new bike + grounded + left/right

This is my new bike, it's for sure my favourite bike of all time. The frame is a T1 Garrett Byrnes and most of the parts are still ones people gave me. We're having these awesome weather patterns this week where it rains in the morning and dries up a bit for the afternoon; that makes for some perfect trails days.

Grounded:
I got my copy of grounded about a week ago and watched it a whole bunch, here are a few thoughts. Adam Baker's part is amazing, most of it isn't super crazy but you can tell they put a ton of effort into the look and feel of it, and it's a pleasure to watch. Aaron Ross and Danny Hickerson both really impressed me in this one; less sketchy, jerky, forced tricks and more even crazier but kind of smooth now tricks... I'm all for it. Sandy Carson's part was classic bmx, no crazy circus stuff, no weird skate influences, just a totally rad part. I want to get to the part where I talk about how crazy Ruben's part was, but first I'll talk about the letdowns. Morgan Wade and Josh Stricker. Sure Stricker does some fast bunnyhopping, but some of the bigger stuff in his part had already been one-upped, he shot himself in the foot with that part in Please Kill Me, because that just had bigger and better stuff in it. Morgan's part was allright I guess, but they need to keep in mind that he's a killer ramp rider, and that's where he's going to blow minds. Most of his street stuff was good, but seemed a notch below the rest of the video. I feel the same way about that part as I do about Aitken's Fitlife part, although I'm sure you could do worse things. Ruben basically re-invented physics, that's really all there is to say. His Forward part had too many wallrides, yet this part probably had more, and I didn't think that once...
Brett Walker has the best moustache in BMX.

Left/Right:
I'm inevitably going to want to compare this to the Etnies video, but they're kind of different. I figured the production value would be better in Grounded, but Navaz had a few tricks up his sleeves. The intro section to this video is amazingly put together and the motion graphics are extremely well done. The names in this video are much smaller, but it's all street and there is a ton of creative stuff going on. Unlike Grounded, there are no real weak sections in Left/Right, it's short and to the point. I think I was most impressed with Joe McIntire, mostly because I'd never seen him ride before, partly because he rides to Neil Diamond (and that is awesome!).