The first thing that struck me after just a few minutes watching everybody warm up was that these guys were good..really good. It felt like a glance through some of the present and future of the UK scene. It was the first time I’d filmed with most of these guys, and also the first time a lot of them had met eachother, and rather than being the slightly daunting and awkward experience I was half anticipating it would be for them, the atmosphere was strangely relaxed almost immediately. It was like watching a huge session between old friends, and just another of those recurring moments that BMX has given me over the years, a reminder of the strange way that a small bicycle can pull together a group of people who have never met before, and has so frequently created so many memorable days over the years, shared by strangers who say their goodbyes as new friends. As cheesy as that is to write, it’s one of the few things about BMX that never seems to change regardless of the generations involved or the way that you choose to ride, and for me was a really huge part of the day, and why in my opinion it was such a success. As Mallick mentioned in a brief interview we did, it wasn’t a shoot or a filming session, it was just a session, and I really got the feeling that everybody was on the same page in that respect.
