NEW SHOWROOM NOW OPEN28 WALSH ST. THEBARTON. S.A 5031

advert

Photo: Michael Harris

Hey mate, lets start with your age and where you are from? Im 18 years old and live on the Westcoast of Perth.

Do you have a job or go to school? Apprentice plumber.

You recently got a bunch of clips in the latest Under-ground Visuals DVD. How did you find filming with Troy and the finished product? Troy has pretty much founded the Perth scene. He has spent a lot of money and time traveling over here to get the clips and, overall, I think he has done a bloody good job!

Was that the first time you have filmed for a DVD? Yeah, it was pretty amazing to see cameras that Channel 7 use.

Do you mainly ride street or are you open to hit what ever? Perth City is where its at, but work will stop you from getting there. I mainly hit up the local Carine skatepark, otherwise.

Are you filming for anything at the moment? Im a quarter of the way through a Perth mix that I want to release to DVD, which will cast Jamie Mauri, Jamie Warren, Tim Cawthorne, Dylan Matthews, Lindsay McMahon, myself and a big-ger than life Perth Mix.

Thats sweet! When are you planning to have this DVD out?I hope after winter. Ive just got to get my hustle on.

Being from the West have you done much travelling to hit new parts of the country? Yeah, Ive been to Melbourne and Canberra, which are two pretty amazing places. We need the Melbourne kids over here for a thrash. That means you, Coop!

Haha, this year for sure mate, we will come over.

So I hear you bet on 29 black? I do, I do! Thanks to Burswood Im up one pay check. And to all the falllen soldiers, Jamie ,Troy, Candy and Lindsy.

Whats the best thing about public transport in Perth? Awwwwl the singaaaaal ladies!

What is the most eventful and random experience youve had on the Perth train line? Well, there are a lot of Matt Hoffmans. Basically, everyone who is under the influence on the train pretty much tells us they are Matt Hoffman and could manual for about 1km. Also, meth heads and other whacked out creatures. There are a lot of native people in Perth that dont allow us to use public transport without causing trouble. You really have to be here to understand it.There is a special one that you should check out next time youre on You Tube - http://www. youtube. com/watch?v=hRZ3HBF9kD4.

The F.P expedition started off with me rounding up Marnold and H.T in Coops car. We arrived two hours early and as we didnt need to be at the ship until seven-ish we rode Port Melbourne skatepark to fill in the time while waiting for Big Jase, Sam and Troy to join us. It wasnt until we were loading our car onto the ship that the others thought they might turn up.

You know that feeling when youre about to start some-thing awesome, and you get all pumped and start freaking out like a kid? That was us as we ran to our seats on the ship, right before we realised that they would be our own personal hell for the next nine hours. Alright, the trip wasnt that bad on the way there. That might have something to do with an unnamed crewmember that was drunk before he even got on the ship and then continued to drink more until there wasnt one bar on the ship that would serve him or anyone near him. Maybe it was the Dicks all day call he was yelling at anyone and everyone that made them cut him off? We docked at Davenport at 6am, but before we set off we had to find our drunken member who was found face down on the couch in the bar lounge.

So from there its off to Launceston airport to pick up Coop and hit the skatepark to stretch our sea legs. But not before dropping into High Roller BMX to say howdy to Brad and check out his fresh shop. Launceston has a fun park filled with some really good local riders and one savage, dero looking alcoholic (yeah I wish I had spiders tattooed on my face too). So after a good shred we left to check into our first place of rest in Hobart. This in itself was a journey because on the way there Navman had us out front of an Army barracks telling us to drive through it even though the signs out front werent that keen on outsiders.

Skip forwards an hour, and were at Seven Mile Beach checking into our cabin. There was not a lot we could do there and with a heap of daylight left it was off to Hobart to eat and ride. After working out the crazy grid of one-way streets we got to E.C. skatepark where we meet up with Nick, Hugh and Travis to ride with them and their crew. E.C. is amazing! There are so many hips and banks to ride I wish every local park was like this except for the sprinkler that comes on at 8 oclock every night to wet the park. So for that I will use my name-less friends Dicks all day call directed towards the sprinkler man.

On that note, we left the park and hit some street. First spot on the radar was a neat rail with a drive way bank to one side and Coop was keen to bomb a feeble to over on it. This didnt go to plan as he dropped to some odd crooks grind and thought he would hop over from that. It ended in Coop smashing his knee in and cutting his hands up pretty badly. A couple of us talked about hopping it and I must have talked the most shit because I was called up to hop it. With full crew support and my confidence up I hoppedstraight into it. I ejected well enough to only get a rolled ankle. So street 2 - F.P. 0.

Tired and beaten we retired to our cabin to have some crazy French guy run up to our window yelling Fiiiya which Im sure he meant fire. We all ran out side to see a red glow in the sky, and yes it was a fire. two blocks away that is. Not passing up a good sticky nose, the boys walked on down only to see a couple of burning cars at someones property.

Day two had us meeting Nick and his boys at E.C. again for a warm up ride then some good street spots. We hit some of their favourite spots including the infamous training rail where a bit of filming got done as Sam Orchard had met up with us so we put his camera to full use. Things were going fine up until Coop goes to bomb the rail oppo and a gust of wind blows his front end off the rail sending him head first to the ground and his already shit knee into a big, dirty rock. The crash must have looked bad because it was the first time I didnt laugh at a crash. His knee blew out to the size of a football. No! It really did so I was pretty keen to get him to the hospital. In full Coop style, he instead just said, Next spot? From there it was off to a killer school where Nick was throwing himself around to get a clip. It was brutal, but thats why we love BMX, right? By now it had started to get on in the arvo so we settled for some amazing Indian food for tea and calling it a day.

Waking up to a fresh day and seeing Coops knee, I knew the hospital had to be a stop for him. His knee had turned black, purple and was kind of gross the kind of gross where you cant ignore it any more. We dropped the rest of the crew at E.C. park and did the hospital drop off. While Cooper spent his hours at the hospital, we enjoyed a rad show by Hugh and Travis riding their local. Hugh is one of those riders who cranks the fuck out of everything, smiling like some kind of speed psycho blasting smooth and stylish transfers from all angles. On the other hand, Travis chills a bit. He doesnt say too much until he drops in to boom some quarters before returning to chill again. I guess his riding does the talking for him.

On the fourth day, I swear the first word I heard was H.T. saying THRASH-ER in his deep, Lurch voice. By this pronouncement, the morning warm up was to be at Hobarts old snake-run bowl. Im not going to lie, as its rough, fast and really sketchy. The concrete was probably trowelled with what Im guessing was a shopping bag. But thats not to say it wasnt fun, because it is. Its just scary! From here it was a drive to Blackmans Bay to ride a really fun park that was, to me, like a bigger version of Lilydale bowl. Our boy, Troy, got his fang on by pulling all his old tricks out of the bag. It was good to see him riding so well, because he has been on the down low while waiting for a knee reconstruction. On the other end of the scale was the next park we visited, which was so shitty and useless that Troy asked if we could disown it. Good call! Back to Hobart to ride a nice, cool arvo of street. We came across this awesome bank spot where Jase has seen this very man-sized rail to over from the rail over height it was a good eight-foot drop. This was about the time when Jases cranks stopped living and sheared off the spindle. A quick fix was to steal injured Coopers cranks so Jase could shut this spot down. After some cocking around, the bikes were fixed and the clip was on film.

The next day we had to drop Troy off at the airport and head over to Burnie and surrounding areas. There is a perfect skatepark there and its out in the middle of a paddock with no shade, so it was fucking hot. I dont remember the name of the next spot, but what I do remember was Marnolds delight with all of the hick-looking bowl moles stacked as Marnold would call them. By this time, Cooper was getting his roll on thats no pedaling but just rolling around still smiling. It was kind of a chilled day because I think we were all starting to feel a bit used and abused by this point. So we headed to our new place in Launceston and grabbed some food. I thought it was going to be an early night, but Jase grabbed his bike out of the car and said the dreaded words that I was not in the mood for: Street ride? It takes nothing to get Coop fired up, so we hit up the streets, or Australias cruising circuit central, I think is its official term. We bumped into a local shredder by the name of Jack (I hope I got your name right) who showed us a bit of stuff so Jase could get some more clips done.

Right about now my notes start getting a bit shady because I was tired and shitty (when arent I?). The placed we stayed at was a red-necked caravan park where, when I went to go to the toiled I got stared at by some dude who spat on the ground as he watched me super intense. So from then on, it was go to the toilet in pairs or, even better, in a pack.

We wake up on I dont even know what day it is. All I know is that we are a day closer to going home. We headed back to Launceston skatepark to ride before dropping Cooper off at the airport. I think we were all keen to get home because after dropping Coop off two hours early, we headed straight back to Davenport to get a nights sleep before our early morning load onto the ship. I planned to stay up all night so I would sleep on the ship, but it didnt work out that way. All it did was make me shittier and even more tired! I swear, we got on the ship with a commune of bloody, tree-hugging hippies and the place stank so bad. ITS CALLED SOAP!!! Did I mention that its nine hours back to Melbourne? To make some kind of fun on the trip, Marnold and I just rambled some stupid shit in our seats, only to have some older man get up, point straight at Marnold and threaten to get security.

In hindsight, seven days in Tasmania could have been too long but were a tight crew and we kept it together and enjoyed each others company, most of the time. Tassie is a great place and very easy to get around. I dont have much more to say, so Im just going to leave you wondering what the hell Im on about!

Troy Jackson 270 tuck over one of the hips at EC park.

sandmbikes.comeciimports.com