Bustin’ balls in Austin, Texas.
Thursday, February 21st, 2008
Last weekend, we packed up Nigel Sylvester, Dave Rytell, MirracoFlo rider Drew Hosselton, Wade Young on video and myself on the Canon and headed out to Austin for some innocent BMX fun…well, that was the plan anyway. It was a 2 day trip so the plan was to hit up as many spots as possible to shoot some new ads and vids.
Day 1: First spot in downtown Austin was a rail behind a hotel that was a bust in about 2.5 minutes. Second spot was a ridiculous hop to ledge to 15 foot carry with a 15 foot drop over a couple of concrete planters that Rytell threw a huge clean 360 over and down. Look for this in an upcoming ad…stupid ridiculous. Third spot was to the bike shop to fix a flat on Rytell’s bike where we found a cool double kink rail in a park to the southwest of the city. That was cool for about 30 minutes until it became a bust. Fourth spot was a really cool angled wall to bridge to grass slope setup where both Rytell and Drew threw some pretty cool stuff which again, you will see in future Mirraco ads.
Fifth spot was a red flat rail where Nigel found his game. Sixth spot was behind the Four Seasons hotel where once again Rytell did what Rytell does. Crazy speed jump down 3 separate really steep 10-stair sets to 360 off a 5 stair set to tailwhip to super steep hillside landing with trees….and no brakes…Seventh spot was the the University of TX. Bad idea……baaaaaaaaaad idea (damn you Losey!!) ….Eighth spot, jail. More on that some other time….end of day one.
Day 2: First spot was the bonding office, wasn’t that good really, I can’t recommend it. Second and final spot was the 9th street trails. I only wish we had more time to spend there. This place rules and the locals do an amazing job of keeping the place top notch. Big hits, small hits, dirt quarterpipe type jump that Rytell was flairing, transition to tree, lots of cool stuff. It’s a must go if you hit up Austin, but respect the locals since they’re the ones doing all the work to make and keep that place the legend that it has become.
So, in the end, I would say Austin is a pretty cool city, but it can be and in our case was a bust. The only advice I have is that if you run from the law, you dang well better make sure you get away…and by all means, don’t ever go there if you’re from NY.
Even the big $$$ pros crash. Here’s some proof. Enjoy.
Sean Hargraves | Mirraco