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Since the second that I heard the word that the X-Games were coming to Philadelphia, I knew how I was going to spend my time off from work this Summer. A little pre-planning and an early request ensured that three press passes were received by BMXTRIX for this years X-Games. Two videographers, one photographer and a two hour car drive were all it was going to take to make this the best vacation that I have ever had. I hope...

Friday August 17th rolled around and we were going to leave super early in the morning... only it turned into early afternoon by the time we were actually packed up and ready to go. A full sized computer in the van along with all the cameras and other needed gear and we were set. The drive was pretty much uneventful and finding the location of the Games was a joke. There are about a hundred signs that point to the stadium in Philly so within about fifteen minutes of getting into town we were at the parking lot we needed to be in. That is without a doubt the nicest part of having a press pass - getting reserved parking near the major contests.

When we were parked we finally realized HOW big the X-Games phenomenon is. Half a mile of walking through a large stadium taking dark stairways down then freight elevators up, and we were at the top of a stadium in the press boxes begging for a fourth photo pass for the week... no luck. A fourth person had joined us yet nothing was able to convince ESPN that they really could give us an extra pass - oh well.

For the rest of the day we walked around and tried to draw in the enormity of the situation. One large indoor arena with dirt jumps diagonally down the center and a half-pipe in each corner. Along with several parking lots that had been covered with ramps and dirt jumps for freestyle moto-X. We spent some time filming dirt (inside!) before making our way outside to check out the flatland area.

The flat area for Philly is possibly the best ever. Nice and big with only the smallest of imperfections. The ground had been painted bright white which seemed to be the biggest complaint of the riders. But, the ten riders there on Friday didn't seem to have much of a problem getting used to the area. Riders that absolutely were going off in practice included Matt Wilhelm, Jorge Gomez, and Alex Jumelin. Matti Roese showed up later in the day just to confuse everyone and Stephan Cerra was out for a while kicking ass. With only ten riders present on Friday it was pretty open and some good filing happened.

Friday evening we went across the bridge to the Travelodge in New Jersey. The place is pretty ghetto and we bring ALL the equipment in from the cars for fear of it disappearing. We head back to Philly to find a decent restaurant to eat at and end up at a TGI Friday's that took about 20 minutes before they even took our drink order. Service was lame and the food was so-so... there must be better places to eat, but we definitely had not found it.

SATURDAY

We woke up plenty early enough in the morning but had some stuff to do before we could actually get out the door to the contest. We ended up showing up part way into the park practice which ended up being okay. We filmed for a while before they kicked us out of the park area and told us to turn off the video cameras. We complied of course (riiiigggghhhhhtttt) and stood to the side as they got the contest underway (read complete story here). After watching the event we headed back to the hotel to get some lunch and chill for a while before going over to watch and film some dirt stuff.

It took me way to long to get the park results up, which I reported wrong anyway, and we ended up being a little bit late for the dirt qualifiers. It didn't really matter though because not a whole lot of incredible stuff seemed to happen with dirt. The most notable thing about the dirt area is the roll ins. The setup is that there is a HUGE roll in that was in one corner of the arena that is about 40 feet tall. Riders hold their brakes two-thirds of the way down the roll in and then hit a six pack of jumps. Then they go UP a roll in that is in the other corner of the arena that is about 25 feet tall. They turn around and go BACK through the course through a four pack.

Oh yeah - Nyquist qualified first, Nastazio MISSED THE CUT and got 11th place. That was probably the most surprising thing of the day. After filming some of the dirt qualifiers, we headed back out to the flatland section, and hooked up with James McGraw and Brett Crowther who were staying with us for the rest of the trip. We hung around and filmed a couple of hours of flatland practice which included a few video sessions with Scott Powell who is coming damn close to pulling double upside down brakeless decades off the tire out of upside-down megaspins. I also got a great session with Stephan Cerra who pulled a series on video that he had only hit once before - he was psyched, and I got it on film... sweet!

We wrapped things up, headed back to the hotel and hung out and watched videos and did a hotel parking lot session until about 2:00AM... which it is right now. Time to shut things down and go to sleep. Flatland qualifiers are tomorrow and dirt finals are going down. Gotta get some sleep!

SUNDAY

Today began and ended hectic. That's about all I can say. This was the day that dirt finals and flatland prelims were going on. We grabbed the desktop PC and lugged it INTO the arena with us so that I could upload web updates on site. But, because I mainly ride flatland it was important for me to cover as much of that as I could for the day. That meant that between the stuff going on over at flatland and the stuff going on inside the arena, it was a crazy day. It didn't help the day to have some light rain misting around on us until about noon. It just made everything that much more crazy.

For flatland the riders didn't really have as much time as they should of had to warm up, but most of them had been going at it for a couple of days and were ready for the contest when it began. It was definitely the coolest part of the contest so far. ESPN is a lot more relaxed about people filming and sitting inside the flatland area during qualifiers so I could sit down in a good camera spot and get what went down without people walking in front of me. After a couple hours of that, I headed inside and immediately wrote about what I had just witnessed... or at least I tried to remember what just happened.

After a couple of hours I headed down to the arena floor to get a decent position for the dirt finals. It was pretty lame and my angle totally sucked. But I still was able to get some good shots. James was running another camera and Jason was taking pictures which should really make everything turn out nicely. But it leaves me a lot of footage to go through.

Right after dirt let up we packed things up and headed back to the hotel. Jason went back home for the night (a 3 hour drive) to be with his woman which left me and TJ stranded at the motel. It was all cool really because James was able to get us out to a restaurant and it left me some time later that night to get more stuff up on the web and things under control for the next day.

Goodnite.

MONDAY

Jason showed up around 9:30 in the morning which left plenty of time for us to get over to the contest area, setup the computer and get out to begin covering flatland finals. Today was all about flatland and I was looking forward to it. I knew that it was going to be my favorite day of the whole event and it didn't let me down. Flatland has been part of my life for about 15 or 16 years now and the X-Games are the culmination of what the best riders in the world have to offer in one location. The contest itself is kind of bogus because riders have to hold back so they don't screw up during their runs, but during practice they are simply going off with their craziest tricks.

While on the subject, I read people write about how lame contests are because they don't represent what 'real' riding is all about. It really strikes me as a stupid thing to say. After all, contests are NEVER what riding is about. You aren't judged at any point on how good you can ride in real life. You just ride. ESPN doesn't do a crappy job making a freestyle contest. They make the mistake of having a contest at all. But, riders who are able to make a living doing what they love NEED these contests so they can play on their bikes for a living. It's irritating to hear that 'this contest series is way better than the ESPN contests'... that's just bogus. Contests are contests and have nothing to do with riding. If someone rides like a master than they will do well in a contest, or not. But, to equate regular riding with contest riding is not realistic.

I ramble...

Anyway, after watching Martti do things in flatland that I couldn't understand after rewinding and rewatching the tape thirty times I decided that it made more sense to actually ride. I uploaded the story of what happened in the finals along with some incredible photos (thanks Jason!) and then packed the computer up, grabbed my bike and brought it into the flatland area and spent a few hours riding. It was really nice to get some time on my bike this week since I had been so busy doing other stuff all week long. The session was pretty lame, but I still had fun. The kids who thought I was one of the athletes and wanted my autograph (hat, gloves, shoes, etc.) was obnoxious. But, I would rather sign autographs then have kids complain to security and get kicked out and not be able to ride. Some of the guys went into the arena to watch the motocross step-up competition, but I hung out until it was dark riding.

We all hooked up around 9:00 and headed back to the hotel where we hung out for a while, got some food and got ready for the next day. Not very exciting I know, but it always ends up being about 1:30 in the morning before I am able to go to bed.

1:30AM ... Time for bed.