The Solarena hotel in Newport Beach was going to be our home base for the next 12 days. With a fridge, wifi, coffee machine, bed and shower, it had all we needed. After the long travel and LA shopping spree the light went out early the first day. As usual getting up the next day is easy as the time difference of 9 hours makes you wake up in the middle of the night a few times before you had enough of it and simply get out of bed. California doesn't always provide sunny days of 25 degrees but getting outside without a winter jacket in January still felt good. We had spotted a coffee shop around the corner of the hotel and decided to get breakfast there. It was right next door of the Deus shop. The capucino at Vacancy Coffee was amazing. Without giving my email address I received the receipt in my inbox a few seconds after paying with the Mastercard. That was a first for me. Mastercard apparently doesn't take privacy too seriously when they provide my email to coffee shops like that. Oh well.
10:30hr. That's the time we had set to meet Niek Kimmann over at Troy Lee Designs in Corona. Niek's mom had dropped off a camera for Niek at our place in The Netherlands and brought the camera for him as his old one had some focusing issues. We made good timing as the roads were rather empty (surprisingly) and stopped by Pro Circuit first to walk their shop with all the championship bikes on display. TLD was new to us at their current location.
Last year Philip and I made a trip to California together. It was such a good time that it had to happen again. This year's traineeship at HGS Exhaust company allowed him to make the Cali trip to visit two Monster Energy Supercross races, MX dealerships and companies left and right. Of course while in SoCal lots of BMX companies could be visited as well as friends, spots and whatever came up basically. Through a couple of episodes we'll take you through our trip starting at the beginning.
Traveling is an advanture. Every time. It's anticipating to the situation and it started off shaky when the alarm clock went off. Next to the railways being under construction, an other message showed
Every February when we launch the helmets, fans come from all over the world to get a piece of technology, art and protection. Last year we increased the amount of EPS for better energy management in impacts along with the implementation MIPS rotational impact protection system, left no doubt the king of helmets would remain. The only helmet to win the reader polls year in and year out, the only helmet to win Olympic BMX Gold, Downhill World Cup Gold and RedBull Rampage gold.
The G.O.A.T. of Full Face helmets
#D3helmet Collection
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TLD
Troy Lee first came into the BMX market by doing custom painted helmets. Although not cheap, all designs were superb and your helmet stood out from all others. The only thing you needed to do was not crash and scratch up the bucket. But the early nineties are far behind us. TLD moved into the helmet business using their own paint designs, started doing racing gear, safety gear, bags and clothing.
Now it's time to introduce the Troy Lee Designs sportswear line making their range even bigger. Feel free to check their website to do some shopping.
After doing a BMX 'zine for ten years (1987 - 1996) FATBMX made it on the internet. The year was 1998. Here to stay.