UK Stand Tall!

After the amazing experience of being at the BMX worlds I had an extended holiday to look forward to in the UK, seeing all of my oldest friends, riding everyday, seeing my family and spending time with them all catching up, and getting back in touch with my home, and the people that make it so amazing.

From the after party of the Saturday night (an entire blog post could be written about that - woof) I drove from Birmingham to Sheffield at Mach 1 in the Vauxhall Meriva. Fera Baybutt, wife of the incredible talented Richard Baybutt was smashing her way through the sheffield half marathon and I aimed to be there on the sidelines to cheer her on. Will Schwar and Dave Patten and some mixing of some drink put paid to that though.

RB.com and the Beautiful Fera.

I did get there in time to sit down and have lunch with the champ, and be with my besties, RB.com, AT, Big W, the beautiful Hannah, Malco, Vicky and Lulu. It was amazing, I felt so wonderfully happy to be in the company of all the people that I can honestly call the best friends I have ever had. Lunch was banging, as was my head by this point, so we traveled out to Monkeybumps, the legendary trail spot not 10 minutes away from the City Centre to catch some of the fellas shredding and take in the sereneness of Sheffield and the bluebell wood in which the trails are built. I was feeling tender, so I sat and watched  and shoot the breeze with the all the guys, getting the scoop on the Sheffield scene and watched AT absolutely sending it.

Bolehills Forever - By www.richardbaybutt.com

Vest View in Sheffield

 A BBQ that evening and a good sleep had me feeling back to 100%. The next 4 days in Sheffield are a bit of a blur, an amazing blur, but it all meshed into one amazing experience. My best friends, the sacred grounds of Bolehills BMX track, incredible weather, good food, non-stop laughter and smiles. I fell in love with sheffield all over again. there is something so wonderful about that City. It's difficult to try and encapsulate what it is exactly, and I don't think I could, but I just feel at home there. It warms my insides, makes me happy from the belly up and I didn't want to leave. Not for a moment did I want to leave.

It was so good to be back at Bolehills, back at the trails, riding my bike around the streets, up the big bastard hills and taking in the clean, warm air. I bloody well love you Sheffield.

Hands down, the best week I can remember in a long time, and I cannot wait to be back there.

After my trip to sheffield I headed back down South to spend the last few days with my family and see the Essex mandem. I managed to get a sneaky session in at the new BMX track in South London, built by C&K and even got to visit my second home when I lived in Essex - Warley Trails. They were looking amazing and I had a sweet 2 hour sesh on those badboys to seal an end to my riding in the UK for this trip. couldn't have been better.

It was lovely seeing my folks and my Brother and Sister who were on fine form. Drinking lots of tea, filling eachother in on whats going on, and catching up. It was sad to say goodbye to my Mum when I left though being that it will be the last time I will ever be in that house again, where a reat deal of my childhood memories were made. It hadn't really sunk in until I left. But it was still nice to give good hugs to my folks and my Fam, sending them love and thoughts every single day.

The plane ride home was a tough one, I managed to spill an entire glass of tomato juice all over myself, and after I had cleaned up the mess, I just had a mini breakdown in the bog. So many emotions and a million things going around my brain right now, and the bloody Tommy J was the final straw!

I took onboard the advice of the amazing Chopper Reid and Lulu Watson, and took a spoonful of concrete, and hardened the fuck up. It'll be reet.

2012 UCI BMX World Championships - Birmingham UK

This year we saw the BMX world Championship circuit come to sunny Great Britain, the event was held at the NIA Arena in Birmingham City Centre, and in typical fashion, with the race being indoors it meant cloudless, beautiful days outside, for the entirety of the event. Amazing.

Some 2500+ riders and their entourages descended on Birmingham to go for glory and the title of world Champion in their respective classes. The British riders came strong, with some riders laying it all out and putting down amazing rides, but there was also some upset, disappointment and down right misfortune for some of our riders.

Amazing rides and world titles came from the likes of Ross Cullen, who didn't that look as though he could pull it out of the bag through qualyfying but absolutley smashed the main! Every bodies favourite blogger, trailsboss and video editor Joey Gough and the amazing Quillan Isidore, big up your statuses as World Champions. Quillan, you were a joy and honour to watch on track. No one came close to touching you my friend, annihilation. Joey looked good all day in the 17+ womens class, and in the final, she lead it out from the first jump all the way to the line. The other girls may have had some extra ponies and a better gate on them, but Joey came through with the skills, smoothing her way to being World Champ. She's one of my besties from the French trip and to be in the stands with all her nearest and dearest at the time was euphoric, the place went mental sissa.

Bad luck be-felled many of our riders, and 2 of them that showed so much promise were Paddy Sharrock and Liam Phillips, I was absolutely gutted for you both, 2 crashes that were unavoidable, and bought an end to the World Champ dream. But I know Liam will be back on form for the London Olympics in several weeks, and Paddy will be on a charge next year in the 15's class. So much more to come from that lad.

My race was a bit shit if i'm honest, I felt as though I rode well, but just not fast enough for the cats of the Master class. It was an honour to be getting on the gate with some seriously fast dudes, some of whom were ex World Champs and to be getting amongst them all a bit. I learned a lot, perhaps the biggest lesson being that I ought to stick to the Challenge 30+ class!

Up to the Worlds I had been pretty unlucky, damaging my left hand in a bad crash and fracturing my left heel at Grippen Park, smashing my elbow into the face of a jump at Howell, and getting doored by a yellow taxi cab on Water street on my way to work. In all fairness, I could have done without all of those things, and they were all pretty avoidable too.

The Worlds experience for me was an amazing one, seeing all my old friends from the race scene, having a bit of a social after racing (dangerous), riding some of the amazing tracks nearby to Birmingham including the unbelievable Perry Park, and the old fave Derby. The amazing weather, and the way a few people went out of their way to help me out on my long trip. Thank you! It was an amazing time.

Taking one for the Team.

Haven't posted in a while, I have been a little bit of a funk as they say. But that's not to say that life isn't going well, been riding lots, racing some, training, spending time with Dani and feel like I have been progressing nicely as far as everything goes. I suppose a little bit of the post France Roadtrip Blues got the better of me!

The videos posted by Joey, RB and all of the different pictures that keep popping up make me feel warm and happy inside. such an amazing trip it was this year.

Life in NY is okay, work has been flat, very tired of the project I have been involved in for the last 18 months, its an exhausting behemoth.

In other news, racing this weekend up in Grippen Park was a treat, didn't lose a lap on Saturday felt face and on point, Sunday was a train wreck though. Dropping a chain in the first turn in practice saw me high side the bike and go face first and fist first into a roller, cue damaged ligaments in my left wrist and a hand that looks like a boxing glove. This became a bit of a bane and I couldn't really ride like I wanted to due to lack of grip, but I carried on. There weren't many people there, so I was in both finals, in the Pro Am we were racing for money, I somehow managed the best gate of the day and had a sweet line going into turn 1 that could have paid off great for me, but instead I fancied bonking my front wheel, then violently ejecting myself heel first into 4 riders and the turn.. Cue a fractured heel.

Anyway, there aren't many big races coming up, so its all good. ha.

Have some of this, beautifully arranged, soulful and wonderful music from Quantic & Alice Russell with the Combo Bárbaro. Fabulous. Healing Music is ever I heard it.

SBTRKT Trials of the past ft Sampha & Heritage Orchestra (live at BBC Maida Vale)

I love SBTRKT, I love Orchestral arrangements laid atop electronic music, I adore it when its done as perfectly as this, and recorded live too. Astounding. 

France Roadtrip 2012

The France BMX Roadtrip is one that I have been lucky enough to be a part of since 2004, the only year I missed was in 2009 as I had just moved to the USA. It is, hands down the best week of riding, laughing, training and shredding you will ever have. The French know how to build amazing tracks, they have so many of them, they are so welcoming to a large group of UK riders that they extend their hours, or turn a blind eye to the occassional fence jump! The trip has gone from strength to strength over the years and we have built friendships with locals and some of the clubs, this allows us to plan ahead the trip, and make sure we aren't just bouncing from track to track trying to get a ride in.

This year was incredible, we had a sick group of riders, amazing weather and pretty much all of the tracks were in great condition.

I took a lot of pictures, but also dabbled in a small edit, which is below, I have a lot to learn about making video from my 60D, but I am happy with how this video came out all the same. Plus its something that I can look back on in years to come and remind myself of yet another amazing week in the south of France doing the thing I love most, riding my bike, with my friends.


France 2012 BMX Olympic Roadtrip from Daniel Clifford on Vimeo.

Pictures to follow soon.

Must Watch

Birthday boy RB.com shared this with me today and it made me feel warm inside, beautifully moving stop animation piece, well worth watching. The music by the Cinematic Orchestra too, what a absolute treat.

Enjoy


Address Is Approximate from The Theory on Vimeo.

Floating Points Ensemble - Post Suite

Recorded at Maida Vale. Floating Points Ensemble, 16 piece orchestra, Sam on the buttons and Fatima on the vocals.

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