I saw this commercial the other night and thought it was pretty cool. S&M pointed out there’s something cool going on in the background about 2 seconds in…. Rad!
Vans – Let It Ride 2011 – Bonus II
“And here it is, to complete the VANS LIR 2011 series we present the final edit, the bonus section of Team 2.
It´s a very nice mix of lifestyle, riding and crash clips, all wrapped up by Justin Kosman.
Riders:
Dakota Roche
Gary Young
Bas Keep
Ben Hennon
Eduards Zunda
Tobias Wicke
Thanks for watching and keep riding!” – Vans
Thomas Hancock – Impetus of Cletus Section
“This is Thomas Hancock’s section from my full-length BMX film, The Impetus of Cletus. To date I’ve only released one full section from the film online (Josh Small’s), but I felt compelled to release Thomas’s section after he passed away on January 14, 2012.
This is one of the very few bmx video sections ever made of Thomas. Although Thomas had a sick style that was perfectly suited to video, bmx filmmakers didn’t seek him for their videos because he didn’t “fit in” enough with the contemporary bmx style.
When I told him I wanted to give him a full section in my film, he was stoked at the opportunity. He had the most style in Arizona at the time by far, and I was stoked that he accepted. I was privileged to shoot Thomas pulling his first backflip tailwhip since breaking his arm on that same trick, and becoming the first rider to tailwhip the Las Vegas YMCA skatepark stair gap.
Thomas was heavily influenced by motocross and motorsports culture. He grew up around it. His friends and family were into motorsports. It’s where he came from. When he made it in bmx freestyle, he didn’t try to hide or deny who he was. He rocked the moto-style in his clothes and riding, and didn’t try to change it to accommodate the masses of bmx hipsters.
Thomas once told me about the time on a Specialized tour that one of the other riders kept talking shit about his clothes, tattoos and piercings. Thomas warned him a couple times, but the guy kept running his mouth. When Thomas had enough, he hit the fool so hard he slept him. The rest of the tour the guy didn’t say shiiiit. I really liked that about Thomas. He wasn’t afraid to be himself, and he wouldn’t take shit off some dooshbag.
Thomas had a great attitude, and was just a cool, nice kid. It had been a while since I saw him last, and I’m sorry I’ll never get to ride or film with him again. My condolences go out to his family and friends.
Ride in peace, Thomas.” – Jason Ryan / Psychic Flying Monkey
Strike Against SOPA & PIPA
Some of you might be seeing a number of your favorite websites either “going black” with this page or you might get a link to Google asking you to sign the petition.
But what the hell is it exactly and how could it affect BMX?
Well, simply put… The U.S law makers decided that they were sick of hearing the music industry and computer program industry cry about piracy, or people stealing their work and putting it online for people to get for free. Which, I can understand since how many times have you downloaded a song or tried to get a copy of a program like Photoshop or Final Cut for you to edit your photos and videos without paying for it? It happens… A lot.
However, after doing some research, if these two bills pass it will give the government and corporations the right to go on a head hunting mission to eliminate any form of piracy online. Ultimately leaving them in control of creativity and originality online.
I suggest that you read about the SOPA bill here or the PIPA bill here.
So it eliminates piracy? That’s a good thing, right? Yeah, ending piracy is a good thing, but what the government wants to do is make it so that any body who uses a song (like the song you want to use in your edit) or a photo without paying for it and gaining clearance could lead you to being sued. That also means sites like Youtube, Twitter and Facebook could all be shut down because how many times have you seen song posted up? How about a photo the person didn’t take or get permission to share? When was the last time you looked up your favorite video part that was uploaded by “BMX Kid 69” or something? What about a clip from an episode of Family Guy that Seth MacFarlane didn’t upload? Hell, that means if you do your own cover of a song and put it up on Youtube, you are violating these laws because you most likely didn’t get permission from the record label that owns the song!
This also would force search engines like Google to block any website that could share content that was pirated. It would also make it so the government or a corporation could literally look at a website and decide they are promoting piracy through their videos and have the entire website deleted like it never existed.
That means The Union, The Come Up, Vital BMX, Ride BMX, Ride UK, DIG and pretty much every single one of your favorite BMX sites would get shut down because they all share edits that pop up on Youtube and Vimeo that I’m willing to bet 99% of the music isn’t cleared with. They could shut us all down because we are “promoting piracy and using content that is stolen”.
So what can you do to stop this from happening? Well, it’s pretty easy. You can call your local law makers and tell them they won’t be getting your vote if they vote for this and that you don’t want to see it happen. Even easier than that?SIGN THIS PETITION THAT GOOGLE PUT TOGETHER!. Then SIGN THIS ONE by the SOPA STRIKE GROUP.
Letting this happen would give the government and corporations even more control over what we can and can’t do. All I know is I’m saying fuck that! (Gotta take advantage of that freedom of speech before they try and take that away too…)
Dylan King on Deluxe
Deluxe have been adding some new riders to their team for 2012. Canada’s Dylan King is the newest rider through Kill ‘Em All Distribution. Check out a few words below about the news.
“We’re so, so stoked that Deluxe is now in Canada through a distributor that really knows what’s up: Killemall is doing it right over there, taking care of dealers and riders, and we’ve already hooked up a new rider on board the team – none other than Dylan King. We’ll have more about Dylan on the Deluxe site in a few: but in the meantime, says Dylan… “My friend John Thompson just put out a really crisp edit of me and my friends Dave and Dave riding the new undercover bowl we got built this year. Check that out if you want to see the new rig in action! Wish it was at the trails, but they are all frozen over right now… haha””
Network A – Crooked World: Andrew Ahumada
Here’s another fresh new one from Network A featuring Andrew Ahumada getting nuts. Here’s a few words about the video…
“Andrew Ahumada lives up to his reputation, sending banger after combo-banger in this episode of Heat, filmed with an Australian accent, filmed in Melbourne’s Rampfest indoor skatepark, Hill ‘n’ Dale, Northcote, and Hoppers Crossing. The 21-year old Ahumada keeps on his massive path of park progression.” – Bret Trigg
Check out more on Network A’s BMX Channel.
Print Ad: G-Sport Dave Thompson
Here’s a look at G Sport‘s latest print ad featuring Dave Thompson.
Tempered Site Features
Head over to the Tempered site to see all the newness! New team riders, team interviews, product features and more. Get to it!
