Team Rider of the Week: 2hip/Alienation's David Fischer
David Fischer is a sponsor's dream come true! He is constantly keeping in touch with us even though he lives five hours away and he regularly sends us photos of the stuff he's been riding or of what he's been up to. It seems like he's becoming somewhat of a celebrity in his hometown Leipzig. But see for yourself:


Prinz, Leipzig's city magazine, ran a story about Fischi along with
this full-page photo of him. He also send us this short clip of him
Hangover toothpicking this rail for the first time. The local news-
paper also did this video interview with him for their website that
shows him riding his local skatepark at a contest last weekend. By
the way, he won the comp. Congrats, Fischi!


Poster signed by Edwin on the wall, new haircut, full-page in Prinz … someone in Leipzig is
stoked!


This is Fischi's new BMW. Finally a decent car that will get him to all the spots.


270 Bars over the hip at the sketchy pre-fab park in Leipzig's city centre. Fischi tells us
that the park is being redone. Hopefully they will put up some good ramps this time.


When not double pegging down high and steep rails at the Sportforum in Leipzig, Fischi
can be seen running around with a video camera that he recently purchased. Check out
his first edit that he just put online right here.

There you have it. Fischi is the man. More soon!

Team Rider of the Week: Kink's Rafael Adam
Rafael is always up to something interesting and likes to travel to exotic places. Check out where he went this time:


Rafael enjoying the good life in Chile

I went on a non-BMX-related trip to Cjile and had some great food. Took the bike just to be able to ride around and it was worth it. I got to ride a delicious yellow concrete park with a cradle and everything in Santiago. It was very helpful to speak Spanish, because it was skate-only. So with a few friendly words it was all good and I had a good while of nice riding. Although all the people I met were very nice, it is too dangerous to take a camera with you riding alone, so no photos of that. The riding was not the most interesting part of the trip though, this time it was the earthquake. I got away with not even a black eye, no damage on me nor the apartment, unlike the Museum of Fine Arts of Santiago.


Rafael in front of the Museum of Fine Arts in Santiago

In other news, I used one of the last days before of our much beloved Tretlager place shot down to shoot some photos with Peter. We will miss our all-weather riding facility and will have to move on to digging in de dirt. This was the plan until a few days ago, when we received a note that our dirt spot is getting plowed in the next four weeks. Bummer! We completely rebuilt it last summer (including a new 6 meter roll-in), so we're doing everything we can to keep them running. Cross your fingers for it to go on! I'll have some news on a jam at thes trails that hopefully is not a goodbye jam.


With Rafael's local indoor park Tretlager now closed it sucks
even more for him that his trails might get plowed as well …


One last run …


Big Downside Whip Transfer at the now closed Tretlager

Also check out this ad that we ran with Rafael in the last issue og freedombmx magazine. Big No Handed Three in Emmering featuring Kink's Empire forks and Lynx bars.

Team Riders of the Week: Alienation's Sas Kaykha and UGP's Pierre Hinze
Cream BMX Lifestyle Magazine issue 37 has a Hamburg scene report in it that features our team riders Sas and Pierre busting out. Check it out:





Bonus Photo: Sas sent me this shot of him and Pierre shredding at Mr. Wilson indoor park in Kassel/Germany

Team Rider of the Week: UGP's Pierre Hinze
There is an awesome edit of Pierre shredding the streets of Hamburg and some indoor parks online at soulbmx.tv. Check it out:



Bonus Photo: Gap to Wallride at Mr. Wilson in Kassel/Germany as seen in the clip above.

Team Rider of the Week: Alienation's Sas Kaykha
Sas Kaykha is not only a bad ass bike rider, but also an aspiring film maker, who recently finished his first short film Camouflage. Check out the trailer and read the interview to learn more about this interesting project.

Trailer Camouflage from Sasimage on Vimeo.

So you recently made a short film with some other students. What was it for? What was your part in this project?
It was a kind of a graduation movie. They didn`t rate the final movie, the grades came from the whole process of writing, planing, directing, etc. I was one of three writers, one of two directors and the sole cutter.


Sas hard at work

What is the film called and what is it about?
It´s called Camouflage. It is about two journalists, who witness of terror attack in Hamburg, Germany. First it seems like there were some arabic guys involved in it, but it comes to an interesting end. It describes that not everything we see on TV or hear from the politicans has to be true.


Sas giving the extras instructions

Let's talk numbers here. How many people were involved in this project? How long did you shoot for? What equipment did you use?
I don´t really know, I guess about 20 people behind, and 10 actors in front of the camera. One time we also had about 50 extras. Sometimes there were people on the set helping that I didn´t even know. We shot for about 11 days. Preproduction took four months, post three months and the burning process of the final DVD took about 1 year, haha. We shot on a Panasonic HVX P2 with P&S Mini35mm adapter. Since I used to work at a film studio, we also had accesss to a panther dolly with minijib, an ABC 8m Crane, full hmi light set and other stuff like that.

the making of camouflage from Sasimage on Vimeo.

What was the funniest thing that happened during the shooting?
We ha a scene with about 1000 flowers, which we gave away after the shot. There was this Indian guy selling roses, who we all know from restaurants. He was standing beside the set with two flowers in his arms and was jealous as hell.



Do you have any filming projects coming up?
Yes. We are testing a new grip-method for rope based tracking shots and stuff like that. I definitely want to make a new, 45 min. film in the summer, which we want to make good enough, so it can be shown on TV.

Teamrider of the Week: Lotek's Sven Gruber
It seems like our teamriders from Berlin have had their fair share of bad luck recently. As we mentioned in the post below, Robert's bike got stolen and now Sven f-ed up his shoulder and had to have surgery. This is what he had to say about it:

Hey Sven! What have you been up to lately?
Nothing much. I just have been busy with school.

How did you get hurt?
As with most injuries that will keep you off your bike for a while, I was just trying some bullshit that I can usually pull easily.

What did you injure?
Fresh Bankart lesion of the lower front acetabular labrum, capped off with a nice Hill-Sachs lesion. In other words, I dislocated my left shoulder and tore off the capsule and they had to stapple it back on. The dislocation caused a dent in my shoulder socket. In order to fill that dent, the doctors had to take of some tissue from another bone and screw it on the socket.

Sven right after surgery

Did you have surgery already?
Yeah, my surgery was on Wednesday two weeks ago and on Friday they send me back into the wilderness. I have to keep my arm steady for like six weeks, because the capsule needs that long to grow back on. I will start with physiotherapy soon and do some passive movement exercises, so hopefully I will be able to move my arm for 90 degrees in six weeks time. Afterwards I will still have to work on getting the rest of my arm movement back and build up the muscles again. That will take a minimum of six more weeks, so 12 weeks altogether. But they said it might take even longer, before I can ride again.

A painkiller update for Sven

How do you keep yourself busy now that you can not ride?
I am trying to get some school shit done and spend a lot of time in front of the computer, especially Photoshop. I am scanning my negatives and organizing my files. I also chill a lot and wait for the snow to melt.

Sven when his shoulder was still fine. This photo appeared in Zwanzig Magazine issue 28.
Pic by Tommi Augsburg

Teamrider of the Week: Fit/Primo's Robert Kröning
Robert's bike just got stolen, so if anyone sees a 12-year-old cruising around Berlin on a 21.5" Fit Lurch decked out with nothing but blinging Primo parts, then you know what to do! Here's a picture of his (former) ride:

On a brighter note, Robert has been busy helping out to lay the finishing touches on the indoor street course at the new Mellowpark, which should be finished in a couple of weeks. Check out this out of focus picture of the layout:

He's also been hanging out with his adorable baby girl Zoe-Cathy, who's eight months old now.

According to Robert, the whole of Berlin is still covered with snow, so no riding photos of him. To escape his miserable city life, he's going on a snowboarding trip next week, but it won't be long until we'll see him shred like this again:

Teamrider of the Week: Alienation's Manuel Recktenwald
Manuel Recktenwald sent us some photos that Michi Sieren took of him, shredding Trier's new indoor park. He also answered some questions to go along with the shots. Check it out!

You spent some time in England recently. What were you doing there?
Yeah, I spent six weeks with my classmate in London. We worked there as teachers in a primary school in Central London and it was a practical training for us.



The Winter in Germany has been pretty harsh so far. I know there are not many indoor spots around where you live. What have you been up to?
The Winter's been bad, but luckily an indoor park opened in an old supermarket in Trier on November 15th. Trier is not that far from my house and people like Axel Reichertz, the guys behind Palais e.V and the infamous Zupport Shop worked hard to make this possible and create a ridable place out of it. There is some nice stuff to ride and it is open three times a week, so I can escape from the fucking snow and ride my bike a bit. Check out www.projekt-x-trier.blogspot.com for more info.



How was your New Year's Eve party? Judging by the photos you send us (see New Year's Special below), you were getting pretty loose.
The New Year´s Eve party was wild and dangerous, haha. Maybe I drank too much booze.



What music have you been listening to lately?
The Gaslight Anthem.



What are your plans for 2010?
Pass my exam in the middle of May, fly to Barcelona and London afterwards with some friends to ride and hang out, visit a lot of BMX jams and stay healthy and happy ... wait for, what is to come.

Teamrider(s) of the Week: Special New Year's Edition
We figured you guys might be interested in what our teamriders were up to on New Year's Eve, so we asked them to send us some photos from their night out. Well, most of them didn't get back to us - lazy bums! - but fortunately a few actually came through with some interesting photos and a tale or two about the what they did that night. Check it out:

Thomi Zronek (Lotek):
Went to a private party in Vienna/Austria and had cheese sticks and wine.




Manual Recktenwald (Alienation):
Manual (center right) went to a party in Cologne and got loose with some scary looking people ;-)

Apparently he also made out with Michi Sieren:



Rafael Adam (Kink):
"I always try to find useful ways to spend quality time on my bike – here you go. I’ll pass on the whole part of getting too drunk on New Year’s Eve, instead I’m trying to make some money on my Rickshaw. Let’s see if it’s worth it. Hopefully it’s enough to escape the rainy Munich weather for a weekend of riding in Spain. I’ve been working on the Rickshaw for a few years, usually during Oktoberfest and other events, but never tried it on New Year’s. For sure I will feel way better than most people – heavy wallet instead of a heavy head. Now that’s a good start for the New Year!

Wish you a happy time and a good 2010.

Rafael"

Sas Kaykha (Alienation):
Partied hard in Hamburg. Broke a glass table at a party:

Good friend of mine and myself, shortly before trying to get into shitty clubs at like 5 o'clock in the morning:

After the fire crackers got to boring, we tried to light up random cars driving by:



Jan Bekurtz (Failure):
Jan apparently put together a new ride on New Year's Eve. Well, at least this is the photo he send me from that night's activities



Tobias Tilgner (Lotek, Primo):
Tobias is in NYC right now and went to Central Park on New Year's Eve. Here are some photos from the fireworks:



He also sent us a collage that we'd like to share with you:

Teamrider of the Week: 2hip/Primo's Benno Hankowetz
Check out these photos of Benno Hankowetz, shredding his local park in Gmunden/Austria as usual. And while you're at it, you can read the answers to some questions we sent him. Enjoy!

Keeping it old school!

What's your job and what do you like most about it?
I'm a acupuncturist and what I like most about it is helping people cos I know how painful injurys can be!!


Keeping it new school

What do you like most about your hometown?
That there are very cool riding spots in a circle of 2 km and you can go there easily by bike! And there are two indoor skateparks and my hometown isn´t very big!!!


On the wrong side of the...

What do you wish for Christmas?
Just to have my family around!


Laying it flat

What are your New Year's resolutions?
No resolutions for me.


New one from Benno: Fastplant Flair

What's on your agenda for 2010?
To ride more contests and to marry my girl!

Teamrider of the Week: Alienation's Sas Kaykha
Sas Kaykha was nice enough to send us some photos of him shredding in Hamburg and Kassel. He also answered some questions we send him. The answers are, well, interesting... But see for yourself:

180 at i-Punkt Skateland in Hamburg

What's the biggest lie you've ever told your mom so you wouldn't get into trouble for something bad you did?
I didn't crash the car. It was a rabbit, running into it...

Tight Fuf at Willow's in Kassel

What's your most valuable possession? Why?
Freedom. I m really glad that I don t have to work 9/5 and that I have enough time to enjoy life and ride BMX.

Hip Hanger in Kassel

What's the strangest place you've ever woken up in? Why and how did you end up there?
I was 16, it was in a hotel room. I slept beside a girl and there were porn magazines all over the bed. A fat friend of mine, wearing only boxers, jumped into the bed in the morning, making the girl and me scream. Then our teacher came in and we had to explain what kinda shit was going on there.

Teamrider of the Week: Lotek's Max Gaertig
Max is bummed! As you can see in the photos below, he f-ed up his foot and ankle pretty good on a recent filming trip to Madrid. A Manual to 180 Whip (!) gone wrong resulted in a broken foot and some damage on the ligaments and Max is now rocking a cast until January. Get well soon from everyone at AllRide at we hope you pull that sucker the next time you try it!


This is what Mr Gaertig's ankle looked like right after the crash


And this is what it looks like a week later

Teamrider of the Week: Failure's Jan Bekurtz