High stakes
I did my Dew Tour research this time and got to see all of the events.  BMX vert was first and it was crazy.   The very first rider they showed was Dennis McCoy.  Making a big deal about him being 40 and how he still goes 150%, etc, then he KO's himself on a double-bar spin.  Dave Mirra was the pro announcer and obviously a good friend of Dennis'.  He's talking him up, then the close-up shows that the lights are out at DMC's house and Mirra's "Oh man" comment is the kind of bummer, honest statement that comes out when something terrible happens and you don't know what else to say.  Jumping ahead to dirt and Ryan Guettler knocks himself out on a double back flip.  Fast forward to skate vert and Shaun White knocks himself out during a warm-up run, not even during the contest.  Then there was the Stephen Murray tribute, which was very touching and inspiring, but one of the toughest things to watch.  Stakes are high, kids.  This is the bad thing about these TV contests.  Watching 1080s and double back flips and triple whips and everything else, these tricks become accepted as "standard".  A kid watching this thinks  he has to do these tricks if he wants to be good at BMX (or skateboarding or MX).  It's insanity.  It's dangerous.  I don't even know what to think.  You can't make people not do crazy stuff.   You can't tell them "Try to keep it under control, boys, we don't want the kids at home trying this stuff".   It's exciting to watch, but as a "lifer" I see it in a semi-negative light.  BMX park is my favorite event to watch, of course, but a lot of it is just gross.  Whipping your bike around as fast as you can scores points (and $$$ in this case) but it looks terrible.  Do I sound old and jaded?  Maybe, but I know good style when I see it.

(I also know a bad photo of a TV screen).  Jamie Bestwick is incredible.  I could watch him ride all day.   If you saw this contest you saw his outrageous crash when his crank arm broke off on the way up the wall of the vert ramp.  It was bad, but it could have been so much worse.  Jamie did a down-side whip to table and it was beautiful.    Diego Cannina (sp?) did a tabled 360 that was just glorious during his park run.  Dave Mirra was great to watch as well.  Is it weird that all my favorites didn't win the contest?  Jamie probably would have won without his cranks Flying off, but he took second (he won the title for the year though). 

      About as far away from the Dew Tour as you can get, I built some more jumps in my yard.   The new "warm-up" line will make it easier for first-timers to get acclimated to the set up.  It's good for me too.  I've finally jumped all the jumps, except for one, hard to get to set.  I also tore down my first jump.  These low-roller doubles were just destroying the rhythm and have now become a single roller, which gives you more speed out of a good pump.    

      FOD Turbo Todd Britton keeps trying to get me to go this Mountain Bike set up in Grand Rapids. 

It looks super fun and I'm going to try to get up there before the weather gets too bad.  Yeah Todd.

      Sean Newton sent me this artsy shot from the Dowagiac park.  I don't know who it is or when it was taken, but it's cool...

   I thought it was Levi, but I think that he is rolling on the deck in the background.  Damn blurry photos.   Just kidding, Sean, it's beautiful.

    My favorite part of working on bikes is building wheels.  Of all of my old bikes from the 70s, the wheels are the best part.  I think they are truly works of art.  I'm not claiming to be an artist, but the way a wheel is assembled by lacing spokes in a pattern is very traditional experience.  I love the way the finished product looks.

That's a ten-year old hub and a Rhyno-Lite rim, but I think it looks good.  I'm still holding onto the titanium spokes that Dave Davenport sent me a couple years ago, just alternating them with steelies now.