I was quite excited to see this today. So what would you do with £5million of government funding?
Build a place for young people to hang out? How about a cafe, indoor rock climbing, recording and dance studios? Got some spare change left? How about throw in the UK's first indoor concrete skate park too?
This isn't some day dream... it's actually happening, and building work is at an advanced stage in Hemel Hempstead! Opening Summer 2011?
I probably don't have to tell you what an awesome job Nike have done with The Pool. No doubt you have seen all the videos and pictures circulating on the interweb lately.
We were lucky enough to get a whole day of The Pool to ourselves, so staff, team and some friends headed up for a chill session. The main objective was for everyone to have fun, so photos and filming had no priority. The day ended with smiles all round and objective achieved.
It was weird - last week, I just didn't really get that vibe off anything I really saw online. Not too sure why, but this week's certainly different. To kick it off, here's the 'final' video of The Pool jam. Pretty good effort by everyone involved, this video sort of sums it up better than most others did!
Craig Passero is really getting too good now, considering he's still relatively unheard of for the masses. That feeble to nose bonk/manual 360 thing is ridiculous.
I spotted this earlier on via Mutiny, as it features a couple of dudes from their team - notably Robbo who's responsible for all this:
Defgrip, as ever, are continuing to pump out quality content, this time featuring the lesser-spotted Wolfman. Apparently even his relatively simple views are still contentious enough for the BMX world, c'est la vie... Much respect to anyone holding down a job that time-consuming/energy-sapping and still getting out riding. Makes me feel that much more of a pussy if I drop out the "Oh, I'm a bit tired tonight..." after the ol' 9-5. Click here for that.
Lastly, Streetphire is all shiny and new. If you're friends with me on Facebook and were wondering why I was liking and disliking Streetphire-related stuff, it was all in the name of H-Man's progress. So there...
Go here and check out some awesome photos from The Pool. Not really any riding photos, but they give more of a feeling of being there than anything I've seen so far. Nuno's got a great eye for things, so yeah, treats galore. Click click click!
I think I'm now the only person involved in BMX who isn't at The Pool, but bills needs paying and work needs doing. The final stages have been revealed, and the setup looks absolutely nuts. Head over to Defgrip where they've done the hard work so I don't have to, haha.
As a bit of a warm-up for watching some Dennis Enarson footage, here's a video from his recent trip to The Caribbean with a bunch of other dudes that ultimately ended up being covered by Dig in the form of an article and this video.
In related "Dig videos and articles" news, here's an edit of Stefan Lantschner and Simone Barraco by Matty Lambert that featured as an article in the new Dig. I thought I'd seen this already and wasn't really into it so I sort of avoided watching it the past few days, then happened to check it out again now and realised that not only had I not seen it before, but it's also an awesome video.
Briefly heading back to the Defgrip theme, here's a cool feature with Darryl Tocco. The dude's got a point...
It still doesn't really seem right seeing a Props trailer without that music, but the riding in this is legitimately nuts. Could pretty much watch Garrett Reeves footage all day.
In a slight contrast (and you know I'm all about the contrasts), from the glitz and glamour of Props to the more down-to-earth scenes of London, Bristol and Sheffield, here's Marv's video "Fair play".
This is pretty up-to-the-minute - here's a fresh edit of practise from The Pool which is reinforcing my feelings of being disappointed I can't make it and also showing how nuts it's going to be. Should be interesting checking out the differences between those sticking to the jump-box and those riding the whole setup. Speaking of, Brian Foster is going to be riding, and also has a signature frame and a bunch of other stuff coming out through Fit.
In a move that's no doubt going to somehow become as needlessly controversial as the "Why are there only white riders on the 'Role Models' issue cover?" internet-fuelled debacle of a few years ago, Ride have dedicated their next issue to a UK scene check with a strap-line of "This Is England". Should hopefully be some cool stuff in it though, so as long as you keep your eyes off message boards and comment fields it should be hunky dory. Click here to view Owain Clegg bagging himself a cover.
Moving swiftly on to actual interesting riding stuff, here's Aaron Smith celebrating becoming a full part of the Demolition team by making a little welcome edit.
Want to see some ridiculous "messing around" footage of some awesome riders? Of course you do...
Seth Kimbrough has been awesome for what seems like forever, and it's cool to see how his style has adapted and changed over time. This video's got what I'd consider to not really be his usual sort of stuff in it, but it's fully awesome.
Two words: Mike Hoder.
This S&M teaser/intro features Cameron Wood, Randy Brown and someone smashing a wheelie on a quad. I'm not not going to post it (double negative, you work it out...).
...and that's pretty much that.
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As a little Brucey Bonus too, in the intervening period I found a photo of the new Sergio Layos grips from Fly.
Man, go away for another weekend and so much good stuff gets posted... Here's a quick re-cap of some treats.
Scott Ditchburn's part of the new Lotek mixtape is now up. Wonder if that first clip was a nod to the intro of the old (and awesome!) Lotek Mixtape?
Tammy has got another awesome edit out - machine! - this time for Amity.
In a slight contrast to those two vids, here's a more chilled out pair - firstly Clint Reynolds, and secondly Tom Dugan.
Then totally different to all of those - Sean Sexton and Chase Hawk took a trip to the Cayman Islands to shoot an article for Ride and get a video for Odyssey. You'll need to get Ride for the photos and text, but click below for the vid...
Defgrip have also put up Pt.2 of their Photographers feature - click here to ch-ch-ch-ch-check it.
Lastly, here's a section from Props that contains some cool riding but also an ability to completely change your internal elocution for rider's names.
