-BLVCK

-BLVCK

You can always count on Zane Meyers for some great FGFS content. Zane shot down to Long beach with the Us Versus Them FGFS and Skateboard team and hit up Active HQ’s skatepark. The Us Versus Them team has always been known to innovate in the world of FGFS. When you have people like Johnathan Davis, Devon Lawson and Steve Jensen on the same team you are going to get a lot of diversity. It really is the smartest way to bring a team together. Get a bunch of guys who all ride differently and they are going to push each other. The ending of this video is very fitting. I am not going to give it away, but this is usually how most sessions end. Zane is bridging a gap here bringing skateboarding and FGFS together in one video. Most FGFS riders already pay attention to skateboarding, and from what I have seen a lot of them can also skateboard. The skateboarding scene on the other hand doesn’t pay much attention to FGFS. I think it mostly has to do with that fact that there is already so much going on in the skateboarding world that they really just don’t have the time to pay attention to other things. Will this video help bridge that gap? I can’t say. All I can tell you is it is a move that needs to be made for the survival of FGFS. Hitting a bigger audience can only help FGFS grow. Great Video, good vibes, and the important thing is that these guys had a lot of fun.

-BLVCK

-BLVCK

-BLVCK

Royal HC swung for the fences getting JBALL and Elliot in this edit! This is one of the best pieced together FGFS edits that I have seen in a while. Yes we get awesome Matt Reyes edits every month, but that is one man doing his thing. It is very refreshing to see that there are other great filmers and edits out there down to film FGFS. It is really about moving into the future. I love that line, “moving into the future”. Businesses miss that every single day. See years ago before the internet the only way someone could find a particular business was to use this thing call the “Phone Book” also known as the “Yellow Pages”. This book would show up on your door every couple of months and you could flip through the different categories to find businesses. I know it sounds low budget. It was. It was the easiest way that you could find some form of specialty store in your local city. If businesses in that city were really wealthy they might run a local commercial. A local commercial only played on TV sets within your certain area. You always knew it was a local commercial because the quality was for shit, and the sounds was always terrible. Hey advertising is advertising. Now we have the internet and instead of paying for a local commercial we film videos and host them online and they do the same thing. Some businesses understand this concept and realize that this is the new TV. Others are still stuck in the past and cannot fathom the reach that an internet video can touch. An internet video can be viewed all over the world at anytime of the day, 365 days out of the year…FOR FREE! As a business or company you need to focus on the free part. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t any cost to you. If you are smart you are going to find and pay for a good filmer and editor. See putting out a shit video on the internet does the same thing that putting out a shit local commercial did back in the 80′s and 90′s. It doesn’t help your business. If I watch a video and at the end of it I think, “I could have done that.” It is not doing what it is supposed to do. On the other hand, if I watch a video online and walk away with amazement it not only makes me think that the filmer and editor did a great job, it also makes me think that the company behind the edit must be doing really well to afford filming of that caliber. It’s the new business card. If I handed you my name and number scribbled on a piece of paper and told you that my business was doing well you would no doubt think that I am lying. At the same point if I handed you a business card made out of gold harvested from the fires of Mt. Doom you would think my business was the one that rules them all. See how that works. In the business world they call this ROI which stands for Return On Investment. When a business invests money into something like filming an edit they are hoping that the edit will lead to future product sales. So if they spend $1000 on an internet video they are normally looking for a 110% ROI. So they are hoping that they spend $1000, and make $11,000 in sales. Did Royal HC spend any money to make this edit happen? I have no idea, maybe they just have some homies that know how to film, but the idea still remains. You watch this edit and you walk away thinking Royal HC must be successful at what they do. Which means that the products they make must be amazing. They make straps. Looking at this video as compared to others they have put out in the past, they must be amazing straps and be selling better than crack in a project building. This is all thanks to the filmers and editors of this video. I take the time to point this out because the filmers and editors never great the praise they deserve. When we watch video we always praise the rider for the tricks they do. We never take the time to praise the dude who made that rider look great on film. Easiest way to prove that it is partly the filmer who deserves praise in any edit is when you as a rider travel to a location you watched in a video. When you show up at that stair set, or ledge that looked crazy in some edit and realize that it is half the size of what it appeared to be in the edt you quickly realize the magic the people behind the lenses add to edits. These guys murdered this edit. And after it was all said and done, the humble men that they are, thanked JBALL and Elliot for allowing them to film them. Mad Respect guys.

-BLVCK

https://vimeo.com/59308158

BLVCK

-BLVCK

This is a great look at Traffic Distribution from the 2012 Euro Bike. This edit must have taken a lot of work. I say that partly because the editing is super intricate, and partly because Euro Bike went down in August of 2012. That means this edit was 6 months in the making. After watching this I must say it was well worth the wait. That has to be the hardest part for filmers. As a filmer you have to make a call between production value and promptitude. Great edits take time. On the other hand, people are not great at waiting. When an event or contest goes down viewers want to see it as soon as humanly possible. Either they were in the video and want to see how they looked, or they missed the event and want to see what they missed. Either way, people want a quick turn around. There is only so much a filmer can do during editing when he has 24 hours to turn out a video. This is especially hard when someone else is flipping the bill and paying you. You have to work on your employers deadlines. Occasionally as a filmer you get to do side projects. Things that you are piecing together for fun. That is my favorite time to film. You can spend weeks working on the edit and trying out different effects. It’s a project of passion. Some how I believe without knowing if I am right, that this was a project of passion. The frame ticks in this edit take a ton of time and matching everything up to the beat is always a pain in the ass. The more time you invest, the better the edit is going to be, and this is a prime example of that.

Wheel Talk and Matt Reyes seem unstoppable lately. Wheel Talk is no longer a website, Wheel Talk has just become a movement. We need a bunch of Wheel Talk T-Shirts hitting the streets. I need to see stickers everywhere. I need to see some Wheel Talk Tattoos in my life. I want a picture of Matt Reyes’ face on a t-shirt with the slogan “Yes We Can” written underneath. I am going to throw this out there and if you don’t like it, feel free to throw it on back. I believe that Matt Reyes is saving FGFS. I know riders are getting better and more companies are popping up everyday, but at the end of it all most companies are hurting. The money just isn’t there…unless you’re Pure Fix. Actually, some could argue that they are doing poorly because of Pure Fix. Pure Fix is the Walmart of fixed gears. “Wait did he just dis one of his own advertisers?” Nope. I don’t deal with the advertising on this website and further more we don’t charge for advertising. So, I can’t really get in trouble. Besides it’s called Journalistic Integrity. It means that as a writer you put your opinions above everything else. You cannot be bought. I am broke so I know that no one has bought me. Someone should give Matt Reyes a big check though.

Quick Sidebar: if you are over the age of 18 it is never acceptable to spell though as Tho. It doesn’t make you cool, it just explains why you are currently taking classes at a junior college and your girlfriend’s parents keep telling her she can do better. And she can do better because you can’t even spell.

Actually that gets me thinking about a lot of things that adults shouldn’t do…which means if you are over 18 you should pay attention to these things.

Adults should not get angry if someone does not like a certain genre of music. It’s called freedom of choice. This is not Nazi Germany.

Adults should not wear any t-shirts that has a logo on it; unless the company is giving them to you for free/discount. Yes, you might love a company and want to support it, but they don’t support you. It’s purely one sided. Why is someone going to pay you when you are willing to do something for free? Think about it.

Adults shouldn’t give other adults advice unless they ask you for it. No exceptions…EVER. Your life is just as fucked up as your friends and you are in no position to lend advice to ANYONE until you get your shit together. Finding Jesus is NOT getting your shit together!

Adults should never under any circumstances, live with their parents. Step one of being an adult is learning how to stand on your own two feet. Exception for this rule is that you are allowed to OCCASIONALLY call your parents and ask for money. But in this case it must be a loan and you must pay it back. Have some pride in yourself.

Adults should never pay to go to a concert. There are plenty of great bands in your local area who need support and play free shows. If a band or artist really wanted you at their show they wouldn’t charge you.

Adults should never lend an opinion about a subject in which they are unversed. If you do not know how to build a bike frame from scratch, you should not call one ugly. Same goes for shouting at the tv when an athlete screws up. You can’t play professional football, so in no way are you educated enough to tell a player through the TV that “he should’ve caught that!” etc.

Adults should never take their own self portrait. Instead you should ask yourself, why no one you know is willing to take your picture. Also, arms length is not the optimal distance for a self portrait.

Adults should never refer to an instagram picture as “artsy.” It’s Instagram… that’s the point and anyone can do it.

Adults should never have arguments with their significant other online. Facebook and Twitter are not forums to have an argument. If you can’t even be in the same room when having an argument, or wait until you are in the same room to argue, than you might as well just go on a talk show and get paid to look like an ass.

Adults should never watch MTV, that’s right I said it! If you really want to kill your brain cells acid works at a much faster rate.

Adults should never clap. People no longer need celebration aloud. Instead, if someone wins an award or something that typically results in clapping, think positive thoughts and remain silent. “Clap in your mind.” After all … this is 2013.

Adults should never wear primary colors. These colors have been around for centuries. They were discovered by cavemen. We need to evolve and select the colors of the future.

Adult men should never own a cat. You are not a woman … enough said.

Adults should never wear hats. Hats were designed to shield our eyes from the sun. We have now invented sunglasses which accomplishes this more effectively making hats obsolete. Furthermore, hats display to people in other countries how low our countrymen’s IQ’s really are indicating that they cannot figure out how to properly wear a hat. They either end up wearing it backwards or some other incorrect way.

Adults should never wear beanies. This is only because some adults cannot seem to figure out what temperature is optimal for beanie wearing. I will help you out. If you do not need gloves to keep your hands warm it is NOT beanie temperature.

Adults should never complain about the city they live in. If you do not like the city in which you currently reside, you are always welcome at anytime to move. If you do move and then proceed to complain about your new city I have an answer for you. It is not the city … it is you … and the problem that you keep running into every time you move is that YOU bring YOURSELF along.

Adults should never tell other adults what to do…EVER…wait…what…fuck! Why they hell did I just write all of this shit!?! Stupid fucking rules!

-BLVCK

The Still Pour Crew has been on a filming push for the last 5 months. As one of my co workers put it, “these guys came out of nowhere.” That’s not true. No one can come out of nowhere. They had to come from somewhere? They had to exist all along. In the intro of this video alone, clearly you can see that Taylor has his stall game on LOCK. This isn’t something a rider picks up in a matter of months. This is something that takes a long time to perfect. He had to go out there and practice everyday. I even heard a rumor that while Taylor was perfecting his stalls, his friends would place a bed of nails on the ground beneath him. It was intentionally designed so he wouldn’t spend all of his efforts having to buy yet another set of tubes punctured by a bed of nails. That’s motivation right there. At first they didn’t start riding in that extreme of an environment. They tried the old, “the ground is lava” approach first. But as we and Taylor know, the ground was not lava. So as much as he would try to visualize that the ground was in fact lava, in the back of his mind Taylor knew all along that the ground was indeed not lava. Now as for the bed of nails … you can actually touch and see a bed of nails… and that’s not fun. I  heard Ramon didn’t use just plain ol’ nails… he used rusted nails … that he found at a desolate construction site. That way if Taylor did fall, not only would he need new tubes but he would also need a tetanus shot. Nothing is worse than falling on a bed of rusted nails, only to wind up getting stuck with a needle shortly thereafter. Now THAT is real motivation. It really got me thinking on how to properly motivate a person. I sat down and compiled a list of the different ways we as a society already motivate individuals….

Positive Reinforcement - This is a normal one. It usually consists of people telling you up lifting shit like…

“You can do it!”

“I believe in you!”

“You’re the best around! No one is ever gonna keep you down!”

“You got this…even though we all have been at this spot trying to get this clip for the last 4 hours.”

 Negative Reinforcement - This uses the opposite approach and is also known as hating. These statements consist of negative shit like…

“Dude you are never going to get this… just give up already.”

“Weak bro.”

“You’re okay, but you are never going to be as good as JBALL.”

“The only reason you are sponsored is because you created your own brand and pro’d yourself.”

Kidnapping - Sometime in order to motivate we need someone to realize what they might lose if they don’t comply to our demands. There are some flaws with kidnapping really… the main one is that no one ever follows the rules… for example…

“Do not contact the police or the girl dies.” Even with the threat of that magnitude they always contact the police! Every kidnapper always insists that you DO NOT contact the police… every single one, but no one ever listens. It’s really frustrating as  a kidnapper when the first thing you tell people NOT TO DO they ignore.

“Come alone.” They never come alone. Jesus, this rule is easier than the first rule. How hard is it to come alone? 90% of your day you are alone. So why they hell is it so hard to be alone that day? It’s almost as if you don’t value the life of the person we kidnapped at all.

Fear of Certain Death – This is actually the most effective way to motivate someone. No one wants to die and the idea that they might actually die scares them into doing anything you want them to do. Think about the previous idea of kidnapping someone. The first step is to kidnap them. This usually involves pointing a gun at someone and telling them to come with you or you are going to kill them. Then you proceed to take them to a secluded place where killing them and disposing of the body becomes easier. When a kidnapper firsts grabs you, you’re either at home or some public place where someone might see them. In this case, if shot you might get help quick enough to survive. Instead however, we opt for a secluded place where no one can hear us scream. This is all in the hopes that it will all be okay. Governments for example, always use the fear of certain death. It’s how they talk us into going to war, raising taxes, or even voting for a President. It’s very effective if you think about it. No one can think clearly when they are under the impression that they are going to die.

Fear – Earlier we talked about the fear of death, but there is also just plain ol’ fear itself to motivate. That is why we wake up and go to work everyday when we hate our jobs. We fear being broke, homeless, not being able to pay our bills, starvation, etc. Majority of the time as human beings, we do things because we are fearful of the consequences if we DO NOT do them. The fear of not knowing keeps most people right where they are in life. We work jobs we hate to pay for things we don’t need. But the fear of not having those things is a weight that sits on our chests. I think that’s why we like apocalyptic movies and post-apocalyptic books so much. Because it’s a fresh start. A way to rewrite how the world turns. In apocalyptic situations the people never work a job. They are only focused on surviving by any means necessary. They take what they need. That idea of just taking what you need is very exhilarating.  It’s way better than working hard to just scrape by.

Competition - Another great motivator is competition. People love to compete and prove that they are better than others. We do it everyday. We brag about how big our house is,  how nice the car we drive is,  how much better  fixed gear’s are, how mush hotter our girlfriend’s are, and so on. We brag about being more successful. We brag that our company is better than your company. Or we just simply match people against each other in some form of an event. Like a race or trick comp. Some people get motivated in the heat of competition. They would rather get broke off and go home hurting than lose. People train for competitions. Nothing says I am better than you than some form of medal or trophy. We are a society that puts people in competition for no reason. Like the Academy Awards for example. The Academy Awards honor people for the ability to pretend to be someone else. If you really think about it, it’s kinda weird. Why? Because there is no basis for most of the characters that these actors play in movies. Forrest Gump was not a real person and did not live the life shown in the movie. So how can we say that Tom Hanks played an amazing character? Has anyone else played Forrest Gump in order for us to compare to Tom Hanks? No. So how can we really know that he did an amazing job if he’s the only person to ever do that job? Everything is always good until you see another version that’s better. Or the opposite. For example, when Hollywood makes a remake of a great movie most people tend to like the original better. We know we enjoy the film more because we have something to compare it to. It’s how FGFS and fixed gear edits work. We know we like one edit better than another because we have watched them both. So theoretically, all of the videos we post are in competition with one another because we have something to compare it to.

Love - By far this is the most powerful of all motivations. If we love doing something and it makes us happy, we put a lot of hard work into it. This is what usually separates the successful from the non. We all need a reason to get up in the morning and do what we do. If we love what we do, that is all the reason we need. At the end of it all… if we love what we do, none of the above can motivate us to do it differently.

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Jakob Santos is one of the most motivated riders out there right now. I say that because he is constantly traveling. I know what some of you are thinking, “All pro’s travel.” No, they really don’t. All pro’s wish they could travel, but they can’t. Why? MONEY. I wish we lived in a better world that allowed people to pursue the things they wanted to without the fear of going broke, but we do not. It costs money to travel. Even if you drive like Santos does a ton, you still have to contend with Gas money. It cost a lot of money in gas to get anywhere. Some sponsors will cover the occasional trip here and there, but for the most part they won’t fund every trip that you want to take. Sometimes the Pro’s have to pay for their own expenses. Which means when a pro is traveling he is losing money. This isn’t skateboarding; pro’s are not getting huge checks every month from their sponsors. Some of the pro’s in FGFS don’t even get checks, they just get free shit. Don’t get me wrong, getting free stuff isn’t a bad thing. The only problem is that they guy working at the gas station will not fill up your tank for a set of handlebars and a crank set. As a Pro you end up having to find a way to pay rent, all of your other bills, and still come up with enough money to travel and film. That’s why with a lot of riders all of their edits are filmed around where they live within about 3 cities. Most Northern California riders never travel down to So Cal and vice versa. That’s why I get hyped when riders like Jakob Santos basically go broke trying to bring us new footage from new places. You gotta respect the hustle.

I’ve been really tired lately. I am not sure why, but for some reason it feels like the weight of the world is on my shoulders. That being said Devin brought me up a today seeing this edit. Devin’s inventive style lends to an array of tricks on obstacles that most would think impossible to hit. My personal favorite is his different approaches to stairs. He brings something different to the table and that is always refreshing.

Back to me being tired. Like I said for some reason everything that could go wrong, is. It makes it really hard to stay motivated. That being said I am a man and I just need to keep moving forward and push all that negativity back into a place deep in the back my mind where I forget it is there. Why? Because that is what men do. Men don’t bitch; at least they shouldn’t. Men keep walking forward. Men push on. Men do not fixate. Most importantly, men do not have crisis’. A guy I know is suffering from what he calls an identity crisis. He dropped out of college because he doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life. He moved in with his girlfriend because he can’t afford to pay his own rent. When I heard this story I think the person telling me was expecting me to show some form of compassion. I didn’t. I called him a BITCH. Why? Because men do not have crisis’! Do you realize that tomorrow the world could break out into war? Tomorrow an asteroid could smack into the Atlantic ocean. Tomorrow your miserably, waste of a life could end. Those are crisis’! Dropping out of college because you have no idea what you want to be is not a crisis’. That’s like calling a scrapped knee a “BATTLE SCAR”. The men of the world today are really boarding on the line of being given the right to be called a man. The men of yesteryear hustled there asses off supporting 6 kids, a wife, and all of the bills. That was a man’s job. Back in those days women didn’t work, they stayed at home and took care of the children. Men needed to be providers. Hundreds of years before that men found that same role, only instead of paying the mortgage, they were out in the wild hunting dinner. What about the men of today? Are they really putting food on the table? Are they hustling? Most are just bitching about problems, and complaining that, “the world is never going to change.” It’s not going to change because you are a bitch and the only time the world ever changed is when MEN gathered together and rode off to certain death to change it. Really!?! Identity Crisis!?! You probably piss sitting down like a girl. Man Up!