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NEW YORK – JUNE, 2007 – The AST Dew Tour, the world's premier season-long action sports tour, today announced AST Drops In, the tour’s new national charity initiative, will benefit the Boys & Girls Club of Cleveland when the tour comes to Cleveland for the Right Guard Open on July 19-22. As part of the announcement, BMX star Steven McCann today taught a special BMX clinic at Chengaworld Brookpark to children from the Boys & Girls Club of Cleveland. The second event of the AST Dew Tour’s 2007 season, the Right Guard Open will be held at Cleveland’s North Coast Harbor.

AST Drops In will work with children from the Boys and Girls Club of Cleveland. As a way to introduce them to action sports, the Tour will provide donations of equipment, with support from Mongoose BMX bikes, along with funds to incorporate action sports into their daily activities.

Looking back in my daily journals over the years, here is one of my old journal entries and also my comments looking back now: Sponsored by GT BMX October 15th, 1993

-Actual Journal Entry:
“I Rode to work at GT. During the day, I had a meeting with Todd Huffman & Big E. Huffman liked the proposal that Big E gave him about me riding a Fueler & me being sponsored by GT. But Rich Long (owner of GT) is out of town ‘tll next week. So I won’t know for sure until then. He said I could put the bike together and “test” it. So I stayed until 7pm building the bike with Big E.

World famous BMX rider Rick Thorne stars in a new 23 minute short film called Keeping Up With The Jonesers premiering on Showtime Extreme at 4:20 June 6th. Rick plays a drug dealer and reprobate who gets a lot more than he bargained for when a deal goes wrong. A trailer can be seen by clicking here.

We are having a party at the Standard (Sunset) June 11th at 9pm to celebrate this premier. Rick will be there.

Dennis and I overtook the Tour Dur Laarbeek stage on the way to Beek en Donk. The tractor wasn't moving fast and it even had to be bump-started every time it needed to fire up. It didn't have a lack of people who wanted a ride on a real tractor though and the seats on both fenders were full on every trip.

The plan was to start at 4pm and we had made up some time and were only behind on schedule for a few minutes. A nearby festival ended at 4pm so that was good planning on Mike Smits' side. Some music was played so people noticed there was something going on.

As soon as the band started playing they were tested on how long they could handle it. Good stuff. Kees even joined the local band for a Minor Threat cover and received a big round of applause and a straight edge Bavaria beer for his efforts.

After the first stop in Mariahout, the gypsies left for Lieshout, home of Bavaria beer. The 90 degree hipped miniramp was waiting for everyone to be treated right. We were already half an hour behind on schedule and this was only the second stop.

Banners were put back up, the tractor arrived with the stage for the next band and the PA system was set up. In the meantime a contest took place.

With the registration done and judging sheets ready, already some time was saved compared to stop one. It was a jam session for everyone but with the band playing, it was hard to tell the riders when it was time for last trick or when time was up. Not that it mattered much. Everyone just rode for the fun of it. Ed entered at the last minute and so did Kees. It didn't take long for Kees to take himself out so he could watch from the sidelines again.

Mike Martin designed the ’08 GT Power Series Ultra Box 2 (AKA The UB2). The bike in the photos weighs in at 21.9 lbs. and the frame weight is 3.2 lbs. The geometry is the same as the Ultra Box XL which has a 21” top tube, 74 degree head angle and 14 ¼” min. chainstay length.

Randy Stumpfhauser, Joey Bradford and Eric Rupe have been doing most of the testing for GT and according to Robert Kahler it is going quite well.

Frame: Mankind Asadi phase2 (light!)
Fork: Mankind Archangel
Headseat: fsa
Crankset: Primo excell
BB Set: primo
Sprocket: Mankind Respect 30T
Freewheel: 10t
Chain: cheap ass one 

"Can somebody get me beer, it's hot in here," was the comment of the lead singer of the band 5 Dollar Shake after they opened up the Tour Dur Laarbeek in Mariahout last Sunday. It was noon and the band was already asking for cold beer. Sweet! The Tour Dur Laarbeek is a fun event. We'll explain it in short: 4 miniramps were on the program for one afternoon. A competition was held at each stop. That meant that after stop one, everyone moved to the next one. Banners were put up during warm up and the sound check was being done during part of the contest. It was chaos and unprofessional but we wouldn't like it any other way. It ruled.

After each stop, the stage was moved to the next ramp by a little tractor. Competitors threw their bikes in the big bus and felt like they were on RoadFools for a day. Others just rode to the next town, it was that close. 

T-Mobile now supports halls, spots and events in Austria with the T-Mobile Local Support program. Last year T-Mobile started to successfully enlarge their involvement in cycling through the BMX scene. With the Local Support program T-Mobile is trying to reach the goal of developing the regional BMX scenes as honestly and genuinely as possible. One of the first actions is the support of the Austrian spots – ahead of all the BMX halls in Vienna Due to T-Mobile’s involvement, one of the best indoor bike halls in Europe will be opened in Brunn am Gebirge / near Vienna. Location support and events are the focus for the summer 2007

In addition to the support for the spots, Local Support Events are an important component of the project. Its first activity will take place

Newton Abbot, Devon - With just two weeks to go, there are no more tickets available for Red Bull Empire of Dirt! All car tickets were snapped up within a week, when the applications opened on the MySpace profile on May 14th. There is strictly no access to Red Bull Empire of Dirt without a ticket. But hope is not lost... Those who missed out on a ticket to see the event in person, can watch the Freesports on 4 program on Sunday 22nd July at 8.30am, on Channel 4, and again on Tuesday 24th July, late night (time TBC).