What's Good? Pat Johns x Christian Rigal 'Still United'
Welcome to round four 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 turn to LUXBMX customer service rep, Patrick 'Big John' Johns.
Pat is currently overseas on a 'finding himself' type journey, exploring the offerings of the Mediterranean, Balearic & Tyrrhenian Sea's, at the same time contribtuting his 2c to the LUXBMX enterprise. Pat has an engineering background, being one of those dudes that has a rig of a prefrontal cortex, a meta-cognitive type operator, having recently switched codes to customer service while also appying his problem solving skill set to all nooks and crannies of the LUXBMX operation.
Rigal in his role as filmer. Photo taken from Redbull
Having not really touched on this topic (favourite BMX videos), it was cool to get this conversation going with Pat, someone with whom I haven't discussed this concept before. Pleasingly, Pat went to town on his written thoughts, which means we all get a personalised view of what drives the dudes interest in BMX content.
Before we go any further, let's introduce the subject video, the 2016 full-length DVD from UK brand, United (filming/editing by Peter Adam). More specifically, Pat has gone with Christian Rigal's monster 6+ minute part. The video ended up taking out the Number One Rider Award (NORA) cup for best video of 2016, which should give you some idea of the quality of this project, no doubt emboldened by Christian's dedication and passion to filming. From my point of view, this was around the time that I really started taking notice of Peter Adam's skills in videography, nowadays he would be on my list of the best to do it and someone to really look forward to for new content.
It doesn't need to be stated that this part is full of wild clips, from start to finish, heavily concentrated around the destruction of sizeable rail setups. This is signature Christian Rigal and undeniably the obvious highlight/s within this part. One example being the uprail at 5.20, I don't know about you, but charging a hop at a bar-height rail at full-speed would be absolutely terrifying. Perhaps it is then not unexpected that Christian has now taken his biking focus to mountain biking, in that the way he sent himself in BMX was inevitably unsustainable. It's good stuff.
Anyway, let's leave it to Pat to describe why this part kicks so much ass.
Rigal of recent times, with that MTB ruggedness. Photo courtesy of Freehub
"This video is sick right from the start. With a bit of a light hearted intro and some teasing of the riding and energy, then dropping into one of the wildest rails ever as the camera zooms out to show the full rail. With Sabbath coming on at this moment, my mind is blown. Nothing sums up the feeling of BMX to me better than that clip (and a select few others like it), including the obligatory/almost involuntary satisfaction of a good bike throw afterwards, then sharing the stoke with your mates at the spot. This immediately gets me super keen to ride as soon as I get to this clip. It's almost always a section I watch over breakfast before going out for a ride.
The first clip then sets the pace for the whole video, and it really doesn't let up at all. Burley savagery with crazy precise lines/tricks that could go so wrong through the whole video. Everything he does in this requires so much balls and skill.
Some videos can feel like they waste an epic song, but Rigal's level of riding and the crazy energy of the section matched perfectly with the Sabbath track - which is such a great song for creating a level of anticipation that most riders could only hope to pull off so well.
The ending couldn't be more perfect as well. With the song winding down for the 2nd last clip... replayed in perfect, daunting, slo-mo so you can get a good appreciation of one of the craziest up-rail to rail gaps ever. I can't say I remember seeing many/if any others that compare, although I do live under a rock. Then in a jaw dropping, balls-to-the-wall moment, the ender (without warning after the song), arrives and it looks like he shouldn't have been able to ride away from it. Every time I watch the section, no matter how much you squint, it doesn't look possible.
So to summarise, good energy, high adrenaline, a sense of accomplishment, hanging on for dear life, mates, classic music and big rails. This section is BMX for me."
Love your work Pat.
I don't know about you, but I'm hyped after reading Pat's notes on the Christian Rigal part, you can really feel his excitement for this section. Take it in below.
