I’ve been sitting in front of my computer for the last couple days working on my taxes and all of last years accounting (and I now regret throwing all my receipts into a box in complete random order). Its all driving me a little bonkers. 

Today my new little dog, Monty, who by the way is still quite a dingus, decided to chew up a box of matches. Not sure how toxic it must be to eat matches, but he seems to be doing ok. 

In fact he seems to be doing better then ok. After weeks of training and working with him to no avail, today he suddenly understood the game of fetch and repeatedly retrieved his ball. I’m amazed. I guess the moral of the story is that if you are ever having trouble learning something try eating some matches. Preferably lit ones. 

Molded rubber dinosaur.

One of the things that never gets finished on my list of things to do is designing a signature grip for Odyssey. Its really quite a honor so if I ever do a grip I really want it to be something good and original. The problem is that it seems like every grip design has been done to death. The truth is, grips never feel good till they break in a bit and in the end, it doesn’t really matter what the tread design in the beginning is anyway. So, I’ve been trying to think of some new cool and very original ideas. I’m pretty sure that through the rubber molding process we can really do anything (like the dino above). I have a few ideas below if you can imagine them molded in rubber. 

I think that beer is pretty cool these days. I’m sure there are loads of riders who are more comfortable with their hands around beer bottles then BMX grips anyway. 

I helped design the Roscoe signature shoe so I was thinking maybe a Roscoe grip would be a hit. He’d look pretty tough clamped on to your bars. 

Hotdog/ Veggiedawg grip? 

Not sure how functional this would be, but I think coffee addicts like most of my friends would be really into this large oversized grip design. Obviously we would make “TEA” version for the Uk. This is probably more a beach cruiser style grip though, huh?

I’m feeling lazy with the illustrations so you’ll have to use your imagination here. This is a large human ear shaped flange with a cue-tip sticking out of it. We might even be able to do a dual compound grip with a soft cotton swab on the end to prevent injuries or damage to skateparks. 

I’m always drawing little animals holding signs so why not mold one into the flange. Other then that it would be a pretty traditional grip. 

I know this computer mouse grip will be a huge hit. There are so many “hardcore” bmxers who are way more used to the feel of a computer mouse then actual riding grips. 

So anyway, I need some help with grips designs. Can you guys think of any? (And I already thought about the big veiny erect penis grip…. you can have that design for when you do your signature grip). 

This was a contest where 6 teams of one mountain biker and one BMXer filmed a video over 2 days of riding Ray’s MTB park in Cleveland, Ohio. We ended up with 2nd place for this video. I don’t know if any of the other videos are up yet, but if I find them I’ll add them here.

Thanks to Jeff (my MTB teammate) and George Ryan (our filmer and editor).

A few more of the videos got posted. Still haven’t found the winners video (Justin Simpson and Gregg Watts).

Aaron Chase and Kevin Porter’s 3rd Place video.

Dennis Enarson and Phil Sunbuam

Eric Porter and Steve Woodward

Jason “Dorrito” Perez and Adam Hauck

This one cracks me up… poor jason destroyed himself that weekend…

Just finished the Odd Couple contest at Ray’s MTB. What a blast. The contest was for 6 teams of 2 riders. Each team was composed of one mountain biker and one BMXer. We all had two days inside Ray’s to film a video and then show it to an audience on the 3rd day. 

I got really beat up… my ankle and shins and knee have seen better days! Super fun contest though. Every team made such unique videos and riders found really cool ways to ride the park. 

I can’t remember all the placings, but Justin Simpson and Greg Watts team ended up taking home the first place prize. Jeff Lenosky and I took home 2nd (with the help of our filmer and editor George Ryan) and Aaron Chase an Kevin Porter ended up with third. 

Some of the teams did full on skits and acting, but our video was mostly riding. We did this one though, I headed into the curved wallride and there is a point where you can’t see me anymore. We cut the footage and inserted throwing this dummy dressed as me out of the wallride. 

Such a good comp. I guess the videos will get posted online or something soon. They’re all worth watching and most have some pretty funny moments for sure. 

2nd place trophy and I won the Man-up award… which is a interesting trophy choice eh? 

Thee “Ray”.

I was only joking about the bike of the future in my last post, I didn’t know it already existed!

Someone suggested I put together a post of all my old video parts. It seemed like too much work until recently when a few of the more obscure titles got posted by someone else. Joe Rich helped me rip the few old VHS titles that weren’t already available and I posted them on Youtube. And, don’t worry, I was sure to get permission from the owners of the videos first. So, thanks Primo, Fox, Etnies, Props, Anthem, Hoffman Bikes and everyone else. I’m terrible with dates and I don’t even own a VCR to try and figure out when some of these were made. If you happen to know I would be grateful for the info. It’d be cool to put together an actual timeline as some of these may be out of order. I’m thinking that this post will be updated periodically as I find more old videos or new ones or get more information on the videos.

Its also got me thinking how much I would like to see some full archives of some other riders. Jay Miron, Mat Hoffman, and many others would have amazing histories to watch in chronological order. That’d be a good Ride Magazine article too, a timeline with highlights from every BMX video they could think of. Be cool to see who did what first and how other riders bridged off the previous videos riding.

-A Few Good Men. For some reason I think this video came out before Happy Days, but I’m not actually sure. This is the first video effort by the guys who later started Props. Oh how video editing technology has changed. I used to think wearing a Santa Claus hat was really cool… I’m actually serious.

Taj Mihelich - “Happy Days” from Krt Schmidt on Vimeo.

-Standard Bikes, Happy Days. This kind of makes me think I should have gotten a Vimeo account… or maybe I’m doing something wrong on Youtube. The quality looks way better on Vimeo, huh? Thanks to Krt Schmidt for posting this.

-Dirty Deeds. When I moved to Austin in 93 or 94 or whatever James Shepard just sort of started taking me out riding and bringing a video camera. I never really understood what I was filming for, but it ended up being such an honor to be in a Dave Parrick video from back in the day. The long rail at the end sits right in the center of UT’s campus here in Austin and is actually curvered but the cameras lens makes it so you can’t tell. Such a bust now!

-Poorboy, Heavy Metal Thunder. To be entirely honest I was always a little embarrassed by this video part. It was one of those parts where my friends just got kind of scabbed it together out of footage from us riding and contests. Not a very serious part since I rode for UGP instead of Poorboy. Pretty funny clip of me falling on the deck of a ramp and mashing poor Mel Cody’s groceries though.

-Props Interview Issue #4. This is an interview I had in Props #4. Not quite sure when this is from, but its probably before you were born. I still get embarrassed watching this… so corny.

-Hoffman Bikes, Madd Matt. I think it was a week after I got on Hoffman Bikes that this video was due so we were really in a rush. Still, for just a few days filming I remember thinking it turned out ok.

-UGP, Face Value. These were my rail days I guess. My favorite part of this video is the first clip. At the bottom of the rail is Pete Augustin making sure I don’t flip over the edge. Pete was so cool to ride with and he acted as my coach for some of this video. I still remember him telling me, “You don’t have to do what everyone else does, you can do stuff they can’t think of”.