* UPDATE: contest is closed – Philip O. is the winner *

Last month a number of members of the Animal team were in town on the Ten Pack Tour. While here they made a quick visit to Joe Mamma’s, rode a few spots in town, and had a BBQ before having to head back out to Quebec. They were also generous enough to send some goods through to us, and here’s your chance to win a free copy of the the new Animal Cuts DVD by answering a few Animal related questions that any die hard fan might know (or spend a little time on Youtube and Google to find the answers). Click below to read the full details.

To win a copy of the video you have to correctly answer the following 4 questions:
What song does Butcher ride to in Can I Eat?
Name the line that Bob Scerbo does as his third last trick in All Day.
Who had the last part in Don’t Quit Your Day Job 2?
How many times does Steven Hamilton do a curved wallride in his Can I Eat part?

Email answers to prashantgopal@gmail.com
Contest is open until the first correct set of answers comes in
Unlimited entries per person allowed
Open to Canadian residents with a 613 area code only

A Fathers Day BMX Road Trip
Napanee, SandBanks, Trenton and Belleville

Hey Everyone! I’m calling in favours here. My girlfriend Melanie is in a contest right now where she could win an all expense paid trip to go and volunteer in Africa for a week with Red Rose Tea. This is a super cool opportunity, once in a life time, but she needs our help to make this happen. Please go and follow this link and vote for her. I know I’ve already asked alot of you to do this, but the voting round was re-set and so everyone can vote once again. Please go and do this. I have a vested interest in it of course, as she said she’d bring me back a monkey from Africa. Hopefully one of the delicious ones too…

It seriously takes 2 seconds. Vote from every e-mail address you have. And make sure to click the confirmation email they send you afterwards or it doesn’t count.

Click to vote.

Last night saw the celebration of over half a decade of DIY BMX. After years of leading the hardcore BMX scene in Montreal, Ugly Assed Bikes is closing their doors. Liam Mulrooney, the park’s owner/operator and general all around badass explained that UAB was not closing because he had tired of working 24/7 and sinking thousands of his own dollars into the park; instead the park is closing because the building has changed hands and the new landlords have upped the rent to an impossible figure.

With the recent addition of  ’Le Taz’ to Montreal’s indoor skatepark scene, UAB has come up against some stiff competition. Montreal already saw the demise of Orkus, one of the other local indoor parks last year and now with UAB going out of business Taz stands to be the only game in town. Liam didn’t seem too phased by the loss, in fact he planted several cryptic seeds about future projects and even slight glimmers of hope that the building may remain rentable, at least for the short term. Although Taz is a larger park with many more ramps and obstacles to offer it will never compare to Liam’s underground BMX paradise, a place where there are few (if any) rules, beers are welcome and encouraged, and once in a while you might find yourself shredding in front of a live band.

The funeral Jam was on all day, but we didn’t show up until after dark. We rode street all day in Montreal and for once actually rode spots instead of riding around like chickens with our heads cut off. Our first stop was the wallride school where Prashant was so psyched to ride that he took a cheese grater crash right out of the car.

Later on, we visited the red brick trannies downtown, made famous by Greg Flag in his last video edit. We expected a fun spot to session and instead found one of the gnarliest/most challenging spots ever. Greg is a machine. We had some fun and oogled some french girls before heading out once more to a sponge pyramid.

After riding street, we made it to UAB in time for the best trick contest. We had the pleasure of watching Louis Pepin do enormous 360 to fakies on the lip of the box jump, ridiculous 180s over the spine, and an ultra precise footjam on the top of the new quarter to wall.
It is a very sad thing that a place as awesome as UAB won’t be there next time its raining and we want to ride, the next time we’re stuck inside in december with our hands down our pants, the next time we want to have a session that goes until 3am… heck I have no idea what to do for new years 2010. But regardless of all this, I’m glad we had UAB and offer my thanks to Liam for the enormous amount of effort and commitment he has shown over all the years. UAB, much like Narnia will live on forever in our hearts and minds.

Canon Rebel T2i

Sweetness….

They were sold out   Bummed.

I really wanted to shoot a little video while I was in Seattle (apparently there are sasquatch around…)  so I did what I always do…get creative. Here is what I came up with.

Start with:

Play"Homer Says"

Mix the colors:

Pink goes in the middle.

Mix some more:

Mix some more.

Shape:

Might be too much pink.

Add:

Result:

FilmKit 2010

I know the quality isn’t good but there is something to be said for traveling light. This actually worked pretty awesome for a little self filming and I will definitely use it again.

Now I just have to learn how to edit clips.

Cheers,
Roland

Magic Golf Bag - elapsed 00:00:00

Golf bags have magical airport powers. They repel airport check-in scales and baggage fees.

Airlines just can’t piss-off business travelers. As a result golf bags go right on the conveyor. They already know they are overweight and they aren’t going to do anything about it so they don’t bother.

Golf Clubs? - elapsed 00:00:30

I don’t think so…it smells like a hockey bag.

Surprise! It kind of looks like bike parts... - elapsed 00:00:45

… there may even be enough to build an entire bike.

Zip Ties - Keep it from rattling - elapsed 00:01:00

Don’t take the zip tie thing to far though…a few reasons.
1) Golf clubs rattle
2) If you don’t bring a knife to cut them all it really slows things down at build time…if you do bring a knife it slows things down at airport security. Tough Call.

Keep the headset together - elapsed 00:02:00

You don’t want to leave parts at home and you don’t want to get grease on everything else.

Layed out - Now insert "Tab A" into "Slot B" - elapsed 00:03:00

Its a good policy to try to keep grease off the carpet.

Fork, Headset, Bars - Check, Check, Check - elapsed 00:09:00

The stem, bars, levers, gyro plate and upper gyro cable were left assembled in their preferred positions. The stem was just removed from the forks.

The gyro, bottom cable and brake were also untouched. Just the top gyro cable was released from the gyro by getting some slack in the to barrel adjusters.

Saves time and your set-up doesn’t get screwed up.

Seat - Check - elapsed 00:11:00

Seat goes on. I scored lines on the post and seat tube before taking it off. This way I can set it up exactly like I want it without any swearing.

New Front Cable - Sweetness - elapsed 00:13:00

Because of the tight bends I never re-use a front cable. It’s just not worth it. Fortunately there doesn’t seem to be any advantage to using a linear cable and “regular” slick cables are pretty cheap now.

I also always carry an extra set of pre-cut cables for both the front and back.

Pedals, Front Wheel, and Air - elapsed 00:15:00

Pedals, Front Wheel, and Air

ShredKit 2010 - elapsed 00:18:00

Connect/Adjust the front brake cable.
Connect/Adjust top gyro cables.
Align fork/stem.

Shred.

I got to my hotel in Seattle, WA at 1:30pm Monday. I hit my first curb to wall ride at 2:00pm.

The street here is amazing but it rains a lot. I’ve also ridden the http://www.skatebarn2.com/indoor park.

My next target is:

Green Lake Skate Park - Arial shot

Long time Ottawa BMX rider Dave McCaig recently returned to Canada for a short while, after having completed his longest bicycle tour yet, cycling from London to Cairo.  Dave road the treacherous distance with his trusty Hasselblad camera, and two partners; Nikola, and his goofball brother Ryan.  We have featured Dave’s photography on this site before, so I felt it only natural to ask him if he would share a handful of images from his latest cycling adventure on this site for everyone to see, and perhaps motivate and light a fire under people to explore traveling from a different perspective. Click below to read Dave’s statement and to check out the rest his amazing photos.

These photos only show a very small percentage of what actually happened on this trip. I’m happy to say we cycled from London to Cairo with only pedal power. During this trip we endured snowstorms, sand storms, Biblical rain showers,wind and some of the most friendly and giving people I’ve ever met. This trip was probably one of the most hardest trips I’ve ever done but also probably the most epic trip I’ve ever done. We cycled through 3 continents and 3 desserts and everything I owned on that trip really shows it. I really hope these photos inspire people to travel and open there eyes and not believe the bullshit the media feeds them.
- Dave McCaig

Souq in Istanbull:
This is a photo of a medieval style souq in Istanbul, Turkey. As you can see it’s pure madness in there.

Nik & Ryan Sinai Desert:
So this photo was shot in the Sinai desert. This desert was known to kill half of Mosses’ people when they walked across and I understand why it did. A very small part of the deserts we road through actually had sand dunes. Most of the time it’s just really Rocky.

Ryan Sinai Desert:
This photo was shot in the Sinai desert. As you can see we had to carry a ridiculous amount of water on our bikes because towns were far and few between.

Boys and Meat:
Okay so this photo was shot in Homs, Syria. This is a very beautifull city that was originally colonized by the French so lots of buildings are painted with pastel yellows and beautiful wooden shutters. This was shot in a souq/market. There was literally a full block of dead cow carcasses.

Dogs on Roof:
This was shot on our second day in Turkey. People in Turkey are amazing. People were always giving us tea or food or places to stay. I’m pretty sure our first day in Turkey we were given about 5 cups of tea throughout the day. So the photo of these dogs was shot at a gas station just after I was given a map of Turkey by probably one of the most beautiful girls I’ve ever seen. As soon as I started shooting the photo one of the dogs went a little crazy.

Ryan in Snow:
This photo was shot in Romania just after a 4 day snow storm. 4 days before this there was no snow and no real sign that snow was coming. We decided to camp on the top of this mountain. We woke up in the morning to heavy rain and we had both camped in puddles so most of our stuff was wet and the temperature was dropping fast. Luckily we were camped just down the road from an out of season ski hill that had these really beautiful cottages for really cheap. So we checked our selves into this nice warm cottage for 8 euros each a night and watched the rain turn into a full out snow storm. By the time we left the snow was waist deep. We were super lucky and got to do some snowboarding while we waited for the storm to pass. After the 4 day snow storm we still had to cycle in the snow for the next 3 days until we were out of the mountains.

Nik & Ryan Sandstorm:
This was shot in a sand storm in the Sinai desert which is in Egypt. By far one of the most brutal things I’ve ever been through. Any exposed skin is stung by the fast moving sand. The winds are brutal. As you can see Ryan and Nik are leaned over because of the wind. Whenever a truck passes the wind cuts out which throws you off balance and then you fly into the sandy shoulder or in Niks case right into the middle of the road. As much as you try and cover your eyes little sand dunes fill in your eyes making it hard to see. The paint job on one side of my bike was actually sand blasted from this. One side is shiny and the other side is dull from the sand.

Muddy Wheel:
This seemed to happen a lot in Turkey. There were some nights where the only place to camp was in a muddy farmers field. So your wheel would get clogged up with mud and then you’d have to throw your bike on your shoulder and hike out into the field and set up your tent. After a day of cycling 160km this can be a little painful to do. It’s even more painful when you wake up in the morning and it’s -5 and you have to chip the frozen mud out of your  mudguards.

Iraq:
So some parts during the trip we where pretty close to Iraq which meant lots of paranoid military asking for are passports. There was actually some points where we could feel the ground shake from bombs going off in the distance. This photo was shot in the Syrian desert.

Stripped Hyena:
I never thought I’d see a stripped Hyena while cycling through the Israeli desert. I mean it’s dead but still pretty freaking cool. These guys are known to roam deserts in the middle east by themselves.

You can check out Dave’s work, along with numerous other local and internatioanl photographers, at La Petite Mort Gallery (306 Cumberland Street) on March 27th – 28th (Vernisage Saturday the 27th, 7PM -10PM) for the Crossborder Collection – A Fundraiser in Support of the Stephen Lewis Foundation.  More info on that can be found here.

Kicking off 2010; Jeff, Marc, Karl, and Jamie threw down with one of the most original BMX Jams that I have ever been to. As most people in Ottawa know, Jeff has a bunch of ramps stowed away in his warehouse that have been used for a bunch of things already (backyard jam, ghetto street jam)… well this time the 39C boys decided to take things to a new level by placing the ramps smack dab in the middle of their living room. I wasn’t totally surprised when they announced their plans to do this, as anyone who knows them knows that they like to leave their living room as little as possible. Beers and C-gars on the couch all day. What DID surprise me was the amount of work they put in to make it happen, very out of character for Jeff especially.

The Jam attracted people from all over, in fact there were more people at the party that were from out of town than there were Ottawa locals. Fan favourites, Pat and Lelo showed up for the jam and partied hard all night. Riding wise, the ramps were owned all night by Greg and Dewey from MTL, Corey from Vancouver Island and our own Big Ben Kaufmann. It was seriously a pro demo in there. Greg was owning the quarter to sub, Corey put a hole in the roof trying a flair on a quarter that shouldn’t even be comfortable to air, and Dewey manning up a sick icepick 270 on the same ramp were all probably the most notable tricks I saw that night.

After the riding chilled out, everyone got serious about drinking. Andrew Grant chugged a bottle of wine and then he and a couple of others started jumping and hitting their heads in the ceiling fan… which eventually led to a high kick smashing out the ceiling fan… which eventually led to wrestling matches between the ramps where Karl Oxenlostthefight got owned by Andrew, and then we watched Jeff and Jamie square off in a ruthless sumo wrestle. During this sumo duke out, they each had a smoke in their mouth, and at one point Jamie had Jeff pinned to the ground while taking a drag of his cigarette and ashing all over Jeff’s chesty nipples.

Its events like this that make me excited to be part of the BMX community. Nobody has this much fun over the age of 15 but us. We may be acting like 15 year olds; wrecking a living room, drinking in a terribly irresponsible manner, smashing our heads into a ceiling fan and play wrestling in a super gay way… but it sure beats the alternative; being a douchebag fun hater. So next time you don’t show up to one of these events (thats right, i mean you) remember that someday you’re going to have smelly kids, a shitty job and a wife that gets saggier and less fertile every day and you’ll wish you could go back in time and enjoy your life before it started to suck*.

*this scenario excludes the exception of Roland who has a kid and a wife and still has more fun than any of us.

There is nothing quite like giving something your all and completely falling on your face. You know, like when you spend all year training really hard to win the big track and field meet only to show up and get murdered by all the kenyan kids with 6 foot long legs, or when you go into the exam and totally flunk it because you stayed up all night studying super hard for it, or when you ask out that super pretty girl and she turns out that you’re not nearly attractive enough. Failure is like fine wine; it’s bitter and if you sample enough of it eventually you get addicted.

I’m no prophet, but I predict doom for Markham’s new answer to the famous “Ray’s MTB”. This park, if you haven’t already heard about it, is a year round all bike training ground with all kinds of really cool ramps, all made out of a space age wood compound called “chip board”… I’m not a scientist or anything, so I couldn’t begin to explain to you how engineers have crafted this magical board for maximum strength and durability. Although I seem to remember how easily squirrels could bore through it and get into my cottage as a kid… before we changed the window shutters to ply wood… but again.. I’m neither a scientist or a carpenter so what do I know.

The park does look pretty fun, I’ll give it that. The ramps seem well shaped, and the little bits of video footage I’ve seen online show some pretty gnarly riding. However, despite their seductive shapes, I’m sure as soon as someone spills a gatorade on the ramps, that spongey wood will suck it all up and change forms dramatically. Perhaps a no water rule will be implemented, it seems that management has a hardon for ridiculous usage stipulations so anything is possible.

Of these stipulations, one is “No brakeless bikes” (as seen above). And this really makes me reflect upon the failures of EVERY SINGLE INDOOR PARK to open in ontario over the past decade. Every time they fold, and always because they can’t remain financially viable. Not enough clientelle. So obviously opening a new park in Markham, it makes sense to bar 70% of the BMX/MTB community’s riders from riding it. And not even that, all the pro riders in the Toronto area are brakeless. The most influential dudes in the area will never ride that park. Great choice guys! You’ve clearly thought this one through. If you should have banned anything it should be pegs, not even perfect brakes will stop pegs from making gnarly holes in all your chip board ramps.

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a brake rider through and through. And truthfully I would really like to ride this park. However I can’t imagine when I’ll ever get the chance. The only guy I ride with that consistently has brakes is Jorden. And so on a roadtrip its not like he and I will go ride and all my other friends will sit out. Fuck no. We’re going to go someplace else.

I hate to wish failure upon these guys, they’ve publicly stated that they have invested their life savings in it, and I wish I could be optimistic about it but when you make such foolish decisions about the small details, I can only imagine what kind of boners they’re pulling on the big stuff.

I had a hell of a time making a best/worst list this year… because every time I thought of something noteable for either best or worst it always kind of straddled the line. So for that reason i’ve got the top ten moments of 2009 along with their pros and cons.

NOT SO METRO.

Pro: Super fun course, Ottawa guys all threw down with pretty good runs, getting drunk and heckling topped it all off and then the legendary dance cave! Rich and Jorden smashing soap dispensers two nights in a row, Harassing the dude working at pizza pizza, putting recycling boxes in the back of cabs, Rich letting the fire extinguisher off in the room… amazing ruthlessness

Con: Rich letting the fire extinguisher off in the room, ruining prashants camera and further damaging Jeff’s smoke ridden lungs.

HULL TRAILS

Pro: Having a new place to ride and seeing everyone come together in the spring to get shit built. Watching ginger do 540s over the dirt spine, Kyle and Greg Flag doings over unders on the jump/berm, actually seeing Chris Campbell come out (once… only once). Beers and trails in the morning before work… can’t wait for spring.

Con: Everyone losing interest in them by July. Having shitty mountain bikers steal the wood for the mini ramp to build big useless kickers, and cut the lips down with their dinnerplate sprockets.

TAZ FINALLY RE-OPENS

you'll never see this at Taz...

Pro: Having an amazing park only 2 hours away is a perfect winter road trip destination.

Con: As a result both South Parc and UAB will undoubtedly struggle. Although I could care less about slippery old south park, it WAS nice to ride once in a while and has now apparently been degraded to an almost ‘road warrior’ish post apocalyptic mess of wood and metal that threatens to envelop your bike with every landing. I’d hate for Taz to be the undoing of UAB though, because that place is more than a skatepark, its a legend.

HECKLING WHITTON @ The MACNEIL DEMO

cmon Ali, you gotta learn to take it if you're gonna make it!

Pro: It was really really really funny.

Con: Now everyone hates Ottawa.

Pro: Did I mention it was funny?

HATE THIS PREMIERE

Pro: Everyone getting together to get ruthless. Lelo and Pat at 39c getting their drunk on and the inevitable cockmaster show, The MTL/Ottawa hockey game, Jorden puking in a pizza pizza and passing out, only to wake up and get ruthless at zaphods and get drunk all over again only hours later.

Con: What a shitty video.

Pro: Rich being cool with heckling.

POOL SEASON

Pro: RIding fucking pools! Do I really need to explain this one? The abandoned pool we rode was my favorite, that or the prince of wales pool… or maybe the Andrew Grant II pool… fuck they were all great. I hear Jeff is already planning his upcoming pool season.

Con: Finding out first hand how retarded Ottawa Police are. (specifically the vanier police). Having him kick us out and tell us we’re lucky he doesn’t beat us up… I sure hope Rich can clean up the force when he gets in there…

TOMMY’S INJURY

Pro: (yup, there is a pro to this.) Having Tommy on the sidelines for a couple of months gives all of us old guys a chance for our egos to mend.

Con: Losing a staple rider in the scene always sucks. Having suffered a big injury myself at the same age when I tore my ACL, I know how much it sucks to have riding taken away from you. Its hard. But sticking with it through all that is what separates us all from the chumps who still wear skate shoes in university and buy skate/bike videos but haven’t touched a bike or board since they ‘rolled their ankle’ back when they were 16 doing something i’m sure they’d describe as super gnarly but is definitely a lie.

39C JAM

Pro: Awesome day of riding on some sketchy ramps. Eating meat, drinking beers, having laughs and getting ruthless.

Con: Kind of a meagre turnout. Lots of riders didn’t bother to show. This isn’t especially a bummer, but definitely a sign that the Ottawa scene is not as tight as it used to be.

MACNEIL DEMO

Pro: Having a reason to go to CP and drink beers and ride.

Con: The demo sucked. Alistair can’t air as high as ted in the 7 foot, and thought we’d be impressed by his feeble stalls… the only good thing to go down was that 3flip to fakie that dude was doing with no shirt on. Macneil needs to sponsor good riders, drop Ali and Silva and pick up Ben already.

Con: Cory Beal. Just kidding dude, I know you have the internet hardwired into your brain and that you’d see this. At least I spelled your name right!

CHRIS BRYAN’S BRUSH WITH DEATH

Con: Watching a good friend lose half his face and start twitching is pretty terrible. As bad as this was for us to see, I can only imagine how shitty it was for Chris to deal with.

Pro: I learned a valuable lesson; gingers unlike zombies can survive a direct blow to the head. Evidently our only weapon against them is sunlight…

ALSO. I have the best and worst of the Gay. Because BMX always has a little gay in it…

BEST.

WORST.

ALL THE BEST FOR 2010!