FAT Cali trip. Day 6. Full day today!

Feb 06, 2024

Written by Bart de Jong

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Being in the heart of the (B)MX industry gives you plenty of opportunity to visit multiple places in one day. Monday morning we pointed the Ford Escape rental to 3-Brothers racing first, a dealership in Costa Mesa. Philip had managed to spend two weeks of his HGS internship in the USA to do market research and collect content for their social media. Visiting MX shops and the two AMA Monster Energy Supercross was part of the program. After checking the parts shop and complete bike section we were off to FOX Racing, just 10 minutes down the road, to see what's new there. When the employees start talking moto for 30 minutes, you know they're at the right place and not just selling whatever product. Fox had their speed suit on display also and we got the ins and outs on that project.

We checked our Google Maps flags and drove to CultCrew right before lunch. We were welcomed by the one and only Rob-O (on his B-day) and sat down for some chatting. The current state of the BMX industry, SX season, Palace, and old BMX trips were brought up. The energy always flows with this man.

In 'n Out lunch? Why not?! It might feel weird to a few, but not to us, as we're on good grounds

with both, but our destiny after lunch was S&M bikes. Since it was raining, a lot of their racks were placed inside the workshop creating less space to move around. As you can witness each Friday in their 'Factory Friday' videos you can see that products are being made on the daily at S&M. They keep pumping them out. Jason "Timmy" Ball has been running that workshop forever and recently got a signature frame that were sold immediately with the last ones going to 4Down in England. So if you are after one of Jason's frames, try them. James Murphy filled us in on the things that happen upstairs and even BMX film guru Stew Johnson peeked in for a quick high 5. Always good to put a face to a name. It was nice to meet you James.

We spotted ENZO Supspension tuning around the corner of S&M and peeked in. Another MX company visited and you now have a visual of the company every time you see an Enzo sticker on the forks at Star Racing's 250 team. The Costa Mesa skatepark was closed (it rained). We can report that Anthony Napolitan isn't stuck on the fence any longer. It's a nice little concrete park which has plenty to offer. Cheap Goods BMX shop was close, and closed on Mondays. Too bad we couldn't check in with Gabe Weed and see the inside of his shop. At this point Andy Zeiss was on his way to Mike de Wit's so we headed to Mike's place and welcomed Andy to rainy California when he arrived from Germany. Dinner? We weren't allowed to go to Taco Bell another time so some REAL Mexican food was consumed. Almost as delicious as Taco Bell we had to admit, haha. What a day.

We had an 08:00am breakfast planned for the next day. Time to head back to hit the sack.