Yesterday, the community discovered absolutely devastating news that one of the early staples in the San Jose and fixed gear freestyle scene as a whole, Jeff Dempler, has passed away.
Jeff inspired people worldwide in the early 2010’s with his riding, filming, and constant stoke.
My first time meeting Jeff was staying at his house for the Epic Fixed Comp in 2012. I had never met or spoken to him before, but he was kind enough to essentially let a stranger in his house. Deaths in the community always hit harder because of how tight knit and small we are. As someone who was relatively distanced from Jeff, this still hits hard and I can’t imagine how people who were closer to him are feeling.
Tell people you love them and appreciate people who are in your life, because you never know who will go too soon.
This year for the SMCGR, we’re doing something new and including a PEOPLE’S CHAMP award! Cast your vote for both the FGFS and TRICK TRACK categories by Sunday. Polling on this may also slightly affect overall list results. Share now and vote for your favorite riders!
Last Saturday me and the Dooc man went out for a casual bike ride to the beach on our Trick Track builds that ended in a pool of blood, 17 staples, and stitches. I’ll discuss this more on the upcoming Off Track episode, but long story short, I tried to grind a bench and hit my head up top (see gallery for reference). It was such a nice session too. I’m cooped up and off the bike for at minimum a few weeks. I get my staples removed in a couple days so hopefully the healing is quick.
Luckily for me, most of the damage was external and not internal. I thought I was okay until blood started pouring (literally) from my skull. Currently a little unsteady in day to day, but overall not concussed.
Moral of the story, pay attention to the height of things while riding your bike. The moral should probably be to wear a helmet… yeah, maybe lets go with that one.
Sorry, not sorry, all the content for the next few days is definitely going to involve the comp. I want to write a bit about this weekend as a whole.
Sometimes, motivation to do this fluctuates. Some weeks I feel like going hard in pushing out content and doing all this revolving SMC, and some weeks I feel the “whats the point” feeling. Next time I feel lack of motivation though, I’m going to think about this weekend. The amount of energy and hunger that’s still left in this niche scene we all know and love is absolutely thriving. From the street sessions, the house hangouts, to talking about fixed gear, the FOAD video premiere, and the competition itself, all of it has so much electricity still. I know the running half-joke is that FGFS is dead, but now I know that with a little CPR everyone comes to life.
I want to first of all thank everybody for coming out. We had people travel from all over the place just to come to this little event we put on and that’s all I could ask for from the scene. Seattle, Salt Lake City, NorCal, Inland Empire, and even Europe!
Second, I wanna thank the people and sponsors who helped make the event as smooth and as exciting as possible. Pizza, Deacon, Suzie, Jacob, Matt, Jackson, Calvin for the music, Kareem, Montana Ricky, Ritchie, and all the other sponsors.
Suzie tried to count everyone that came at one point, and she counted over 100 people that showed out. That beats all 5 previous years that we’ve been throwing competitions. I don’t know about you, but that is incredibly motivating.
Anyways, thanks for reading. My heart is full. Here’s some pictures from mostly my phone and some other’s phones from the whole weekend. We’ll be back next year but hopefully I don’t need to wait a whole year to see most of you guys. Stay tuned for our official video recap!
We all know the cycling powerhouse that is The Radavist. For newer heads, did you know that John used to go by Prolly is not Probably and used to mainly cover track bikes? Either way, I found his old website and found some gold that’s pretty funny in hindsight with what we know now. All from 2007-2008!
Your favorite fixie figurehead Matt Reyes has been producing his own music for his videos for a while now, but he just recently dropped a mixtape on his Soundcloud and it’s worth checking out. Really easy listening, what a talented man.
In today’s episode of OFF TRACK, our Fixed Gear centric topic show, we discuss BIKELIFE, mental preparation, money in FGFS, and the most legendary events from the past. We had a lot to say about these topics so we ended up going for over an hour! Let us know what your preferred run time is for these.
Suck My Cog 