Just another Fun Albe's weekend.
The Etnies bus is like a livingroom on wheels. i think we may have to trade the Albe's bus in soon for a newer, bigger model.
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The weekend started out with the Etnies team stopping by here for a few hours to hang out and with us and whoever wanted to stop by. Garrett Byrnes, Taj Mihelich, Brian Kachinsky, Sandy Carson, Ruben Alcantara and Sergio Layos showed up at about 3 pm to be greeted by about 100 screaming fans.
Ok they weren't really screaming but there probably was about 100 people here just to meet, talk to, and hang out with the Etnies crew. Seems as if the crowd favorite was Garrett Byrnes. Ya see...many of the guys that came here brought their girls and most of the girls wanted nothing to do with any of the riders other than Garrett. It got so bad that we decided we had to set up a Garrett Byrnes kissing booth even. Below are some of the photos from Friday.
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Sergio Layos and Sandy Carson sign a bike on one of our glass countertops.
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Taj and Garrett behind the counter signing posters.
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Could Flip and Taj look anymore alike??
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Garrett Byrnes scores all the ladys. Jamie Chalmers girl was the first in line at his kissing booth.
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Stevie Jessome's little sister Tiffany has been in love with Garrett since she was a little tubby 12 year old. Now she's all grown up and has fufilled her life long dream...to touch Garrett. At one point we heard her say "Garrett...I have an Audi out in the parking lot....wanna go for a ride?"
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Allen Schmalz showed up with his fun little kicker ramp for people to shread. Here Garrett does a nice turn down. Just seconds after this photo was shot Garrett fell in some loose gravel just riding along. hahahah.
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Allen Scmaltz front tire grab thing while goofing off.
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Garrett couldn't quite hit the light...what a sissy!
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Saturday the Etnies guys were doing a demo at the Modern Park in Novi. It was pretty cool the way the demo was set up. Instead of the Etnies guys just riding by themselfs most of the time they let anybody there ride with them. Highlites include Jamie Bestwick jumping the big hip higher than anybody ever has and doing nice stylish tricks over it too. Taj jumped over the rail into the new small mini and then 360'ed out of the mini over the other rail to the wedge. You would have seen it to understand but it was very cool. Sergio was riding the big mini like a vert ramp. 7' airs back to back with all his Sergio type tricks inbetween. Garrett was riding the pool so fast i got dizzy just watching. Sparks was putting on a good show too by double tailwhipping the big hip and coming quite close to flairing the makeshift vert wall about 3' above it. Some fellow i've never met before names Matt Lindsey did a nice barspin to fufanu on one of the rails out of the mini ramp (click here for a video clip) Below are some of the photos from the demo.
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Brian Kachinski killed the rail about 100 times in one run.
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Chris Hatfield took a day off to come ride with his favorite rider in the world...Joe Rich. Hatfield was pissed to see he didn't show up. So we decided he had to be Joe Rich for the day. He was OK with that.
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Kris Marcum strikes again. No crank icepick on a fence taller than most people.
Jamie Chalmers also did a fufanu on this same fence but when we went to shoot video of it he went over the fence and almost died. If you want to see a video clip of it click here.
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Sergio Layos looking back to see if his chain is tight.
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Sparks took it a few times doing this flair. He also took out Sandy Carson's flash.
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After the demo we all went out to eat and had a good time. Once dinner was done we said our good-byes to the Etnies crew as this was the last stop on their tour and they were off to head home. It was about 12am and we decided the night was still young so some of us made it over to Lee's house to check out his living room ramps and play the new Team Young game "THUNDER KICK". Thunder Kick is a cross between dodgeball, kick ball, boxing, and racket ball all in one played in a small living room in Lee's house on a beer soaked hardwood floor. The game is so harsh that Zeblin almost had his nose broken and he wasn't even playing.
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Kris Marcum is a treat to dine with. I'd suggest you take him out to dinner whenever you get a chance. Yes....there is toast in his coffee along with a bunch of other stuff that probably shouldn't be in there.
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We ran in the Allen Schmalz, his girl Erica and her cuz (above) on the way to the Thunder Kick Dome. They tried hard to get us to take dirty photos of them but we had to decline.
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The Thunder Kick Dome living room ramps are nuts. they are VERY tight and the ceiling is full of razor sharp spikes. If you touch it you will bleed!
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Kris Marcum did what most thought was impossible on these ramps. He somehow wall tapped the wall without putting his head through the ceiling. Most of us did leave with bloody knuckles or shoulders though. To see a little video of Marcum riding the Thunder Kick Dome living room ramps click here.
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Here Lee does his best Volleyball playing, Top Gun being Tom Criuse look a like while playing Thunder Kick.
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Thunder Kick is probably not the smartest game in the world. Sometimes while doing the move known as the "Thunder Slap" you can miss the ball (easy to do since the game is played in the dark) and a player will get slapped instead. Poor Jace.
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Sunday came around and Kris Marcum and Flip were off to a Nascar race. In typical Flip fasion he forgot the camera so the only only photos we have are below. It's ok though. It' would be pretty hard to catch the "Feel" of a NASCAR race on film.
Marcum removed his shirt sleeves, left on a mustache and wore a pair of nice Vult sunglasses trying to fit in at the NASCAR race. He couldn't even hang.
This guy sat in front of us and flipped off Jeff Gordon each time he drove past us....that was 200 times. Nice shirt.
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for more fun photos and storys from the weekend check out www.teamyoungbmx.com
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till next time
--Flip
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