The ‘youth’ often get a bad rap when it comes to riding, but contrary to what various bitter old men would have you believe, you don’t have to have been raised on a diet of VHS tapes and OX Platinum tubing to earn the right to ride a bike… and there are plenty of riders born well after Domination was sent to the duplicators who are doing decent stuff.
Minnesota’s Rahlin Rigsby is one such rider. Whilst he’s still a year off being able to stroll into a bar and legally purchase a cool and refreshing bottle of Miller High Life, he already has a fine understanding of the time-honoured holy trinity of going to different cities, riding interesting spots and occasionally documenting the motions for something more than an eight second Instagram video (as can be witnessed here and here).
Here’s a few video parts he’s into. Wallride snap by Brandon Galosi.
Jibbin with Robbo – Kore Store
Starting things off with a light hearted web video might scare a core reader away, but just stick with me; Tom’s riding is relatable but serious just the same. Makes me want to ride plain and simple, and few look cooler on a bike.
I always liked when trails dudes came out of the woods for a split second and touched some bumpy sidewalk jumps — always looks really sick. I think of Brain Yeagle in Anthem 2 doing tire-slides on bank to sub rails and shit — badass.
This video is a perfect representation of everything I like watching, applying some speed to unrideable rustic English brick-work spots, making curbs or misplaced concrete into vert wall quarter pipes and a healthy dose of style. The cutty bump to tire slide on the rail at 1:40 and the pillar to pillar channel gap later on, forever rewatchable.
Maybe this video inspires you to set up faulty brake mechanisms in your dad’s garage on a cold night, you might do two or three skids and take them off less than a week later wishing you had a left handed lever so bad the entirety of the awkward phase — to be an American is such a drag.
Note: I had a hard time finding this video due to Vimeo’s strange algorithms for some reason, so now it’s a little less buried.
Dave McDermott – Skavenger
All I need to say about this one is grinding three handrails at one time and filming it on a flip phone in Paraguay (or some similar South American nation) is probably the only worthwhile grind anybody has ever done in my opinion.
If you don’t spray paint your entire bike gold in your dad’s garage once a year to pay homage are you even really riding street? I’m not sure.
If unlike Dave you don’t have a mid-2000’s Nokia, try sending a DM to that goth girl you like from the coffee shop with a YouTube link to The Crystals – ‘Then He Kissed Me’, but for heaven’s sake make up a good lie when she asks you about how you got the gold paint on your sneakers on your first date.
Because if she finds out you ride BMX it’s all over and you’ll have to go back to dedicating your free time to practicing downside double peg grinds on benches instead of spending time practicing those sweet chapped lip kisses.
Mason Gray – Chips
Another honed advocate in lacklustre rusto paint jobs, Mason Gray. His riding holds a special place in my heart.
Whenever we get to peak out our roll-up garage door and see Jack dragging Mason out of the house when new construction is happening in the neighborhood in London Ontario to jump the gaps in the sidewalk, its always one of the highlights of the year. Some of the purest riding that’s happened in the recent decade.
When people explain their favorite parts they try to list all the crazy tricks they did, forming sentences button mashing together every trick you’ve seen at a box jump demo at the state fair and somehow doing them out of knee height up-rails on the west coast. But I don’t need to say anything about Mason’s riding. Riding is meant to be seen and not read. Mason’s riding exists in a gray area one you can’t really put your finger on (just like your short lived brake lever phase).
His section is short and sweet the way your order coffee nervously from your soon to be darling at the fresh grind. The rest of the video is stellar quality courtesy of Jack Leonard —watch his part as well. Shouts to Canadian street riding for being so sick with it.
Clarky – Strangeways Vol 2
This is one of those parts I’ve more or less memorized the numbers after the forward slash to the Vimeo link of. Not much to say — simple, clean, holding his speed out of everything, no unnecessary tricks or colors.
At this point after watching these if your dad isn’t pissed at you for draining him of all those cans of gold he was going to use one day and you still have access to the garage and what’s inside… this is where you might steal all the flat blacks for your frame, fork, bars and rims.
On your way home from visiting your new girlfriend at the fresh grind coffee shop check behind the mini mall it’s in to see if there’s any imperfectly placed angle iron ledges or spilled concrete, if your dad lets you borrow his car a little longer don’t forget to hit he the North Face store on the way home.
Derek Morgan – The Make
So you’re feeling uninspired, you’ve thrifted a copy of Love is a Dog From Hell and your spray cans have all dried up now and your coffee shop girlfriend says she wants some time to herself after seeing your Vimeo-filled url bar…
What’s next?
Why keep going?
If your gold over-sprayed kicks are lacking ripped-up bottoms from metal pedal pins and your back is starting to actually feel good from not being crouched down behind a mini mall at 1am with a dying battery attached to a VX1000 in your hand, just remember that somewhere out there, possibly as often as once every other weekend or so Derek Morgan is out there deep in an East Van cut doing feeble grinds and related feats of street happenings.
There’s hope for the future.
Honorable mention for riders I want to shout include Alex Deluba and Ivan Blumenthal from Colorado.
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