FATBMX KIDS Goes USA part 14. Oakley pump track and FOX visit! By Philip de Jong

Aug 07, 2014

Written by Bart de Jong

Read 4153 times

Life in California is good. I wouldn't mind moving here. Every day we wake up and take a swim. Today I even went to the gym. Everything was too big for me so it was a short session, but swimming every day is something I can get used to. The weather also. Around 11am my dad and I went to Oakley to ride the pump track. We signed in and I got an Oakley Lab sticker for my helmet and a pink bracelet. Thanks to Scurto for setting this up. Steve Blick also stopped by and taught me some Oakley history. Do you know what the first ever Oakley products were? Do you know where the name Oakley comes from? Do you know how many lenses Oakley makes in the USA per day?

The first ever Oakley products made were BMX grips and goggles. The founder named the company after his dog Oakley. Now Oakley produces 70.000 lenses per day and they've got a nice dirt track behind the building that we got to ride. Next to the pump track we also hit the table line which lead to a step-up jump. It actually rained the night before but the water was all gone already. It was hot too and after a 90 minute session I was ready for a drink and

some food. From Oakley it was straight to Taco Bell. I like the Dorito Tacos. Today we each got a big lunch box which I almost finished completely. It filled my belly good.

Free Taco Bell wifi was used to check e-mail. Joy Sandoval at Fox had invited us to come see their facility. We drove straight there from Taco Bell with the bikes still on the bike rack but the Yakima rack has locks on it so they were safe. The Oakley building is amazing but the new Fox building is very nice too.

The shape from the outside is futuristic and once inside we saw that the two year old building has a nice design with a big reception, an in-house retail store, open office spaces, conference rooms and a very nice backyard with a small MX track and a pump track that needed some work. If you ever fly into the OC airport, look for the Dream On message of the FOX backyard.

We talked about an upcoming online FOX glove competition on FATBMX and the designer of the Attach glove talked about the super light gloves that received some adjustments since February 2014.