The Rumors are true!
The first time I heard about Aaron Ross was from an Empire BMX ad with him doing a barspin bunnyhop over a tennis court net. This blew me away because I remembered doing lines using the tennis nets down the street from my house. I knew how tall they were. Could this guy actually be barspinning a tennis court net? I had to see more.
At the time, Aaron was in the middle of filming for his first Empire video. When his part came out it confirmed how good he was on a bike to me. Not too long after that, I got to meet him at the Vancouver Metro Jam. I remember him doing tricks that were leaning in the direction that I thought riding would eventually be headed. In addition to that, one of the most interesting things that I noticed was how nice he was as a person. That really stuck out in my head. Was it possible to be a totally amazing bike rider while actually being an incredibly humble and nice guy at the same time? Here was the proof.
I’ve been fortunate enough to go on a few trips with Aaron. I’ve watched him do tailwhip bunnyhops in front of Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin, double whips off a ledge, and pretty much anything else he sets his mind to. Through all the time that’s passed, one thing has stayed the same; Aaron is still the super nice guy that I met back at that Vancouver Metro Jam. He can tear it up on a bike, but the kind of person he is has always been important in my mind too. When Aaron and FBM mutually decided to part ways, there was a long list of companies trying to add him to their teams. It would be an understatement to say that I was interested in having him join us at Sunday also.
So, here we are, and after all the offers and deliberation, Aaron has finally made his decision. Without further ado, I want to finally confirm the rumors and welcome Aaron to the Sunday family! We’re honored to have him here…just when you thought Sunday colors couldn't get any brighter!
enjoy,
jim
PS: If you're wondering, we've already started to work on Aaron’s signature frame. Check back soon for more news.
Sunday Euro Adventures!
Most of the
Sunday team is heading off to Europe today.
Ian Schwartz,
Karl Poynter,
Kurt Rasmusson, Joe Cox and myself are heading off to
Barcelona for a week to film for the upcoming Sunday video. Then some are heading to
Tallinn Estonia for the
Simpel Session contest.
Jeff Zielinski, Chad Shackelford and
Bill Bottriell are coming along to film, so you know the coverage will look great. Look for updates throughout the trip and some big news while we are away!
Vinnie coverage!
Vinnie Sammon's gotten a bunch of coverage lately. Check out issue 48 of
Mass Appeal, the one with
Jim Jones on the cover. Vinnie's got a nice
Zoo York ad in that. Then head over to
Dig issue 62, so you can read his
BackChat. And you can check out my words about the Big O in Montreal in the
Homage article.
Jim C extra footage!
Well, after going through a bunch of my older footage, I realized most of it was from a Sony TRV-950 and VX-1000. And since the new Sunday video is using DVX and HVX footage mostly, I realized all this other stuff wasn't as useful. So I turned it into a web video, enjoy!
Click the photo for the video!
Vinnie Sammon stolen bike check!
Well this is one strange way of getting a bike check photo! The story goes like this, I've been trying to get a photo of
Vinnie Sammon's bike for sometime now because he is testing out the
shaved headtube. Which incidentally works just fine, but that's another topic. Ok, so we weren't able to get the photo until Vinnie's bike got stolen. It was basically stolen right in front of his eyes, but it happened so quick that he couldn't do anything about it.
Now you're wondering how do you get a photo of a bike that's stolen? Well, when a bike gets stolen, it usually gets sold relatively quickly or completely disassembled in order
to hide the parts origin. Well luckily the first scenario happend and it was sold completely intact without the ghetto primer grey paint job either.
If it wasn't for the guys in the photo I would never have these photos, the bike check out or this great story. So thanks to
Juni on the left for buying the bike,
Courtney on the right for realizing what's going on and
Ed from
Ed's Bike Shop in the middle for running a kick ass shop in
Vineland, NJ! The funny thing is that Ed and I go back a few years, so it was quite the coincidence that it ended up there.
Bob Scerbo and
Tom White accompanied Vinnie for the drive down to Ed's shop to retrieve his bike. Maybe Sunday locks will be in the future just as soon as I
can figure out how to make them hollow or put waves on them. Just kidding!
Sunday Outlook?
Over the past month I've collected a few funny random photos.
Todd Johnson from
QBP stars in the first one with coffee cup he found in the office. The second one stars me trying to get rid of the winter layer of fat I created over the holidays.
The third shot is a close up of my shoe from
Beloe. And lastly a number of my friends have gotten
IPhones and this is what we come up with. It just goes on and on doesn't it!
Ian/Dubai Interview
Ian Schwartz has gotten bit by the traveling bug lately. From spending a month in Jersey with
Vinnie Sammon, staying in Austin for most of January and then going to Barcelona and Estonia, he has been all over lately. This picture is from a London visit awhile back. Recently, he got invited to the
X Games in Dubai, so I took this opportunity to do an interview with him about Dubai and being in the X Games.
Click here to read the interview
So where the heck did you go for the X Games?
This one was in Dubai in the UAE.
Did you have any idea where Dubai was before you got invited?
Actaully no, i had no clue man. traveling alot lately has made me realize how geographically stupid i am. I need to fix that i think.
So it's in the Middle East basically, what was it like flying over an area that seems to be in such upheaval?
It was kinda crazy. I mean, nothing wierd happened or anything, but while we were in the air i couldn't stop thinking, "wow, that's iraq's border were flyin past!" But as far as Dubai itself, it felt peaceful and safe.
What did you think of Dubai?
It was interesting. Alot of construction everywhere. You could look out over the horizon of the city and see 15-20 cranes scattered around. The whole city is built almost solely for tourism, so you definitely weren't getting the "middle-east" experience that you'd get anywhere else. Which could be a good thing in some cases now that i think about it! haha.
Did you get to see much?
No, not as much as i would have liked to. i was kind of stranded to a certain extent at the contest. the city is really spread out, so taking a taxi around would of taken all my money quick. saw a few cool things though. street rode one day. that was wierd but fun.
Would you go back?
Well, i would if i was asked to or something. but i probably wouldn't make an effort myself to set up a trip there. Nothing against it, Dubai just wasn't my kinda place.
So Dubai is called the Las Vegas of the Middle East, how did it compare to the real Las Vegas?
Haha, nothing as wild as the real one. But relative to the rest of the middle east, it was definitely more leanient about some things.
Enough about Dubai, tell us about riding in the X Games? Was there Slim Jim's and Mountain Dew everywhere? Or was it like a normal contest?
Well, I've only really been to a couple contests, and never an espn contest, so i don't really know how it would compare. But, no slim jim guy. There were of course sponsor tents and stuff you'd expect. Lots of catered food! That was an awesome suprise!!
So there's talk of having a real street style X Games this summer in the US, what do you think about that?
I think it'd be ok. I'd love to be invited, but that might be a long shot. There's of course gonna be lots of bad aspects to it. That's unavoidable, but givin some street guys a chance to make some major money would be an obvious good. I guess we'll see how it all goes.
You qualified for the finals, does that possibly qualify you for the one in the US?
I couldn't tell ya, but I'm pretty sure not. I don't think that'll have any bearing on who gets invited.
Did you have fun? See any good tricks go down?
Yeah, I actually had alot of fun in the contest, which was sort of unexpected. I usually get too nervous and hate every minute of the contests I've been in before, but for some reason this one was good. Maybe just because the course was more fun than usual. As far as tricks go, of course there was crazy shit goin on all over the place. I mean, come on, Aaron Ross was there!
Team updates!
Eric Lichtenberger sent me a photo of his
Second Wave Sunday grey kit. Looks really good to me, so I decided to post it during the middle of the night cause I can't sleep. You may remember Eric from the
Ride US cover awhile back. Remember Toothpaste kit, 180 through the narrow opening? If not then follow this link
here. Thanks to
Epic BMX for sending over the photo!
Lee Dennis has an interview over at
Niagara St, so go
here and check it out! Lee and I have been trying to ride the warehouse together, but we just can't meet on the same page. Hopefully neither of us will be bogged down with work this week.
Limited Purple?
Since
Sunday started, I've wanted to do unique limited edition colors. I know everyone does limited edition stuff these days, but how limited is it really when you can get a seatpost clamp in 9 different colors already. This stuff will never make it to a catalog and it will be all sold before it reaches a magazine. This
translucent purple Wave frame is only offered at
Alans BMX in the
UK. So go there and check it out and look for more like this coming soon.
