etnies

Mike Escamilla rode the Portland Dew Tour stop a couple of weeks ago, he rode awesome and placed 29th!, he was stoked! Following that Mike hung out with his brother in San Francisco before heading out on a road trip up the west coast. He hit up cement parks and street with rail shredder Brian Kachinsky while filming for the new RIDE BMX video that is in the works that both Mike and Brian have sections in. They made it to Seattle where Mike had his truck broken into and Brian and Mike had about 6 grand worth of shit stolen out of it including cameras, ipods and stereo stuff. This past weekend Mike was helping judge at the Vancouver Metro Jam.
Mikes birthday was on the 8th of August
Mikes 3rd shoe the Rooftop 3 is in stores now

EmpireBMX signing

Taj Mihelich has had a fulfilling and busy few weeks which started out on the etnies RV tour traveling up through the Mid West hitting various parks, trails and street spots doing demos for kids. Following the tour Taj spent a couple extra days in the Michigan area hanging with family before heading back to a moist Austin where he caught up on his Chuy Mexican restaurant habit, working, riding street, riding the trails at 9th street, of course the T1 ramp, and the skatepark of Austin where they have built a weird new wooden bowl. Taj is going to be purchasing a moped shortly to get around town on instead of dealing with cars and traffic. Taj’s girl Ammie rides bmx as well as mountain bikes so Taj has been partaking in his fetish for spandex and riding downhill mountain bikes with her also…(Just kidding about the spandex…or am I…?), basically he has been riding a LOT! Taj’s birthday was on the 31st of August

Check out Taj’s shoe the Roscoe.

Ruben Alcantara was part of the etnies mid west RV tour hitting parks and spots while kicking it with the kids all along. Following the tour Ruben headed out to Cali where he is currently on his one man West Coast road trip, first stopping in LA where he was by complete accident featured in a ghetto hip hop video while out filming and riding street with etnies filmer Mike Manzoori. The story goes like this; Riding downtown LA by the Staples Center, filming stuff for the new etnies video that is in the preliminary stages, when a pimped out SUV rolls by with a crew of what looks like gang bangers hanging out of it yelling and screaming at Ruben and whatever. Not really thinking about it Ruben keeps riding and Mike keeps filming. A few minutes later the same SUV rolls up and parks, the whole crew inside the truck jumps out and starts shouting their praises at Ruben on what he was doing. Then with cameras rolling from both parties these guys start firing out raps and rhymes while Ruben did his thing………….Too funny!

Ruben has also been surfing and camping a bunch while in California which he is real happy about. He’s also been visiting friends and spots that he has wanted to for many years including a lot of spots that he saw in videos while learning to ride in Spain. Currently Ruben is up in the San Jose area hanging with the guys from FOX Rider Co.
Ruben birthday is coming up September 13th
Check out the Ruben giveaway from etnies, Terrible One, Fly Bikes and Fox
Rubens shoe the Terrenea is in stores now.

Jamie and son Samuel

Jamie Bestwick has been a busy cat as of late, and only if you’ve been living under a rock you wouldn’t know that he has been destroying the competition at every event he has attended this year. When we say every, we mean EVERY!...including the most recent stop of the Dew Action sports series in Portland. Jamie is only 20 points behind 1st place in the series standings and that’s taking into account that he missed the first event due to the birth of his son Samuel. So if everything goes well and Jamie does well at the Dew Tour stop in San Jose this weekend he will probably be in 1st place. Jamie was also on a small portion of the etnies RV tour. Other than that Jamie just moved house last week, he now has two houses, one in the UK and one in State College PA where he will be for a chunk of the year making the commute back and forth to his family in England.

Jamie has been working hard and learning all kinds of new stuff at Camp Woodward where he also played host to the two kids that won the etnies/Camp Woodward Jamie Bestwick Art Contest, Mike Miller and Dustin Millard. Both kids were real cool and blew everyone away with their art skills and how good bike riders they were, including Jamie himself.

Josh Stricker has been out in California for the last month or so. He’s been riding a bunch, shredding the streets and shooting photos with RIDE photographer Jeff Zielinski for his upcoming interview in RIDE BMX that will be out very soon. As well as shooting pics he has also been doing a good job of making sure everything is captured on film for his etnies video part. Josh’s signature grip with Primo is finally done and turned out perfect according to Josh, so go buy a pair NOW! Sunday Josh went to a NASCAR event and was blown away by how white trash and redneck it was…Go Figure! Josh is going to do everything in his power to have “Happy Hour” products at Interbike at the end of September, Josh’s long-time-coming clothing company.

Morgan Wade has been busy as shit lately traveling. He has been competing non stop; following the X Games he headed out on a Mutiny bikes trip around Colorado filming for a new video, then he was off Portland where he got 6th in Pro street at the Dew Action Sports tour stop there, from there he headed out to Woodward East for a week riding with etnies teammates Sergio Layos and Jamie Bestwick where he banged up his big toe pretty bad. From Woodward Morgan flew out to LA for a couple of days to hang with his brother and come visit the etnies offices before flying up to Portland where he drove to Vancouver with a friend to compete at the Vancouver Metro Jam this past weekend. He placed a well deserved 2nd place in the street contest, many thought he should have won but you’ll never hear Morgan complain. One of the highlights of his run was a tailwhip to fufanu on a backrail. This coming weekend Morgan will be competing at the Dew Action sports tour stop in San Jose.
Keep an eye out for a Morgan Wade Bio and Interview on the etnies site soon.

Sergio Layos was in LA for the X Games, he was an alternate for street but didn’t get to compete becausee everyone else was in attendance. This did make things a little more fun though as it took the pressure off of him not having to compete but just being able to ride the course. From LA Sergio headed out and was on the whole etnies RV tour hitting up parks, street and dirt. From there he headed out to Woodward East where he was learning all kinds of new stuff including the ever popular and super trendy, comp necessary “front flip”, who knows if he’ll use it or not, we’ll just have to wait and see. Right now Sergio is home riding, hanging with his girl, shooting photos and processing pictures. He is also working on helping his mom open a restaurant.

Joe Rich. Following his win at the Soul Bowl contest in Huntington Beach Joe has been working hard as ever on T1, redoing all the frames that should be on show at Interbike at the end of September in Las Vegas, should be good. Joe has been riding a crap load in Austin and was on a portion of the etnies RV tour killing every spot he rode. Joe is currently back in Austin and back to work and back to shredding. Check out the handle he has developed for video cameras on the Terrible One web site.
Keep an eye out for a Joe Rich “Firsthand” on FUEL TV in the near future.

Dave Freimuth has had his life turned upside down…Not in a bad way, definitely a good way. Thompson Jay Freimuth was born 5:16am August 30th 2005, he weighs 6lbs 15oz and is 19inches long. Much love goes out to Dave and his wife Patie who went through 18hrs of labor. Dave was there for the whole thing and claims it’s the grossest most beautiful thing he has ever witnessed. Baby pictures coming soon. Needless to say Dave was not at the Vancouver Metro Jam this past weekend

Garrett Byrnes was on the whole etnies Mid West RV Tour this past August, he shredded and killed every park the tour stopped at and he made lots of fans, especially female ones!......Garrett is a single man now, so ladies get in line. Garrett is home right now in New Jersey and has been working a bunch as well as surfing and riding everything locally.

John Heaton was in Toronto doing shows for a while a few weeks back, he then headed home to chill for a while before getting ready and competing in the Vancouver Metro Jam this past weekend where John Placed a respectable 7th. John crashed way to many times according to him so it’s about time for some time off of the bike to do some healing. Lots of guys were in town for the Jam so it made for some good parties and get togethers. This past Saturday John headed outside to jump in his car to go to qualifying at the Jam only to find his car gone, John was pissed! He called all the tow yards thinking that maybe it got towed for some reason but this wasn’t the case, his car had been stolen. He called the cops and they took a full report but John holds little hope of ever getting back his VW, one of his most prized possessions everrr!
John is riding a prototype of the new version of his MacNeil bikes frame.

Sandy Carson farted his way through the whole etnies Mid West RV tour, enjoying plenty of good riding. Parks, street and trails were no match for the skillful Scotsman. Sandy was pulling double duty, not only was he riding non-stop but he also shot pics of the whole tour for an upcoming DIG article. Now back in Austin has been working a bunch on upcoming issues of DIG, his web site (sandycarson.com) as well as shooting a bunch of skate stuff with Ben Gilley and Heath Kirchart. Sandy has been riding a bunch too, he’s been shredding the Banana Farm ramp and everything else locally as well as skating a little. Sandy has two color photo books coming out in the near future and also a couple art shows that he is involved with.