THE NORTHERN EMBASSY

I think the best way to describe Spencer’s riding is buck nutty nuts. I’ll let this edit support that statement, Spencer shreds.

Yes, this video is not BMX, and it’s not even Canadian, but after I read the accompanying store behind it I had to post it up. Martyn Ashton is the mountain biking legend responsible for Road Bike Party, a Youtube video that went viral in 2012 that showcased rather unbelievable freestyle riding of him on a road bike. Yes, a road bike. No, not the fixed gear freestyle kind that receives eye rolls, but a full on legitimate road bike. I remember when I saw the first one and it didn’t even seem real. ‘How could the bike even hold up to the abuse?’, I thought.

Fast forward to just this week and he released Road Bike Party 2, but in September of this year Martyn suffered a horrible accident while riding that damaged his spine, leaving him paralyzed and reliant on a wheelchair. He forged on with his plan for his video and recruited the help Chris Akrigg and (trials and Youtube star) Danny MacAskill, and it pretty much blows away anything else. The three cover all forms of cycling from road, trials, mountain biking, and freestyle (think backflips, front flips, and a loop), all while riding a high end road bike. Whether Martyn will recover is still unknown, but this video is still an opus of his career and nothing short of amazing. Try and not be entertained by this one. You can read the full article about Martyn Ashton’s story here.

Two flatland posts in the span of a week? Crazy I know, but I spotted this video on flatmattersonline.com and it definitely warranted a post. Eric Otto put together a compilation of all the Canadian riders that showed up the the AM Flat Tuner Evolution contest from earlier this fall in Philadelphia. This video is a solid who’s who of the Canadian flatland contest scene with riding from Jean-William Prevost (DUB), Jason Plourde, Jean-Francois Boulianne (JFB), Prasheel Gopal and Percy Marshall. The video is a bit lengthy, and some of the music might be questionable, but the riding throughout is pretty incredible.

Matt Perrin hooked up this beauty of an edit featuring a couple of Winnipeg’s finest, Colin Thiessen, Shawn Franz and friends.

“Colin Thiessen and Shawn Franz have been riding hard all year round and this is what I was lucky enough to capture of these two Winnipeg shredders! Colin is one steezy street rider and ramp destroyer who rides fast and keeps it simple. Franz has a deep bag of INSANELY technical tricks and lives up to his nick name ‘SHOWTIME’. Watch out for this guy next summer and give both of these guys a fist pound when you see them.”
– Matt Perrin

MOAB-6

This is for any of you that are stuck inside because of the cold, itching for a balmy adventure. In the summer, a couple of girls from Vancouver bought a trailer and started trekking through America. Their adventure is over a hundred days deep at this point, with no signs of slowing down. As of last week they were in Austin, TX, with no concrete dates for an arrival home.
Surprisingly well connected to the internet, they have been pretty good about posting photo sets and updating the instagram (@ourwildabandon) with all sorts of Americana, freedom soaked images.

Within the first couple weeks their engine broke in half. They spent most of their money getting it fixed, just to realize that the crook mechanic just glued the block back together. That was when they set up a souvenir store to buy postcard size prints of their travels. Since then they have received a ton of support and the trip is as strong and aimless as ever.

If you want to soak up some campvibes, starring a couple of cute girls and whoever they encounter along the way,
Check out their photo sets on their site www.OURWILDABANDON.com
and give them a follow on instagram: @ourwildabandon

If you’ve watched the last 2 sections of You Get What We Got, you won’t want to miss the 3rd and final section here featuring Kyle Lafleur, Ryan Eles, Zach Lacelle and finally the credits. These guys absolutely kill it. If you haven’t watched the 1st or section section, do yourself a favour and at least watch this one, a bunch of sick stuff form all 3 guys!!

Ottawa’s Nick B. shredding the streets of Ottawa over the course of 2013. I guess Nick was dealing with some injuries over the year but you wouldn’t know it based on this footage.

Damn. Chalk up another crazy video this week from the west coast. Jordan Hango pedals full speed at spots all over Vancouver in this one for Fit. Too many wild moves in this to start listing them out. Extra points for the use of an instrumental Beastie Boys track.