35 is a bit excessive, but that's where I landed. If didn't watch any Simple Session coverage and can't be bothered to watch the excessive amount of video content floating around, here's the best of everything that I filmed from practice on the first day to the finals. I do have one more "mic'd up" style video to post, which I'm hoping to finish tonight...we'll see.
'GABE' - THE OFFICIAL TRAILER. Coming Spring 2018.. We honor the late Gabe Brooks.
12 bosses, three runs, two count towards an overall score. Here's a breakdown of everything that got stomped during Simple Session 18's Street Finals. Congrats to Garrett, Bruno, and Broc for taking the 1-2-3.
Park finals at Simple Session 18 really started firing right away and didn't let up. All twelve riders really killed it, so I know a lot of people will have different opinions about who shoulda got what in this three run, two runs count towards an overall score format. Here's a breakdown of everything that got stomped during Simple Session 18's Park Finals. Congrats to Jose, Irek, and Kenneth for taking the 123.
All white everything. Well, except the tires. And the cranks. And pedals. But whatever...Chad Kerley gives you the run down on his Haro/Premium machine.
The first of a new series...Drop The Pin is about simply cruising a random area in search of something outside the norm. Demarcus blindly dropped a pin on a map of the greater San Diego area and we hit the road, parked, and pedaled 'til the sun went down.
GT - "SERIOUSLY FUN" - MIX SECTION. From the East Coast to the West, GT supports an impressive AM / flow squad including Chase Krolicki, Ty Calis, Jordy Grandinetti, Jay Crowley, Leandro Moreira, & many more. Between Leandro shredding trails and Ty stepping up to some ridiculous roof setups, this mix section does not skimp! And I can't help but shout out to that mobile fire escape clip from Chelsea, so damn good! Stay tuned all week for the rest of the sections from GT's "Seriously Fun"
Soooo, my wireless mic setup is getting zero range in this massive stadium, so I can't do any mic'd up stuff. My apologies. As a consolation prize, I strapped this new GoPro Karma Grip with the Cable Extension setup onto willing victims and had them give you a first person view around all the courses here at X Games. A sincere thanks to Drew Bezanson, Simon Tabron, Morgan Wade, Colin Varanyak, and Anthony Napolitan for being down.The setup didn't work too well for the street course, but hey, can't win 'em all.
X Games has migrated north to Minneapolis and both Jeff and I are doing the ol' X Games shuffle trying to stack both riding and the oddness in between. Got a few things in the works, but I figured that a straight forward, no frills riding edit from the day was in order. Lots of cruising on day one, but some shit will definitely go down. Check back all week...
BMX - ANIMAL HOUSE LA Ride BMX. Animal took their tried and true recipe of no-frills street riding to the urban sprawl of Los Angeles. Featuring their west coast contingent along with some east coast heads, the squad includes Augie Simoncini, Colin Varanyak, Andrew Castaneda, Johnny Raekes, Hobie Doan, Abdul Fufanah, Jonathan “Twinn” Jaramillo, Charles Littlejohn, Richard Hernandez, Clay Johnson, and Gabe Brooks. The dudes put a few new twists on some old spots, and unearth some fresh gems as well.
“We have expanded our team to include an insane crew from the west coast like never before with Andrew Castaneda, Demarcus Paul (who got hurt right before the project), Johnny Raekes, Hobie Doan, Charles Littlejohn, Gabe Brooks and Richard Hernandez. We also have two of our top pros, Augie Simoncini and Colin Varanyak—who originally hail from the east coast—currently calling California home as well. So it only made sense for us to get them altogether and do their thing. We rounded out the squad with a couple of our top east coast riders, Abdul Fufanah and Jonathan “Twinn” Jaramillo, and Clay Johnson from Arizona to add to the mayhem. The riding that went down was wild, insane, technical, dope, crazy, smooth, and above all… motivating to get you to hit the streets right after you watch it. Thank you for your support of Animal and real BMX street riding.” —Ralph Sinisi, Owner-Animal Bikes
After doing a BMX 'zine for ten years (1987 - 1996) FATBMX made it on the internet. The year was 1998. Here to stay.