Tuesday, August 23, 2011

The Greatest Snow(bikes) on Earth

You may recognize this guy from his Little Devil video, the hallways of of the Sands convention center, or, as I did, loitering around SLC's downtown dead zone (soon to be the Fear Factory):

If you don't recognize him, you might recognize his backyard or spare bed(rad)room:

Matt Beringer, long time S&M  and 5050 BMX rider, has pushed BMX creativity to new heights for more than a decade.  He called himself an "old man."  I'm not sure that Fuzzy and Fahzure would agree, but with his creative output, you could certainly call him "storied."  Matt and Fahzure talked about the wash that the Red Bull BMX tour was in Moab, in fact, often a wash in Moab for Matt, with Josh L. leading the hard late night charge (there are GREATS to be had in Moab, let's nail it BMX style sometime).

Matt looks at the environment differently than you or I or transportation engineers, for that matter.  When I ran into Matt he described an "X" shaped barrier, designed to stop trains, which he was exploring new tricks on.  Being a Ute, Matt has had to make his peace with winter, learning to front flip on a board at Pow Mow.  But Matt sees opportunity for bikes in winter, that most don't, BSX:



Matt's been working on a dual suspension BSX bike design of his own for a couple of years now, with the Cobra gang.  His design features a floating rear end that make manuals and other tricks more plush.  Fahzure had the opportunity to try BSX at Pow Mow and OR Winter market last year and loved the way they performed on packed snow conditions, a little bit like a reverse camber board with dull edges...kind of skatey; also very light. However, in the Pow, the snow bikes were unable to maintain float cause of their limited contact patch. Fahzure would like to take a fattie out in deep pow, steepin' up the terrain a bit, and hit a winddrift hip. Freeride.

Matt is getting ready for a small run of protos, then a small production run. With his background (that's right, Colorado, California, BC...where you get 350 or cement) there is probably no more qualified person than Matt to take BSX to the next levels.  You might be able to get in on this (find him on Facebook or at Interbike)...Fahzure placed an order for one of Matt's creations, on the spot.  Make mine a custom Fattie.   

This also looks interesting:
More on powersports models here.

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