Steve Mini Column 2009 (so far):
By TMX Archives on 26th Jun 09
Well I've been a bit slack with my updates this year so I'll give you a quick run down on what's been happening since NZ crusty finished. I headed over to Berlin for the first 2 rounds of the IFMXF Series. The first night I had major bike problems and ended up in 9th place. The second night I pulled it together and ended up in 4th place and winning the whip comp. I had a week off until my next event so me and my buddy Sim headed down to Barcelona to hang out by the water in the warm weather and drink some beers, which is pretty much all we did for the whole week. Barcelona is an amazing place and is definitely on the top of my list of favourite cities. We then flew up to Rotterdam for the FMX Fever event. I got 3rd place on the first night and second place on the second night so I was stoked. I flew back to Australia and straight down to South Australia for the FMX Championships. It was a tough line up with my main competition being Cam Sinclair, Joel Balchin, Chucky Norris and Josh Sheehan. I rode smooth and consistent all day and won the event. I only had a couple of days off until the Royal Easter Show which was an awesome 2 weeks as usual.
I missed the Swiss IFMXF event because I went back to Mudgee for my brothers wedding. The wedding was sick and we all had a lot of fun so congratulations to my brother and his new wife Michelle. It was then back on the plane to Germany for another IFMXF round. I left Brisbane on the Wednesday night and flew for 26 hours, spent about 40 hours in Mannheim then got back on a plane and flew 22 hours home so I spent more time on the plane then I did in Europe. I had a day off to rest then it was down to Melbourne for the Crusty Tour. The Crusty Tour is sick and I love being on it so I was pretty excited.
Unfortunately there's always one rider that goes down before the show. Myles Richmond had a nasty crash and broke his arm and we all thought that was it but about 2 hours before the show I lost the bike doing a no handed catwalk and fell all the way to the flat ground breaking my foot. It was, by far, the worst crash I've had and I was really lucky just to break my foot. So I've just had the weekend resting and rode all show in Brisbane. I had a doctor give me shots to numb it, which worked a treat until it wore off 5 minutes into the show, which ended up being extremely painful.
Finally this years Crusty Tour was by far the best one so far. Everyone was a little worried that the recession was going to bring crowd numbers down, but over 5 weeks and 9 shows more than 100,000 people came and checked out the show.
After my nasty crash early on in tour I still managed to get out and ride the combo section and the rider trains in each show. Sinclair rode away from 9 clean double backflips and Bilko landed several 360 combos including a 360-heelclicker to no hander lander.
While the tour was on, Carey Hart was running a show in conjunction with his wife Pinks concert. It was free for everyone to come watch and had FMX, BMX, 50's and street bikes (see the picture with me an Carey Hart)!!!
The last stop of his tour was on the Gold Coast and myself, Bilko, Schuey, Kain Saul, Marshall and McFerran all rode. The weather was terrible but over 7.000 people still came to watch us. We then had the end of tour party at one of the Gold Coast clubs, which was the perfect way to finish a busy month.
See ya
Steve Mini