So for some god awful reason it was over 90 degrees in Portland yesterday. What happened to spring? Well a few of us still wanted to ride, so we loaded up Slo’s car, and headed up to the new Battle Ground park. They have lights up, and it’s open til 11pm, pretty good escape from the sun. Surprisingly, it wasn’t too crwded so we had a pretty fun session. I got to stick my foot in my front tire, and before going getting swell-bow from a nose wheelie, I went around the circle. Before riding down some stair no handed, Spencer fired out this gap to smith, while Slo danced. It was a great way to break in the summer heat. CHeck out this contest if you’re around Reno on June 3rd.

Getting ready for some summer time cruising, so I picked up a 1976 CJ360. Sorry mom, but I needed a new toy. Rich is also pushin a different style whip these days. The freecoaster is gone, and it got a new coat of paint. Oh yeah, some new tires too!

Got a few videos for ya today. First off is Rickey Bates. Rickey is a member of the Sparky’s Distribution test force. In this video he’s runnin a Pandora frame, with the Pandora forks. Check out Rickey killin the streets HERE.

Second, is Hoang and his boys in the Give D commercial. It’s YouTube quality, but it’s some badass riding, with some stand out moves. Check the commercial HERE.

Hoang is amazing on his bike, unfortunately someone else wanted to ride like him, and thought having his bike would make that happen. Little do they know, that they’ll suck on any bike they’re on. I bet by now, the bars are Chicago’d, the seat is high, and it’s spray painted silver. Anyway, Hoang has a new bike on the way, and will be heading up to the northwest in no time.

Here’s the second installment of Hoang’s photo of the week.

This was the first day of summer for Nick and I, (Nick
is one of the few other riders in San Diego that goes
to college). Nick and I happen to attend the same
school and on this day we decided to both go to the
beach to meet up with some friends. We rode our bikes
bare foot to meet up with them. On the way we decided
to take this photo of him barspinning with no shoes on
(no school, no shoes, no problem). I figured it was
the perfect photo to start summer break. WOOOOHOOOOOO
Summer Break!!!!

Rich is testing a sample of his Alameda forks. They have a smaller degree of offset for a steeper front end. They are rediculously light, and we’re backing them with a lifetime warranty! Sorry, front mag not included. Rode the new Glenhaven park last night, and a little rat kid was heard saying to Ken “You ride like Micheal Jackson.” If anybody knows what the even mean email me, cause I have no idea. Yeah Shad!

Lucky me! I get to put together a new Pandora frame, and also get to start testing the Subrosa forks. Rich, Hoang, and Eli will also be getting down on the forks in no time. Eli, was psyched to get his and said ” Holy crap these are light!” We’ve added a few subtle features to these, and we’ll be letting you know the specs, and details soon. Also, it shouldn’t be long now till the frames will be here, start hittin up your favorite shop or mail order to get em in quick. We’ll also be working with Ride U.K. on some give-a-ways in the future with the first few frames sold, so be on the lookout for details on how to get a free subscription.

I just got home from an awesome East coast roadtrip. It all started off in Florida, where we spent a lot of time workin on some upcoming Subrosa products. Most of these will be released around interbike, but we’ll keep ya posted on how the samples are workin out. Next stop was Atlanta for a Shadow Conspiracy trip. It was such a good time. We went a different route with this trip, and instead of driving around the whole state, we were based in Atlanta the whole time. It worked out great. We had a house instead of worrying about finding hotels, and we were only 20 minutes from downtown. This gave us a perfect chance to explore the whole city. We found a spot that looked straight out of a Tony Hawk game, and I saw an R2D2 mailbox. The mailbox is still there, but unfortunatly we didn’t stay at the spot. I ended up back in Florida for a minute, and thanks to everyone at Sparky’s I shared a birthday party with Johnny Devlin. Johnny also came along on the Atlanta trip, and killed it. F.Y.I. Johnny lives on no sleep and cracker jacks, so start sleeping less, and collecting those free prizes if ya wanna shred like him.

Hoang loves to shoot photos. He takes photos so much that we decided to give him a weekly feature. We’ll post up a photo of his choice, and he gets to write a little background of the photo. Hope you enjoy. Here’s the first installment.

“One day I decided to skip school just go take some
photos for fun. My friends Kyle and Ron joined me
on my one day escape from school. We ended up heading
east, really far east, of San Diego and ended up at
some old abandoned trains. I spent like 20 minutes
climbing up and through some shady window of one of
the main trains only to find out that the there was a
little trap door at the front of the train that was
unlocked. I took some photo inside the train and this
happen to be a portrait of Kyle”.

–Hoang

I just spend a week down in Florida working on a bunch of Subrosa products with the Sparky’s crew. Got to see a sneak preview of the new Shadow Conspiracy line, which looks so good, dialed in my bike with a bunch of new stuff, and got to hang out with the hardest working man in BMX, Ronnie B., even had a few drinks with a Backstreet Boy. Florida is always a good time.