To recap, Nike 6.0 flew a bunch of us action sports journalist types out to Portland, Oregon to get a better sense of the inner workings of Nike (which I already knew pretty well from my days at SLAM) as a whole and the 6.0 division specifically. Um, more on that later, too.
The day on campus concluded with a demo from the entire team—which, seeing that half the team is snow/surf/wake, was delivered primarily by the riders. Garrett Reynolds and Mike Spinner threw 360s and talwhips anywhere they pleased, while Nigel Sylvester stuck mainly to the wedge landing of the boxjump. That is, until a launch ramp was positioned by the gigantic manmade lake in the center of campus.
Said lake doesn't see much action. It's not stocked with fish, and, up to this day, the most oft-told story involving it was about a maintenance man who—on his first day, no less—drove his cart straight into it while trying to cut a corner too close.
Well, then there was August 16th. Nigel had to be talked into it, but only a little. He took two or three runs to scope it out, but that was it.
T-shirt and New Era were laid aside, and he 3'ed in on his first attempt.
Once the bike was wet, the only thing to do was try again.
Tuck no-hander.
One of the snowboard kids joined in—also on Nigel's ride. This was when I realized there were better positions to be had.
Same kid threw down one hell of a backflip on his second attempt. He went down with the ship, taking a big scrape to his back in the process, but it didn't seem to bother him much. He also couldn't find the bike right away, which made for an entertaining minute or two.
OK, this was crazy. When Nigel had the littlest kid on the team stand on his pegs, I had all sorts of bad visions—loopouts, coming up short, kid stepping off at the wrong time. But the launch was flawless.
The bike made it through the whole ordeal with flying colors—although he did snap his left crankarm yesterday. Collateral damage?
Riding on the back of Nigel's bike off a launch ramp into a lake wasn't even the most insane thing the kid did all weekend. Yes, that's spraypaint.
I guess other people were worried about the possible results too, because that was it. Nike giveth, Nike taketh away.
5 comments:
hahahahaha niceeee. Russ is the man
That looked like sooo much fun!! I hope you got in on the lake jumping also.
No such luck. Would have been nice, though.
That sucks that you didn't join in on the lake jumping. I would of spared my bike though and jumped off the quarter at least.
what is the name of those blue shoes that garett has on!
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