https://unitedbikeco.com/

A Survival Guide To Simple Session

The human body can only take so much vodka, pasta and awkward sleeping arrangements

12 Feb 2017

Booze

By Joey Spinoza

We still haven’t recovered from last weekend's Simple Session and I mean that in a physical and emotional way. Quite simply - it's one of the best weekends in BMX right now. Not only does it bring a sizeable bunch of the BMX community together but it also gives riders a taste of the Baltics, in every kind of way. 

Simple Session can crush you, it can mature you and it can mentally break you down until you find yourself sobbing into a Park Inn pillow while browsing Sky Scanner for flights home. If you are planning on going next year then maybe you need to read our guide for surviving in the darkness of Northern Europe for five very long days.

Dugan

An early flight is like voluntarily putting your whole body into a trash can and being hauled across the world while hungover and fighting for breath.

1. Don’t get an early flight home.

If you are a rider then you may have to beg your sponsor or do some of your own flight searching but trust me, getting an afternoon flight home on the Monday will increase your life expectancy by 5-6 years. Sunday night is notoriously one of the craziest and it’s literally a booze carnival of self-reproach and debauchery where 70+ riders are already fighting a 4-day hangover - which has now escalated in a drowsy and drunken massacre. Be smart and attend the airport at a reasonable hour or suffer the consequences.

Coat

Sometimes you have to kill something to survive.

2. Take the jacket you think you won’t need.

You’re looking at the weather on your phone, you’re looking at your jackets and you’re thinking to yourself “I’ll be fine if I just take a hoody and a coach jacket”. Then you get there and you are greeted with the cold painful blizzard of the Baltics and you realize that nothing, not even satins loving embrace can warm you up. Last year I found myself wondering the lonely mall stores like Leonardo DiCaprio in the Reverent looking for the skin of dead bear.

Dayboozess

Three litres will see you through at least three hours of practice.

3. Drink in the day or die.

Before I go on, I would like to state that we at DIG do not condone drinking booze but we are also realists and journalists (kinda) who tell the story how it is.

BMX contests are great - but for everyone that isn’t riding it’s just a lot of sitting and looking at tail whips all day, sometimes 15 in just one combo. After a while you start to get numb, you do weird things like say “shall we get some food” 20 minutes after you’ve eaten. You also find yourself glancing at the clock and thinking, “Is 3pm too early to start drinking”? The answer is yes, but inside an area where time strangely turns in on itself - it’s really the only answer to enduring everything with ease. Survival is about lasting certain situations under adverse or unusual circumstances, Simple Session is all of those. 

4. Find a safe place.

Simple Session is all around you. It’s like an impassive diseased blanket of decadence that wraps you up and feeds off you, its love and hate in equal measures. The human body can only take so much vodka, pasta and awkward sleeping arrangements so you must find a safe place to re charge your life. You will not find this in the Park Inn, or the Park Inn lobby and you will not find this in the Saku Sports Hall. You may have to seek sanctuary at an undisclosed location.

Godwin

Jordan Godwin enjoying the sins of Tallinn.

Reedcurleyfred

You will not find us wrapped up in this mess.

5. Prepare for the worst.

If you are a “Professional” BMX rider and you qualify top 12 then you will probably find yourself trapped in an unusual void at around 5am where you are presented by two options: one is to get a taxi and go to sleep and the other is to enjoy the skin to skin comforts of two Estonian girls. Prepare for the worst, prepare to know that you will be fathering children from the other side of the world and in a language you do not understand.

You laugh now...

Previous

Setups: Kilian Roth

Cult and Eclat's Latest Pro

Related Content

Etnies-Simple-Session-2015
Play Button

Etnies Team At Simple Session 2015

Ruben Alcantara, Aaron Ross, Tom Dugan, Grant Germain, and more...

29 May 2015
Simple 16 Teaser
Play Button

Simple Session 16 Trailer

It's back again!

30 Mar 2016
Ss17
Play Button

Simple Session 17 Course

Another epic creation

5 Jan 2017
Simple Session 2017 Garrett Reynolds Winning Runs
Play Button

Simple Session 2017 - Garrett Reynolds' Winning Runs

Just doing what he does best

6 Feb 2017
Simple Session 16 Bmx Vince Perraud Db5 A7940
Play Button

Simple Session 16 DIG Highlights

And Simple 17 Date Announced

18 Oct 2016
Simple Session 17 Trailer
Play Button

Simple Session 17 TRAILER

4-5th of February, 2017

9 Jan 2017
Simple 17 Build
Play Button

Simple Session 17 Course Build

Designed by Nate Wessel

1 Feb 2017
Reed Stark Safari Simple Session 2016
Play Button

REED STARK SAFARI: Simple Session 2016

Wild in Estonia

13 Oct 2016
Session 16 Qualifiers
Play Button

Simple Session 16 - Live Stream - Finals

Last Day In Tallinn

1 May 2016
https://www.danscomp.com/

Latest Content

L Hp Mi5 Q1jd8hqdefault
Play Button

'PARALLEL 4 EVER' JAM | DIG X THE CUT BMX

Viva La Parallel

28 Mar 2024
J Lx Sm AOV2dchqdefault
Play Button

Garrett Byrnes - Demolition Parts 2002

Over 20 years old and still holds up

28 Mar 2024
D Fb Pku RF Exghqdefault
Play Button

Inspired: The Scotty Cranmer Story

Against all odds

28 Mar 2024
V8 Rf l K1d M Ihqdefault
Play Button

Magnetar BTS: Europe

Spots on Spots!

27 Mar 2024
2 S7mig Va Q Bwhqdefault
Play Button

SIBLING UNITY - HOME TURF - PROFILE

The entire Halahan clan shredding 9 Acres

26 Mar 2024
W u Mecnsu2ohqdefault
Play Button

Davey Osgood - March Biking

Top biking!

26 Mar 2024
T Zljypy Nk D0hqdefault
Play Button

S&M - MOORE BIKING

Welcome!

26 Mar 2024
H Wn B Ehxm Wu8hqdefault
Play Button

Tech Tuesday - 19mm, 160mm Profile Cranks on a budget - Profile

The backstory behind the 160s

25 Mar 2024
G4f GV Ho ZD Johqdefault
Play Button

ANIMAL BIKES - 'AHUEVO'

Three weeks in Mexico

25 Mar 2024
A P Tpd2h NDA8hqdefault
Play Button

Source BMX: Kilian Roth BTS RAW

Lock-in Unlocked

25 Mar 2024
E As1wz V Sw4hqdefault
Play Button

Factory Friday: Mad Dog Toolin' Around!

Mad Dog frame, Barbie pink Shortcut, Softgoods & more

25 Mar 2024
CG9 Rqtk Jz shqdefault
Play Button

FIT Power Hour - Clarkdale Skatepark

45 minutes with Milky and Ison

25 Mar 2024

DIG Partner stores

More Dig This

Thee void leader
Cinema apparel 24 sring
DSCF2930

PRODUCTIVITY - ECLAT 1023 STEM

Designed in Cologne. Made in Kyoto.

31 Jan 2024
Dig2023stack

DIG BOOK #2023

NOW SHIPPING

8 Jan 2024
Wheel mill winter welcome 24 WIDE

EVENT NEWS: The Wheel Mill - Winter Welcome Jam 2024

Shelter from the storm.

19 Dec 2023
TJP WTP 22 6

SETUPS: TYSON JONES-PENI'S 22" CHAOS MACHINE

"I'm not saying the 22" will become the new standard, but it might help some riders stay on a BMX, rather than switching to MTB."

18 Dec 2023
TAMERICA tam roastin BSD 2023 mcgrath 11

The TAMerica Interview

The USA didn't know what was coming!

12 Dec 2023
Wethepeople THE SWAMPMASTER matt black 01 web

PRODUCTIVITY: WETHEPEOPLE SWAMP MASTER

Bouncy BMX Time

11 Dec 2023
Jj book cover crop

PRINT MATTERS: The Dirt in Our Skin

When BMX and literature collide

7 Dec 2023
Sniper Lever Yuma 11

ARE BRAKES COMING BACK?! - THE ECLAT SNIPER LEVER

Read what brakey boy Yuma Oshimo had to say on. the subject.

21 Nov 2023
UWS casey thumb
Uws video teaser dig this thumb

UWS: BMX ON A MISSION - EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW

A new online street contest

17 Nov 2023