Archive for the ‘Article’ Category

Posted on October 1, 2009 - by ChrisDub

StupidBMX – Circa 2001

StupidBMX was started pretty early in my college days, around 2001. I was taking DIT (Digital Imaging Technology) at TSTC with my buddy Andrew, learning how to use Photoshop and build websites. We were meeting a bunch of kids those days that either rode bikes, or were interested in riding bikes.

I had wanted to make a website for awhile. I found Geocitie’s WYSIWYG editor, gathered a bunch of photos together, and got it all online with the idea it would be the spot to go for all the BMX kids in the South Texas region.

StupidBMX was pretty much where the seed was planted for RGVJuice.

Those were some good days, lots of road trips, riding with the McAllen kids, running from the police, and general fun-ery. Back when we had no jobs,  no girlfriends, and no responsibilities. Everything we saw was worth trying to ride.

Click image for full view.

Yahoo is closing the Geocities service down on October 26, and I wanted to put together a little memorial post here on ‘Juice.

Below you’ll find a bunch of photos from the StupidBMX site. Enjoy the time warp, and be sure to check out the original geocities.com/stupidbmx before it’s gone forever.

Thanks to Tanner for grabbing all these photos off the site.

Posted on February 13, 2009 - by ChrisDub

Although Fruitfull

Although fruitful, the Rio Grande Valley has never been quite enough to fully satisfy the appetites of its local skaters. Over the past half-decade we have had visitors from Monterrey Mexico consistently travel into the United States for multinational sessions in both the Valley and San Antonio. Despite the inescapable language barriers of a few of us monolingual rollers, we have found the one language that we can understand is that of skating.

So on a late February weekend we decided to finally venture down to Monterrey Mexico to see what all the fuss was about. It began on a bus ride from McAllen that was far more inexpensive and comfortable than any plane ride I have ever taken. Plush seats, televisions, and with a blink of an eye the tungsten city lights of Monterrey were before my eyes. Myself, along with my brother Damien, the local master of film, as well as our guide and local multinational rollerblader Josh Villegas grabbed a taxi to his house where we became situated for the weekend ahead.

Just walking out on his mountain side balcony was nothing but an awe inspiring moment, and just like that all our doubts about the straight up wickedness of Mexico were gone. And so, as late as it was, the skating began.

We drove out to a spot that was nothing short of perfect. A stepped ledge, perfectly lit up, that slid like glass. The air was thin, but remarkably energizing as there was no risk of our skating being thwarted by any objecting forces of evil ignorance. Pictures were not optimal under the light, but film was taken as I disaster alley-oop soyaled the second level of ledge with a 180 off the end.

From there we ventured to the second spot of the night, a long kink rail down a side of a strange walkway. The security immediately came out as we stretched out. Local skaters Danny and Adrian aka Panico skated over to see if the spot was a bust. The security just wanted to see us do the rail, my love for the country grew. Danny, Josh, and Adrian began sessioning the Kink rail, making it to a few kinks before being kicked off into the stairs or grass. I became brave, jumped on the rail with what I thought would be a chill back full torque and proceeded to twist, fall, and slam my hip into the rail. From that moment on, rolling hurt like hell just moving, and boy I remembered why I loved it so damn much.

After skating the rail and seeing what we believed were indeed real life zombies roaming the streets, we finished our session at the local skate park. The park is actually located under an expressway, made up of old ramps from an old pay park, and boy is it enjoyable. Spine ramp, grind rails, and lots of other goodies, lit up all night for your enjoyment. Apparently, a local politician is a strong supporter of the local biking, boarding, and skate scene and does his best to maintain the park as he can.

Finally, at about 4 in the morning we finished our night and ended the night with some shady tacos across the street from the skate park. Word on the street was that they were actually “gato tacos”, but hey, a taco is a taco.

We started our Saturday at some long smooth ledges at a clinic. Josh pulled off some blazing fast truspin mizou’s along with some savannahs. Danny showed his style with some nice topside torque souls, tru mizous, and finished the ledge off with a nice fishbrain and hardspin front farv to topsoul switch up.

From that spot we headed out to a side walk to wallride that Josh knew about. I took some decent photos of josh wallriding with a grab while Damien filmed and off we went to our next spot.

We tried to hit up some long white handicap rails at this school of sorts but the thing didn’t slide well and everybody was pretty busted up already. Danny, with my direction since I had given up on my own skating, pulled off a nice topsoul 540 off a drop rail followed by a full torque 360 out for the camera.

So off we went to another wall ride where both Danny and Josh pulled off some beautiful shots with the mountain backdrop. The bank was really smooth and just fun to roll up and down as you rolled down the street.

While driving we saw some insanely down rails in a park so we decided to check it out and see if there was anything to skate. It was a kind of strange place. The security in front made us take off our skates so we all put them away with the exception of Danny who hid his pair in his backpack. We paid a whopping 5-peso admission each and made our way in. I did however have my SLR camera slung around my shoulder and the lady security guard stopped us and hassled us about it. I’m really not sure why it even mattered but she said we could not take any pictures. We said we wouldn’t, having a feeling all she really wanted was a good ol’ Mexican bribe. It was just an empty park with no real point till we saw some wicked cement slides next to the insane rails we wanted to try. We opted to spare our lives and not attempt the rail and instead slide down the cement. So we pulled out with some nice standing up and fakie shoe cess slides down the sucker. Really, why on earth does the United States not have insanely dangerous, yet fun things like that?

So, after we had our fill of that we headed out for food eventually opting to go back to the place and order some Dominos pizza. We were kind of hoping the crazy motorcycle delivery guy would have a serious accident since in Mexico they still have that 30 minutes or less or its free deal. Alas, no dice, good pizza though. Just wondering why on earth people would want it to come with so much damn picante sauce?

So after the stomachs settled we ventured out to the local skate park again and had a funny little session. Got a few pictures there and met up with another local rollerblader named Valdo, crazy guy, knows English, which became useful later in the night. So, we chilled there, fended off some shady street vendor character who kept eyeballing our shoes and cameras, then headed home.

We went out that night to barrio where we met up with Danny’s girlfriend Monica’s friends. It was lots of fun, danced, drank, and laughed at the total lack of communication between the girls and us. And that was pretty much it, we were convinced we dug the city and that’s why we have been going back every weekend since.

And let me tell you this much, Monterrey rollerbladers are freaking crazy. There really aren’t so many chill spots so they end up skating some stuff you wouldn’t normally consider.