Random As Rhyme

My friend Yuri took some new shots of me. I’m stoked on em.

Another day another whip

Tobagans have quickly become a favorite of mine

Last but not least I learned to table, which I am PUMPED on this trick is way harder than it looks

Everyone who lives BMX this weekend was reacting to two major events; The first was the news that Dave Mirra was in the hospital with a life threatening illness (bacterial meningitis) and the second was that The Canadian Beast, aka Jay Miron, sold the company he started (Macneil) to his former employees and is effective more or less immediately fully disengaging from the BMX world.

While both are significant nuggets of BMX news Dave Mirra is a tank and is damn near out of the hospital already. The news of Jay’s departure has left a lot of people wondering WTF happened.

For as long as I can remember I’ve looked up to the following riders; Mat Hoffman, DMC, and Jay Miron. There are a few more that I really respect and would like to (or have) meet one day (Foster, Bestwick, Nastazio for example) but the aforementioned three probably had the biggest impact on me at the age I needed to be impacted to keep the BMX fire burning 5 alarm.

Out of those three riders Jay stuck out because he was a Canadian shredder when Canadian shredders were relatively rare.

My first memory of Jay was when my mom called me at my dads house and told me to turn on the TV to some obscure television show. The tv show ( which was The amazing incredible or something like that) featured Jay, in full Schwinn gear on a bike with 4 pegs and bars a little bit forward, flying down a sketchy rollin from high in the rafters to hit a box jump below. He hit the lip and sent a double flip and wrecked, hard.

Before the stunned announcer could ask if he was dead Jay was responding with “I’m ok” and was already on his way back up the roll in to drop in and send a perfect double flip in front of a crowd of people who had no idea what was going on.

At this time I had maybe seen a handful of flips and never even thought a double was possible, and yet there it was.

I was blow away.

Once I dove further into the culture of BMX I realized that Jay had been around for sometime and could really through down hard on a bike, at every discipline.

Later in my riding, and while still doing events with the Action Sports Coalition, I was able to have several encounters with Jay and maintain somewhat of a relationship with him over the years anytime he would come back to Ontario.

It was on one of these  trips to Ontario where I was fortunate enough to see him ride in person. It was at a demo at Muskoka Woods. While the demo was great this was also the first time I was able to see first hand the rumored BMX had done to his body.

Immediately after the demo he had  a personal massage therapist on hand to stretch his body out for him so that he could walk the next day. It was a strange sight.

Jay, like a lot of the true pioneers of BMX, paid the price of pushing our sport with his body and for this we should all be thankful.

Without Jay (and the rest) there is no telling if there would be the Boomerang (aka downside whip), double flip, or 540 tailwhip. Jay suffered for these tricks that are now almost common place.

While some might question his decision to leave BMX entirely I must say that I understand.

Think of it as breaking up with your girlfriend but then being around her all the time watching someone else had what you had. Some of us can take that in stride but others can’t and need to get away before it destroys whats left.

It seems that after all these years Jay has decided that all he needs is to get away.

Peace out Jay, thanks for all the frames, contests, and inspiration. All the best of luck with whatever you do next.

Jay Miron Props Bio

Jay Miron in the First Macniel Video

Jay Miron In Mad Matt

It’s been quite sometime since I have had a new bike and since I just finished my recent edit I figured it was well deserved.

I really liked my last Whitton 2 even though it turned out to be bent and I figured that sticking with the same geometry would mean not having to get used to a new feel. This meant a Whitton 3 was in order. I was going to get it in white but that is not out for public consumption until next month so I got matted red instead and I must say its a really nice color.

Here is the parts list and my gf took the photos for her 365 project.

Bars: Sunday Forumphs
Stem: Fly
Forks: Demolition Concord
Front Wheel: Odyssey M7 front wheel (G-sport marmoset and odyssey 7ka)
Frame: Whitton III 21″
Cranks: Profile 175s
Pedals: Animal plastic Steven Hamilton’s (Clear)
Sprocket: Kink Sound
Rear Wheel:Odyssey 7KA and Odyssey Hazard hub
Hub Guard: FBM
Brakes: Mono small/gtx/evo1s
Tires: Dirt path/Aitken
Pegs: Hoffman

Props to my friend Chijioke for getting me a good deal on the frame and fork and doing the build and Scott for hookin it up component wise.

I finally finished my latest BMX edit. I plan to reexport it to vimeo at some point to take care of those audio pops but for now this will do. Check it out!

I am getting a new bike on Saturday so I can’t wait to start filming a new edit with that one!

Two of my homies from Calgary put together a little edit with the help of their friend Andrew who has an HD camera. These guys are shredders.

I am working on a new edit as well, should drop sometime before the end of the year.

Stole this from my friend, who stole it from the come up

Skinny bars? Yes.  My bars are uncut now and they are even considered skinny. My x ups were terrible for a long time for no good reason though.

Big bars? Not Yet
Chain wallet? Yes, a bike chain wallet actually, they told me I couldn’t wear it to school
Front brake? For a day
No brake? For a day, different day then above obviously
4 piece bars? No way,  I did want haro knee savers pretty bad for awhile

Pegs? Always, hell I made my own
Pegless? Only racing or vert.
Motor bike chain? Yes, on two bikes.
Hip hop jeans? Obviously
Girls jeans? Obviously not
Elbow pads? Never two at the same time though
Peg chinks? Downside peg misses count?
5 inch pegs? Maybe actually.
Dickies pants? Yes they ripped and were stupid hot.
New Era? Not yet.
Studded belt? Neg.
Roof drop? Not interested
Half barspin? Yes for about a week.
Kick flips/Crank flips? I’ve done 1 ever, hurts my ankle to kick them
3/4 length long sleeve? No
Gyro? Only after learning whips… really long cable before then

Nokon cable? No…
Slammed or no seat post? No
Manual to 180? I can’t really manual all that well
Hand plant? No.
Multicoloured frame? The condor above was the most colors I have ever had a bike
Flourescent bike parts? Had a bright green cable once

Unlook back? No
Bandana? No don’t know how to tie them
Multiple foot jams? No
Dread locks? Chea!
Roll out half cab-Parrick style? Don’t half cab often
Roll out sliders? Sometimes
Emo fringe? Nah

Scanned up some more classic BMX, this time around its a kids book I have had since I was two (1986), Greg’s First Race.

THE BMX BUNCH – Friends draw together by their love for BMX bikes and daredevil stunts. Enjoy the escapades of the BMX BUNCH and the vivid, imaginative language used by fans of BMX freestyling and racing. The adventure, indexed glossary, safety rules, illustrations of BMX gear, and – of course – the bikes themselves entertain and instruct young readers – those who join in BMX action as well as those who watch.

In Greg’s First Race, Greg competes against Colin an ace racer. Only one buy can win. But eve losing has its rewards.

BMX is a dangerous sport. We face the danger of getting injured every time we  push down one of our pedals. Without a doubt one of the most appealing things about the sport  is the thrill that comes with success with concurring fear, gravity, and common sense. Sometimes it seems as though defeating common sense is our top priority over anything else.

I feel that I can safely say every rider at some point in their ‘career’ has ridden without a helmet. If Darwin’s theory of evolution was 100% accurate BMXers  probably wouldn’t  even exist.

The conversation of helmets and BMX is a difficult one to have without coming of preachy or condescending but with the sport being pushed to insane new levels everyday and the devastating  injury that happened to Mike Aitken it is a conversation that needs to continue to be had until we as a community smarten up.

I’m no saint, I have done a lot of riding  without a helmet. Even after my helmet no doubt saved my life the first time I learned to  do an endo. Like most riders it took a serious injury for me to smarten up and wear a helmet every session and I am really lucky that incident didn’t take my life.

During my first trip to Woodward, after learning how to flip and doing quite a few successfully onto resi, I hit my head of the lip of the ramp flipping into the foam pit. I actually don’t really remember any of it, or most of that day from about 1pm-9pm when I ‘woke up’. When I was ‘out’ (think lights on nobody home) I didn’t  remember learning flips, that it was my girlfriends birthday on Monday, or really where we were.  Losing eight or so hours of memory was enough to make me realize that no matter how crappy life can get it’s  worth remembering for the good parts after that trip I never rode without a helmet again.

If I could do that much damage wearing a helmet imagine how much more damage I could have done, or perhaps have already done, the countless amount of times I hit my head without a helmet and ‘just got a little  concussion’.

No rider is going to force another to wear a helmet, it’s  just an unwritten rule. It’s a rule that now I don’t like but I understand, I have been there. I have a lot of good friends who ride without helmets and I really hope to never hear about one of them being seriously injured doing so.

However  all it  takes is landing a 180 a bit back tire  heavy, or a shoe lace getting  caught in a sprocket during a roll  back to instantly send a rider onto their back and cause their head to whiplash into the ground. Nine times out of ten your might be able to keep your head from making full contact, but that one time your head does hit could be the  end.

Sure a helmet might cause you to lose a little “street cred” but to me it’s a more than welcome safety buffer. A helmet can be the difference between a trip to the hospital or a trip back up those stairs to give that rail another shot.

Something to think about.

This video, to me, is what BMX is about good friends getting together having a great time with some great riding. The vibe to this video is perfect. I hope to one day have a back yard as epic as that.

It’s been awhile since I have discussed my One Hundred Push ups endeavor and while I quickly failed at taking weekly pictures I didn’t give quit doing the push ups after one week like a lot of my friends. I saw the program through to the end (week 3-6) as recommend by my initial test.

At the end of week six (which I did while in Vancouver) I was able to do 50 good form consecutive push ups. That’s 50 away from my goal but also double what I started at.

So what now?

Well I am going to modify the program a little. While its a great start to training it becomes somewhat repetitive and boring so my new system will work like so:
Every other day to do as many consecutive push ups that I can then make up the difference in sets of 10.

Once I finally get to 100 consecutive good form push ups I will take an after shot and move on to two hundred sit ups.

In the meantime I am also going to keep active by riding a lot of BMX and boxing since my hockey season is over now (we won it all baby!).

Previously: Healthy Livin’