OG SMC founder Christian Meldrum and myself had a day off at the same time for the first time in a long time, and we decided to grab our track bikes and hit the ride we used to ride every weekend of our high school lives, Huntington Beach. We had a great time. Here’s some pictures I grabbed from the session.
A couple of your boys (me and Zach) made it out the local Common Crew jam that went down a couple days ago and got some clips in Francis’ vlog, check it out!
Just uploaded Blisstape 3 onto our Youtube channel, give it another watch!
Here’s the photos I snagged while out in Portland. Huge thanks to Ramon for getting me and Miguel out there and showing us around the city.
So this is the longest it’s ever taken me to put out a new edit. The last edit I dropped was in 2015 after the El Toro crash. Recovering since then has been hard. My feet and ankles are so much more prone to injury now and re-injury was occurring throughout this entire filming process. Adding school and work into the mix, finding the time to film stuff was difficult. Two years later though, enough footage stacked up until I realized, “wait, I have over 3 minutes of stuff, I think this is done.” While I don’t know if it’s my best work, I’m still really proud of the final product. Hope you guys enjoy. Also, this wouldn’t of been possible without the support from the SMC fam, especially Deacon for always being down to help me out and film. He really made this happen.
Blow the whistle. After taking a short mid-day break, we loaded up the van and headed back to down town to see what else we could stack before the sun set.
We pulled off at this bank spot nicknamed “The Wall of Death”. Johnathan Ball took one run at the wall to flat, looped back around, then immediately caught a body on his second attempt. Our eyes widened and our jaws hit the floor as we watched JBall bounce on the pavement like a sack of soggy potatoes. He laid there for a bit, got up, dusted himself off, then got right back on the horse and nailed the clip before we moved on to greener pastures.
I didn’t shoot as many photos as the day before but was able to get a handful of shots of Miguel Zendejas’ neon yellow Master Bike Co Prototype. I’m not sure when these frames will be available to the public, but I’ve heard whispers of them rolling out sometime in the few couple months. What I can tell you is that these frames are incredibly compact, have steep head tube angles and offer up one of the most progressive geometries FGFS has ever seen.
If you’ve ever ridden with us, than I’m sure you already know, but I’m always the idiot running around trying to round up the crew for a family photo. It’s become somewhat of a tradition at this point, and is always worth the effort. This one in particular was potentially the most challenging one we’ve taken yet. We used the typical 10 second timer, but added in a 2 second exposure as a curve ball. Shout out to these dudes for remaining completely still during that time and to anyone else who has ever put up with my consistent craziness. One day I’ll publish a book of all these group shot. You’ll see.
That just about covers it. Again, keep em peeled for photos from Day 3 of our time together in Portland.
Day one and done. It didn’t take much to roast us to the bone. After the first full day of riding in Portland with the boys we were already salty, sore, and thirsty for more. With legs like noodles and arms like peanut brittle we pushed ourselves and each other to keep the stoke alive.
Setting the stage. Ramon Antonio flew Johnathan Ball, Miguel Zendejas & Josh Silva to PDX to film for a video project he’s been wanting to shoot. Although we don’t have a name for it yet, filming is well underway and is already shaping up to be the hot ticket video of the Summer.
Miguel Zendejas never fails to impress and came hot out the gate linking some of the craziest nose manual / tail whip lines I’ve ever seen. Johnathan Ball flexed his fixie muscles and demonstrated how a real man does tarck tricks. Ease off the juice my dude. 💪
That’s it for now, stay tuned and keep your eyes peeled for more WHEEL TALK coverage from our weekend in the Pacific North West.
Words & Photos – Matt Reyes (SLUMWORM)
Sweet little session at a fun little park around the corner of Slum’s pad that we hit the day before the Prickly Syringe Jam in SF. Everyone slays, check it out! And of course, always gotta love the way Slum cuts everything together.
4th one of the Phone Clips series.
In this game of BIKE we went to Alondra, Christian’s local park, to battle it out on his home turf, check it out!
