shrinebmx, www.bmx-test.com, january 2005: This video is pretty unique instead of a video it has team sections and 4 single person parts. It has sections for the teams of Primo, We the People, Lotek, and Federal. It has parts for Van Homan, Brian Foster, Josh Heino and Kurtis Elwell.
The video starts go right into Kurtis Elwell's section. His music has a new wave/punk kind of sound, its unique and kind of funny. His highlights are a Tailwhip 180 disaster to fakie on a quarter pipe, a curb-cut toboggan over a fence and his last trick shouldn't be missed, it is pretty good. I'm going to give his section a 8/10 because it is short and it doesn't compare to the rest of the video.
The next part is from team Primo riders include Brian Wizmerski, Sandy Carson, Leif Vailin, Corey Martinez, Josh Stricker and more. The music is some techno/metal type of song I believe by the band Orgy (I'm not sure because in the credits they don't tell you who the music is by). Highlights from the team are a manual to tucked no-hander, rear-peg manual tailwhip, really tech lines from Brian Wizmerski and some ridiculous gaps from Josh Stricker. I'm going to give this section a 9/10, it's really good because its mostly hammers and the music is really good.
The next part is from the team at Wethepeople. The music is techno with a heavy rap type of beat. The section doesn't have names so its hard to know who's who because there team is international. I did recognize a couple riders like Hannu Cools, Grimaldo Duran, Josh Heino and Brian Terada. Some hammers are a really long over smith on a round rail, ice pick to tooth pick on a semi-mellow tranny and a manual to tailwhip out on a small ledge. I'm going to give this section a 9/10 because it works extremely well with the music, the tricks that go down are mostly all hammers and it has an innovative intro.
Brian Foster has the next section; his music is alterative/metal that is very good and works very well with his style of riding. His highlights are an abubaca on a nose of a plane, huge corner air out of the vert-wall at skate street and a double peg up a rail to turndown out, I'm going to give his section a 7.5/10 because it had some hammers but with a video that's full of hammers it felt like most of his section were fillers.
The next part is from the riders at Lotek that include Eddie Clevland, Ryan Mills, Adam Perez, Matt Puorro, Terry Adams, Sean Hoskins, Rich Hirsch, Edwin Delarosa and Seth Kimbrough. The music was an odd techno song that was very catchy and it worked very well with Lotek's tech style. Hammers that went down were a pedal grind up a rail, gap to tooth pick on the second stage of a rail, brakeless tail-tap and a gap to opposite double peg on a rail. I'm going to give this section a 9/10 the because the music was weird but the riding was incredible.
The next part belonged to Van Homan. I was very pleased with his section it is on par with his section in Criminal Mischief. The music is a classic rock song that is ok and works well. Many hammers go down in his section and it seems he has tailwhips dialed. Some highlights are a over grind to barspin out on a hand rail and a manual to overgrind on handrail and there are many more but I don't want to spoil the section for people. I'm going to give his section a 9.5, it was hammertastic and a real treat but, the song though isn't one of my favorites but it worked.
The next section comes from Federal. Also, it's the second section in the video that doesn't have names so some people are a mystery. I did recognize Brian Tunney, Ian Morris, Corey Martinez, Sandy Carson and Steven Hamilton. Almost all the hammers in this section come from Steven Hamilton and Corey Martinez. Corey only has a couple clips but the best thing he does is a curved bank ride to 540 out. Steven does his usual unique tricks like manuals to gaps and crazy nose manuals. The music is alternative emo music, its not something I listen to ever but its catchy and with the section its works okay. I'm going to give this section an 8.5/10 because Steven Hamilton is just plain good and he makes this section a very good watching experience.
The last section goes to Josh Heino and he deserved it. He is a very talented rider because of the little subtle things he does while doing runs or tricks. His music is a alternative metal song which works well because his section has a good amount of gaps. His highlights include a wallride to gap and he jumps off a roof into this bank(this trick was in Ride BMX). I'm going to give this section a 9/10, it doesn't compare to Van Homans but its unique and pumps you up a lot.
As a whole I'm going to give this video an 8.5 out of 10 because it a mostly hammers. Its mostly hammers because each rider in the team sections has a couple clips so they don't need fillers for the riders. Yet, some sections don't have names so its aggravating but you can recognize most of the riders. Also, the music in the video is ok, its nothing I listen to but it all works very well with the video. It's a good video to watch before you go riding and its just worth watching to see Van Homan's section.
Tom Finch, www.streetphire.co.uk: This is the long awaited DVD from Tip Plus distribution in the USA. It consists of 4 main sections from Kurtis Elwell, Van Homan, Brian Foster and Josh Heino and also 4 sections from companies that they distribute which include Primo, Wethepeople, Federal and Lotek.
This video doesn’t have a proper intro like most of today’s releases and in this case they start off with a great section from Kurtis Elwell. As far as I no this guy hasn’t had much footage but I reckon he makes up for it with this one. This section is packed with some amazing street riding and a little bit of park which in a lot of cases makes you want to rewind it because most of his stuff is really original and he makes it seem like it’s the kind of trick he does everyday without thought .
Next up is the Primo section, its starts off with Wiz and as usual he manages to impress quite effortlessly. That is followed by tricks from Chase Dehart, Sandy Carson, Corey Martinez, Chad Degroot, Josh Stricker and also some flatland from Leif Valin, This section has a good mix of different riders and it all comes together to make quite an enjoyable section.
Then it's the Wethepeople team section, this section has the same feel as the actual Wethepeople video with the same style of music and a similar feel with the the type of riding, as usual Tobias Wicke rides amazing although a lot of his tricks are similar to things in his other sections which in some cases can get a bit boring.
Next we see a really good section from Brian foster, at first I wasn’t sure what his part would be like as I hadn’t seen a proper section from him for a few years but I soon found out that he is still getting better and better whether it's in a park, on street or on dirt. Some of the things he does on street did surprised a bit because although he is known for being amazing on dirt, he still manages to do lots of really good variations up and down rail which was good to see.
After that we have a part from the Lotek team which I really liked, I think it had a really good mellow feel to it yet it still managed to show some amazing riding which for the most part is street. This section features people like Eddie Cleveland, Ryan Mills,Edwin Delarosa, Rich Hirsch and ‘Fish’ along with a few other people and it turns out to be a killer little section and just makes you want to see a full video from them.
Then we have the section that most people probably brought the video for alone, Van Homan. After his previous performances in the Little Devil videos you expect this to be another section to remember, and I personally think it is. Van Homan completely destroys anything and everything in this video and its also good to see him riding some trails which you don’t get to see to often.
Next we have a part from Federal which is very similar to the federal video with the riders of course and also a lot of the tricks are the nearly the same as in the video so it would have been nice to see something a little different, besides that there is some really good riding from Steven Hamilton and also Sandy Carson (again) along with other members of the federal team and I guess if you haven’t seen the federal video then this could be a nice little taster of what you can expect in that.
Finally its Josh Heino. Personally he’s not the person id like to see finishing off this video although he does do a few things that I liked, but then again a lot of his tricks seemed quite pointless and really not worthy of being in the video and really I don’t think he spent a lot of time doing this section and I really it should have been a lot better.
Overall I did really like this video, the team sections provided a really good mix of amazing riders and also the 4 individual sections were for the most part really good and more than what I expected. The video has really good music (Apart from Heino) and I think it blends really good with the riding in my opinion and it generally gave the video a really nice feel.
The video doesn’t offer any kind of bonus footage but you don’t really notice it anyway because the video does seem quite long even if it is only 30 minutes.
alistairheeley1, www.youtube.com: Van Homan's part from the 2004 Tip Plus video The Family. The song is Ryan Adams - To Be Young.