Watch, hit that “Thumbs Up” button, then go send it!”

Scotty Cranmer – BMX Hurdles 2

April 20, 2017

Scotty Cranmer decided to get the guys out for a little race to see who could make it through the hurdles the fastest once again. Here’s a video from the 2nd BMX hurdles race challenge that lead to so impressive times and tight competition. Check out what went down and who took the win!

“Finally got around to doing the BMX hurdle race 2! The first race came down to the wire and I ended up winning against my little brother Matty but today I’m injured and Matty is injured and we also have a couple new competitors! The race started with individual time trials to figure out the seating of the head to head events and that’s when things got crazy! Today’s course featured six hurdles on each track which is a lot of bunnyhopping. Your arms get tired and your legs turn into jello and you are shoulder to shoulder with your competitor trying to get to the finish line first! We had a couple crashes and a couple near misses but we had a few amazing races which led to an epic finish! today was fun!” – Scotty Cranmer

Volume Bikes – Eric Bahlman Bike Check

April 20, 2017

The crew over at Volume Bikes caught up with Eric Bahlman and his brand new Voyager setup that he’s running decked out top to bottom with parts from Volume and The Shadow Conspiracy. You can find the Bike Check over on the Volume Bikes website where there is a full parts list and a ton of dialed photos giving you a close up look at the bike. Take a closer look at everything right here — Eric Bahlman’s Northwest Green Voyager Check

What do you think of that colorway? We’re really digging the look of the bike as a whole.

Nigel Sylvester On GoPro

April 20, 2017

It looks like Nigel Sylvester won’t have any issues with filming his future videos! Nigel just announced on Instagram that he has joined the GoPro team and will be putting their cameras to good use out on the streets of New York City or wherever else he ends up on this planet. It looks like Dubai will be on Nigel’s agenda since that’s where the next GO! video will be filmed, following New York City, Los Angeles and Tokyo. Expect that to be pretty wild since Dubai is absolutely insane.

Here’s the official word from GoPro below…

“GoPro is proud to officially welcome Nigel Sylvester to the GoPro Family, and join him in announcing the next installment of his incredible GO video series. Using his talent on a BMX bike and his appreciation for art, style and travel, Nigel created GO to express his creativity and share his perspective with his audience.

“The idea first came to me in the summer of 2015. I wanted to create a piece of content that would connect me more with the viewer. I wanted to use the POV perspective to really share the feeling of what I am doing in the video,” says Nigel of his GO series. “Early on in my career, I knew I wanted to have the creative freedom to celebrate where I am from, my roots, my city, the culture that I live in. From music to art to fashion to language to travel, my city has so much to offer. I set out to create a visual experience that showed what it’s like to be a creative in my environment doing an unconventional sport. I wanted to highlight the music I actually listen to, the people I know, the places I go; way beyond the bicycle tricks.”

What began as an idea to show his perspective of riding in the city he calls home has evolved into the ultimate creative outlet for Nigel to paint his masterpiece across the globe. First, he showed us his city through his eyes. From there, he traded coasts and set Los Angeles ablaze. With momentum built, and an audience wanting more, he took us across the Pacific to Toyko for the most intense GO yet. And Nigel is about to GO again, with GoPro capturing it all.

From New York to LA to Tokyo, Nigel has taken us with him, showing us what it is like to be behind his handlebars. And now he has his sights set on his next destination: Dubai. Prepare to experience the largest and most opulent city in the United Arab Emirates through the eyes of Nigel Sylvester and the lens of GoPro.

“I want to highlight the city for all of the amazing things it has to offer. And with the quality and flexibility of GoPro, it is sure to be unreal, and in 4K.”

GO Dubai is set to drop early this summer, so in the meantime you’ll have to revisit the previous GO videos to curb the anticipation.” – GoPro

Bridgestone Air-Free Bicycle Tire? Is This The Future?

April 20, 2017

No, this doesn’t specifically have to do with BMX… But an Air-Free Bicycle Tire? If this doesn’t peak your interest you have never had a bad day with multiple flats.

Here’s one we spotted on Hypebeast that caught our attention. Apparently Bridgestone have developed an Air-Free Bicycle Tire that is made from a Thermoplastic Resin that is basically hard enough to hold up to the weight of a rider, but still has some give for comfort. It stretches to support the riders weight and, what we would assume, impacts encountered along the ride to keep it from feeling like you’re rolling on a rock. These tires are clearly geared toward the person out for a casual stroll or on a road ride that aren’t planning on hopping, spinning and putting the wheel through serious abuse like BMX wheels and tires are designed for, but it’s an interesting concept to think about.

Could this be applied to BMX bikes? From our best guess, probably not. We would imagine between the side to side and vertical stress being put on BMX wheels and tires, these would probably break pretty quickly, which would be a bigger pain than replacing a tube. These tires will undoubtedly be far more expensive than a new tube would ever be, so it wouldn’t make it worthwhile from an economical standpoint, either.

For any BMX rider that has caught a flat during a session, we’re sure the thought of a tire or tube that couldn’t go flat has crossed your mind. I mean who wants to take their wheel off their bike, pull the tire off, replace the $3+ tube, get the tire back on, pump it up and then get back into the session?

It will be interesting to see where things go in the future as new technologies or ways of doing things are developed. Maybe someday we will see something like this progress enough to make it worth trying! You never know.

It sounds like the Air-Free Bicycle Tire from Bridgestone won’t be available until at least 2019, so don’t expect to see these as an option any time soon, at least not from Bridgestone. Some of you might recall in 2011 Bridgestone also patented a design for airless car tires that had a similar design as these tires that have been used / tested on some cars, ATV’s and even skid loaders. It will be interesting to see if they ever actually become a thing, even on cars.

As you can tell by the photo above, these tires are currently being designed for casual riding and maybe even road or mountain bikes? We could see these tires being use in other styles of bikes, but we don’t expect to see these anywhere near a BMX bike any time soon. Below is a video we found of a similar style of tire being tested on a Mountain Bike, but they aren’t really beating on it, too hard…

Here’s a video explaining how the air-free car tires work, which is similar to what the Air-Free Bicycle tire does.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments below!