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Always sad to say goodbye to California. Monday morning and we packed up, left Solarena and drove to Denny's on Beach and Ellis. Don't ask me why but it has become "a thing" to have a bigger breakfast on the day we leave. It was the Grand Slam or whatever slam it was that got us ready for the trip back home. $55 later and we drove up North on Beach to the 405 North and actually had plenty of time to spare as we did not seem to hit any traffic. You see, instead of the 13:40hr departure time it was moved to 15:15hr. KLM had informed us so we had extra time before dropping the vehicle off. But with several businesses closed on Monday (morning) we decided to just drive to Hertz to drop off the Rogue. When you're not in a rush, things seem to go smoothly. The shuttle bus to the airport was right there, dropped us off at the international terminal, we dropped off the bags through the Priority lane (22.4 kilograms with a 23kg limit) and could check in the two smaller Albek/Twin Air roller bags as well, which left us with the essentials in the backpack to take on board.

With a bit of gambling we scored a window seat each with a free seat next to us. I had a bit of extra leg room and Philip was only 6 seats behind. Getting to pick your seat is nice. The hopes of having an entire row to ourselves was destroyed real soon, but no complaints.

But before we got on board, we got to hang out with the bar man at the Air France/KLM lounge.

And..... it's Monday. Breakfast at DayDream in Costa Mesa with Mike de Wit. The week could have started a lot worse. Nice food place within a surf shop. Cali style. It was great to catch up with Choq and it was good to hear about the good news. Congrats. Mondays in LA. Not the busiest so all good. We hit the shops we wanted to visit. Some of them were closed so we had to come back for those but we started off at the new adidas flagship store at Melrose across the street from Cherry Los Angeles. For some reason Monday was a bank holiday which provided free parking. When you hop in and out stores it was nice not having to worry about parking meters that don't work and getting a ticket. We were in and out at Bathing Ape and discovered that the Palace store was closed. Next up: Supreme. We checked the same store a year ago so not much had changed. That goes for several of the stores we re-visited. We stopped by Kith and were still amazed by the curved handrail outside the store that has been hit on a skateboard. What was also amazing was that the Kith ice cream menu had "The Sylvester" flavour on it. Indeed, Nigel Sylvester has his own ice cream flavour at Kith, and it tasted good (had to try it). We took some photos of graffiti for future background use on Instagram. Might as well collect it while you're there. GOLF was checked, HUF was gone, Beyond The Streets was in between shows, Arc'terex has nice stuff and we strolled through the Carhartt store on La Brea. Next stop: In 'n Out Burger. We found one a bit North of LA. It was packed and a bit shady but the burger tasted good.

We were going to take it chill on Sunday as there was no need to get up early to follow the day program. We had no schedule and that was perfectly fine. With the sun shining once again (we could get used to that) we decided to go for a run on the beach to start the day. We did breakfast (cereal) in the hotel room as it had a fridge and a coffee machine with unlimited cups. It's not uncommon to pay $50 for breakfast for two in this area. Shit's expensive. Must be the sunshine tax.

We had not been to Huntington Beach just yet so we decided to cruise over, park the car, walk main street, watch some surfing from the pier, do some shopping, watch cars and grab lunch at Sancho's. The Masterpools happened to be at the same place. Lots of flatland riders had made it to Newport Beach for the One Love jam.

What's typical about the first night on every California trip coming from Europe is that you wake up early the first morning. The 9 hour time difference does that to you. 6am in Newport Beach, is 3pm in Helmond. You can't just switch instantly. But hey, the sun is shining, the beach only a minute away. Although chilly (8 degrees celcius) it's the perfect set-up for a little run/walk on the beach. I'm not a big runner any more but having these conditions outside of your doorstep would turn me into a daily runner, at least I thought so. Instead of heading in the direction of Huntington Beach I decided to head towards the Newport Beach pier. I tried to avoid getting wet feet from the waves coming onto the beach so running in a straight line wasn't much of an option as I wanted to avoid walking in the deep beach sand. Boy did it feel good. Considering being in the cold and wet only 24 hours ago and now walking on the beach, in the sunshine, palm trees everywhere....

A good Vacancy Coffee and a shower later we started off the day by heading to Sheep Hills. Normally the spot is under water in the winter time for a while but since it had not rained since February 2024(!!!!!) the trails were still rideable. My first time to Sheep was back in 1990. Considering it's now 2025 makes this spot legendary. After soaking up the energy of the dirt jumps the day continued with a quick visit to 3Bros Racing in Costa Mesa followed by a FOX HQ visit.

This video came from meeting Sam Jones in person at Battle of Hastings a few years back. I simply said "Come to California and lets film a video" about 6 months later Sam was on his way. It's pretty amazing how things work out sometimes. Thanks to BSD for sending Sam and wanting to work with me in general. It isn't always easy working with new people but Sam was a treat to work with and kept me laughing the entire time. Can't say enough good things about Sam.

I'm in Anaheim California for the first Monster Energy Supercross race of the 2024 season and also the first stop of the Monster Energy BMX Triples dirt competition and I am so excited about it! I am also excited to announce that I have a new Monster Energy team mate which so happens to be the one and only @RyanWilliamsofficialand into days video we get to interview the riders here at the event.

We're mid way through a Vans video myself and Perris Benegas are going in on and we decided to get a San Diego trip in where the crew stayed at my house. Blake came out with us for a few days to show behind the scenes of what making a video part looks like.

X Games 2022 will return to Southern California – hosting BMX and Moto X competitions from two unique Monster Energy athlete training facilities at Slayground and SloanYard, as well as Skateboarding at California Skateparks’ Training Facility from July 20-24. New to this year’s event, five-time X Games skateboard gold medalist Elliot Sloan and his backyard playground, the “SloanYard,” become new hosts of X Games 2022, debuting the first and only MegaPark ramp at X Games. Axell Hodges’ motocross compound will again host five Moto X disciplines with the addition of BMX Dirt joining the mix at the “Slayground” this year. The CATF will once again host Skateboard and BMX Street

Kurt rolled through Cali this past week and killed it - Take a look behind the scenes and get stoked for Kurt's upcoming full video part!

X-Games is on for 2021. No crowd allowed unfortunately and heavy mask wearing in place by staff and riders. Dirt will happen at Pat Casey's place and Park/Street at the California Skatepark Training facility in Vista, California. 14-18 July, shortly before the Olympic Games. See who have received an invite and for what X Games medal discipline.

BMX Dirt Best Trick
Andy Buckworth
Pat Casey