What's Good? Declan Kilpatrick x 'Reed Stark in Arizona'
Welcome to round seven of the latest LUXBMX journal segment, 'What's Good?'.
To reiterate, we reach out to one of the homies and get a hot tip on the latest biking madness. It's called 'What's Good?' and for the this installment, we seek swag literacy from tall boy street sweeper Declan Kilpatrick.
Hyped to get someone involved in this segment who I'm not overly familiar with, being Brisbane local and Triple 6 biker Declan Kilpatrick. The kid has a racing background, and as is often the case, was quickly lured to the dark side through the promise of frayed ends, flirting with danger and camaraderie of a different kind. Having grown into the role of street lurker and BMX connoiseur, I find myself feeling like I have a certain kinship with dudes like this, an intangible 'knowing' through following similar paths. It's cool to see the new demographic of yung bikers taking the BMX freestyle flag and flying it proudly like it deserves.
Anyway, having been tipped off that the dude thrives BMX videos, who better to ask to be apart of this segment? I gotta say, I was hyped when he came back to me with the selection and some supporting commentary. Great choice, absolute fine choice. So, without any further rambling, let's get amongst it.
Staunchin'. One look at this and you know you're in the land down under. Photo taken from Declan's socials
Take it away Declan.
"I find myself watching a lot of BMX videos before going out riding or after a good day out in the streets. Recently, one of the 1836 boys asked me what my favourite video was & it was a hard one to choose, there's so many sick new videos coming out weekly at this point it's kinda hard to keep up. Everybody's doing the craziest new trick or adding a million barspins into a line which is dope & I love it, but I always find myself coming back to BSDs 'Reed Stark in Arizona' video.
Hyped to find this photo, which looks to be from the making of the video (the intro in particular). You got unknown biker on the left, David Grant, Reed, Tony Malouf (film/edit) and Jeff Wescott. Photo taken from the dudes socials
This video is what I think of as the ideal web video, heaps of big sends down massive hand rails mixed in with some great spot usage, 4:3 aspect ratio (which is perfect for BMX), 3 and half minutes - you can just watch it and get stoked for a good ride.
I think what stands out the most is that Reed doesn't take his hands or feet off once in this part. There is just heaps of grind tricks and sick spots, less is more when the spots are unique. A couple of my favourite clips would be the ice hard on the flat bar which not be anything crazy these days but this video was from 2013 and Reed was playing BMX on hard mode with metal pegs and a cassette. Equally, the ice over ice down the kinker, catching every bit of the rail too which is still crazy to this day. I haven't really seen many people doing that trick. He also drops off a skinny roof to a curved feeble around a metal ledge then over to a massive drop. Just the craziest spot, something really different to what you'd normally see in a web video and not able to be easily replicated."
As referenced by Declan, this is the super smooth ice over ice, damn it would have felt good
Cannot agree more on this one, even weirdly so. Re-watching this video as part of this article, it really hit me in the memory muscle. I too find myself going back to this one which is saying something because BSD and Reed have produced many, many videos since this one. For me, it's the desert setting, the Arizonian colours and the way the Tony Malouf puts it all together - works to highlight Arizona as an amazing city in terms of unique spots and large rails.
If I may indulge myself with some further thoughts, the colour grading of Malouf is fantastic, and I love how he seamlessly integrates HD long with a bunch of beatifully still fish shots. It appears as though there is a subtle vignette to the HD long shots. If you watch any of the old videos I produced (from around 2014 onwards), they were a direct influence from this guy. Another aspect that stands out to me from these boys is the hype that Reed brings, he seems genuinely pumped on pulling a bunch of these tricks and isn't scared to drop a 'wooo'. Stereotypically American, this kinda tomfoolery is ubiquitous these days, but ya boy Reed was doing it early on, so respect.
It's sick to watch the same video and while sharing some thoughts, there are also many differences in our analysis. Love that.
Take a watch, get excited, ride a bike.
