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I heard a rumor this morning that they’re closing down DeShong.  For those of you not from Atlanta, DeShong park is the “street plaza,” wedges, ledges, rails and stairs no transitions to be found.  But apparently plenty of drugs and underage drinking.  Which, from what I’ve heard, is why they’re talking about plowing the whole thing.

How awesome is that?

Growing up, as I did, in Alabama in the 70s and 80s I remember seeing pictures of Dominguez, Fiola and Blyther battling it out a Del Mar and The Pipeline and I had.  Nothing.  Maybe familiarity breeds contempt.  Lord knows that the kids at the skateparks around here don’t even pretend like they’re looking after the space.  Maybe it’s because they’re stupid, maybe it’s because they’re kids.  Either way, what the county giveth the county can taketh away and DeShong might be on the short list for the latter.

Damn shame, but not surprising, if it’s true.

Seriously, dude knocked himself out in the middle of his third run and was so far ahead of everyone else that he won, anyway.  He can’t even remember his runs.

Greatest
of
All
Time

Daniel Dhers doesn’t advance to the finals.  I don’t know how good or bad his runs were since they decided to televise FMX instead for most of it.  Diogo Canina is the number 1 qualifier.  Still, does anyoneone remember lip tricks?  Chase Hawk’s footjams and a single double peg is all I saw by way of moves at coping.

So, the X-Games are this weekend.  I’ve watched most of them so far.

Lacking any stomach churning crashes from the Mega Ramp this year they just kept replaying Jake Brown and Danny Way’s mishaps from previous years.  So, it’s good to know that ESPN is still happy to feed the bottom, even if there’s no actual food.

This year’s X-Games medals are little sculptures of hands throwing up the “LA” hand sign.  Because nothing says street more than a bunch of middle class kids competing in niche athletics.

Speaking of which, Travis Pastrana showed up to try to rock a 360 flip.  No one could seem to grasp the concept of a 360 flip so it was called a “Rodeo Flip” a “corked out 720″ and “The Toilet Paper Roll.”  The last one is what Pastrana actually called it, which is dumb.  It’s a trick that already has a name, doing it on a motorcycle doesn’t make it a different trick.  Steve Caballero, a fakie to 360 is a Full Cab, I don’t care that you “can’t ollie a bicycle”.  I think Cary Hart is the only one that gets it, he’s always held that the Hart Attack should just be called a Superman Seatgrab.

Anyway ESPN hyped the living hell out of Pastrana’s return, at Mirra’s urging, to FMX best trick.  Boy, they must have felt like douchenuggets when he crashed his first try and decided to pack it in.

He did better than Willie Watts.  Watts is from Broken Arrow, OK, which is the hometown of one of my best friends.  I only say this because I know that they don’t put fail into the water in BA, but, Watts hyped up a crazy backflip body varial and then…two dead sailors.  So awesome.

In a break from typical X-Games over hyping/under delivering/manufactured drama, the Adaptive Motocross race was actually a very cool thing.

Over in BMX Big Air Kevin Robinson regained his title in a last minute rally against Chad Kagy and Dave Mirra.  Mirra tried to do a no-handed 3 across the 70 footer and, instead, gave a master class on how to eject from a trick gone wrong.  Anthony Napolitan pulled the first double front flip in competition, much of the crowd thought he should have won.  He shouldn’t have won.  The competition is “Big Air” not “big trick to not even big air if it was on a regular vert ramp.”  Not taking anything away from the double front, that was awesome, but what Anthony did was the equivalent of Jay Miron devoting his entire last X-Games park appearance to landing a 360 double whip across a box.

I missed the Big Air Rail Jam, which honestly seems like a contest created so Danny Way could win a gold medal. Danny way got a gold medal.

Apparently BMX Park is this afternoon.  W00t. And by “W00t” I mean, “Daniel Dhers is going to do 70 consecutive 720s and a handfull of flairs to win, because park – theoretically the most diverse of all BMX disciplines – has been reduced to a box jump competition.”

Oh, by the way, they threw BMX “street” on during “X-Center” the hour before the X-Games was listed to start.  Really?  Why the hell wouldn’t you just start the X-Games an hour earlier?  What since did that make?  None, just like the street contest, which had a format that I found hard to understand (8 tries at each obstical) and which just seemed to kill momentum.

Grand re-opening is Saturday, August 1st.  there are rumblings of a Gnar-B-Q on August 7th.  Sounds like fun to me.

Jason Williams did a quick interview with Nick Jenks about the changes at Factory that’s up on the Ride site.  While I call BS on some of Nick’s assertions (I don’t think anyone really thinks that, say, Bay Creek, Mountain and Athens would represent “a lack of diversity.” And if I’m a “local” anywhere it’d have to be Duncan Creek) it’s a good bit that gives you some information about what’s in store for Factory.  Since I’ve always loved Factory, I love that it looks like it’s going to be in good hands.

The Because I Grind tour hit up B&B in Buford today.  I took a metric shite tonne of pictures (as usual).  I’ll post up a proper gallery tomorrow or Sunday (depending on if I have to work/run out for building supplies/etc.)  But I figured I wanted to put some stuff out there tonight.

First off, can I say that Nigel Sylvester was wearing possibly the single most inappropriate piece of headgear ever in the history of man?

The Mama of Mama’s B&B talking to Mssr. Sylvester

It’s JULY, in GEORGIA and dude’s wearing a BLACK LEATHER BASEBALL CAP.  It could only be more weather inappropriate if it were an Elmer Fudd style hunting cap. Still, it’s easy to see why people are standing in line to give Nigel money.  Kid is the definition of hustle and he presents himself as both professional and relateable to his target audience.  The old saying is that “it’s called the music BUSINESS for a reason, a lot of people forget that.”  That goes for BMX, too.  A lot of people ride well enough to be “pro,” not nearly as many can sell themselves.

Other than that, some quick hits.

• At 4:55 everyone started asking “where are they?”  Beat me, but I pointed out that you were dealing with a group of BMXers, at least one who was Black.  So, you had BMXers legendary punctuality, mixed with the possibility of CP Time.  Then I had to explain to Chuck what “CP Time” is.
• Ratkid was rechristened Ratman at some point.  He does not own a VCR and yet had to buy Head First (I think) on VHS, because it was there.  Vern Smillie then spent like 20 minutes trying to get him into the system.  You can tell she doesn’t spend much time in the store anymore.  Also, I think Ratkid was flirting with her.  Ratkid also broke his chain after his first hit.  I did offer to buy him a new one as he was having a bit of a breakdown, but he said he had a spare, he mostly just hated his bad luck.  Oh yeah, dude was a block from a bike shop fixing his bike by slamming it into stuff.  Old habits die hard.
• Dave Belcher cannot ride a unicycle.
• The cops were confused
  
  No, seriously cop rolled by at like 3 miles an hour looked at the set up, looked at the crowd.  Looked at the setup again.  Looked at the crowd again.  Drove away.
• This is where I note that it is, in fact, illegal to ride a bike on the sidewalk in Buford, GA and that the owner of the barber shop next door to Mama’s hates, with an undying passion, the fact that people test ride their bikes past his shop, occasionally on the sidewalk.  He probably would have been even less happy that there was a bike demo set up in the parking spaces in front of his shop.
• The demo did seem to do it’s job as I saw several kids leave with new parts on their bikes.  Devon should get an extra sheckle in his allowance this week for setting this up.
• The box was built to specs, the specs where just a little…ambitious.  It took a while for everyone to get used to it, but once they did (and once they put a kicker in front of it, it was all good.)
  (This shot, pre-kicker)
• No, he really does talk like that, but he’s also a nice guy.
  
  I just spent a second talking to Glenn about Factory (I love Factory, but for the love of all that’s holy, can someone film something some place else.  Just once) and the half gajillion skateparks in Gwinnett County and how that’s getting a lot of old people back into riding and skating just as weekend warriors.
• The line of the day, “I just went to Best Buy yesterday and said ‘give me one of those digital joints.’”
• 
  This is a smith to table.  I managed not to capture the smith or the table.  I think it takes talent to do that.
• Wait, Vern has a tattoo?
• “Doesn’t Devon have an exploded knee?” Yes, he also managed to win the impromptu long jump competition with an ACL that’s more “ACL pieces.” It’s notable that in this picture, the ramp you see is not the kicker he hit, which was about three feet to the right of it and that, had he gone in a straight line…
  Also, maybe I shouldn’t have shot this from behind a stop sign.  Either way, a dude in the crowed walked it off, 28 feet.
• You know, you’d think that a Chocolate would be brown….
  That would be Ride Bikes’ Robert Ashton pointing and shooting at Nigel’s double peg to 180 bar.
• You know how I complained about DJ Metrognome at Twilight a couple of years ago?  If not, it went something like this.  After showing up late (due to traffic) there was a miscommunication as to what he was supposed to do, so after packing up his gear Mister Metrognome found out that he was being paid to still DJ, so he did what any self respecting DJ would do.  He connected his iPod to the PA and blasted a series of songs who’s lyrical content was “Nigganigganigganigganigganiggafuckshitfuckfuckdamnshitnigganigga” to an audience filled with 3 year olds.Today, realizing that music might help the demo, Katy grabbed the Mama’s PA and Eric Miller volunteered his iPhone after everyone else basically was like “nahhh” when asked to pull out their iPods  Eric then gave me his iPhone and said, “here, pick some rap.”  This was like giving a three year old a loaded .45.  The hell do I know about rap?  I know, I know, it’s hard to believe, but as a Black man I have absolutely, positively no interest in hip-hop.  Still, going through Eric’s iPhone I saw Birdman & Lil’ Wayne, which I figured was probably not a good choice.  Then I saw Jay-Z, which I was rolling the dice on.  On the one hand probably bad, on the other hand enough radio hits that it’s possible that Eric, who I think works or worked at a church, might have the clean version.

  “Nigganigganigganigganigganigganigganigganigganigganigganigganigganigganigganigga.”

  I was in Buford, GA.  Someone was screaming the “n” word over a P.A.  I should have been mortified, and I was, for exactly the opposite reasons.  I’m pretty sure I saw a 7 year old, White girl burst into flames.  The Mrs. was like “can’t you change that?”  No, I live an “i” free life, even touching an iPhone made my skin crawl, I have no idea how to use it and no desire to learn.  So, yeah at some point “Let Me Feel Your Tounge Ring” came on, but that was NOT my fault.

Anyway, it is late and I have a long day of something or other tomorrow.  More pictures coming soon.

Nigel Sylvester’s Because I Grind tour is hitting Mama’s tomorrow @ 5PM.

Mama’s is at
123 W. Main St.
Buford, GA 30518

I may be able to pull myself away from buying tile long enough to stop by.

If you’re not from Georgia you probably know Factory Skatepark as that one skatepark with the blue wall that every video ever shot in Georgia has clips from. Much like everyplace else, it was hurting from a combination of the economy and Gwinnett county’s attempt to have 1 skatepark per capita.  If you’re in Atlanta you could drive south and go to Factory or drive slightly shorter north and ride concrete for free.  All of that’s to say that Factory was really, really, really close to closing down.  So, today I got this from Nick Jenks:

Hey,
 
It is Nick Jenks down here in Newnan, GA. Just wanted to let you know
that the Factory Skate Park is going through a change. I don’t know if
many of you know, but the Factory was weeks away from closing down due
to lack of funds. Well all that is about to change. Scott Moore, who
has been working with the switch program at the Factory for a while
now, just announced he will be purchasing the park as soon as the legal
stuff can be worked out. Details will be released after the official
purchase, but look for a lot of change! New ownership, new rider
management, totally new set up ramp wise, a total cleaning of the
building, fresh paint, rider lounge, re-surfacing of ramps, new legit street section,
fully stocked bike/skate shop, resi/foam pit and more! Rider input has
been key in making the new changes. As soon as the details are
released, I will pass them along.
Scott is trying to do something great here and save the Factory from
being another park that gets shut down. I hope you will all support him
and the new park to make it last. 
He has a long list of changes that are going to be made, but let
everyone know that they are more than welcome to submit any ideas they
may have. He really wants it to be a part of GA and to let the riders
have a ownership feel in the park. We will read every last idea and
consider it when changing the park. The new management and owner are
willing to listen to the people who matter most, the customer (the
riders).
I am personally excited about this and can’t wait to see what the
future holds for the place. I think it will help the bmx scene here in
GA so much. 

Expect an update within the week possibly! This is going to happen soon
 

Thanks,
 
Nick

Nick asked for e-mail suggestions on what you’d like to see at Factory.  I cut his e-mail out, but if you have him e-mail him.  If you don’t drop some in the comments and I’ll forward him the link.  Anyway, Factory’s staying open.  Awesome.

Ever wanted to make your very own magazine?  Hate copy machines and staplers.  HP’s got you covered for $.20 a page, paid per magazine at the time of order.  So, a six dollar, 30 page magazine.  Yeah, better hope you have advertisers…

With a new Web service called MagCloud, Hewlett-Packard hopes to make it easier and cheaper to crank out a magazine than running photocopies at the local copy shop.

Charging
20 cents a page, paid only when a customer orders a copy, H.P. dreams
of turning MagCloud into vanity publishing’s equivalent of YouTube.
The company, a leading maker of computers and printers, envisions
people using their PCs to develop quick magazines commemorating their
daughter’s volleyball season or chronicling the intricacies of the
Arizona cactus business.

Still, this may be the way to go if you want to do your all naked girl and BMX parts magazine.  Or is that only me?  Never mind.