FAT Cali trip. Day 2. Get a grip!

Feb 03, 2024

Written by Bart de Jong

Read 941 times

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.

Back in 1993 I visited their shop with Oliver Prosper (FRA) and a few others so after 30 years it was time to check back in and meet up with Niek. The TLD showroom is amazing with all kind of memorabilia around so waiting a few minutes for Niek to arrive wasn't a problem at all. We handed the camera to him and did a quick interview with Niek on preparing for the 2024 UCI World Cup season. Tim Daniels gave us a full on TLD tour which was interesting. Getting to meet the people who design and paint the helmets and work on the products and teams is always great. We got to see Justin Barcia's Ghostbusters helmet that would be introduced at A2 and met Troy Lee in person. Lunch: Taco Bell!

Niek decided to tag along on our trip to ODI in Riverside. Without a firm meeting appointment in hand we walked in the door. After a short wait Colby Young welcomed us and showed us around the company. ODI make more than grips. If you need to have plastic products produced, like many in the swimming pool industry, give ODI a ring as they'll be able to help you with that. But for BMX it's a given that ODI has the best grips out there. Without giving away the exact recipe Colby showed us around the back where the grip machines are installed. Their new machine can do 3-colour grips so expect more of those in the future. Jeff Emig's grips are produced at ODI. Their lock-on system works killer too. In the meeting room both Connor Fields (USA) and Maris Strombergs (LAT) had their displays up. With the current Olympic Champion in the room it was clear that Niek Kimmann (NED) needs a presence also. All Olympic Gold medals in BMX Racing were won with ODI grips on the bars. The Vital awards in BMX, MTB and Motocross also indicated that ODI is the brand to look for when in the market for new grips. Thanks to Colby for making time for us.

After ODI we drove up to San Bernadino to check out Chaparral Motorsports. It's the biggest MX store we've ever seen. It has shopping carts at the entrance. It's massive. If you're looking for protection gear, a new helmet, racing gear or gloves, a shop like this has it all. TLD gear and ODI grips too.

We dropped off Niek in Corona and drove back to Newport Beach. Traffic wasn't too bad as we could use the carpool lane as well as the toll roads. Once back, the e-mails were checked, and it was time to hit the sack. Jetlag usually hits hard the first day.

BdJ