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This trip could almost be titled, Van Homan gets the bangers clocked. Here on the Canberra gap of doom.

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I’ll start off by saying, the feeling of finding a new pool is fuckin amazing. It’s like getting presents. I don’t know about the rest of Australia but Perth has never had a lot of pools around... But this year they seem to have popped up here, there and everywhere.

It’s so rad finding a pool with proper trannies, a good corner pocket or love seat, anything really. Before it’s even clean you browse the lines that are possible, what’s grindable and what’s not. Shit is mind blowing.

There is so much shit that comes with being in other peoples property. Especially if the house isn’t abandoned. We’ve had all sorts, from the crazy homeless guys living in the abandoned hotels, police (who always think you have drugs or are doing graffiti for some reason, like you can’t possibly just be riding bikes), to the angry dickhead neighbours who never mind their business. But at the end of the day if it doesn’t get too intense it all ends up being a laugh and definitely worth it. Oh yeah and Jay Wilson the early morning 1pm pool diet of McDonalds ice coffee and $2 menu is genius haha, yeah baby...

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HIT THE ROAD FOR LOAD A VAN FULL OF GUYS, LOAD A TRAILER FULL OF BIKES AND BE ONE OF THE FIVE DAYS. NOT THE NEWEST THING IN BMX BUT IT STILL HAS TO BEST THINGS TO DO WITH A SPARE WEEK. ROAD TRIP TO KEEP I HAVE WANTED TO HOOK UP THE GUYS ON THE TEAM WITH A THE SHOP. THAT AND OF PART A BEING FOR TREAT OF BIT A AS THEM PSYCHED AND VAN AND TRAILER, GET SOME PHOTOS AND FILM SOME STUNTS. WITH A 12 SEATER DEVISED A SKETCHY HOOKUPS AND CREW TO MEET UP WITH ALONG THE WAY, WE BIKES. PLAN BASED AROUND GETTING LOOSE AND RIDING LITTLE KIDS EY MORRIS STEVE BY PHOTOS AND STORY

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DAY ONE

One early April morning the boys rock up at 5am and we say our G’days, pack the van and roll out. Now I say roll out because I am pretty sure as we pulled out of the driveway there was some herbal refreshments floating through the van, not my exact cup of tea at five in the AM, but the idea was to have fun, party and ride and we were on route to our first stop. So as the saying goes, when in Rome....

Raph sighting and blasting one of many rail hops on tour....

those who were keen to give it a whirl. Steve Lyons and Chris Courtenay fired it out with a few combos and heckled a few locals in the process.

Both had gotten into the spirit after the bottle-O so the confidence was high and Chris decided to old school them to flat.

As we exit Brissy on the way to the sunny coast, we make a quick decision and lane cut to hit the newly revised and built Beerwah skatepark deep in Steve Irwin country. The first stop was intended to be a quick one and probably the earliest most of the guys have been on the bike for some time, but still the vibe was lively and the guys were shredding. The one hour quick stop turned into a three hour session. Everyone was killing it, and especially Nick Kajewski who was sliding toothpick grinds across a ramp for way longer than should be possible, but on one attempt his peg stuck and he got shot onto the flat on his shoulder. Although he was pretty hurt he kept smiling and ran with the ‘give it a day or two’ and hopefully she will be sweet.

We piled back into the van and then hit the road to Bundaberg to checkout the park and then head to our accommodation for the night. Now there is a bunch of cool crew from Bundy that support the store so we threw out some Myspace hits to crew saying we were rolling into certain towns on the trip so come say G’day. What we weren’t expecting was the amount of crew that would rock up to say G’day and ride, so when we pulled up to the park, after a couple of cartons of Queenslands finest XXXX beer and a couple of passion pop bottles, Jack Birtles insisted that the guys were not exactly seeing the world in the clearest vision. But about 50 plus locals turned up. That aside, they all got their bikes out and managed to pull their shit together and rip the place apart.

Otherwise we decided to keep rolling as lunch time was fast approaching and we had some K’s to cover yet. After a quick Bottle-O run we were headed north to Bundy. On the way we were passing a town and saw a rail on the side of the road. A quick U bolt and we pulled up and grabbed a few bikes out for

A couple of notable things were Raphael’s rail manual to barspin, which was just silly, as well as Tom Stretton and Jerry doing nose wheelie combos and G turn combos over the box, as well as a couple of local lads who were flipping and shredding the place to bits. After the lads were beat, we threw out

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Last Moran Standing The rise and fall and rise again of Ben Moran Story by Alistair Finlay Photos by David Apostol

Country flatlanders are different to their city cousins. They tend not to need the perceived warmth and security that a large and diverse scene offers. They are happy riding by themselves, existing in parallel to the world around them. Or at least that’s my experience with Ben Moran, and considering there have been times when he was the only known flatlander in country Victoria, I think it’s a fair generalisation.

I had the real pleasure of living in the same large country town (or small rural city, depending on how you see Ballarat) as Ben for a number of years. It was a good time. The next nearest flatlander was over an hour away and the IMAX spot took a three hour plus round trip to get too.

Ben was a link to a scene that seemed further away than even before. He would turn up to my place at all hours, sometimes we would go for a ride, sometimes that ride would be flat. Other times we would drive all over the country side hitting up any number and type of spot that only comes with the acquired knowledge of living somewhere all your life.

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Often we would just sit around drinking or smoking or shooting shit, or Ben would listen to me complain about shit. But no matter what we did, I always felt glad I was doing it with Ben around.

But Ben’s like that, he uses his charm and very subtle dry whit to disarm you and put you at ease. However, Ben’s charm isn’t a tool or a weapon that he uses to get something from you, in fact quite the opposite, it endears you to him and places you completely at ease.

I’m not the only one who is keen to dump a big bucket of metaphorical man love over Ben. Sometimes Australian and sometimes flatlander Paul Chamberlain says

“Other than my dad, Ben is the only truly unmaterialistic person I have ever met.

What I like best about him is that he is incredibly selfless and extremely helpful.

Ben’s a tireless worker running mostly on enthusiasm. A case in point, the only thing of value that Ben owns is a $500 sleeping bag. You could hardly say his bike is valuable”.

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Words by Mitch Wood AKA “Manbeast”

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, It s 6:30am on a chilly Wednesday morning. Any other morning I would be just waking up and preparing myself for the daily grind. This morning was different, I was sitting in a taxi with Matt Lawton, Will Horan and Mitch“Macca”Macdonald on our way to pick up a 12 seater van. By the time we that we were a band reached our destination, Will had convinced the cab driver , on tour and the van was to be our tour bus, which wasn t actually that far from the truth.

At first, prospects looked slim when the douche at EuropeCar looked like not letting us take the car without a driver over 25, but thanks to Matty dishing we were allowed to leave and left to pick up the rest of the out some more cash , guys from Matty s place.

The cre w consisted of Will Horan, Timmy White, Tom Appleby, Tom Dunn, Macca, Jeff Bahr, Kyle Jacobson, Matt Lawton and myself on filming duties with Jerry Vandervalk and Corey Mansinger joining us for the last couple of days.

With high spirits and high expectations we embarked on our journey. The idea behind the trip was to hit a bunch of spots from the Sunshine Coast down to the Gold Coast. We hit some crazy spots along the way including lots of cool parks, some gnarly drains with a constant stream of putrid slush running down the centre, more than one gap involving jumping through a tree, a playground that Tom Dunn absolutely destroyed and a railhop across the road from a police station just to name a fe w.

I witnessed a lot of crazy stuff on the trip, most of them involving Will Horan. That kid is loose, on and off a bike. I saw Tom Dunn escape death on numerous occasions and tell two waitresses not to split a $5 tip. I saw Tom Appleby gap a rail and completely miss all transition. I saw a roadtrain miss Will’s bare arse by about 30cms and a 60 year old woman trying to crack onto us. I saw nine guys sneak into a caravan park and sleep in a room meant for four. I saw a lot of beer drinking and shit-talking and I saw a tight group of mates shredding and having fun.

Unfortunately the trip turned sour on the Saturday seeing both Tom and Macca ending up in hospital. Tom went down hard at some trails trying to bail over the the bars but hooked his legs on the bars and got swung head first into , ground, he got knocked out and had some memory loss but luckily didn t split it. That killed everyones vibe at the trails so the cre w headed to Nerang. The night was starting to pick up until Macca looped out on an air and fractured both bones in his leg. Not a great way to end the trip. Get well soon mate!

Big thanks to Matty for inviting me on the trip and all the guys for being such a fun cre w to hang with. Keep checking temperedbikes.com.au for the video of the trip.

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George and Louis Bolter Words and photos by Tim Pierce

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One day, two Bolters, three locations.

Imagine two young guys that share similar looks, similar passions, similar mannerisms, along with the same infectious personality and your mind has conjured some sort of rough picture of the Bolter twins. George and Louis Bolter are the two next best things in the New Zealand BMX scene. They have grown up in Auckland, made a solid name for themselves and their riding speaks volumes.

I think the connection that these two have is incredible, (Yes I sound like a fag) and I have to wonder if they ever get pissed off as being referred to as the twins though I have never seen any sign of this.

They thrive off each other and seem to spend as much time together as they can. They live together, work together and ride bikes together. Maybe having someone there to constantly push you through your whole life is why they became so goddam good?

They’re rad people to hang out with, and even radder to shoot.

I had great ambitions to document these guys properly with my camera, but when it came down to it, alcohol got the better of me.

Before I knew it, it was me, Louis, George and the dance floor at 3am, repeatedly. The images that follow in this brief little insight are from one day with the two Bolters, at three different locations around Auckland.

Enjoy.

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TECH KNOWLEDGE THE FACES BEHIND THE SCENE

Power to the People

We the People have been a force in the BMX world for more than a decade now. Hailing from Germany, their approach to BMX has been a precision based one. We caught up with WTP partner and art maniac, Klaus Dyba to get the lowdown on the new complete range, working with artists and being flatland world champion back in the day. Interview by Holmes You’ve been the driving force behind the look and feel of WTP since the beginning.

So 1st up, when did WTP all start?

Wethepeople started as a T-shirt company around ‘93 or so. Can’t remember exactly when really. Then a Cologne distributor started to sell some Taiwanese stuff branded with the name Wethepeople around ‘96, but just in Germany. Around ‘98 Harry Schmid and I got into it cause we had a plan to try it worldwide, but with our own designed parts. So Harry got into the company to draw and design all the products, with me doing all the graphics. I worked for the German mag Freedom BMX as an editor and graphic designer at the time. After a while, I figured out it was just too much work to focus on both and I finally worked solely on Wethepeople.

Since 2002 it’s me and Harry running and owning Wethepeople.

How have you kept the motivation to keep stepping up on graphics/design and always expanding?

I think it is just the joy of doing something new that keeps me motivated. That’s also why Wethepeople’s styles always change, or that all decals look so different. I get bored really fast from my designs, so I always try to do something new. Mostly I like the stuff better from other companies, so this also keeps me motivated to do something new!

Your 2009 complete bike range was tight, but by the looks of it, the 2010 range is upping the anté in a huge way. Attention to detail is above and beyond what any company has ever attempted on a range of bikes. Is the process a nightmare with everything on the bikes basically custom?

Well, it’s the same for the bikes as it is for my graphic work. We are bored of old stuff so we always try something new. For 2010 we changed a lot. We are at a level now where we can invest in our own molds. So we did our own Salt tires, rims, brake levers and brakes. Even if we use OEM parts, we try to make them different, even if it is just a hub shell shape. This makes our bikes different I think. If you don’t do that, you just have the same parts on your bikes like everyone else and you can just see a difference thanks to the sticker design. Details are really important

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for us. Maybe we take it too serious sometimes, but it shows in the end result.

Maybe that’s the German way of doing something! But back to your question, it is indeed sometimes a nightmare to control all those things. It’s still all done by Harry and myself. We go to Taiwan each year and build all the sample bikes together by ourselves. So we see directly if something is wrong or needs to be improved. We have nightmares till the first production is coming out, cause you’ll never know if everything is perfect. There are hundreds of possible places to make mistakes. We do a lot of quality control, maybe more than others. We’ve also worked with the same makers for many years now. So we know what we’ll get and I think the shops and owners of our bikes recognize that as well.

What is the design process for a bike? Frame and part design, mock ups for colour choice and then graphics?

After interbike, Harry and I sit down together and look at our bikes. We look for what we don’t like and what makes it not look as good as it should, or what we can improve on. For example, last year it was tires. Most brands run the same OEM tires on their bikes (including us), cause there aren’t too many affordable OEM tires available that look good. So we thought there must be a way to make a cheap tire that actually has a modern, or nice tread and look. So we did it. Same with the stems. We found a way to make a nice looking stem for a price that you can use on a complete bike. After that, Harry redraws all the frames every year. He also does the bars and forks. We also try to make different frame designs for each model to make them unique in their own way. To have our own shop (www.peoples-store.de) helps a lot to stay updated in the BMX world. Mainly so we can react really fast to changes. Meanwhile I look for nice colourways and colour combinations. Mostly I check out shoe brands or snowboard websites for inspiration, cause they have the big money for good graphic designers. Then I do hundreds of combinations and try to figure out what looks best and what is possible to do in production. Mostly our ideas die because of the production costs. It is also important for us that all bikes have their own vibe and not just black or white (cough). The sticker artwork is my personal nightmare, cause I am really critical on my own work. If the sticker

TECH KNOWLEDGE INNOVATION 101

Let us introduce you to the 2010 Envy complete bike....

PHOTO Tony Nolan ISSUE 33 SEPTEMBER 2009

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