Best/Worst of 2008 – Part 2
Posted by Prashant - 28/12/08 at 12:12:53 pm
As promised, here is the second half of the Best/Worst lists from numerous different people. Some are short, some are exceedingly long (i.e. mine). The lists I got back from people were great, and hopefully next year we can get even more. Click the link below to read them.
Tommy Hains Child Prodigy
Best
1. Orleans park!
2. Metro qualifier at CP.
3. Metro Jam in Kingston.
4. Filming for Hate this.
5. Barspins!
6. Finally learning vaders.
7. One footers and acid drops.
8. Getting my g2, my parents letting me borrow the car and whoever gave me rides.
9. Moxley not being able to turndown.
Worst-
1. People not coming to ride Orleans park.
2. Not riding enough street.
3. Big wheels being too lazy to film.
4. Girls pants.
5. Winter.
6. Work and school.
7. Serious injuries like dislocated toes.
Corey Dewey Federal Flow, Montreal Ambassador
Best
Trip to Boston (unreal spots and good times).
Camping trips with my girl.
Filming for Presence and the Seshin video.
Presence Jams.
Just chillin’ and ridin’ the city almost every day in the summer.
Meeting alot of chill dudes all around.
Getting a sweet hook up with Federal.
Riding the LittleBurgandy Rail ALOT.
Worst
My left leg sucks, i pulled my calf muscle, couldnt ride for a week and it hurt like hell.
Busted my ankle and could ride for like a month.
At Halloween me and Greg wrestled outside and i somehow got a huge split in my toe that took like 3 weeks to close up.
Bad luck with the right foot. Other than that it was clear sailin’.
Eric Gour Shot By Jack
Best
1. Finally finishing the Shot by Jack demo.. been online 1 week with already 600+ plays. (It’s taken up my last 2 months.
2. Getting an apartment in Montreal and having one in Hull at the same time.. I get 2 of my favorite street riding scenes right out my doorstep. UAB is also now only a 10 min drive from my place!
3. Any Partying with my fellow Ottawa riders is always off the hook.. Or when you guys show up at shows and we all get smashed… And there’s the rare sessions I have with you guys, that are none stop humor yet motivating.
4. Winning the Rally Sans Bons Sens for 2007 with the Beer Bong Addicts. (this rally we do jack ass stunts all day accompanied with a Keg. (I’m glad gettin shot 14 times point blanc with a paint ball gun and walking threw the hull bar district with nothing but a sock on my junk wasen’t too pointless.. Too bad I pucked in the trophy.) Some of you guys should consider putting a team together for 2009!
5. Shows and Riding at UAB!!! Aside from the concussion from the rafter under the mez.. I love that place so much!
6. Riding street in old Quebec City or in Toronto.
Worst
1. The Big super steep tiled bank in hull was demolished (Had been one of my favorite spots for years).
2. Busting my hip early spring, then after healing it for 6 weeks breaking 3 ribs on a ledge.. The whole thing didn’t give me the summer of riding I was expecting, and made playing shows pretty challenging.
3. Not shooting any footy this year… I don’t tend to ride with people much cuz I tend to rather solo session with my Ipod. Just didn’t have much time to book sessions with my buddy filmer and when the Capital guys came to town I was either hurt on not feeling it those days.. I’m looking into buying my own video camera now, for riding and SBJ stuff.
4. The Hull park losing it’s quarter pipe and jump box… I mean that place was shit as at was, but all we had.. Then aparently a city confusion had the wrong obstacles replaced, and will change them again next year.. Needless to say, in the gatineau reagion, the city is totally fuckin clueless with it comes to skateparks…
5. I moved 3 times in 08, adding up to about 16 times in the last 8 years.. Hopefully I can stay put for a while now.
6. My buddy Karl not riding anymore so no more warehouse sessions in hull on rainy or winter days.
Matt Davidson Webmaster Extraordinaire, design guy
Best
1. Watching videos of the Ottawa crew. (Seriously I cant believe how good you all are)
2. Getting Greazy and Hate Hate Hate stickers for my bike.
3. Taking the time to make BMX movies right. Web videos are fun but I love good production.
4. Bike beer runs.
5. Finally getting solid uptime on www.capitalbmx.net.
Worst
1. Me blowing up the site & message board repeatedly.
2. Not riding my BMX as much.
3. More Griz airs. (fo’real)
Brandon Lalonde
Best
1. Seeing all your friends progress, especially the younger generation.
2. Kingston Metro, despite the event itself being a flop. Camping was awsome. I still laugh when i think about Boudreau and Bedard calling Doyle out on a suicide double truck for last trick. Hilarious.
3. Ottawa Metro Qualifiers. I wish we could have an event like that every weekend.
Worst
1. Injuries… i don’t really have to go into detail, but not being able to ride your bike always sucks.
2. No indoor park, or warehouse.
Josh Crawford
Best
1. Learning tailwhips.
2. Got some clips in Hate This.
3. Making Tommy man up.
4. Orleans Park.
5. Tommy wins Metro Jam.
6. Day trip to Brockville.
7. HATE HATE HATE
Worst
1. Screwed up my ankle AGAIN just this time the other one.
2. No one was real hyped at Metro Jam.
3. My bike sucks.
4. Tommy got sandbaged.
Rich Redmond Hate This
Best
1. Doing a ton of travelling both paid and out of my pocket. Saudi, Wisconsin, NYC, Jersey, Philly, all over Ontario mutiple times with friends. Getting to see and do so much. Nothing is sweeter than getting paid to travel and knowing you are washed up as hell.
2. Doing well in some contests so I can finally stop riding them and be satisfied with what I have accomplished, but I also know this is due to the competition not being as stiff as it used to be.
3. Learning some new tricks for once. Some I have been thinking of for years.
4. Riding dirt. Dirt was the real reason I liked BMX, because it was the only thing similar to motocross. Riding dirt is as good of a feeling as it gets, not much makes me smile like that. Thanks to everyones else’s hard work and allowing me to ride their setups.
5. Watching people grow up and do interesting things in life. While I hate “losing” friends, I enjoy being able to talk about the wild things our friends do all over the world, and in Ottawa. Like making films, other hobbies, etc.
6. Documenting life in the last year will be exciting when released in the form of HATE THIS.
7. Not being totally poor for once in my life. Not to brag, but I got to do a lot of cool things and buy some things along the way that make life more enjoyable like cameras, dirtbikes, cars and music concerts to name a few. Good thing I don’t have to take the bus right now anymore, I’d be unemployable.
8. Not getting arrested and one more year alive.
9. Wings nights and every good party had!
Worst
1. Not partying as much as I used to. This is mostly a good thing for me, but I miss being in the action every weekend.
2. People still somehow find ways to lack enthusiasm in life and not take some chances to have fun, and perhaps take the initiative to organize something they want to see or be a part of that they will enjoy and remember forever. It’s easy, just go for it.
3. Having a busy schedule doesn’t allow for easy weekend trips too often.
4. Filming is stressful. It doesn’t allow for as much riding time as you want. You can always ride a bit more, but you’ll miss a ton and you won’t have a decent video. Riders seem to stress really hard when you pull the camera out too, but in the end everyone wants a good final product and has to get it dones for the camera. It’s super win-lose situation.
5. Some friends and people have moved on and I just don’t get to see them as much as I’d like. BMX is the center of my life, and if people are not in BMX, they are on the outskirts of my life, whether I like it or not.
6. Another shitty winter is here.
7. I hate computers now, and I still hate society.
8. Other bmx communities are 100% certified lame.
Prashant Gopal blog enthusiast, BMX Maven
Best
1. South Africa. At the start of the year I spent about 9 weeks traveling around South Africa. I hadn’t been there since I was a teenager, and certainly hadn’t traveled as broadly around the country. This trip I got to visit all the places I had always wanted to, ventured south to Cape Town, the beaches on the east coast in Durban, hiked through some mountain ranges in Drakensburgh, and spent many nights in Johanesburgh. One of the best and longest trips I’ve ever taken, and got see and experience some of the most amazing things I had seen in my life.
2. FDR/Philly. FDR stands out as the gnarliest place I’ve ever gotten to ride at. I was fortunate enough to get to go in August with some of the guys from the Craz-E-Crew, and it was an intimaditing visit. The trannies are huge and fast, locals are all over the place, and you have no concept for lines. I got to go back again in October on a NY/NJ/PA trip, and felt way more at ease. We spent half the day there, with barely anyone else using the park. Tried to ride some of the less-gnarly stuff, and pedaled and carved about without a care in the world, just trying to go fast and blast wherever we could. That trip also turned heavily in to a Philly stay, which turned out to be an amazing city. While I didn’t do much riding and filming at the other Philly spots, the overall vibe of Philladelphia was amazing, and my favorite stop of that trip. Seemily endless supply of spots, things to see, relaxed security, friendly locals, and just an overall bicycle-friendly city made it fun the whole stay. Also having Jeff Bedard on the trip didn’t hurt, as anything he says while on the road is gauranteed to make you laugh, without him even trying.
3. BMX DVD’s. This past year certainly saw the resurgance of the DVD in BMX. Web videos seem to have found their place, and companies better understand it’s role and use, while keeping the DVD form alive and well. So many great titles came out this year from either independent film makers or smaller companies (Tomorrow We Work, End Search, Dead Bang, 2X4, DQYDJ2), where as some of the larger companies fell short (Electronical). Also, the ‘mega-companies’ that took part and released titles were producing phenomenal videos (Levis video, Nike video) as well, and knew how to get them out to the people fast and free.
4. Ottawa Metro Qualifier. This was the best contest Ottawa has seen, and it wasn’t even put on by members of the Ottawa community. We had Ten Pack decide to throw a contest here, and it turned out great. So great that it was the most successful of all 4 events they put on leading up to the Kingston Metro Jam. We had riders come from far and wide, and obviously so much local talent in it too. So much that we saw all 3 slots filled up by Ottawa riders. Young guns like Tommy Hains, Ottawa vets like Rich Redmond, and wild street shredders like Andrew Grant. The whole weekend went off well, and Harley and the Ten Pack guys seemed to be as pysched on Ottawa and the scene here as we were on them comming. We can only hope that they decide to continue with it and Ottawa for next year.
5. President Obama. You cannot deny the anticipation of this year’s US election, and how monumentus the results were. Almost 3 years ago, when there was the first bit of speculation that Senator Barack Obama was possibly considering running for president, I was completely skeptical. I thought that there was no way the US was ready to elect a black president, but I was completely disproven this past November, in what will forever be remembered as a pivotal point in American history. Whether or not he will live up to the expectations of the entire world is yet to be seen, but the implications of his win are enormous.
6. VBS.tv. This site is always full of great videos to watch. Whenever I am bored I can go to it and watch The Guide to Travel, Epicly Later’d, or dozens of other great programs with almost weekly new episodes added. If you aren’t up on Epicly Later’d yet, do it.
Worst
1. Freecoasters. This year I finally made the jump to a ‘new school’ freecoaster, that is ditched the old 48 hole, unsealed nankai for a Federal freecoaster. Those that know me know that I’m a wealth of useless information when it comes to these, but now I got a chance to ride one first hand, and I ask the question, why can’t they figure these things out? KHE’s internal system is the most widely used, and refinements to these hubs are being made in the form of externally adjustable slack, but it isn’t solving the main problem, driver bearings blowing out. It’s down to a design flaw, that all the companies seem to just ignore, putting miniscule bearings in the driver where they take the bulk of the pressure. I love freecoasters, and wouldn’t go back to riding anything else, but it’s just frustrating to see companies continue to ‘get it wrong’ and failing to really improve a product that is long over due for serious refinement.
2. Global financial instability. The past few months have been crazy for the global economy. Recession is a strong word, that gets some people more panic stricken then others, so I try and avoid using it, but we are seeing the effects of it everywhere. Lay offs, stock portfolio failures, bank and auto industry bailouts, etc. The last few years of the world’s super powers’ actions are finally catching up and we are seeing the effects, and it is scary.
3. Fixed gear freestyle. I love fixed gear and track bikes, don’t get me wrong, but I cannot stand this ’subculture’ that has developed around it known as fixed gear freestyle. I love the simplicity of the bikes, and hauling ass on one, but I can’t stand to see some dorky trackstands and pull up barspins filmed with a Panasonic HVX and edited to be something epic. I hope this trend starts to fade away soon.
4. Bog life/ CP lurkers. Anyone who’s been to Centerpoint knows what this is all about. Human garbage that sit around all day, congregate, get high, get drunk, tag the park with terrible graffitti, set up tents in the forrest, and give all the users of the park a bad name. Two years ago we saw a crack down and increased policing inthe area, but since the installation of benches at the park it’s gotten worse.
5. Halloween Jam lights. It was a real bummer to have no lights at the Halloween Jam this year. We made the best of it, and guys like Rich Redmond and Jorden Guth came through and lit it up with their car headlights and Ten Pack hooked us up with a ton of great stuff, but dealing with the city to try and get the lights turned on was a nightmare. Phone calls back and forth, then days after the event, they called me back to let me know that they city shuts off the light timers at Thanksgiving weekend and have been doing it for years, despite our use of lights at Halloween Jams for the last 4 years.
6. Server crashes. Losing all the old data and posts from Capital BMX a couple of times. Some great posts and material lost, and the lengthy process to get things up and running again. Luckily we are pretty secure with our set up now, and Matt Davidson has got it set, and I’m confident that it’ll last. This website is my baby, and plan to keep it going for a long time.
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i love the photos accompanied to each story.
Comment by Rich Red — December 28, 2008 #
hey prashant where is that spot in your picture!? it looks fucking amazing.
Comment by andrew — December 29, 2008 #
I forgot a best…
Throwback Thursdays!!!! Love it.
Comment by Roland — December 29, 2008 #
That spot is in Windsor. Ben shot the photo. It’s much tougher to ride then it looks. There were mellower banks closer to the entrance that we went in. It was fast, and rough as hell if you fall.
Comment by Prashant — December 31, 2008 #