ABOVE BELOW - Nashville Photo Gallery

Above and Below the Bible Belt...

15 Dec 2014

Nashville's main strip will always provide you with some entertainment, needless to say, some of it is pretty kooky. No fucks given with these two...

If you've seen Above Below already, then you'll know Ben was hurting after this one. I can honestly say though, i've never seen anyone falling off a bike and trying to save themselves all while keeping noise to a minimum! Ben managed to evade the security's hearing sat 50 feet away and we snuck out the same way we came in.

It was coming to the end of the day when Dak found this massive wallride gap so we set up quick to catch the rest of the light. Fast forward ten minutes and we were celebrating Dak's signature wallride prowess when this guy showed up. "Ya'll shootin' a movie?", he inquired, followed by an invitation to see his prize chickens. Why he wanted us to see his chickens, i'm not sure, but it didn't get boring watching Lacey, Nathan, Ben and Dak, trying to catch one that had escaped, all at the same time as Rich skating after the poor bird with a fisheye. Standard street riding encounter i guess.

If I remember rightly, this massive wallride to euro was the last clip that was filmed for Dak's section and in my opinion, it doesn't get much better. Despite the incessant threats of police presence and "private property", Dak got the clip in the bag and all with that classic Roche style. OOOOOOOOSH!

Just another day at the office...

Ahh, the bible belt...

When you're part of a 9 month-long project and you see the same people for 10 days every month and experience ups and downs with them, you tend to grow pretty close. Lacey and Rich were no different, with some pretty hilarious conversations flowing between the two of them, usually starting with Rich saying something weird and Dan retaliating with a melee of light hearted jiving and sometimes the odd play fight. It might not look like it from this photo, but these guys are like two peas in a pod. I can't count how many photos I have of this senario in various continents…

With Nashville possessing a handful of highly talented BMX residents, you'd think it wouldn't be the best place to go to catch some clips, but that couldn't have been further from the truth. Nathan revisited some old haunts like this one and slung a high speed hard 180 bar - I guess it's more polite to one-up yourself!

Know when to roll 'em, know when to fold 'em. Nathan decided to take a gamble on a huge gap over crankarm at a local school and unfortunately it didn't pay off. Nathan was pissed that he got hurt so bad but you can't be too bummed out when you filmed a ridiculous gap switch crook 180 bar a few minutes earlier. Luckily you can't keep a good man down...

I can only speak for myself on this one, but Nashville had to be my favourite trip for Above Below, and definitely the most productive riding-wise. This didn't mean we couldn't enjoy some of the other fun that the South had to offer… Nathan showed us how he spends his off days at home. Not bad eh?

Another angle on Nathan's horrible ejector seat slam that he had in Nashville. You win some, you lose some.

Words and Photos By Fred Murray

To celebrate the release of Above Below on iTunes, we decided to upload a gallery of photos from each filming trip, as featured in the limited Above Below DVD/photo book that went out to the various premieres across the globe. First up we've got Nashville, home of country 'n' western and one of BMX's most revered, Nathan Williams. This had to be one of the most productive trips i've been on to date, with so much talent all together in a city with such a fine pedigree, I guess it shouldn't have been such a surprise. Here's a small taste of what went down in Tennessee, and make sure you look out for more galleries every day this week. Oh, and if you still haven't seen Above Below, do yourself a favour and get yourself over to iTunes for the full two-part video; you won't regret it. Enjoy...