The Action Sports Coalition will be hosting an art exhibit at the Gladstone Hotel during the International Bike Show, March 7-9. I will be exhibiting *something* at the show, along with many friends from the BMX community. It’s a great opportunity for amature artists to exhibit some of their work, and it’s coming together really well and I think the collection of BMX and Bike focused works will be interesting and worth a look. Here’s the poster, let me know if you are thinking of coming by!

Last night, the ICC (Inner City Circle), the hardest group of street riders in Toronto, premiered their latest video at Republik night club. The video was Decee (which is apparently the new hot word, and I have no idea how to spell it.) That means it was good.

This video was different from previous releases from the group, in that there were few bells and whistles in the post production of the video, and it focused more on the raw energy that these guy put into riding their kid’s bikes. There is absolutely no denying that these guys give their all to pull off some of the craziest, gnarliest, and most intenese street tricks right here on the streets of our own city, Toronto.

The crowd was hyped, although I think some sound issues left some people a little more mellow than they would have otherwise been, but it was an all around good time and props to all the guys in the ICC for putting themselves out there for our entertainment, and hosting a pretty classy party!

As usual, here are some photos from the night:

Dave Thomas and Aussie:

Butta and George get the video going:

I love this next picture, look closely at people’s faces, this is during the bails section:

Last night the GTA BMX community celebrated the birthday of one of the greatest young guys I know! Not to mention THE BEST BMX rider I know. It was Chijioke Okafo’s 19th birthday and his friends wouldn’t let that pass without a sexy party, BMX style! Not only was it Chi’s “of legal age” birthday, he aslo recently became part of the 1664 BMX team, so there was lots to celebrate.

The Warehouse, Toronto’s best indoor skatepark, hosted the party, and as usual, it was a great time. Here are some photos from the night:

Chijioke and his cake

Chijioke getting one of those bouncy knee rides

Jaclyn Cohen, Cory Beal, Chijioke Okafo

Chris Dewar- No foot over the box

Dave Thomas - X Up

Cory Beal- 180 over the rail? sorry I forget

Dave and I just returned from an amazing trip in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. We had an amazing time and loved every minute of it! We did some snorkeling, some hiking (almost getting lost in a remote village with no road access), some shopping, and lots of swimming, relaxing, eating, and of course, drinking!

I took hundreds of photos, literally, so here are a few of my favourites, and below you will find 2 links to the albums on photobucket.

View all the photos here:

Album 1 

Album 2 

Here are a few photos from the Iceland comp:

Jesse Saba:

Product Toss:

Dave Thomas:

Adrian Domagala:

Thanks to Corey Beal for posting some of my photos from the Bike Film Fest Jam on Repset for the masses to see. If you don’t know, Repset is one of the best online magazines for everything BMX. Corey just gave the site a new look and its lookin hot, not to mention a recent interview with Toronto’s own Chris Silva. And, if you don’t know who Corey Beal is, let me clarify:

Corey Beal - classic Corey Beal pose

I plan to write soemthing about this event but for now here are the photos:

Dave and I had a day off work last Friday so we decided to go hiking, and waterfall hunting! For those of you who don’t know, there are 32 waterfalls along the Bruce Trail between Stoney Creek and Dundas, winding through Hamilton and Ancaster. (Just Google “Hamilton Waterfalls” of “dundas Waterfalls” for more info.) We hiked for about 3.5 hours total (there and back) and saw 4 waterfalls. It was our first time going so we didnt know where to start, the best areas, or how far to expect to go, so we just jumped in at the top of the mountain in Hamilton and went as far as our little legs could carry us. Aside from the falls, we also saw lots of wildlife, including an hawk, (actually a few hawks, some started circling over us on the way back), 4 deer, a snake, (yeah that scared the crap out of me, I screamed like a baby), an upclose-and-personal chipmunk, (this happened just after the snake, so again I screamed, haha), and some other things like interesting birds and butterflies, oh and lots of grasshoppers.

It’s really quite neat, and most surprising to me, was that this was basically in our own backyard. Most people from the GTA would figure you have to drive hours up North to find such pretty hiking trails, but they are right here!

Here are some pictures from the day:

Here are the massive stairs we had to climb down (luckily not back up) to start our adventure-

Here is the first waterfall we came across-

When we walked away from this waterfall we were walking along the path up a little hill, and at the top of this hill, there stood an eagle! It was so weird, a big huge hawk just chillin. I actually got probably about 5 or 6 meters away from it, but by the time I got my camera out and ready it started to wander off. Here he is anyways-

Here are the second, third and fourth waterfalls we saw-

And just as we were about to turn around for the day and head back to the car, we were walking along a trail and got inturrupted by some deer checking us out. Again, only about 10 meters from us-

I am very happy to have been awarded UBikeTV’s Photo of the month designation for July.

UBikeTV is a really cool online community for anyone and everyone interested in bikes. You can find all the latest news, events, reviews, photos, and videos about anything BMX, Mtnbike, or Road Bike related. Theres also user forums, contests and photo and video galleries. It’s all very user-friendly and accessible, meaning sign up as a user and you can input as much or as little as you like to the community. They are giving away a Kona frame very soon to one lucky registered user, so I suggest signing up and do some posting on the forums!

In claiming my prize, an awesome UBikeTV T-shirt, I got to meet Juan, the man behind UBikeTV. A professional photographer and videographer, it was really cool to meet him and chat a bit about the industry and bikes. With a full-time job, wife, kid, and home, he’s working hard in his spare time to keep UBikeTV going, and always improving; and doing a great job of it I might add! Juan gets out every now and then to local bike events and races to shoot some photos, so if you see him, say hi and congratulate him on the success of his site!

Here is the photo that won “Photo of the Month”:

Sunday I went with the boys to Guelph for them to ride some trails. I thought it would be a good chance to get some pictures, and the Primo team was coming out for a little show, so I figured it would be a good day. I was not disappointed!! Some pictures for your viewing pleasure:

Dakota Roche

Dave Thomas

Chris Dewar

Chris Dewar- #1 PUD

Grant Guitar

Dave Thomas

Mike Roy