Tammy and Jeff Vegas Smiles
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  On The Horizon 3 months ago I was asked to take part in an interview for 'on the horizon' for The Union. Finally Kurt & I got our shit together & that interview is now online. So from one blog to another, check it out & learn a bit more about Amity

http://www.bmxunion.com/blog/on-the-horizon/on-the-horizon-amity-bike-co/  ¶ 19:59 0 Comments

  TWM - Tammy and Wescott

Go to Tuesdays With Miles for more videos.

This is fire! Tammy and newbie Wescott fucking kill it!

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  Matt Priest Welcome Edit

A few months ago, we announced the addition of shredder, and all round nice guy Matt Priest, to the Amity pro team after parting ways with Kink.

We were stoked to have Matt abroad and so we wasted as little time as possible in getting his 'welcome edit' done.

With the weather being unpredictable and trails pretty much ruled out of the question for a while, I jumped on a plane to Austin, Texas, where, thanks to Relentless Energy Drink, Matt is currently living for the next 3 months along with team mate Liam Eltham.

Matt had already been in town for a few weeks, so, already comfortable on some of Austin's infamous spots, we began filming and came away with this.

Welcome to the team Matt!

A huge shout out to Relentless who have kindly provided Matt with a dope apartment where we were able to stay.

Song: The Jezebels - Mace Spray  ¶ 21:42 0 Comments

  Happy Birthday RT
It's Ryan's Birthday today! Happy Birthday son! LOL at this cake...  ¶ 23:28 0 Comments

  An unforseen month in Austin! To sleep or not to sleep? That’s the inevitable ‘pre flight question’, about to embark on a full days travel to the other side of the world and into a different time zone, I debate whether I should keep myself busy all night, starving myself of sleep before my early morning plane to Texas, so I will pass out and hopefully sleep the duration of the flight, and immediately adjust to the new time zone when I arrive.
It’s no use. Exhausted from excitement and my usual last minute packing, I hit the sack for a couple of hours before hopping on my plane to Atlanta, before finally arriving in Austin; Bob’s first flight was delayed so he missed his connecting flight from Houston and so, armed with little more than series one of ‘The Jersey Shore’, I wait it out a little more and Manchester finally arrives.
We soon arrive at the apartment where Matt and Lima are staying, our hosts for the next two week, kindly provided by Relentless Energy, I shotgun the sofa. Win.
It feels like I have a fair bit of pressure on my shoulders with this one, as you are aware, we recently welcomed Matt to the Amity team, so what better place to smash a ‘welcome edit’ than the bmx/trails capital of the world, Austin. Bob is also returning from a long time out, after riding most of last year with a broken scaphoid, Bob finally went under the knife in November, and has only touched his bike a couple of times since given the all clear a few weeks previous, and while his jumps at home remain weathered and unrideable for now, he has no intentions of wasting any time out here either.
The first day we hit Eastside trails, where we also spent the majority of our time, easily the most sought after jumps in Texas, for obviously reasons, groomed to perfection with committed locals who know exactly what they’re doing. Don’t expect to simply turn up, drop your bag and head to the roll in. Eastside didn’t get to where it is at the drop of a hat, and so we’d always spend some time digging and helping out before we began filming/riding out of respect, a huge shout out to everyone who was really relaxed with us filming, and really made us feel welcome.
These jumps are nuts, fast as shit, ‘you’ve always gotta pull back,’ Lima explains. Tricks seemed pretty rare, but it looked like you could ride them all day without throwing down a single ‘stunt’.
I’ve never seen anything like Eastside, in fact, I’ve never really seen any trails at all and so I really didn’t know what to expect or how the locals would take to a dweeby park rat showing up with a big camera bag on his back, jeans tucked into socks, with ice cream all down his shirt, ‘ermmm, hi, mind if we film at your trails?’ (well, not exactly like that…)
All the locals were rad as fuck, on and off their bikes, and I think I had just as much fun digging as filming there half the time!
The apartment was pretty far out of town, forget Matt’s motto; ‘everywhere is a fifteen minute ride from the apartment..’ BULLSHIT, pedalling around all day long going from spot to spot with that enormous camera bag definitely helped shift all that greasy Mexican food we cant get enough of!
That being said, all the spots we visited mostly were of equal distance from where we stayed, so I guess that worked out alright, Eastside one way, town the other.
Another favourite spot of ours had to be the legendary ‘Terrible One Ramp’, owned by the legend himself, Joe Rich has to be one of the nicest guys I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting, I think I saw him no more than 3 times, but the dude has no issue with tons of loud, ratty bmxers passing in and out of his yard and to this day is honoured to have people riding his ramp. We showed up a couple of days ago and the gate was locked, so we knocked on his door and before we had even a chance to ask to ride his ramp he had unlocked the gate and let us in welcoming us with open arms! What a dude!
Also, seeing Tom Dugan ride there in the flesh is quite something.. Quite something indeed.
The first week in Austin was pretty hectic, the Props ‘Megatour’ was just about to kick off, so as awesome as it was seeing tons of famous faces shredding, sessions did get a little hectic at times, *non amity related message:* Dan Paley just might be one of the most phenomenally yet unknown English riders ever, and arguably the funniest…
Mabel Davis, probably the only legitimate ‘fifteen minute ride’ Matt spoke of, is a dope concrete park which was always fun to hit in the morning for a bit, or in the evening (trails are rarely floodlight…) so we bagged some good stuff there, Matt pulled a dope 180 out of the park over a fence, I guess you’ll have to wait for the edit, but we returned the next day to find the ground torn up outside the park, so it’s a good thing we got that when we did!
Following Mabel Davis sessions, our days would sometimes consist of then riding downtown to ‘Whole Foods’, a world famous ‘food market’ in town, which sold the best, healthiest and freshest food you could possibly want, definitely a good thing going for that after a few too many five dollar pitchers the night before in Shakespeares…
Only a block away from the infamous ‘ninth street trails’, a decent meal in you and you’re pretty set for the day, needless to say, I cant ride trails in anyway like Matt and Bob, but I had a blast at 9th every time we went, the big line still remains undefeated by me, but I’ll be back! Haha. Imagine learning to ride with that on your doorstep?! You’d be… well, you’d be Chase Hawk..
We popped into the ‘Empire BMX’ store a couple of times right before it changed spots too, anyone who knows bmx knows all about Empire, that place is awesome, and despite the new spot being really big and well set up (if a little out of town), it just seemed to lack that feeling that it always had, being right around the corner from the trails and in the centre of it all, a tight scene and cosy shop where everyone could always just swing by to fix their bikes doesn’t exactly seem the case anymore. I’m sure Empire will excel in its new spot, the people behind it will always have their hearts in the right place, but for me the feeling is definitely a little different, but not necessarily in a bad way, may just take a little time.
It had only been a week and I had become set on the idea of changing my flights to extend my stay; filming was way on schedule, we only had a few more things in the pipeline that we wanted to get done, but seeing as I was already there, it made sense to battle the airlines, pay a little extra and to stay out there having a good time riding and partying with my ‘team mates’ without the usual worry of having to shoot a video hanging over us, being up early, getting stuff done and stressing over clips, which can sometimes become the case, filming gets a little tense at times, and although I’m lucky enough to work with some pretty motivated dudes with solid attitudes who can all shred, it was cool to be almost care free for once.
We also got to visit the new ‘Round Rock’ concrete park that most will remember from a recent Aaron Ross/ Chase Hawk video, which was pretty fun, a big bowl to blast around and a load of smaller rails, ledges and an easy ‘street section’; the place was super busy, but fun nonetheless.
Shredder Adam Aloise was in town for a few days keeping us laughing aswell as killing it, a ton of us went out on his last night to see him off properly, which we sure did, we went to a crazy ghetto Mexican place, practically in the 7/11 gas station next to it, and got purple margaritas, doesn’t sound too crazy, but at $9 a piece and a limit to 2 per person, they sure get you on your way.. Thank god Americans read dates backwards to us on I.D’s ;)
Despite the heavy festivities at times filming was still going well, and just about polished off by then, Matt finally got his banger we’d been trying to get for a few days and Bob pulled the cleanest flipwhip since records began, aswell as stomping the trick at T-1 that broke his foot last year…
We also have a running game out here, ‘The Sandwich Game’, which can turn your day around in a split second, I’m not gonna tell you about it now, if you’re interested in ‘The Sandwich Game’ ask me about it next time you see me…
A few days ago trails shredder ‘Nutter’ turned 30, there was talk the day before that there would be a keg at the trails but no one could be sure, until we rolled down the next day to a huge keg in his van, 150+ beers between 10-15 dudes? Alright.
The day was sick, everyone went off in Nutter’s honour, notably Clint Reynolds, who on top of being a really chilled out, level headed guy, has hands down the most graceful style of riding a bike that I have ever seen, Clint is soooo good! So after a heavy session and a few beers, we headed to town and went for blackout…
Another rad dude who I’ll miss is our boy Ben K! Ben has been a legend putting up with our shit and giving us lifts here and there, a super inspirational character too, after recovering from a serious car accident last year it was apparent after only a few days that Ben is one hell of a guy. We popped into his sushi restaurant a few days back, not really clued up on what was what, he gave us a load to try and some huge portions also thanks to his room mate who was working in the kitchen at the time, all before we walked away with a $10 bill… for 4 of us. Win. Talk about everyone being in the right place at the right time.
As mine and Bob’s trip comes to a close, Austin’s huge music festival ‘South By Southwest (SXSW) is just kicking off, free drinks and music EVERYWHERE, its crazy, probably for the best that it isn’t running alongside us attempting to film a video haha, that could’ve been dangerous.
So, I’m pretty much out of notable moments from the past four weeks, I’m sure a thousand things will come back to me but hey, that’s the way it is.
For me, Austin is hands down the best spot I have ever visited in the U.S. and I don’t even ride trails, so that says something. I went into this with no hopes or expectations, but I know full well that whatever I had anticipated would have been smashed to pieces.
A beautiful city with amazing spots, people, bars, atmosphere and, well.. girls.
About to endure the first of two flights home, at least I can say I’m looking forward to going through all the footage and being reminded of how much the guys kill it, day in day out, and how the sessions went off, how much I laughed, smiled, nearly choked on sunflower seeds and how amazing it was to wind down the day with a fire at the trails before rolling downtown in a t-shirt…

I guess all I’ve got left is some notable quotes which made me laugh:

‘What are you gonna do tonight?’ ‘Go big then go home…’
‘So are you gonna pad up now, ooooooooor…?’ – roughly 2 minutes after arriving in Austin, approx 11pm.
‘What do you do for work?’ ‘Well, I work at an airport, I dress up as a bird and before planes come down the runway I run out and scare them all off’
‘It would be sick if he just started SMASHING her’ – Lima whilst watching an old film playing in a Mexican restaurant.
‘Gone big, gone home, gone big at home’
‘Can I just order a plain pizza please? Like a cheese pizza, plain, like a margarita… Wait, what did I just order?’ – Matt attempting to order a pizza.
‘How heavy is a polar bear?’ ‘What?! I dunno… Why?’ ‘Heavy enough to break the ice!’ ‘… What?’
‘Which would you rather do, jump eastside in the dark or be stuck in that ‘about to sneeze sensation’ for the rest of your life?’
'Hey Matt, did you know fingernails grow at 8mph?'

Enjoy some pictures too, remember I ain't no photographer, but I had a go.....

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  This got emailed to me, loves it   ¶ 19:13 0 Comments

 

Lil Edit from Mr Tammity McParteeee & The Rickster with guest hugs from Camity McHardy. Morrell Skate Park Sesh. Enjoy. (credit to Mcmenamin)

Amity - Morrell park from Scott McMenamin on Vimeo.

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