Pralex

Midschool vs. New school and why Ron Monis is so sexy

2011-07-22T07:19:00.000-07:00

Alright, where to begin...First of all these terms are totally meaningless and their meaning changes as time passes. I think I sort of missed the "old school" train of hopping stationary tricks. I started riding as midschool was on the way out. Rolling tricks and the use of all brakes, decades, pinky squeaks etc...While new school I suppose focuses more on pumping and turbining tricks.

What does all this have to do with riding? Nothing really. I haven't had the pleasure of travelling to Europe so I don't really know anything about their scene other than the pros, but in North America, midschool and new school riding are currently going head to head in the #amflat circuit. And midschool is arguably winning.

The top riders in master class being Jon Dowker, Prasheel Gopal, Tyler Gilliard, Todd Gully, Ron Monis, Mark Kuhlmann, Joel Schallhorn and myself (Alex Poirier). The midschool riders obviously being Jon Dowker and Todd Gully while Ron Monis kind of borders between mid and new. Pretty much anytime Jon Dowker is at a contest I rule out first place because his consistency is something I just cannot catch. Todd Gully the past two years has also taken over podium positions consistently and has pretty much a guarunteed top 3 spot in the #amflat circuit. Dowker would also be up there if he had made it to more circuit stops (where you at Jon? Stop letting the new school kids win contests). Ron Monis (fortunately for us) seems to choke on his contest runs but if he was hitting his stuff he would be a top 3 contender for sure.

These three guys are the reason you see guys like Tyler Gilliard, Joel Schallhorn, Prasheel Gopal and myself going for new harder tricks in our runs, because if we don't pull out the stops we cannot catch their consistency mixed with their high level midschool riding. Ron, Todd and Jon are amazing riders and competing with them in the same class is so much fun. This brings me to a point (not that I really have a point).

Vet class. I'll be honest...I hate this class. Tricks are tricks, they all have a level of difficulty regardless of what time period they are from. Jon Dowker and Todd Gully are proof that decades, pinky squeaks, and many more non-new-school tricks can win master class. I don't even like the separation of expert and master class to be honest. I think expert should be divided, the top experts should be in master, the bottom should be in beginner.

Anyways I pretty much made this post because I wanted to highlight how awesome master classes midschool riders are. Riding with them is so much fun (and partying with them is even more fun).

With that said, I cannot wait for Battle at the Border in Bufflao for the last stop of the amflat circuit. Hopefully Tyler Gilliard, Jon Dowker and Koit come to this one as its been forever since we have seen them. Lastly, Steve Lapsley and his family are awesome. The amflat circuit is going in such a good direction and I can't wait to see what riders jump up classes for next year (Jimmy Kibbons, Joe Cicman, Alexis la Grassa, Johnny Tamayo).

I was hoping to solve why Ron Monis is sexy as I wrote this, but I couldnt figure it out...The fact remains though.

2010 Video Retrospective

2010-12-27T04:34:00.000-08:00

Everyone else is doing it, so thought we'd jump right in.

Instead of giving you a "best of Pralex edits in 2010", this will be a list of all of our edits in 2010. For one reason or another, Alex and I have been a lot more quiet on the self made video edit scene this past year. Whether that will change in 2011, only time will tell.

Personally, I really liked how 2010 went down for me in terms of my edits. While I only have a tiny handful (two videos), I feel they really represent me and my riding at the times they were produced.

The first edit I dropped was an edit I made entirely from me riding in my old parking lot the last time before I moved. I have gone back and revisited the parking lot once, and I can fully agree with Alex and Bo Wade, that it is in fact, a really really terrible riding spot haha. For years I went there multiple times a day to ride and hang out by myself though, and it truly felt like 'my spot'. To me, this marks an end of an era for me.

Prasheel Gopal: May 28, 2010 from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

About 6 weeks later, Alex finally dropped a short clip, with him almost (lol) landing a line with a new switch he had been working on for a while. It just shows Alex, and his home spot, almost successful on something he worked towards for a while. Fun tune and a shining sun really make me miss summer while watching this too.

Gruesome bike slam to fall. from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

Lastly, about 2 months ago, Pralex officially welcomed Mark Kuhlmann to the team, and to do it right, Beefy and I both collected some footage over later summer and fall, and Alex did up an edit with the two of us. This video reminds me of going out and riding in cool fall nights, knowing that for every day we pass up for riding, we're one day closer to the unrideable season of winter.

Prasheel Gopal & Mark "Beefy" Kuhlmann from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

We hope everyone had a great 2010, and we wish you all the best, on and off the bike, for 2011. Cheers.

Alex's 2011 Who to Watch For List!

2010-12-08T15:46:00.000-08:00

Now, before I get ahead of myself here, let me just say that 2010 was like a rebirth for flatland in North America. I think it would have been another lack luster year if it hadn't been for the huge efforts of Steve Lapsley and the North American Am Flat Circuit. This really revived the contest scene amoung the expert and master class. With that said, a huge thanks to all the contest organizers as well. You guys put in a ton of work only to be plagued with complaints after the contest (I know I've been guilty of this myself a couple times even). It's not that your work isn't appreciated, it's just that...I dunno what it is, we all just see a greater potential I suppose, and everyones idea of a contest is different...ANYWAYS, thanks guys.

Alright, now, riders to look out for. First off...I'm calling out Daniel Burnett. Prasheel and I loved that kids riding two years ago at Red Bull's Fight with Flight, and now he's disappeared off the map! We hope he's still riding, someone point him in our direction and let him know we think he killed it in intermediate class.

Next up for beginners we got Fat Tony, he placed well in intermediate class at three of the am circuit stops and if the Am Circuit adds a intermediate class (over if Fat decides to man up and move to expert class) you might just see him make podium!

The expert class is tough, there are a lot of guys in this class with a wide variety of styles, its hard to pick who might stand out next year. Obviously Bryan Huffman killed it in 2010, and hopefully we'll see him in the Master class for 2011 (and even there I'm sure he'll kill it and place very well). After that it's very hard to choose, the class is stacked and the odds are pretty even for almost anyone to take it next year. Alexis La Grass would be an obvious choice, along with Johnny Tamayo, and ride along side them I think we will have Mark Kuhlmann, Omari Cato, Alex Johnson, and Andrew Wickham if they make it to most of the stops. With Bryan hopefully moving up, this really opens the expert class wide open for 2011. I'm really excited to see how it plays out over the next year and to see who really puts in the time, because almost any of the guys that competed last year in expert has a chance at taking first overall at year end.

Master class is a lot less tough, I'm not going to lie. The top two guys destroyed in 2010, and obviously are Tyler Gilliard and Percy Marshall. Hailing from opposite ends of the country, these two without a doubt are guys that will be making the leap up to pro someday (I think everyone else in the master class is hoping sooner rather then later). There were even some complaints about these two competing in Master as guys want them to move up to pro, I personally love competing against these two, they have so much focus in their runs and are a ton of fun to ride with outside of the contest floor as well. It's an honour to get to ride with these two on what feels like a pretty regular basis. Going down the list you have a lot of staple North American competitors...So I'm going to skip down to Koit. Whether or not he rides well in his contest run, this guy is unreal positive. I never really know when he's going to show up to contests, but he always seems to be there, and its always a pleasure to see him ride. His consistency went through the roof in the past year and I can't wait to see what he brings to the contests in 2011. That'll do it for my choices in 2011 to watch out for, it's going to be another amazing year and hopefully we'll see some new faces on the circuit rankings...STOKED ON BEING STOKED!

Alex

Mark "Beefy" Kuhlmann Bike Check

2010-11-23T16:33:00.000-08:00

I like Mark's bike. You probably will too. Parts list below, followed by photos. Enjoy.

Frame: 2010 Sick Child Instrumental 19.25"
Fork: Odyssey Flatware Zero Degrees
Headset: Colony Integrated
Seat: Odyssey 99er
Seat Post: Odyssey Intac
Seat Post Clamp: S&M
Crank: Odyssey 41 Thermal 165mm
Pedals: Macneil Plastic
Sprocket: Tree Splined 18t
Chain: KHE 3/32" Tanga Light
Bars: S&M Intrikat
Stem: Seasons Le Merk (35mm reach)
Grips: ODI Longneck
Lever: Odyssey Monolever
Brakes: Odyssey Evo2
Brake Cable: Odyssey Slic
Bar Ends: Macneil SS
Front Rim: Stolen Revolver
Front Spokes: Odyssey Double Butted
Front Nipples: G-Sport Hex
Front Hub: G-Sport Marmoset
Front Tire: Odyssey Freq. G
Front Pegs: Sequence Pirate Pegs
Rear Rim: Stolen Revolver
Rear Spokes: Odyssey Double Butted
Rear Nipples: G-Sport Hex
Rear Hub: KHE Geisha Lite
Rear Tire: Odyssey Freq. G
Rear Pegs: Sequence Plastic Magic Sticks

About his setup:

I run unmodified bars to keep the max width and height. I run loads of spacers to bring the bars as high as possible.

I learned the half grip tape idea from [Prasheel] for my sequence pegs. It provides the perfect amount of grip on the peg.

Although I ride regular I keep my front brake lever on the right side of the bars. I do a lot of my tricks with the bars the regular way to give me more room during jump switches, so having the brake on the right side is more accessible for me to use during more tricks. It also just feels way more comfortable.

Click photos to enlarge.

Stickers are here!

2010-11-22T13:22:00.000-08:00

Click photos to enlarge.

Just email me at prasheelg @ yahoo.com with your address, and I'll get some out to you soon.

Prasheel's Bike Check

2010-11-07T08:56:00.000-08:00

Click photos to enlarge.

Won't bother writing all the components, but if you're curious about anything, just leave a comment asking and I'll try to get back to you.

The frame is a crack and rewelded 19" TT Mankind, with a bad yellow paint job.

Bars are WTP Mad Max bars. 8.7" high, 29" wide, 11* backsweep, 1.5* upsweep.

Stem is Colony TLD with loads of spacers...30mm above headtube, 14mm (I think) below headtube.

Pegs are all Sequence...plastic in back, aluminum with stainless steel ends up front.

Rear wheel is garbage right now. Old Nankai that isn't running right, but I got a new Geisha axle on its way so the wheel will change soon.

Front wheel is a proper hub laced to an alienation deviant. Heard lots of problems with these rims, mainly being they're so light that they're very weak, but I haven't had any problems yet.

ABT seat, with the back being cut and modified by Matthias.

I'm on littler pedals again after my JCPC pedals drove me crazy from being loose, despite supposively not being able to become loose. No matter how tight I made the pins, the ends would rattle, plus the ends were getting chewed and ground a bunch, don't really think they're meant for flatland use lol.

Tires are Odyssey Frequency Gs. Normal P Lytes up front, sometimes K Lytes on the rear just to be lighter. If I'm at a contest with a slippery floor, you might see me with a KHE kevlar tire as they grip better for indoor surfaces.

Anything else you're interested, just ask.

Vibration Urbaines 2010 Flatland Pro Edit

2010-11-04T09:28:00.000-07:00

Not by me, but just found this online, so thought I would share.

The atmosphere and energy at this event was amazing, so glad I was there to witness it first hand.

Vibrations Urbaines 2010 Flatland Pro. from BMX-FORCE on Vimeo.

Last day in Paris

2010-11-02T06:28:00.001-07:00

Last day here! Just biked to the eiffel tower, got really lost (while it started to rain)...not sure how I couldn't find the giant tall building in the sky lol. Going to check out (via bike again) the Notre Dame cathedral in a little bit, and then the red light district later haha. Figured I've been to the one in Amsterdam, may as well see this one for comparison.

Trekking around solo isn't so bad, but its easy for me to get lost. Just trying to be as productive as I can be. After the sightseeing, going back to the night riding spot (Opera), by myself tonight, since Matthias and Adam both left this morning. Hoping there will be other riders there. I know Alex Jumelin is back in Paris after a week in NY, but not sure if he heads to Opera regularly during the week.

Oh yeah...packing tonight should be interesting. Not sure how I've accumulated SO much more stuff in the past week of being here as I came with, but I did. Should be interesting lugging my giant Ogio bag to the airport tomorrow morning by myself, trying to figure out where to go haha.

Well, I'm off again, more sightseeing awaits.

Alex's Life Update

2010-11-01T16:45:00.001-07:00

Prasheel did a little yearly update on himself, so here goes mine! I've been busy busy since last Halloween to say the least. Lost girlfriends, gained girlfriends, partied harder then most people do in a lifetime, got some stupid tattoos, rode my ass off (for selective periods of time), went to as many contests as possible, lost a job and gained a job!
As for riding, the past year as been lackluster to say the least for myself. Seems like Prasheel and I trade progression years. Last year was a huge progression year for myself, not so much for Prasheel, and this year that completely turned around. Still love riding my bike though, don't get me wrong, just lacking the motivation I had last year. I think a huge cause of this was realizing I have to learn how to spin in the opposite direction I'm comfortable with for all my forwards rolling tricks to really move forward and progress. Rolling opposite hang 5's took me weeks to get under control, and to go from spinning no-handed x-footed wheelchairs, to learning Hang 5's, its really hard to sit there for hours practicing that. But nonetheless I'm still at it. My contest placings for next season will definitely be hurting though, but hopefully in a year they take a drastic jump. One step back, two step forward type deal.
Besides that I've been busy working, had a quality assurance job that I got laid off from, and took another job at a car dealership doing next to nothing. Paperwork, driving around, typing numbers into computers, easy stuff, no stress. Saving money to return to school one of these days, all the while making sure I have enough fun to occupy myself and keep my sanity.
Most of you know I moved back to Petrolia, so Prasheel and I are now 8 hours apart, but we've still managed to see a disturbing amount of each other considering the 8 hour difference. We went to Indianapolis, Whitby, Toronto, Jomopro and Ohio together, also met up in Ottawa and Toronto on several occasions to ride and party like usual.
It's already getting cold out, and I can't wait for warm weather and sunshine so I can pick my bike up where I left off (in June, lol).
Peace!

Vibration Urbaines Results

2010-10-31T13:06:00.000-07:00

Too lazy to write much about this right now, so I`ll keep it short.

Pro
1st Matthias Dandois
2nd Adam Kun
3rd Raphael Chiquet

Master
1st Didier Genet
2nd Maxime Luchetti
3rd Prasheel Gopal

I was very surprised at my placing, but happy. It was just a good feeling to be out there, a much different vibe than a North American contest. Got a lot of applause from people when my name was announced, just for the fact that I came as far as I did. Apart from my contest run, had a lot of fun yesterday.

The pro contest was done battle style....one rider starts, and calls out another rider to battle, winner proceeds. Much different than back home, but very fun to watch. It was a great show, and fun to see Matthias, Raph, and Adam all make it to the final 3 man battle.

This weekend has been an amazing experience, to anyone that is thinking of coming out to Vibration Urbaines or any other European contest, do it.

Paris Life: Day 1

2010-10-29T03:25:00.000-07:00

Hey all, just want to let everyone know I made it here safely. Worked until lunch on Wednesday, went to my parents` for lunch, then headed to the airport. I may have lied to the baggage guy, when he asked if my bag was holding golf clubs and I said yes (best way to avoid paying the unnecessary $50 bike fee).

Made it to Montreal quickly, could not find a poutine for the life of me, so I entertained myself by texting lots of people before having to shut off my phone for a week. 8pm flight to Paris, 5.5h in length, with a 6h time change...trying to get sleep and re-adjust my schedule was going to be tough. I made sure I stayed awake long enough for dinner (and wine), and when they came around to clean up, asked for a second dinner (Adam, you proud son?), and a double whiskey and coke (flight attendant started calling me Mr. Double after that). Passed out hard watching Prince of Persia, woke up an hour before reaching Paris with at least a couple hours of sleep.

From the airport, I eventually found the train to Paris, and took it towards downtown Paris. Matthias lives just north of the city center, so I got off at the appropriate stop, and luckily found him meeting me near by. Another short train ride, and we made it to his cozy (read: tiny) apartment....on the sixth floor (too many stairs for my liking, especially with a huge Ogio bag with a bike).

After I built my bike, and Matthias updated his blog, we went for a bike ride around Paris. It was around noon in Paris, which is 6am at home for me, so going for a bike ride around this time didn`t even feel too bad haha. Biked around, saw the Eiffel tower, lots of cool looking French architecture, saw the Opera riding spot, and lots of other neat things.

After being taken to an American cafe, with Indian cooks, for lunch with a friend of Matthias`, I stayed back while Matthias went to go meet Adam Kun at the train station. I crashed for a couple hours to help adjust and avoid jet lag, which definitely helped me since we had a long night ahead of us.

After Adam arrived and built his bike, while Matthias serenaded him with some unique and original songs, we headed off to Opera, where Raphael, Joris, Mike, and others were already riding.

It`s a really weird feeling to go ride a spot that you`ve seen lots over the past 8 years or so, but felt really good. My nankai is acting up, which frustrated me, but was able to hit most of my usual stuff.

Ended up going to a little bar after that, met some interesting friends of Matthias again, and had a few drinks. Still not 100% sure what "pastis" is, but if you ever come out here, you should try it, Adam really enjoyed it haha.

Came back and crashed, woke up and headed to the supermarket and bakery for some french breakfast, now just chilling at Matthias` place.

Really good trip so far, and its only been a day. Heading back to Opera again tonight, and probably riding another spot in the afternoon as well. Adam didn`t ride too much yesterday, so looking forward to actually riding with him today.

We`re heading to Pessac early tomorrow morning, for Vibration Urbaines, so not sure what the plans for tonight will be, if anything. I`ll try to post again from Pessac after the contest hopefully. Peace.

Old Footage

2010-10-26T09:14:00.000-07:00

Came across this gem of a video made by Matt Holdron last week. Matt came through Ottawa on his way to Montreal for a King of Quebec contest in June, 2005, and edited some footage of Prasheel, Jean-Francois Boulianne, Simon Marsan, and Jayson Plourde. Enjoy!

Just follow the link, and you can download or just view the video from there. Crazy to see everyone's riding from 5 years back, and how their style and riding have developed immensely since then.

http://www.eengoedidee.nl/videoz/download.cgi?mem_id=31636&fil_unique=Qr9wS9TM228AAFXC88k

Prasheel's going to France

2010-10-25T09:15:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post as I've been keeping quite busy recently.

I guess for a bit of a back story, after Alex and I met Matthias Dandois in New Orleans for the 2008 Voodoo Jam, we invited him to come to the Toronto contest the following year. He accepted, and flew to Montreal (where we picked him up), stayed in Ottawa, and went to Toronto with us. The day he flew in, he told Alex and I that if we ever wanted to come out to Paris, we had a place to stay.

Since last winter, I had in the back of my mind, that I wanted to at least try to get out to Europe for my first international contest this year. After having a really good 2010 so far (riding and otherwise, see my recap past here), and knowing the contest season was winding down, when I noticed Vibration Urbaines #13 happening on October 30th, I realized this would probably be my last chance in 2010.

With about 5.5 vacation days still to use up at work before the end of 2010, I emailed Matthias for some information, and was pretty quick to make my decision. A week later, I booked my ticket, and in two days, I am flying out to Paris.

I don't really know, or am concerned with, what the plan is once I get out there, but I basically know I'll be arriving on Thursday morning, and spending a couple days in Paris, going to Pessac on the south-west coast for the contest on Saturday, then back to Paris for another couple of days before flying home on Wednesday.

Originally, we were supposed to road trip to Pessac with Alex Jumelin, but he is now going to be in New York while I'm over there haha. I'm sure we'll figure out a way to Pessac some how. I'm just excited to get out of the office for a week, go to France for the first time, and attend my first European contest. The level of riding out there, in my opinion, is considerably higher than over here in North America, so despite doing well in the NA Am circuit, I will definitely have my work cut out for me if I want to place well.

I'll try to update the blog a bit about my trip while I'm out there, and if not, when I get back home. Wish me luck!

Welcome to the team, Mark

2010-10-22T12:27:00.000-07:00

Two months ago, at the DK Contest in Dayton, Ohio, Alex and I decided to add Mark Kuhlmann to Team Pralex, and had the announcement made by Catfish at the beginning of Mark's run.

I've known Mark for years. I think we met back in the early days of the Ham Jams (the annual/triannual jams held in Hamilton, Ontario around the 2001-2005 era), as he lived in the Hamilton area, and I was persistent enough to make the 5-6h trip up to three times a year.

We were both little dudes back then, although Mark was a little heftier than I, and adorably went by the nickname "Beefy" back then (which has somehow managed to stick around for several years, despite him slimming down considerably this past year). Our riding had always been at a similar level, but I always found myself extra motivated to ride after getting to ride with Mark, as I felt I had to go back home and try to catch up to him.

A couple years later, Mark went on a roadtrip, driving up to Ottawa by himself, and then joining me to Montreal for a King of Quebec contest. This trip sticks out in my mind for various reasons. It wasn't necessarily about the tricks we were doing, but everything that weekend was just about fun. The contest ended up taking place in a crowded skatepark, so the riding area was where ever we could find space. During the contest, Beefy and I both started a few of our lines from the half pipe, dropping 4-6" while rolling a hitchhiker, then trying to continue on from there. I won't bother mentioning the embarrassing story about Mark chugging Molson cold shots, and then vomiting in a plastic bag as I drove to Montreal the next morning haha.

After a while, Mark faded out from flatland for a little bit. We kept in touch loosely, but with both of us busy with school, contact was scarce. Recently, Mark has come back to riding, and is as passionate as ever about it, despite being quite busy between his job, his new wife, and his even newer pet dog.

I feel really proud to introduce Mark to the team, as he continues to ride and progress himself, it inspires and motivates me to ride harder to keep up with his progress. Welcome to the team, Mark.

Prasheel Gopal & Mark "Beefy" Kuhlmann from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

Prasheel in the Paper

2010-10-21T07:28:00.000-07:00

This is from about 5-6 weeks back now, but this ran in the local paper, the Ottawa Citizen, on September 11, 2010. It was partly run to help promote the contest that I helped organize with Joe Mamma bike shop that day, and partly as just an interest piece.

Here is a terrible quality photo of the paper, click to enlarge, and there's a link below to go to the Citizen's website where you can actually read the article. Enjoy.

Link to article.

I was approached that day by a couple of people that saw this article and came out to check out the contest, which was good to hear as it helped bring a good crowd out for the contest. Also, I was recognized as "the guy from the paper" later that week...which isn't too surprising since I was on my bike at the time anyways.

Oh yeah, the photo was from this year's Toronto contest, and was shot by Dylan Leeder. You can check out more of his work at dylanleeder.com, or read his blog, www.dylanleeder.blogspot.com.

ASC So Fresh Jam

2010-10-20T06:37:00.000-07:00

So this past weekend, I went down to Toronto to attend a jam out in Mississauga.

It was good to see so many guys come out, and to catch up and attempt to ride with them.

The event was catered. I think there was 48 sandwiches plus drinks, cookies, and snacks. I took a photo, but I'm having issues with my memory card, otherwise I would post it right here instead of just talking about it.

As usual, Lachlan has a video out, which he managed to get out the same day (dude works hard).

SO FRESH from Lachlan Cameron on Vimeo.

Don't expect to see anything good from me, as the lot, in my opinion, was one of the worst lots I've tried to ride in a loooong time. This is coming from someone that has traveled to a lot of terrible lots of forced to put on shows on grass fields and gravel running tracks.

Also, Alex was tuckered out from his night out in Ottawa and spent the afternoon napping in the grass lol. For this reason, you won't find him in the video at all.

- Prasheel

Good Luck at KOG, Cory!

2010-10-15T07:26:00.001-07:00

So, friend and team mate Cory Fester is currently in Yokohama, Japan, attending the King of Ground #3 contest which is taking place tomorrow.

On behalf of Alex, Prasheel, and the rest of the team, we wish you the best of luck, Cory.

Updates from Prasheel

2010-10-14T11:09:00.000-07:00

Photo by Alexander Pomnikow

Hi all,

So, apparently it has been a little while since the last entry, and as expected, there has been a lot of stuff happening, but little time/motivation to update the blog. Bear with me on this post, as it will probably be a little long, but for those/any of you interested in whats been going on with me the past 9 months, you may continue reading.

Work

So, I guess the biggest news about me, in that it has changed my lifestyle the most drastically, is I have gotten a job and started my career. I started with a small company as a Computer Aided Design (CAD) Draftsperson, on January 18, 2010. On February 17, 2010 (coincidentally, exactly three months after a fortune cookie told me that "good things are in store for you in 3 months"), I was hired by the company directly, and no longer the temp/placement agency that I was brought in with. Nine months working here, and I am still enjoying it and learning new things daily. It is nice to have consistency in my life again, and a "regular" working schedule, Monday to Friday, 7:30am-4:00pm.

While I did enjoy the past few years of my life spent traveling and touring (with the Craz-E Crew stunt team), I grew tired of the sporadic schedule, inconsistency of work, and the general lifestyle that went along with it. I am thankful for being able to be a part of the company when I was on it, and the opportunities I got to travel, but I am extremely glad to have started a new part of my life.

Riding

Riding wise, I'm pretty happy with this past year. While I cannot ride as much as I used to (considering a year ago, I was unemployed and riding was my main focus), I still am able to make time for a session or two a night, and try to make better use of the time that I do have. I have been a little bit more quiet with the videos this year, but just felt that I did not learn as much new stuff as I wanted to, but instead have progressed well with my consistency and style/flow of my riding. As much as I wanted to learn a bunch of ideas that I have had in my head for a while, I think I got caught up with practicing for the contest season, for better or worse, which is why I am more consistent with my riding than ever before I think. I did do on edit that I was/am very happy with. Made it right before I moved in June, and the footage is all from a one hour session (minus the last clip), and captures the last session that I had in that parking lot after riding there for several years. (Edit attached to end of this post)

Contests

A lot has gone down this past year. I am really glad I was able to make it out to all four stops of the North American Am Flatland Circuit, organized by Steve Lapsley, as well as two other events.

Red Bull's Fight with Flight was in Indianapolis, Indiana, and went down January 30th. I had a lot of fun at this contest, did not make the finals (only top three proceeded), but won some cash from Red Bull. It was good to see so many people make the trip out, despite the cold, wintery conditions outside. Dominik Nekolny hated the cold when he came to the Toronto contest the year before, but it was good to see him come out to Indy, and take home third place.

Next up was the Flatland Unlimited (6?) contest in Toronto, Ontario on March 6th. Being the only Canadian contest on the circuit, as well as Canada's biggest annual contest (which I've been supporting for the past 9 years), it was a really good feeling to see how well it was organized, and the amount of support the event received by the sheer number of riders that came out (largest Toronto contest in years I am pretty sure). I ended up making finals (top 5 proceeded), and taking 5th place, the highest I have ranked at the Toronto contest in all my years attending, so I was quite pleased.

After that, JoMoPro went down in Joplin, Missouri on April 10th. Last year's event was the first one they had included flatland, and they set the bar pretty high. These high expectations were not only met, but exceeded. Despite a very questionable call by the judges in pro flatland finals, the event went off amazingly well. Unfortunately, I placed pretty terribly (12th), and rode even worse than that in my opinion. All in all, I had a great time at the event though, and it was the worth the 23h drive (each way) to spend just two days in Joplin.

The last stop of the circuit was August 21st and 22nd, in Dayton/Springboro, Ohio. What made this trip especially difficult and stressful for me was that I was not able to book off the 20th or 23rd, meaning I had to make it to Dayton (12h from Ottawa) and back between Friday at 4pm and Monday at 7am (with a couple hours of sleep to function). While Alex and I were able to make it down in time for the contest to begin on Saturday morning, the weather was not too kind to us, and we were plagued with rain on and off all day. This kept the start of the event to keep getting pushed back later and later throughout the day, to the point where Masters class was supposed to occur on Sunday, when Alex and I would have had to been on the road. Luckily, Pat and Catfish re-organized the schedule for us, and let the Master class run as soon as it dried up on Saturday evening. Again, rode pretty terrible, and placed (higher than I expected) at 9th.

Somehow, across the whole circuit, I was able to acquire enough points throughout the stops to end up in third place in the Masters class for year-end, which surprised me greatly. Again, a big thank you to Steve Lapsley and all the contest organizers that helped out with the first year of the AM Flatland Circuit, which has already made a huge impact on North American flatland in my opinion.

Along with these four events, I also attended the Zero Degrees +1 contest in Whitby, Ontario on February 6th, along with the Joe Mamma contest on September 11th in Ottawa, Ontario. I was really happy to be involved with the second contest, and thankful to Mark Kuhlman, Chris Mclean, Jean-William Prevost, and Alex Poirier who all came out from Hamilton, Kitchener, Montreal, and Petrolia, to help me put on a great event for Ottawa, as well as try to take home some of the $300 cash prize.

Well, that pretty much sums up a lot of the past year in terms of riding and what I've been up to. Apart from that, I have been staying a bit more low-key recently. Traveling less these days, due to my job, but try to make the most of my trips. Partying less, due to lack of interest, but still enjoy having a few drinks with friends. Riding lots, even bought a single speed (non-fixie) bike in the Spring, riding 30km+ daily usually.

Well, that's basically it. Going to try to update the blog (a lot) more regularly, with related and random stuff. For instance, this weekend, Alex and I are meeting up at an ASC jam in Mississauga, Ontario on Sunday, so possibly some photos with a few words up after that, as well as a team edit dropping next week possibly. Stay tuned!

Prasheel Gopal: May 28, 2010 from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

Random Shit Yo!

2010-02-22T17:36:00.000-08:00

So we've been up to some top secret shit yo! Alex got 3rd in Indy, Prasheel got 4th. In Whitby Prasheel got 4th also, Alex failed to qualify (we'll pretend to blame it on his bunk shoulder, but really he just sucks at bikes). Here's some photos of shit we've been up to.

Here's an excellent photo of Prasheel by Dylan Leeder, check out more by him at http://www.dylanleeder.blogspot.com He's awesome!

New jackets son!

Nightly Steez with Alex, champagne of course.

Team meeting this weekend in Guelph, hopefully get a new nightly style photo during it. Alexis flies in on Saturday, should be an epic week of Alexis bored by himself while Alex doesn't do work at work, lolol.

How To Be Awesome By Alex Poirier

2010-02-16T18:30:00.000-08:00

First of all, I will define what I think Success is, which is pretty much just thinking you’re awesome. Fuck money, fuck a career, you don’t need a girlfriend, you don’t even need good prospects. If you think you’re awesome, I’d say that’s quite the fucking success if I do say so myself. I apologize for my language, but I’m trying to get a point across here, haha. Okay, okay, here’s my list of what will make you successful.

1. Be positive! I know this probably sounds ridiculously lame, but fo reals. Consistently tell yourself you’re having fun. Even if you’re at work, hating life so hard, you can be cursing your existence in your mind, but act like you love life. Tell your co-workers about how much you love life, when your shift ends, complain that you can’t wait to come back tomorrow. After you do this for long enough, you’ll eventually actually love your job, no matter how horrendous it is. I speak from experience here, I hated my last job for the first while, one time I even went on a huge rant about it to Prasheel. Then around November I completely turned around my attitude, I became positive! I call this pessimistic optimism. Yes, perhaps your life “sucks”, but be optimistic about it! Love it anyways! Hating life sure as hell isn’t going to change anything, so why not just be happy? Make sense?

2. Be able to have the greatest time ever alone. If you rely on others to have a blast, you’re fucked. I spend hours upon hours alone on my bike having the greatest time of my life. I come home from work and usually am by myself every weekday until I go back to work. I have a great time! I don’t really know what it is I do that’s so fun, but dear god its great times! Sure doing things with people is better probably, but if you can’t have fun by yourself, my god you are in for trouble.

3. Money. This is a touchy one. You really don’t need money to think you’re awesome, although having it wouldn’t hurt thinking you’re awesome. A key to thinking your awesome is girls (or boys if you’re a girl) thinking you’re awesome. Unfortunately (and I may be a little bias here), girls like money. Girls even more so like men with money. I’m not sure why, but money doesn’t seem to concern men as much it does women. How do you get past this obstacle and make women think you’re awesome. Simple! Just act awesome. Confidence, not arrogance, confidence! Be able to hold your own in a crowd. Make an impression, girls will love you. Want girls to love you when you go out to the bars, suspenders. Don’t ask me why, girls LOVE suspenders. Seriously, be confident, wear suspenders, you will get girls. As for girls, I don’t really know how to get men, so best of luck in that department.

4. DO NOT CARE ABOUT THINGS. Holy good god, I cannot emphasize this more. I’m not saying don’t care about your friends and family and loved ones. I’m talking about the small things here. For example, you go to a coffee shop before work/school/whatever and get a coffee. You walk out coffee in hand, you start drinking it, and its terrible, or they messed it up and put in too much cream, or whatever. What should you do? First of all, you should be over it and just drink the god forsaken coffee. But if you must get another one, DO NOT make a scene. DO NOT get angry. How will this help the situation? I worked at a Tim Hortons when in high school, trust me, we did not care, and if anything laughed and ridiculed any upset customers. Getting pissed off won’t change how your fucking coffee tastes, and it’ll just get other people laughing at you behind your back that you are THAT pissed off about a stupid god damn coffee. Fo reals. If you are getting pissed off about things like this, you’ve got bigger problems then thinking you’re successful.

5. Have something you’re passionate about. I know this seems kind of contradictory to my last point, but its not. If you’re not passionate about something, you’re probably not that interesting. There’s a lot of things you can be passionate about. Pretty much an endless list of things actually, if you’re passionate about something, it will show when you talk about it, and make you much more interesting to others. I ride bikes, its my “passion” as gay as that sounds. Its amazing how much of a conversation piece it is, the odd person thinks its weird that I’m 21 and ride little bmx bikes, but for the most part, people are genuinely interested about it and interrogate me thoroughly about it. This will make talking to the opposite sex much easier, as once you get into it, you’ll be able to talk for ages because you’re so god damn passionate about it. Bringing us back to point number three.

6. Get out and about! Stop sitting around and doing nothing. Travelling is cheaper than you think. You just have to find the right people to do it with. Find people that follow similar guidelines as the ones I’m listing. Care-free, go-with-the-flow type people. Don’t make tight knit plans, have a general guideline of the things you MUST do (which should be small) and just let the rest happen. I’ve driven to Atlanta twice now, spent more time driving, then I actually did in the damn city, but this makes a great story. It gives you something to talk about (and even gives the appearance that you have money, see point 3) and makes you more interesting to others. I’m hoping by now you already think you’re awesome, and now you’re just working on convincing everyone else, which should be pretty easy once you think you’re awesome.

7. Haters gonna hate. Yes, believe it or not, not everyone will think you’re awesome. But this is good! Look at Kanye West, no one has more haters than that dude, and yet he’s constantly talked about, dude sells millions of albums, probably has sex with tons of hot girls, and can pretty much do anything he wants at this point, and nothing will hurt his career. So be prepared to take some slack, don’t hate back, just laugh! See point 4.

8. Okay, well that’s pretty much it for now. This isn’t like the bible or anything, you don’t have to strictly do this shit. Everyones different, you can’t just change yourself, I just think these are some simple things to help you out. Number 1 is the most crucial…Once you are having fun no matter what you’re doing, and you think you’re great, you’re pretty much set, the rest will just follow. Okay, now, go be awesome and love life like Team Pralex does.

Yah, Yah, It's been awhile, I know

2010-01-20T13:53:00.000-08:00

So, what has Pralex been up too? Well, first off, Alex and Adam Jakomait headed to Miami for Christmas Holidays in the sun. We had a few good sessions of riding and just having fun on bikes, also a lot of cruising around, which has helped Alex learn manuals quite well! Here are some photos from that trip:

Some wild photos, eh?! Awesome times down in Miami! ...Expensive...But awesome!

Next on the Pralex calender was New Years! Adam and I returned from Miami just in time to meet up with team manager Kim Dobbin, Prasheel, and some friends in London for a night on the town! Here's some pictures!

It was an amazing night, and a great gathering of the Pralex team in effect that night!

Here's a video that was shot during the filming for the trailer of the International Bicycle Film Festival, Alex was riding and spinning around then smashed into the $5000 camera, it was a frightening moment, but all was good after! Check it out!

Now, with all that out of the way, Fight with Flight is only a week away! Pralex has a huge entourage this year, so huge, we're taking two cars. Coming down with us will be Simon Marsan & Dub of Quebec, Lachlan Cameron, Adam Jakomait, the team manager Kim Dobbin, and of course, Alex and Prasheel (along with a few other friends)! Pulling out all the stops! In case you're been living under a rock, here's the trailer for the contest:

Okay, I think that's all for now! See everyone at Indy! It's going to be fantastic! Lots of International stars and a huge AM crowd this year! Get stoked!

2009-11-30T16:27:00.000-08:00

The Real Team Pralex
Everything you ever wondered about Team Pralex answered here, in our 30 question either/or quiz!

Partying

1.Beer or Whiskey
Alex: Beer!
Prasheel:Whiskey!
2.Upscale Bar or Dive Bar
Alex: Always ballin’
Prasheel: Always divin’
3.Dance Club or Sit Down Pub
Alex: Dance or die!
Prasheel: Pub life!
4.Hangover or Less to Drink
Alex: MTV Hangover Parties for sure
Prasheel: Haha, gonna be the responsible one and say ‘less to drink’
5.Go out with: a lot of people or a small group
Alex: More the merrier!
Prasheel: Big group…although we don’t have many friends, so its usually small group.
6.Making out on the Dance Floor or Taking Pictures of it happening
Alex: Definitely taking pictures of it happening, so gruesome
Prasheel: Who takes photos of make outs? That’s weird.
7.Shots or Drinks
Alex: Whiskey sours ftw!
Prasheel: Drizzinks.
8.Stage Dancing or Stay on the Dance Floor
Alex: All about that stage dancing son
Prasheel: Stage dancing, because more people can see the dance skills Allah blessed me with.
9.Buy Drinks for Girls or Buying them for Yourself
Alex: Girls buying drinks for me!
Prasheel:Why would I buy a girl a drink?
10.House Party or Bar
Alex: Nightclubbin!
Prasheel: Bizzar.

Fashion

1.Suspenders or Belts
Alex: Shoelace or Suspenders, fuck a belt.
Prasheel: Really skinny belts that can also lace up my shoes.
2.High Heels or Flats
Alex: Definitely not mad at heels
Prasheel: High heels give me blisters, so flats.
3.Fashion or Function
Alex: fashion Fashion FASHION
Prasheel: Fashion.
4.Skinny Jeans or Wide Legged
Alex: Death before super baggies
Prasheel: Skinnies.
5.Collared Shirt or V Neck
Alex: v-neck
Prasheel: V neck.
6.Winter Outfits or Summer Outfits
Alex: Fall/Spring
Prasheel: Tough call. I look good in layers, so Winter?

Relationships

1.Younger or Older
Alex: Not picky, haha
Prasheel: Age is just a number lol
2.Emotional or Physical
Alex: What are these emotions you speak of?
Prasheel: Physics!
3.Blonde or Brunette
Alex: BOTH!
Prasheel: Hair dye can do wonders…but I prefer brunettes.
4.Riding or Girls
Alex: *see inside of my arm*
Prasheel: Riding
5.One Night Stands or Relationships
Alex: In between?
Prasheel: Neither.
6.Movie Date or Shopping Date
Alex: Shopping!
Prasheel: I fall asleep watching movies, so shopping.
7.Pay for Everything or Split the Check
Alex: Depends on the bill, and the girl, haha.
Prasheel: Split the check…I support women in their search for equality!
8.Texting or Phone Calls
Alex: BOTH!
Prasheel: Text-life.

Other

1.Coke or Pepsi
Alex: Pepsi ONLY
Prasheel: Rum and Pepsi just sounds funny. Coke.
2.Day or Night
Alex: Ride all day, party all night, repeat
Prasheel: Day.
3.Hot or Cold
Alex: Red Bull girls in Atlanta, lolol
Prasheel: Singing hot hot hot!
4.TV or Movies
Alex: Movies
Prasheel: I fall asleep to both easily…I suck at life.
5.Road Trip or Take a Plane
Alex: BOTH!
Prasheel: Both have their advantages and disadvantages…but road trip for cost-effectiveness and countless good times.
6.Dogs or Cats
Alex: Cats
Prasheel: Cats!

Pralex Nightly Style and Ground Tactics Video

2009-11-30T15:09:00.000-08:00

Nightly Style with Alex and Adam!

Ground Tactics Video:

Ground Tactics - Alex Poirier from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

Pralex Back From Atlanta!

2009-11-18T22:12:00.000-08:00

We're back! A great time with great people! It was awesome to see Alexis again, as its been awhile since we got to ride with him, and he's been having some knee problems recently, but seems to be doing better now! The trip started over a week ago for Prasheel when he decided to come down to Petrolia early and party and ride with Alex.

After an initial weekend of partying in London with our new manager Kim, we came back to Petrolia and started a week of riding. Alex hadn't rode in ages due to illness and injuries, and was still getting over some rib problems, but rode anyways! Getting warmed up for the Atlanta jam so we could be in best form for our ATL counterpart Alexis.

Adam Jakomait (unofficial team member) and Steve Lapsley (organizer of this years North American AM Circuit) met up with us in Petrolia on Thursday night so we could leave bright and early on Friday morning. Alex worked Thursday night at 11pm and finished Friday morning at 7am. So as soon as he got done work, we hit the rode, van full of riders, driver, and team manager, we got underway. Alex quickly fell asleep as he had been up all night, and missed the majority of the drive.

After what seemed like endless hours of open highway, we made it to Atlanta around 9pm. We thought about heading to some clubs, but didn't really know where we were, and we were tuckered out from the long drive, so we shared some alcoholic beverages, until Alexis and Billy (ATL crew) showed up and we chatted about this and that and got caught up. We then all passed out pretty quickly.

The next day we got up surprisingly early, and headed to the Waffle House! After a delicious breakfast, we headed straight to the jam spot...And being the amazing Team Pralex, you can sure as hell bet we were the first riders there! We were all SHOCKED at how warm it was, and began riding as soon as we got our bikes assembled.
Not long after rider after rider showed up, along with Prasheel's new frame and a bunch of new clothes for Alex! Thanks Rick and Alexis for the help with that! The jam quickly became pretty big, and riders from all over were killing it.

After getting a ridiculous amount of free stuff, and a nice session with Isaiah Jordan and Alexis, we headed back to our hotel to shower up and start slamming drinks. We quickly started getting intoxicated then headed to Ruby Tuesday's for dinner (which was ridiculously delicious!!). We then went back to the hotel and called for a cab. The cabbie showed up, and DIDN'T KNOW WHERE THE CLUB WAS! He didn't even know where the bar district was!!! He picks us up at a hotel, and was asking us for directions?!? After the most frustrating cab ride ever, we got out and just started trying to find the club ourselves, which was pretty easy surprisingly.

We get into the club, and immediately run to the bar for drinks. Now I'm usually pretty impressed with the strong drinks I recieve at Jack's, the bar that has become our regular stomping ground in London. But MJQ seriously mixes some heavy drinks. I couldn't believe it, a few drinks later and the rest of the night is a big haze. Dancing to some awesome tunes provided by AC Slater and the DJs that opened for him were great as well. Definitely wasn't complaining about the gorgeous girls on stage either.

After all this we get back to the hotel and hit the hay. Waking up the next morning, which turns into all of us nursing hangovers and hating our lives for most of the drive. All in all, an awesome trip...30 hours in a car for 40 hours in the city...WORTH IT! Thanks ATL crew for an amazing jam and an amazing time!

Newest Pralex Product

2009-11-11T17:14:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the Pralex Underwear line! One pair will be auctioned off in Atlanta this weekend! EXCITEMENT!

Pralex Gets Managed! And Goes to Atlanta!

2009-11-11T04:36:00.000-08:00

Team Pralex has been looking for someone to represent them and add some legitimacy behind our team for quite some time. After continually partying, travelling, and relying on Kimberly Dobbin, we have officially made her our team manager. What does this mean for you? Well first off, it means for consistent updates on our blog! It means we have a website ready to go, but we are still waiting for the right moment to launch it, so stay tuned for that!

Kimberly joined us on our trip to Texas in February, and has mad the trip to several Toronto contests, she constantly sets us up with places to sleep, calls us cabs, makes sure we don't get in fights or die while out at the bar. Essentially she is like our team Mother, and will be joining us in Atlanta to ensure our survival and that we don't forget our passports!

And yes! We are going to Atlanta this coming weekend! It'll be nice to escape the harsh Canadian winter (that hasn't seemed to arrive yet) and ride with team rider Alexis who has dearly missed his Canadian counterparts, although struggling with some injuries currently, we hope he can ride for the jam.

In other news Prasheel will be riding a new frame soon, stay tuned for pictures, lolol.

Also, here is a ridiculous video of Pralex partying in London during Flatsgiving weekend...Don't ask why half the screen is green, we were too lazy to fix it, so here it is along with Prasheel's 2nd place Global-Flat Online Contest Video!

Pralex presents...The Brownprint (Updated) from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

Pralex Parties On Flatsgiving from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

Pralex Is Not Dead...

2009-10-28T06:25:00.000-07:00

Okay, no posts forever, I know. So here we go. First of all, Prasheel has been making videos like its his job. So you might ask, "Well why then is he not updating the blog with them considering he has no job, no girlfriend, and literally does nothing everyday?" Well folks, you'd have to ask him, haha.

Pralex is heavily involved in drama on Global-Flat right now because some people are morons, it's pretty hilarious actually.

Alex was named "rider of the month" on global, hurray! Interview should be up soon, hopefully after all this drama blows over, so my interview can start a whole new wave of drama.

Pralex is slowly but surely planning their trip to Atlanta. Alex and Andy are both 21, and super excited to get hammered as hell for the first time in America.

Alex is visiting Ottawa this coming weekend for Halloween, whether or not any bike riding will take place is anyones guess as weather has sucked a bit lately and Alex has pnuemonia, haha.

Alex (I) would like to apologize for switching between first and third person multiple times on this blog post, now here are a bunch of videos from the past couple weeks:

OMG Prasheel does jumplashes! from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

Prasheel is good at biking! from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

Alex Learns Whiplash Variations! from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

Prasheel's Going In from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

2009-09-18T05:25:00.000-07:00

"This is a segment from a documentary about our BMX contest, the JoMoPro. This Documentary features the action of JoMoPro 2009 an event that took place at Autumn Ramp Park in Joplin, MO. Thanks to FuelTV for putting this documentary together for us."

This is from JoMoPro in April, footage that aired on FuelTV (like espn but only in the States unfortunately)...See if you can spot Prasheel and Alex tearing it up!

JoMoPro 2009 Documentary (6 of 7) from JoMoPro BMX Contest on Vimeo.

Alex Learns Prasheels Tricks Part Two!

2009-09-17T19:11:00.000-07:00

The second installment of Alex learning Prasheel's tricks. This time Alex ups the ante and starts combining tricks from the first video and improving upon what was done in the first video! Ahh...The hilarious smell of progression.

Alex Learns Prasheels Tricks Part Two from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

Alex Learns Prasheels Tricks

2009-09-15T17:28:00.000-07:00

So over the past while, Alex has dearly missed riding with Prasheel, so he decided to take Prasheel's place, and learn his tricks! Haha, fun times ensue!

Alex Learns Prasheel's Tricks! from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

Pralex Vimeo!

2009-09-15T04:53:00.001-07:00

The Pralex Vimeo page now has over 12,000 views! Holy cow thats a lot of video watching! Just thought I'd say thanks for checking out our videos and blog and all the other crap we do in the lovely world that is the internet...

Also, Alex will be attending a skatepark opening this weekend which is also holding a skate/bmx contest, so he'll be doing some filming there and maybe throw a little edit of his weekend together from that. The contest is taking place in Oakville and should be a good time. Story/Video/Photos to come after this weekend!

It's been awhile!

2009-09-09T18:22:00.000-07:00

Heyo! It's been awhile since we posted anything, so here goes! First off! I (Alex) visited Ottawa to film for upcoming video, and celebrate a year of Pralex fun! Unfortunately it rained the entire time I was in Ottawa...Literally! So instead of filming, we went and got matching tattoos! That's right folks...The 'ROB ROE' movement is official! See here:

So after that we partied ridiculously hard, and I forget a lot, but that's what we do! Also, the second part of the Pralex Web Video was finished, with a big juicy part by Cory Fester! Check it out!

Pralex Spring/Summer Web Edit Part Two from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

Pralex Web Video Part One

2009-08-25T07:10:00.000-07:00

Pralex Spring/Summer Web Edit Part One from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

2009-08-17T04:36:00.003-07:00

A crappy video I posted for an online contest:

Global flat battle video 2 from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

Prasheel is now in PEI, so watch out for some updates from him along with a video for his online battle as well.

Prasheel in Oman: The Home Stretch/Final Chapter

2009-08-13T05:39:00.001-07:00

So I finally made it to the 29th and final day of shows. While it has been a long month, it's also passed by rather quickly. Overall, it's been another really interesting experience, but I also could have lived without not being out here for so long. As it would occur with any group of people, some tension has developed between some people. Some of the guys I get along with great, and if I had to, could spend another month with them doing shows, but others, I don't necessarily feel the same about.

The past few days have been a LOT better, as we've been waking up early (well, I've always been getting up around 9am, while others sleep in till 3-4pm), and going sight seeing around noon. A few days ago, we went to Maghsail Rocky Beach, which is a super epic spot, with a huge rock, and lots of blow holes. Yesterday, wasn't as epic, but we went to Ayn Garziz I believe. We wanted to go to a spot with water where fish swim around your ankles, but our driver, Mohammed, took us to the top of a mountain and said the water was a 2h walk down. We also went to another cool spot with caves after that. Today, we went to Kattak, and then Khor Rori. Kattak had some water, and a cave up top, and Khor Rori is the remains of this super old palace from like 6000 years ago.

Now, I will list random facts about Oman and my stay here:

My neighbour has a rooster, so if I'm awake around 4am, its hard for me to sleep.

Neighbour also has goats in his backyard, which like to shit whenever I go out to ride flatland in front of the house, which smells terrible.

We have two bathrooms in our house, but one toilet consists of a hole in the floor and a hose for cleaning up.

Six men living in one house for 30 days results in a messy house.

Omani people are very rude, and aggressive when it comes to wanting to see me ride ramps.

Parents let their children do whatever they want, including allowing them to run up and down ramps and kicking my bike.

When we do shows, we usually have a fenced off area. Here, we have lengths of string around waist height to keep people out of our area. Children and parents alike do not understand the meaning of such, and walk through the area whenever they feel like it, opposed to walking a couple extra feet to go around.

Just like in Canada, I'm apparently a ghost when I'm riding and people try to walk through me.

Men are not allowed to show any public displays of affection to women, including their wife, but it is perfectly normal to kiss another dude as a greeting, or walk around holding his hand, lol.

You can find shawarma making places everywhere, same with people grilling kebabs.

When people are sick, it is common belief that they have a ghost in them.

So, tomorrow, I get to start my journey home. It consists of 1.5h flight to Muscat, a 3h layover, a 1h flight to Abu Dhabi, 1h wait on the plane there, a 6h flight to Amsterdam, a 10.5h layover to explore the city, a 7h flight to Montreal, a 1.5h wait, a 2h busride home to Ottawa, a 10h layover there, then head to Charlottetown, PEI on the east coast via a short layover in Montreal.

Basically, 20h of flights over a 3 day span or something, with a bunch of time zone changes involved as well. I'll be out in PEI for a week though, and start shows the day I arrive (actually miss out on 2 days). Should be a great weekend all over the world, haha.

Prasheel in Oman: Great Times!

2009-08-04T04:06:00.000-07:00

A while since my last update, and a bit of a change of pace since then. While the regular routine now is pretty much the same as before, I just stopped giving a fuck about everything other than riding. I usually get a couple hours in on the terribly crowned and sloped road outside of my house in the afternoon, and then once arriving at the show site, it is rare for me to stop riding for the couple hours we are there, only really slowing down when the team comes out to warm up 10 minutes before show.

A couple highlights over the past week include the fact that I finally got to go to the Crown Plaza Hotel/Resort. After our 14th day of shows, about the half way point, we headed there one night to celebrate. While drinks aren't cheap there, I didn't mind spending over half of my per diem for the week to get some whiskey in me. We first had a couple drinks in the bar there, while three asian singers, all dressed the same, sang some pop hits including Lady Gaga, Rihanna, and various other types of music...it was pretty terrible.

After that, we got some more drinks and headed down to the beach. After taking off my shoes and socks, and emptying my pockets and rolling up my shorts, I ventured in to the Indian Ocean with some rye and coke in hand. Definitely the highlight of the trip so far, as we finally took advantage of where we are in the world and what it has to offer. After that, headed back in to the bar, chatted with some locals, had some more drinks, yay yay yay.

Our sketchy driver Mohammed, six days after we gave him money for some whiskey, and one attempt to give us brandy instead, he finally came through with it. He immediately came inside and started drinking with us, despite the fact that his 'loving' was upset and calling him, lolol.

Uhmmm, we got our weekly allowance for food the other night, 35 rials (which is about $100+ CAN, and can easily feed two people for the week), and I managed to blow through 21 rials of it in one day, hahaha. We went to the mall that day before shows, and the market tent at the fair was open to us that day (its only open to us two days a week...the day before we get our allowance, and the day after), and we got Pizza Hut Delivery which was delicious. Oh yeah, I got some whiskey for myself from Mohammed, as Julien managed to score a hook up for beer through his pseudo Omani girlfriend.

Speaking of girls, the team and I made friends with three interesting sisters that work at a perfume/cologne/incense booth right next to us. Really sweet Muslim girls, they enjoy our shows and stuff, and like to give us good deals and even free gifts. Ben got a flower, Ben, Devin, and Matt got cologne, as a group, we got some incense and charcoals, and I got a flower, some candy, icecream, and a pseudo-awkward waffle date (lolol), all from the middle sister. Their english isn't great, and neither is my arabic, but we usually go over to talk to them once a day just to say hello.

But, for the most part, I just ride my bike. I've adapted quite well to the heat I guess, as I can ride for over an hour now without feeling like I'm going to pass out (compared to the 20 minutes on the first day). I pretty much shaved my head and found that to help a lot too. Ridings lots, but not necessarily too well, but hoping to get some footage before I leave. Possibly look for a collaboration effort between Alex and I as he'll be editing up the riding and random footage from my trip.

Oh yeah, more photos!

Me rockin my new glasses while repping Joe Mamma while enjoying some drinks at the Crown Plaza with the team.

Jumplash to inside steam on our street. Photo by Heinz Kauffman.

Whiplash to halfpacker, next to the dirt lane to our street. Photo by Will Fisher.

Halfpacker flip to inside steam. Photo by Will Fisher.

Pralex Goes to Voodoo!

2009-08-03T14:13:00.000-07:00

Myself (Alex) and Alexis have left Voodoo, more stoked then ever. Alexis got 4th, and I got 5th! Awesome job by team Pralex! But lets be honest, who wants to hear about the contest? Let's hear about the other adventures!

So its Wednesday night, and I'm packing before I have to leave for work (I work 11pm to 7am). I go to work, move boxes, what have you, then I return home for an hour, get cleaned up, and head out to the airport! Unbelievably tired I drive to the Detroit airport (2 hours from Petrolia). I wait to board my plane, then I fly out to Charlotte, North Carolina. Not knowing much about Charlotte, I was pretty shocked to find out how huge the airport is. I eat some food, and then board my plane to New Orleans.

I arrive and grab a cab to the hotel, texting some riders to find out who is already at the hotel. I get in touch with Tyler Gilliard and his girl, and we start putting our bikes together. I then get a text from Jim McKay (whom I'm supposed to stay with) that they broke down and won't be making it that night. So I have to find a new room to stay in (please god don't make me stay with Tyler and his girl, hahaha), so I get in touch with some of the other Austin, Texas guys, and they have some floor space for me! Sick!

Tyler and I along with several others try to ride, but who cares about bikes, lolol. The next day, I awake and the Austin guys want to go ride already (are you serious?!). I tag along not really wanting to ride at all then it starts pouring rain. We head back to the hotel, and I meet up with Jim and Josh and we go get some delicious Po' boys at a nearby place. We meet up with some more riders then head out to the pre-jam where everyone was killing it.

After the pre-jam we head out to eat on Bourbon St. with Aaron Frost, Matthias, Raph, Viki and some other guys. I ate the spiciest Shrimp Creole I've ever experienced, Aaron and I were both dying from eating it. After we start grabbing some drinks I head back to the hotel with Matthias, Raph and a girly. I go find Alexis and he's in bed (wtf?!?). So I wake his ass up and make him slam some beers with me while we catch up and get stoked on the next day. Finally I decide to go to bed around 2 or 3am or so.

Wake up the next day at 9am to find out I've been placed in the first qualifying group...Ughh...Too early to ride bikes. Oh well, anyways...

In between pro qualifying and finals, Matthias, Raph, girly and I go out shopping at Urban Outfitters and grab some food and beers.

The contest ends, and we immediately go to the bar and Matthias buys us a round of beers. We head back to his room so he can shower, and meet up with Raph, then head out to Bourbon St. This is where things get sketchy...I don't really remember getting to Bourbon Street...I dunno who I was with even, I believe it was japanese guys, french guys, Viki...Maybe some others I'm forgetting. Bourbon Street is insane as always, bead throwing everywhere, some females taking off shirts to get said beads...Silly silly! I end up wandering back to the hotel, by myself I think, then I run into Josh outside the hotel, and both of us are in pretty rough shape, haha, I remember running arouond yelling Jim's name trying to find him, then next thing I remember waking up completely delirious!

Freaked out! I gather my crap and book it to the airport to get back to Ontario! Next year will be even more epic.

Alex hates his job

2009-07-29T04:52:00.000-07:00

So Alex just got home from work, and seemed to be in a not so great mood. Here's a copy of our conversation. Be warned, this is not censored, and Alex has a mouth of a sailor.

Prasheel is in Al Saadah, Oman says:
So whats th edeal with teh retarded people at work?
WORK WORK WORK!!! WOOO WORK WORK WORK WOOOOOOO UNTIL 7AM, THEN I AM DRINKING MY FACE OFF says:
theres just no communication in that place
so theres these fucking filters
and they are making them for like four horus
and they pack them in this box
then they switch to slightly different filters
but they pack them in the same boxes
but theres a sticker on them with a small different serial number
and after a couple hours i realize
and i'm like "oh fuck, they started using the wrong stickers"
so i fuckin cut some boxes open
nope, right stickers
they fuckin started making different filters and didn't fucking tell me
so tons of fucking paperwork is completely fucked
and i have to spend a ton of time sorting out when the fuck they switched filters so i can redo all this fucked up paperwork
meanwhile i'm fucking being bomobarded with tons of boxes and can't even keep up
usually for three lines
Prasheel is in Al Saadah, Oman says:
Hahha, bombarded by boxes.
WORK WORK WORK!!! WOOO WORK WORK WORK WOOOOOOO UNTIL 7AM, THEN I AM DRINKING MY FACE OFF says:
they have three people moving boxes
there was three line
s
and i was the only person
there was one point where i was insanely backed up
and the boxes they send down, if they don't fucking put the filters in the bag properly, theres to much air in the bags, and then the boxes are like slightly fucked up because they aren't big enough, so they are like...angled sort of
so they don't fucking sit
properly
so i fucking am stacking away
i got like 30 stacked
Prasheel is in Al Saadah, Oman says:
Hahhaha, you sound mad stressed over these boxes.
WORK WORK WORK!!! WOOO WORK WORK WORK WOOOOOOO UNTIL 7AM, THEN I AM DRINKING MY FACE OFF says:
i put a fucked up box down because i'm in a mad fucking rush
not paying any attention to shit
and it fuckin leans on the other ones enough that it knocks down like 30 boxes
so i fuckin flipped
i was so fucking pisses
i just started grabbin boxes and whipping them
i probably ruined like 100 filters
Prasheel is in Al Saadah, Oman says:
Hahahha
WORK WORK WORK!!! WOOO WORK WORK WORK WOOOOOOO UNTIL 7AM, THEN I AM DRINKING MY FACE OFF says:
you knwo how i get super pissed when riding and huck my bike?
it was like that
but wayyyy fucking worse
i was prepared to get fired i was so pissed
i fuckin tell the dude
theres no fucking room
to put shit
i have fuckin fire exits blocked off completely
because theres just no fucking room
i'm like "man there is no fucking room"
and he comes down, he's like "look at all this room"
dude has no fucking clue
Prasheel is in Al Saadah, Oman says:
Hahahhaha
WORK WORK WORK!!! WOOO WORK WORK WORK WOOOOOOO UNTIL 7AM, THEN I AM DRINKING MY FACE OFF says:
theres a super narrow path for a fork lift
and he tells me to block it off
and fill it with boxes
blocking off two more fire exits of sex, of which 4 are already fuckin blocked
not to mention there is like four stories of boxes/skids fuckin stacked high, almost falling over
like i could push it with my pinky
and knock them over
shit would fuckin kill you if it fell on you
if that place caught fire (which it has burned down completely before) i would be a goner
like, not a chance in hell i would get out alive
fuck that
on a plus side
our like main supervisor
i think she really digs me
i don't think shes aware that i'm 20
everyone there thinks i'm like 25
Prasheel is in Al Saadah, Oman says:
Its probably your beard that's doing it.
WORK WORK WORK!!! WOOO WORK WORK WORK WOOOOOOO UNTIL 7AM, THEN I AM DRINKING MY FACE OFF says:
probably, shit is gettin gruesome
but everyone else complains about how she is like a bitch and mean
and she is beyond nice to me
so now i fuckin bitch to her about everything
like, every shift i've had
i've always been super positive, and just havin a ball
but tonight was so fuckin retarded
everyone was shocked at my anger
Prasheel is in Al Saadah, Oman says:
That's what beer is for.
WORK WORK WORK!!! WOOO WORK WORK WORK WOOOOOOO UNTIL 7AM, THEN I AM DRINKING MY FACE OFF says:
because i'm usually the happiest person in that place
oh beer is my jesus rightn ow

Prasheel in Oman: Photo Edition

2009-07-29T04:09:00.000-07:00

The first full day I was here, which was the day before we started shows, I had a little session on our balcony while Heinz Kaufmann shot some photos. Enjoy.

Prasheel in Oman: I'm Over It

2009-07-28T03:16:00.001-07:00

So a few days have past since the last update, but most those days had nothing interesting occur...Nothing!

A few things worth mentioning though, are we got a tent! We show up one day, and the six hollow short pipes they concreted in now had large, solid poles up, with lots of wires going across, and a big ass orange tarp going across it. While we were performing the first show, they were still tying one side of the tarp to the wires on the top. On one side, pressumably to block off the mist which comes from an angle, the tarp reaches about 3/4 of the way to the ground, at an angle. While I guess it does block out some mist, it also blocks sight from the rest of the fair, so not only is there decreased standing room, people walking by don't really know whats going on. Oh, and this giant ass tarp is only big enough to cover two of our three ramps, lol.

So, as we're warming up before the first show, which it actually isn't even raining for, I ponder out loud with Ben about what happens when it actually does rain. As it is, Ben and Will are getting really close to hitting the ceiling when they air the big quarter or jump the box, especially with their backflips. The top of the tent sags a bit, and is flat, opposed to being sloped for drainage. Whatever, not my problem though.

First show goes fine, and in between shows again, without fail, it rains! The top of the tent is now sagging a lot. Oh, and the scaffolding they use to build the tent, has wheels on it. So, they roll around, trying to push up the ceiling to get the rain off. In the process, they tear a couple holes, and also start pushing the scaffold up the box jump. At one point, two wheels were on the ground, one wheel was up the ramp, and one wheel was a foot off the ground. There's two guys on top untaggling the wires they get messed up in and pushing the ceiling up. Anyways, we do the second show, but it continues to rain as we leave. Before departing, I just look at the water spewing down from the ceiling in between the two ramps its covering from the holes that are there.

So, we got this big ass tent, and we go back the next day for shows again, and the tent is gone! Half the poles are actually ripped out of the ground, pulling a 2 to 3 ft square out of the ground. Yay for my flat spots! And sure enough, the first day without the tent, it rains again.

The only other interesting news is most of us have internet at home now. We have to buy usb sticks and sim cards and recharge cards, which costs about $100US to get setup. Ben and Will were the first to make the purchase, then Devin, and most recently, Matt. Matt doesn't have his own computer though, so I share my computer with him in exchange for him sharing his internet with me; hurray for the barter system!

I am now on skype, and am usually on in the morning/early afternoon here, which is overnight back home. But, if you're bored and want to keep me company, feel free to skype me, prasheel.gopal is my skype name thingy.

Oh yeah, at this point, everything feels sooo insanely routine. I'm over this place and this trip, and am just on my own shit now. While the rest of the team is skyping their girlfriends 24/7, I'm actually riding, despite the shitty spots I got to work with. Oh well, when I get back home and get to my own lot, which is immensely more flat than what I'm working with here, I'll be that much better off for it I guess.

Prasheel in Oman; Still Doin' It

2009-07-24T09:06:00.000-07:00

First off, I found out Devin's father somehow found this site and follows his son's trip through here, so I'd like to say hello Mr. Szmata!

Secondly, almost everything at this point has already become very routine. I can pretty much sum up each day with: sleep all day, wake up, go to show site, go straight to the internet, go try to do a show despite the rain, go back to internet, attempt another show, go back to internet, go to the market, come home, stay up watching movies.

On day 5 of shows, luckily, we took a small break from the norm by taking a drive up the mountain before heading to the show site. It's a pretty steep drive, but that didn't stop Mohammed from never shifting down past 3rd gear, which didn't sound or smell too good for the clutch. Near the top, the road got interesting, but Mohammed managed to not kill us yet. At the top, there was a flower garden, mosq, and a bunch of random vendors; I bought some sweet corn.

Apart from that, everything else was as per usual at the site. We were allowed back in the marketplace tent again (only allowed in on Mondays and Saturdays), so we made use of that. Matt tried to haggle for a watch, but still wasn't happy with the price and declined. Devin bought a fitted cap from my friend, who also gave us a good price on knock off D&G, Adidas, Calvin Klein, and Louis Vutton underwear. Our first show was just a flatground show due to the mist, but our second one went as per normal.

The 6th day was even worse in terms of shows. The rain was too much for us to even do anything for the first one, but Fahad made us sit out there, which we think is pretty embarrasing. We get little children standing along the 'fence' (string), and asking us when we're performing (in Arabic), and we have to try to explain to them how its too wet and therefore dangerous. They don't really understand and continue to stand around waiting for a show sometimes. It was a little drier for the second show, and we all did some half-assed flatland tricks.

At home, we celebrated and went through almost a full bottle of vodka that we picked up at the Muscat airport on the way in. I think we still have 2 bottles left, but I'm skeptical we can make it last for the rest of our duration in Salalah. I think we also gave our driver Mohammed some money to pick up more whiskey for us this day, but he's an interesting character with lots of stories. For instance, Mohammed was with the police this evening after getting in to a bit of an accident in one of the roundabouts (they don't have major intersections, just roundabouts that Mohammed never slows down for, despite the signs stating to do so).

The 7th day, again, we just slept through the whole day, and arrived to a moist show site. The ramps were quite slick, so we did two half assed flatground shows again, yay. Since Fahad is getting frustrated with the lack of shows being performed, they reconsidered the option of putting up a large tent over us, and have begun setting that up. They have dug up a few holes and put it in short hollow poles for now. Plus, in my flat spots, they have dug up holes for said poles, changed their mind, and cemented them full again, but leaving a mess of dirt and concrete around the spots that I ride in.

We are now told that when we want to use our driver, we have to call Fahad who will then call Mohammed. Apparently us calling Mohammed wasn't working out too well, because Mo has been working for other people on the side, and when Fahad calls him, he lies and says that he's busy taking us around somewhere, despite us rarely using him because he rushes us when we're out, and very often takes off when he is supposed to wait for us. The next day, we call Fahad who in turn calls Mo, and we head to the mall. While I'm upstairs ordering some glasses, everyone else has finished shopping and is outside. There's apparently a bunch of British people looking to go grab some KFC before heading back to the Hilton, where they are staying, but the local cab drivers are trying to charge them a very excessive rate (5 riyals/person). Mohammed and Julien then chat them up, and they started piling in to our van for a rate of just 1 riyal/person, but the local cabbies aren't impressed, and blocked our van from leaving while exchanging words with our driver. The Brits eventually give up and start walking, all before I even return to the van.

In other Mohammed news, he was apparently in the hospital the previous night, for 'stomach problems'. We ask him questions, and it appears as if he has neglected to eat or drink water for the past 3 days, claiming he has no money, as he's been spending it all on prostitutes. As he drops us off at home, we tell him to come in to eat some of our food. Instead, he seems captivated by the vodka, as whiskey is the only alcohol he knows. We have to tell him multiple times the alcohol is ours, and that he even still owes us whiskey. He doesn't even eat and leaves.

Finally, on the 8th day, we are able to perform shows again. I can't even remember the last time we were able to perform both shows in one day properly. They go off well, and we head home. While having intentions to go to bed early such that we can get Mohammed to take us to the Crown Royal plaza in the morning, we all stay up till about 4am, then sleep most of the next day away as well, lolol.

Oh yeah, during the past few days, I've been trying to ride more and more at home, even though I'm riding on the road which is very crowned. What's probably even worse than this, is that within 5 minutes of me being out there, dozens of kids come over to watch, converse, and harass me. This one fat kid always seems to gravitate towards my bike when I'm in the middle of a line. Part of me thinks he actually wants to get hit for some reason. Same fat kid somehow knows how to say 'fuck you', and likes to repeat it over and over. I've started to ride with my headphones again (which I avoided to the cars coming down the road and such), and the kids still try to harass me. Ignoring them does do the trick eventually, but they still sit there and try to converse and harass me for the first half hour. Sigh.

Canada Day In The Life of Prasheel

2009-07-23T11:47:00.000-07:00

Prasheel On Canada Day! from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

Prasheel in Oman: Let the Shows Begin

2009-07-20T06:54:00.001-07:00

So, apparently Fahad (one of the dudes that's basically around to take care of us and make sure we're good) knows some girl that MCs, and she's supposed to announce our shows. On the first day, for our first show, she neglects to show up. Also, our show becomes very delayed as we have to wait around on a sound system to show up. The stuff arrives eventually, but they don't set it up correctly, so we just get one speaker going, and only playing one side of the music...so it basically sounds like garbage. As well, half of us haven't done shows with each other, and all of this combined, makes for one terrible show.

After this, we head back to our change room for a little bit to cool off, as its still insanely hot out, despite the fact that it starts raining. We head back to the little internet booth in the fair, and try to lurk the internet from outside of it, but head in to the glass building to protect ourselves from the heavy misting. It's good to finally check emails and facebook and catch up with what's going on back home, as this place truly feels like a different world.

The misting continues, and our second show gets rained out. The brand new ramps (two quarter pipes and a jump box) are getting soaked, but we eventually tarp up the jump box. We wander around the festival a little bit, try to get in to the market place tent (which is insanely huge), but get turned away, as Thursday is a 'family day'...even though Devin and I lied and claimed we were brothers, oh well. What does suck a bit though is that throughout the week, there are four 'family days', one 'womens days', and only two 'general public days'. What this means, is that even though we were brought over to perform for them, we're only allowed in to the market place 8 times over the course of the next month.

We get home, eat, celebrate (drink), and watch The Hangover, and eventually get some rest.

The next day, Pat and Andrew, two of our managers, head to the airport to start their long journey home. Mohamad shows up unexpectedly at 4 o clock, even though we only have to be at the show site at 5pm. We try to go to the bank to exchange money, but because Fridays are their religious days, the bank is not open. Instead, we head to Lulu shopping center again, which is a mall that sells a variety of pretty much every thing. Devin buys himself a notebook similar to mine, and Matt contemplates the same, but forgot to bring the money for it. I take another look at some glasses I'm thinking about getting, but since I don't know my perscription (my mom emailed it to me, but I forgot to write it down and have a lack of internet to check again), I can't get them yet, sigh.

We head to the show site, I manage to sneak in to the market tent from the back, and quickly take a look around, noticing lots of blingin' watches for not very many riyal...so I'll probably acquire one of these soon. I head out of the tent and to the change room, then we all head out to warm up.

The rain plus our warm up really do a number to our ramps, as the bottom portions are all getting torn up after being soggy, we get both shows done regardless, and they're much better than the day before, even with us still missing our announcer. Like usual, we leached internet in between as well.

We start heading back to the house and grab some snacks and drinks (I bought a Snickers Cruncher, and a non-alcoholic pineapple flavoured Barbican premium malt beverage), and Haithym (another one of the organizers that looks after us) shows up with pizza for us. Despite us apparently getting a per diem for food, they still deliver food to us twice a day, but its usually the same thing over on a regular basis.

The next day (day 3), Ben and Will headed to the show site early to do some repairs on the ramp, while the rest of us over slept and missed our driver Mohammed showing up to take us out for some shopping. He ended up returning a couple hours later, rather unexpectedly, and took us out. Along the way, he told us, in way too much detail, his escapades the previous night, which revolved around him picking up a prostitute and getting a hotel room. I managed to get some of it on video, so hopefully I can get that in to an edit and put it up. As well, despite liquor usually being hard to obtain, he claimied he could get us 2L of whiskey for 7 riyals, so we agreed, just to see what he would bring us.

Went to the show site, got to do some shopping, as the market was finally open for everyone that day. Over there, people haggle like its a sport. I ended up haggling for a watch pretty early, and even though I still wanted to look around at the other booths (lots of which were selling watches), I got a really hilarious watch for half the asking price, so took it. Also found a really funny 'New Era' fitted cap, also for really cheap. Together, I think I spent under $25.

Shows went well, went to the market plaza afterwards, Mohammed got our whiskey, ditched us for a while, then eventually returned with bags of shawarma for us. Got home, ate, and ended up going through the whiskey rather quickly. Ben and Will retired pretty early, but Matt, Julian, Devin, and I stayed up drinking most of the night. The usual hijinx I suppose; we drank, converesed about a ton of topics, destroyed Matt's new RC car, cut Julian's hair, etc. Of the four of us, I called it quits the earliest, at 6am, when they were heading out to the convenience store to find something to eat.

The next day, most of us slept through pretty much the whole day. Went to the show site, despite it misting out. Sundays, at the fair, are women only days, and we are confined to just our show site and our change room (which is located next to the worst smelling bathroom in Oman I'm pretty sure). Basically, Sundays suck, as it feels like we're prisoners, with the worst part being that we can't even go leach internet. The misting continues to get worse, and after waiting in our room for an hour and a half, we our told to come out and ride. Ben tries to explain how we cannot ride in the rain, and how its even in our contract, but they try hard nonetheless. They untarp the ramps, squeegee the ramps, and wipe down the tops. They even try to get me to do a show on a covered carpeted stage near by, which does not occur.

We head back to our change room for another hour or more, and they come in and ask us again to perform. The misting stopped, and the ramps and ground are steadily drying up slowly. Our inliner has no traction on the ground, and the guys don't do any big jumps, but we get a show done anyways, just to please the few women that are around to watch. Head home, wait for food, then I ended up passing out early. But, I atleast wake up to find an envelope on the ground with my name written (and lots of penises drawn on it), with my per diem for the week, finally, which is a good start to day 5 of shows.

Another interesting fact is that the sky is always grey here. My white comrades have found out they can still get a sun burn, but its just depressing to never see a clear sky. Plus, most evenings, it is misting out, as it is the monsoon season here, which does not do well with us performing outdoors.

Final Teaser & Petrolia Street! Street! Street!

2009-07-19T20:42:00.000-07:00

Pralex Web Video Teaser #5 (Andy Sessions) from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

Street! Street! Street! from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

Prasheel goes to Salalah, Oman

2009-07-16T07:11:00.000-07:00

The Journey

Left my place around 1pm on Sunday afternoon, headed to the Ottawa train station to catch a bus to the Montreal airport. 2h bus ride, followed by a couple hour wait, then a 6.5h flight to Amsterdam. Once there, met up with Will Fisher, one of our BMX ramp riders, who introduced me to our inliner, Julian Deschamps, who happened to be on the same flight as me. After that, the three of us wandered around the airport for a while as we had a couple hours to kill for our layover. As well, Will was trying to find out other BMX ramp rider, Devin Szmata. We eventually found him after we did some shopping and checked in to our gate.

We arrived in Muscat, Oman on Monday night, after another 6.5h flight, which went by really quick in comparison to the 9h layover we had there. We started off by going through customs and getting our visa paper work sorted, then picking up our luggage (which we were told was going to go straight to Salalah for us), and then checking in to our next flight, which was early Tuesday morning. We made use of the 24h Dairy Queen and the terrible internet connection in the cafeteria for a while, then wandered around outdoors for a while.

Despite it being really late out, the heat in Oman hits you extremely hard as soon as you walk out the doors. Even at 3am, I think it was about 27C (probably 35C with humidity). Will shot some photos, and then we sat on some benches and conversed for a while. My favourite part of Muscat was when this old dude that was sleeping on the bench next to us woke up and proceeded to yell at us for talking to each other next to his bed.

We headed back indoors, enjoyed some Papa John's pizza for breakfast (I got a chicken shawarma pizza, it had potatoes on it!), and finally got to check in for our 1h flight shortly after. Having heard that it was difficult to obtain alcohol in Salalah, we all stocked up at the duty free, with both hands full either with a 1L bottle of vodka, or a case of beer.

It was about 6am when we arrived in Salalah, and we were all greeted by two men as we were waiting for our luggage to arrive on the carousel. We threw all our stuff in the cars belonging to these men and they drove us to our new home for the next month. They made a phone call, and our managers, Pat, Andrew, and Ben (who is also one of our riders), greeted us. They and our skateboarder, Mat, were in Salalah for almost a week at that point, as they came early to build the ramps for the shows. We were shown around the house, and then I promptly took a shower and headed to bed, as I only got about 3h of sleep the past two nights.

Tuesday night, we headed to the show site to check it out and test out the ramps. Despite the fair only opening the next day, there was no shortage of young children there to cheer us on or heckle us. It didn't help that the festival they brought us over to perform in (khareef festival), is on to celebrate the monsoon season. So, likely, we had to deal with a small amount of rain, which dries up quick, with it still being so hot out, even at night.. After our 'show', which ended with kids demanding to see backflips over and over (after they were shown several times), we headed back to the house, showered, ate, and proceeded to get liquored up.

On Wednesday, the fair is only open to government workers, who were coming to see a giant production show that was to be performed only one time and called for two weeks of rehearsal. With that being said, we were not only not performing that night, but we were not even allowed in to the fair, so we filled our time with various other tasks.

Some of the guys headed to the Crown Royal plaza hotel, which is apparently like a resort over here; pools with swim up bars, beaches, ocean view restaurants, etc. I was too tired in the morning to go for that, but stayed productive, and did a photo shoot with Ben on our balcony in the afternoon. I quickly realized how great it is that we're only doing our shows in the evening after the sun goes down, because even after just a 20 minute session, I felt like I was going to pass out from the heat. We got a few good shots though, hopefully get some on here soon, as well as take more throughout the month.

After that, most of us headed out for some shopping in various markets. Hit up a couple malls, looked at random shit, then to a couple outdoor markets, and looked at more random shit. Went out for dinner, then came back to the house and had a team meeting, going over stuff about shows and such, since Julian and Devin haven't performed with us before, as well as details about payments.

Other interesting details include the fact that we have a driver, who may or may not get us in to an accident very soon. This dude is crazy, just drives however he wants. He also tends to rush us when we're gone out to drop us home quicker, but then also occasionally just drive incredibly slow around town, and has already picked up random people while we're out with him so he can make some extra money.

As of last night, we are now getting a per diem for food, instead of the twice a day deliveries we were getting until now. This will allow us a bit more freedom over what we eat, as they tend to just pick up what they think we'd like to eat, oppose to taking our orders. The per diem is a decent size, and we're supposed to get it at the end of every week, so I might end up making a little bit more than I was originally told.

As of now, our house is still internet-less. We stopped at an internet cafe last night, but it was a bit of a sketchy operation, as half of the computers were not functioning, or functioning really slow. As well, they demanded our labour numbers, which posed a problem as we are not from here and don't have such; so Ben gave them '546777', which seemed to make them happy.

Oh yeah, our breaker went off last night sometime around 4am, meaning the air conditioner and fan in our room stopped working. Furthermore, it also meant that despite having my laptop plugged in, my batter died, prohibiting me from finishing watching my Jessica Alba movie for the evening, sigh. Our room got insanely hot, and I only managed to get about 2h of sleep before I heard the power come back on around 8am.

We start shows today, so I'll make another post soon. I wrote this post in notepad, and am now using the wireless internet at the fair to inform you all.

Facebook Fan Box!

2009-07-15T22:18:00.000-07:00

Check this out!

Pralex on Facebook

Pralex News!

2009-07-13T19:36:00.000-07:00

Prasheel is currently in Oman (east of Saudi Arabia) doing shows for four weeks. He'll try and get some cool footage with his new camera while he is there to keep our addiction to Prasheel fulfilled.

Alex is working on getting to New Orleans for Voodoo Jam in a couple weeks. He will be going with a photographer friend Andrew Cottingham (check out his site here). Although he doesn't want to take photos while on the trip, haha.

Also, Pralex is in the beginning stages of adding another member to head up the street division of out team...More news to follow with that.

Rock n roll!

Cory In Pink (Video), Alex Kickflips for KGB!

2009-07-08T14:24:00.000-07:00

Cory rocking pink jeans in this video!

Cory in pink from JKyllo on Vimeo.

This is a kickflip by Alex, you may have seen it before, but Martti asked for people to post some kickflips, so here it is:

Kickflip for KGB from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

Cory In Tight Jeans...Pralex Fan Page...

2009-07-06T07:58:00.001-07:00

Cory in some beautifully super tight jeans...Pralex standard issue.

Also look for Pralex now on facebook!

Pralex Web Video Teaser #4 (Bike-Check with Alex)

2009-06-28T07:37:00.000-07:00

Pralex Web Video Teaser #4 (Alex Bike-Check) from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

Pralex Videos Galore!

2009-06-27T15:30:00.001-07:00

We continue to film, as I'm sure you guys are sick of hearing about, for the Pralex Web Video...Here's some more videos to keep you entertained until we're done the web video! ENJOY!

Pralex Teaser 3 from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

Prasheel: New Cam Test 1 from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

Classic Prasheel from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

Prasheel getting high from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

BMX Plus: JoMoPro Coverage

2009-06-24T15:07:00.000-07:00

You can find mention of Prasheel (or Parsheel, haha) and Alex in the most recent issue of BMX Plus! Also you can find a photo with Alex's father in it! AWESOME! Stay tuned for Pralex Web Video Teaser #3 up tonight probably! OoooooOOOOo AhhhhHHHHhhh!

Pralex Web Video Teaser #2

2009-06-20T16:57:00.000-07:00

With the new Pralex Web Video coming closer and closer we will now be releasing a series of teasers to go along with the video...Sort of like "bonus footage" if it were to be a DVD...So here's the second teaser! Enjoy!

Pralex Web Video Teaser #2 (Packing & Bum Appreciation) from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

Bicycle Film Festival Trailer

2009-06-17T11:33:00.000-07:00

See if you can spot Prasheel, myself, or Dylan! Wooo!

Sorry for the awkward size...Silly html and youtube and me not knowing how to fix it.

Prasheel in Winnipeg

2009-06-15T09:15:00.000-07:00

Day 4:

Wake up, free breakfast in the hotel, head to the show site to set up the ramps. We show up and I realize that this is probably the worst show site I've had to deal with in a long time. Super bumpy, not flat, but whatever. I ride a little bit to get used to it, but its pointless to actually session this spot. Blah blah blah, we do 4 shows, lots of gaps in between, I hate my life. Wander around the fair, but it sucks.

We finish and go back to the hotel. Manager feels bad about our bed situation, so offers to buy us dinner and liquor. Dave and I go out to get lots of whiskey, get back to the conference room, and pizza shows up shortly after. We drink and eat, and drink more. Dave grew up in Winnipeg, and apparently some Edmonton riders are in town, so we head out to a bar to meet them. I don't exactly remember, but I think we all had a fun time. Dave is ridiculous, and was drunk dialing at the end of the night, while dipping his pizza in to chewing gum, and yelling at us. He's a bit of a aggressive drunk.

Day 5:

Same old. Still doing 4 shows a day, still way too much time just sitting around and waiting. We did groceries between some shows, so now we can make sandwhiches at the fair opposed to buying over priced food (budget-life). Shows are getting better, our announcer, who's with us for the first time, is getting progressively better, and the crowds are getting larger and more in to it.

Finish shows, back to the hotel, then hot tub for a bit before it closes. Another meeting held in the conference room, as some of the guys debate going out again, as it is Saturday night. 2am rolls around, then they decide to head out to a Denny's for food, I stay back and pass out quickly.

Day 6:

I'm slowly becoming a carnie, but Rich and I embrace it. Living in the trailer in between shows, walking around topless in and around our show site. Out of boredom, Rich and I decide to make tuna sandwhiches, and use a butter knife and hammer as our can opener. I eat and enjoy my sandwhich, then later pass out on a bench outside.

I made friends with some girl selling some as seen on tv type products, and visit her a couple times today. We've realized that Winnipeg is full of ugly and weird people, but this girl being from California is actually normal, so its good to have someone to make fun of Winnipeg with. Whenever I get bored and I go visit her and help her sell her silly products...I'm no good and haven't made a sale yet.

Finish shows, and head back to the hotel. By the time we get back and shower, it's already past 11pm, and we have very limited options for food. I settle with a Timmies bagel for dinner, then later wonder why I seem quite intoxicated off of 3 drinks. Meeting with some of the guys, then pass out. Looking forward to tomorrow and the rest of the week as our show schedule changes, and we only do 3 shows which are all in the evening. We'll have lots of time off during the day, and much shorter gaps between shows.

Note: I've uploaded photos of the trip so far on facebook. I don't like posting them on here as its problematic for me, so check them out on facebook if you feel so inclined.

Prasheel Goes to Winnipeg

2009-06-11T23:40:00.000-07:00

Background: I'm on a touring stunt team called 'Craz-E Crew'. I travel and do shows. We have shows at the Red River Ex in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

Day 1:

Wake up at 5:30am, as I was told I's being picked up at 6. It was a little rough getting up at that time, as I went out the night before, and only went to bed at 2:30. Sure enough, I had a little extra time in the morning as the tour van was expectedly late in picking me up. Ben Kauffman finally calls and shows up, and we hit the road at 7.

In the van already is Will Fisher and Paul Hoerdt, both of whom I haven't met or done shows with before, but quickly learn that they're both rad dudes. I've been on the road with Ben a few times previous, which is always a good time. He pretty much runs the ship. I find out that our other two guys (Dave Osato and Richard Sarrazin) are flying in to winnipeg on Thursday night and Saturday morning, respectively.

In the van, I am pretty much useless. For the most part, I just eat, piss, and pass out, filling the time in between by chatting with the guys, listening to music, or watching some cartoons I downloaded previous for this purpose of passing time.

Around 9pm, I wake up when Ben pulls over to the side of the road. We've apparently lost a tire on the trailer on the side of the highway. The four of us wander around in and around the bushes for half an hour, but turn up empty handed.

The closest town to us is Longlac, Ontario, which is still an 80km trek from where we were. With a lack of options available, we slowly make our way there, with only three wheels on the trailer. I pass out again along the way.

Around 11:30pm, I wake up again when Ben pulls over to the side of the road. The tire next to the one we've lost has apparently gone flat, right as we were pulling in to town. It's a quick fix, and we check in to a hotel for the night, and proceed to drink whiskey Ben has packed.

Day 2:

I wake up, and within 10 minutes, Ben says we're heading back to the spot from last night, and are not returning without our tire. He's already dropped the trailer at a garage, and they are apparently quite helpful, but without the tire, they can't really do much for us today. So, we now make the much shorter drive out there (finally going at appropriate speeds), and after a half hour of lurking through bushes, Ben emerges with our tire. We head back to Longlac.

We're still apparently out of luck, as our bearings are blown and we need a new hub, which they need to order from Thunderbay (4h east of our location), so we're stuck in Longlac for another night.

We make our way over to the LCBO (liquor store) and acquire beverages for the evening, and get that started at 6pm. We later make our way over to the local pizzeria and steakhouse for a drunken dinner, which was taken care of courtesy of our manager. We head back to the hotel, drink more, and pass out.

Day 3:

Wake up, do breakfast, and chill for a bit. Around 10am, a couple hours earlier than expected, Ben comes in and tells us to pack up as the trailer is ready to go. We pick up the trailer, and head to get some gas and food before hitting the road. As we're waiting for Paul to finish paying for his Subway at the cornerstore, a Native man jumps in the van with us and makes conversation for about 5 minutes. We're not really sure what he was saying, but he kept opening the door to say goodbye to his friends, remarking that he's going to Winnipeg and will be back in a month. Paul finally gets back, and we convince our friend 'Dan' (which was the name on his jacket) to give Paul his seat back. We finally hit the road around 11:30, and proceed to drive for a long ass time.

Along the way, Ben made us watch a terribly gruesome movie called 'Dirty Sanchez' I believe. For the most part, it was a Jackass style film, but much much worse. It involved lady-boys, dismemberment, cannabalism, snorting lines of wasabi, and much worse.

We stopped in Ben's hometown, Kenora, for a little bit. We grabbed some food and headed to the skatepark, where the guys rode some bikes, did some tricks, and shot some photos. We headed back on the road again for another couple hours.

We finally reached Winnipeg at 1am (their time...which is an hour behind my normal time). The city seems nice, the people seem nice, the hotel seems nice, but...they gave us three rooms with one king sized bed in each. We normally have rooms with two queens, as there is six adult males on our trip. That aside, I lucked out and got a room twice the size of the others. I walked in to see a conference room, with a nice big table and chairs, sink, fridge, coffee maker, and a bathroom. Another door opens to reveal the master bedroom and master bathroom, with dual sinks and a nice large shower and two robes, hahaha.

Random News Again #2

2009-06-08T21:30:00.000-07:00

Heyo!

Some random news for your Pralex cravings...

Prasheel news:
-He is heading to Winnipeg tomorrow to do shows at the Red River Exhibition with Craz-E-Crew
-He has a few new tricks up his sleeve & already dialed so watch out at the next contest he's at

Alex news:
-He has been riding so hard that his freecoaster has exploded but he keeps riding anyways
-He has LOTS of new tricks and is hitting new lines he can't even believe he is hitting
-He is leaving the Ottawa scene soon to go back to Petrolia to save money, and ride more

Andy news:
-He is still working away at his "job" and riding as much as he can, getting new tricks and smoothening out old ones

Cory news:
-He hit is first line for the Pralex video the other day on film, and is still working on getting more stuff for the video as we gave him a two week deadline
-He will be wearing tight jeans at the Saskatoon Berry Jam from losing a bet, hahahaha, photos to come later

Alexis news:
-He is done school in approximately 24 hours and will start riding a lot more and filming more for his part in the Pralex video, so be excited to see what he comes up with!

Pralex video is still trucking away, all riders are pushing hard to get their best and new stuff on film to make this an awesome banger of a video that all can enjoy!

Frustrations While Filming...

2009-06-04T07:31:00.000-07:00

Frustrations While Filming from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

One Year Ago Today...Happy Pralex Anniversary!

2009-05-24T12:39:00.000-07:00

Hey all. I just wanted to use this space to reminisce on some memories, and wish my buddy Alex a happy anniversary. One year ago today, he and I traveled together to Cleveland for the Northcoast Flatland Battle, which was our first road trip together. It wasn't until this trip (which also included flying down to New Orleans for the infamous Flatland Voodoo Jam) that Alex and I became friends, and not just riding buddies. It was also the first time Alex won first place at a contest, and also the first time he and I both had spots on the podium (I managed to take third).

To commemorate this, we took a trip up to North Bay for a few days, which also marks the end of an era in our current tour bus, as we are getting a new vehicle next weekend. The North Bay police disagreed slightly with the charm of our current ride, which makes me even more grateful to the Poirier family for donating our next vehicle to us. I should have it in about a week and will try to get photos up soon there after.

Upon returning to Ottawa, Al and I sessioned downtown yesterday. A group of street riders from Oshawa noticed us and came over and watched for a couple minutes, but got booted by bicycle police. Something that was rather unusual, though, was that although they kicked the street riders out, they commented that we were allowed to stay, and stay we did. Al and I worked on some new tricks on a not so good spot, and here are a couple quick photos.

Pralex Visits North Bay!

2009-05-23T13:28:00.000-07:00

Just got back from a two day trip to North Bay to visit some girlies and take in the wilderness. It's ridiculously gorgeous up there (not mad at the girls either). It was about a 4 hour drive, and we didn't get much riding in, but we met up with a ton of young street riders (like fifteen/sixteen) and showed them some flatland moves and they were all really digging it. So hopefully when we go back there will be a booming flatland scene there, haha. Might post some photos up later that the girls took, but I didn't bother taking any since the girls were snapping shots left, right and centre.

Pralex is back up on the grind in Ottawa, riding hard and prepping for the video. Prasheel is leaving next month for two weeks to do shows in Winnipeg, so Alex will hold down the HQ with Andrew and Dylan. Stay tuned...

Toronto Recap, Dylan Leeder a hero?, New Edits, New Byke Project Sponsorship, Business Cards are in

2009-05-15T12:23:00.000-07:00

So a little delayed, but I'm finally gotten around to updating the blog. First off, Alex and I went to Toronto to help out for the trailer and poster shoot for the International Bicycle Film Festival. The shoots were being done by Marco Mucig from Italy, and Benny Zenga from Toronto. It took place over a 3 day span, which ended up being pretty long days. The organization left a little to be desired, as we didn't really know our schedule in advance, and ended up shooting to about midnight each day. All in all, it was a really fun and interesting experience to take part in, and I'm excited to see how it all comes together. It should apparently be up in a week or two, and will be seen in 39 countries! Oh yeah, you won't actually be able to recognize Alex or I, as we were dressed in giant cardboard letters...you'll understand more when you see it.

When shooting in Toronto, Alex and our photographer (and newest rider) Dylan Leeder witnessed a fight mid-day. Like the nice guy he is, Dylan jumped in to help break it up. Here's a message he sent me about the incident.

"Prasheeeeel! So the story goes,,,

Me and Alex were biking down the street carrying large letters. I believe I had a C.

So we were riding and this 60 year old dude pulled into the bike lane and cut off a 25 year old bike courier (without signaling) and the 25 year old started yelling at the guy... so they fought verbally for a bit with the 25 year old taking the old mans picture.

Than the 60 year old dude climbed over the passenger seat with his wife screaming and crying "Why are you doing this!? STOP! Your mom's here!"... so infront of his wife and mother (on mothers day) the old man went and swung at the 25 year old.

So i dropped my bike/letter and continued to grab the young guy back from the 60 year old. While the 60 year old kept trying to get punches... so the 25 year old swung at him and pushed him down... and then it continued a bit longer...

Uhmm... so they just kept trying to fight while more and more people crowded around and stuff...

so finally the 60 year old, the wife, and the mother got in the car and drove away... with the 60 year olds pride ruined hahah what a maniac.

And I hurt my finger somehow in it all.

Also, we found out that the 60 year old got pulled over because the other guy took pictures of his face/license plate. And he got charged with assault/reckless driving/and maybe something else"

As you may know, Alex and I have been filming in hopes of trying to release a half decent web-edit. This past weekend, we witnessed the epicness of the footage Dylan's new camera is going to be able to take, so we're scrapping our old footage/tricks, and are hoping to get new stuff in muuuch better quality. Alex and I both edited the footage up, and you can find the edits below. Alex's is first, then mine, and I suggest you watch them in that order, as to not be disappointed in Alex's version.

Pralex "Cutting Room Floor" Footage from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

Pralex "Cutting Room Floor" Footage (Prasheels Version) from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

As of recent, Alex and I have both been picked up by Byke Project and are very excited to help represent them/Hector Garcia. Byke Project is a non-profit organization that donates and fixes bikes in low-income areas. We should be shooting a little commercial/promo next weekend to test out the new camera we're working with. www.bykeproject.com

Pralex business cards are now in. Please feel free to contact us for any flatland entertainment needs.

Lastly, we are off to Brockville tomorrow, as we are doing a small show at a stag and doe. Maybe expect some photos or videos, not sure yet. Hopefully there's a decent spot!

Pralex in Toronto! And more news...

2009-05-06T15:51:00.000-07:00

Pralex picked up the latest issue of BMX Plus and found some photos of Alex and Prasheel (Parshell) in it! Pretty darn cool! Super stoked on getting that coverage with a nice little article too! A lot of flatland in the June issue! Make sure to check it out!

Prasheel apparently might have a photo in the 'La Droit' newspaper, but we couldn't find a copy of it anywhere, haha, but cool nonetheless!

Pralex is going to Toronto this weekend, Friday we are doing a photoshoot with Benny Zenga for the poster for the Bicycle Film Festival in Toronto. Saturday and Sunday we are doing a video shoot with him for the trailer for the Bicycle Film Festival in Toronto! Should be pretty cool! Check out more info HERE and notice a video on the bottom right of Matthias and Ucchie! Super cool!

The weekend after you can find Pralex in Prescott, Ontario doing a show at a stag & doe! That'll be fun!

If you were to lazy to go visit the BFF site, check out the trailer from last year below, super cool and super excited to see what Benny Zenga puts together for this years!

Bicycle Film Festival | Trailer from casagrafica on Vimeo.

Pralex Roadtrip Continues (Part 2)

2009-04-29T07:50:00.000-07:00

Pralex is now in Toronto chilling with team member Addison Moore at his ballin' condo, watching Sevisual videos on a big screen! Super cool! We got here yesterday evening and had a chill night, making an awesome dinner, having some drinks and playing a game of Monopoly with some friends!

The day before we rode Chase's infamous Windsor spot. The spot is far too good, we love riding there! So much progression everytime we ride there, even if its a short session. We didn't get any footage in Windsor, but the day before we rode with Wyoming local Scott Fowler and got some decent footage for the Pralex Web Video.

Today we are riding in the Amsterdam Brewery all day long and hope to get some good footage there. Later on tonight we are doing a show for the Dandy Horse Magazine Launch Party. The party starts at 7pm and we are not on at any set time, but our show will be sometime during the night!

Pralex will be back in Ottawa Thursday evening, and have a lot of Pralex plans that will be put into action! Keeping it on the down-low for now. So keep an eye out! Once we're back in Ottawa we'll put up some photos from our trip and what not!

Time to ride!

Pralex out!

Pralex Road Trip Continues!

2009-04-26T17:02:00.000-07:00

We are currently at the Poirier house in Petrolia. We rode with local rider Scott Fowler today and got some footage of us and him. Alex hit fw and bw double whiplashes and is working on jumplashes now! Wooo neat!

We are going riding in Windsor tomorrow and hanging with friends and what not! We will be riding in Toronto Tuesday/Wednesday, and we are now doing a show Wednesday night at the Dandyhorse Magazine launch party! It's going to be awesome and we are pretty excited about it!

We have a whole bunch of new riders popping up in Ontario, and we're building bikes and helping people get started out, so expect a "friends of Pralex" video with some newcomers! It's going to be awesome! So excited seeing these new guys progressing and getting better!

We'll let you know how riding in Windsor goes, can't wait to ride the most epic best spot in the World!

Pralex out!

Magazine Coverage! Roadtrip!

2009-04-23T09:06:00.000-07:00

Pralex is in the newest issue of BMX Plus! Check that out. Alex is also featured in Dandyhorse magazine...We'll scan some photos or something once we get copies!

We are heading out on a Southern Ontario roadtrip tomorrow. Hitting up Prescott, Kitchener, Petrolia/Wyoming/Sarnia, Toronto (for magazine launch party and riding) then back to Ottawa!

Still working on the web video...This is going to a be a fantastic fucking video! Be super stoked.

Dandyhorse Magazine Launch Party! And more!

2009-04-20T20:39:00.000-07:00

Team Pralex has been invited to the magazine launch party for Dandyhorse Magazine. A Toronto publication all about bicycling in the Greater Toronto Area. Alex is featured in the magazine with a photo from a show they did for an art exhibit on Halloween weekend in October.

We have yet to see the photo, but are excited nonetheless and hope to make it out to the launch party for the magazine taking place in Toronto on April 29th. Not sure if it is invite only or not, but click HERE for more event information.

Pralex team members Prasheel, Alex, and Alexis La Grassa have all registered for Voodoo Jam this year, as it filled up super quick, which we are super stoked on! Check out the site! http://www.theflatlandvoodoojam.com

The Byke Project has an insane sale on right now, so check that out HERE!

Pralex has jumped on the twitter bandwagon, and you can check us out at: http://www.twitter.com/pralexgorier

Also Pralex has recieved some awesome news, but we have to keep it on the down-low for now, but we'll inform you when we can, just know that we are excited for this summer!

Lastly, our web video is still in the works! Don't worry, we haven't forgotten about it! Cory Fester is mailing us his footage. Alexis is still working on getting some clips (he has 3 awesome ones so far). Prasheel is lagging behind a bit as he had to deal with broken axles, popped tubes, and the constant wind that seems to plague Ottawa. Alex is swamped with exams, but is almost done, and excited to get some more clips, currently sitting at 4 brand new lines (all brakeless!). Here's the teaser again in case you somehow missed it:

Pralex Web Video Teaser from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

Alexis La Grassa!

2009-04-18T16:35:00.000-07:00

Glad to announce that Alexis won his battle on the online Global-Flat contest, and look forward to seeing what he does in further rounds. Alex will be in the quarter-finals of the Master class and will have to produce a video soon enough, hopefully he can pull through and not suck it up like he did against Prasheel (still beating him).

Pralex Online Battles

2009-04-16T17:02:00.000-07:00

On Global-Flat there is a little online battle contest going on...Pretty darn cool concept, and has a lot more potential then what it currently is, so hopefully it gets better and better as they do it.

Alex and Prasheel had to battle each other, and got very little filming done for their battles due to rain, exams, broken axles, broken spokes, popped tires and more, but we managed to film one measly link each and Alex narrowly beat Prasheel 21 to 19 votes. Heres the video:

Global-Flat Contest Footage (Pralex Vs. Pralex) from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

Also, Alexis Le Grassa (Pralex's newest team member) is competing in the expert class of the online contest. He is currently leading in his battle by a few votes, check out his video here:

Untitled from Alexis La Grassa on Vimeo.

We'll keep you updated as the contest continues!

A Fleaster Miracle!

2009-04-14T10:39:00.000-07:00

Pralex Web Video Teaser from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

Contest Placings! New Team Riders! Hats! Fleaster!

2009-04-08T16:12:00.000-07:00

Where to even begin?! Team Pralex had an amazing weekend in Joplin, Missouri! You can find tons of photo/video coverage over at Global-Flat. Alex managed to take 1st and Prasheel got 4th! Excellent weekend for the both of them.

We also announced our two new team riders, Alexis La Grassa (ATL Division!) and Cory Fester (Alberta Division!). Cory qualified 3rd in pro class, and finished 4th, great weekend for him!

We had two episodes of PralexTV over the weekend, where we interviewed lots of pro riders and people in the industry (Chad Johnston, Lee Huck Edwards, and more) along with a bike check with Ron Monis, and we also introduced our new team members on the show live! You can re-watch about half the show here if you go to "Archived Videos" then click the video where the thumbnail has Hector (from Byke Project), Prasheel and Alex sitting on a couch.

More hilarious news, Pralex now has hats! That's right, Pralex hats. They are only available to team members as of yet, but that might change...Pictures of us in the hats are surely to be seen soon! We will also soon have shirts available to the public, so be excited!

We will also have a "Fleaster" (Flatland + Easter) video out this weekend of more new riding footage and drinking footage as well probably, with clips from our newest riders too!

Photos + Random (Terry Adams) News

2009-03-31T09:17:00.002-07:00

So, tomorrow afternoon, Alex and I head to the Ottawa airport to pick up Edmonton's very own Cory Fester. Then, the three of us will begin our journey to Joplin, Missouri for JoMoPro, and are very excited about the trip. We will be arriving late Thursday night, and leaving early Sunday morning (missing the results announcements :( ), and plan on doing lots of riding and partying in between.

I'd like to congratulate Terry Adams on his recent wedding. He's currently still on his honeymoon, but will be flying straight towards Joplin soon. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make it to the wedding as my invitation was lost in the mail, but let me assure you, there are still no hard feelings between Terry and I (despite him not showing at CFO FU5). Don't believe me? Here's part of an email he sent me the other week.

"Prasheel-

First off.. I fucking love you. I text Scott this morning for your phone number because I wanted to text you a simple " I love u" So there you go.. I have a man crush."

So there you go!

Last week, while Alex and I were training at our normal spot, Leslie Johnson, a student at Carleton University, took some photos of us, and sent some of the better ones our way. The shots were taken to be used for a recycling campaign, which is also shown. Thanks, Leslie!

Pralex is Stoked!!!

2009-03-30T17:17:00.000-07:00

Not only are we super excited for JoMoPro and Cory Fester coming to visit us this week! I am super stoked that our vimeo channel had over 1000 views just in the past 4 days! Glad we got lots of positive feedback on our videos and plan to keep making more and more! Stay tunes after JoMoPro for even more new tricks from us!

Pralex Training for JoMoPro 2/Last Saturday Jam

2009-03-29T16:08:00.000-07:00

Pralex Training for JoMoPro 2! from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

Pralex Training for JoMoPro!

2009-03-27T09:07:00.000-07:00

New video of Prasheel and Alex training for the upcoming JoMoPro contest!

Pralex Training for JoMoPro from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

Matthias Dandois Late Breaking News

2009-03-22T08:32:00.000-07:00

On Matthias' recent and first trip to Canada, he made a rather sad discovery. While most of the flatland community knows Matthias as the world's best rider, Alex and I unfortunately found out that dude sucks at life...hard.

That's right, on Matthias' trip here, he quickly came to realize that he is not very good at life. I will spare you the gruesome details, but trust us. See photo above to see what the bad man looks like on the worst day of his life. Superfact.

As a result, Matthias is taking himself off of A Bad Thing, Stereo Panda, Redbull, Pull In, and Adidas. Good luck to all these companies in finding a replacement...although I'm sure it won't be difficult.

PS: Stereo Panda, holla at ya boy!

New Sequence Prototype Pegs

2009-03-21T14:18:00.000-07:00

So, for the past while, I've been testing out a new set of pegs for Sequence. If you've seen me recently, you probably noticed that they have not been on my bike, as we wanted to keep the design and details on the down low. Now, we are finally unveiling the pegs to the public, with the help of Pralex blog.

While the whole industry has downsized to 1.75" and 1.5" diameter pegs, Sequence went the opposite way and went to 2" on these new ones. The length is about 4.75".

The most notable feature on this peg is its two part design. While A Bad Thing pegs have removeable endcaps, we figured we'd go for a removeable base! Thats right, you can now take the pegs off your bike without even loosening the wheel nuts. The body can unthread from the base with the use of a long stick and an ungodly amount of force.

Furthermore, Sequence Fabrication is shutting down, after a potential law suit threat from http://www.sequencemusic.net/. Let me introduce to you the first pegs from Frost Industries!

Dominik Nekolny Interview - Part 1

2009-03-20T06:56:00.000-07:00

Prasheel: Dom, I love you.

Dominik: Yeah.

Prasheel: Do you love me too?

Dominik: A little bit.

...Part 2 later this week.

Pralex Photo Caption Contest

2009-03-08T20:10:00.000-07:00

So, last night Alex and I, accompanied with a few of our favourite friends, went out for a night on the town. Like usual, paparazzi were there, and managed to snap a few not so flattering photos of your favourite Canadian riders. We're letting you guys brainstorm captions for our two least favourite photos from the night. No real prizes as of yet, except for humiliating Alex and I. Don't hold back. Post entries in the comments I suppose. Enjoy!

In other news, Alex has developed a lisp, I might be out of a job, and Dominik and Matthias will be hanging out with us shortly.

Random News Again...

2009-03-01T10:24:00.001-08:00

Alex is mad sick and struggling super hard at doing anything besides lying in bed and sulking. If you're bored check out his interview here if you haven't already.

In about a week Matthias Dandois and Dominik Nekolny will be amoung us here in Ottawa hopefully riding hard if the weather permits us too before we head to Flatland Unlimited 5 that is now less then two weeks away.

There some more news on Global-Flat about Jomopro that is coming up. The A Bad Thing team will be at that contest, Justin Miller, Matt Wilhelm, Terry Adams, Chad Johnston, Ron Monis, Brian Rybak, Cory Fester and unofficial word that Viki Gomez, Pete Brandt, and James Mcgraw will all be there. This is going to be huge! Pralex team will be rolling there with Cory Fester, and maybe our photographer will have a bike built up and riding by then too!

Stay tuned!

CFO Is Changing Servers!

2009-02-25T12:25:00.001-08:00

CFO messaged me to help get the word out, so here it is!

"CFO is moving (servers that is)

we are moving off of custom cms and onto blogger (because we are lazy)
and we want to allow the community to collaborate more!!!

http://cfobmx.blogspot.com/

soon this change will be permanent, and will be mirroring the blog to cfobmx.ca

if you have a flickr account, join our flickr group and your photos will make it to the page!!!
http://flickr.com/groups/1038998@N21/

cheers,
thanks for all the posts CFO"

Also, here is the latest list for riders that will be at Flatland Unlimited 5...Notice Justin Miller has been added to the list! Along with a few more experts!

-Matthias Dandois (Ranked #1 in the World) [France]
-Matt Wilhelm (Ranked #4 in the World) [Illinois, USA]
-Dominik Nekolny (Ranked #6 in the World) [Czech Republic]
-Shintaro Misawa (Ranked #10 in the World) [Japan]
-Justin Miller (Ranked #12 in the World) [Michigan, USA]
-Gabe Kadmiri [Atlanta, USA]
-Cory Fester [Alberta, Canada]
-Jon Dowker [Georgia, USA]
-Percy Marshall [Alberta, Canada]
-Andy Cooper [Indiana, USA]
-Rob Shaw [Alberta, Canada]
-Chris Pergentile [Alberta, Canada]
-Adam Pergentile [Ontario, Canada]
-Alex Poirier [Ontario, Canada]
-Prasheel Gopal [Ontario, Canada]
-Andrew Wylie [Ontario, Canada]
-Bryan Huffman [North Carolina, USA]
-Lachlan Cameron [Ontario, Canada]
-Spencer Mitchell [Ontario, Canada]
-Christian Boodram [Ontario, Canada]
-Brandon Fenton [Ontario, Canada]
-Adrian Furniss [Ontario, Canada]
-Avram Moorey [Michigan, USA]
-Joey Kyllo [British Columbia, Canada]
-Dmitry Koupriyanov [Ontario, Canada]
-Eugene Andruszczenko [Ontario, Canada]
-Steve Lapsley [New York, USA]
-Mazar Kadri [Ontario, Canada]
-Adam Jakomait [Ontario, Canada]
-Lauren Clack [Ontario, Canada]
-Dugald Cameron [Ontario, Canada]
-Addison Moore [Ontario, Canada]
-Tall Paul [Ontario, Canada]
-Jake Jackson [Indiana, USA]
-Joe Miller [Indiana, USA]
-Roy de Guzman [New York, USA]
-Reggie Lavoie [Ontario, Canada]
-Mark Kuhlmann [Ontario, Canada]
-Steve Wieler [Alberta, Canada]
-Tim Knoll [Wisconsin, USA]
-Jeff Bedard [Ontario, Canada]
-Will Wolffe [NY, USA]
-Billy Gordon [British Columbia, Canada]

Pralex Texas Tour

2009-02-22T14:56:00.001-08:00

Hey y'all. First off, I'd like to apologize about the lack of posts this past week. We were in Austin, TX, and had intentions of blogging throughout the week, but had some technical difficulties. We even got some riding and video blog footage, bu struggled with the mac laptop to edit it (hopefully we can get it together some time this week). So, here's a list of high/low-lights of the past week, which range in topics from flatland, traveling, and utterly ranom. Sorry for the huge list. Word.

- Stopping in Kingston, ON so Alex can eat Arby's...to find out they don't have roast beef or baked potatoe...wtf

- Picking up Addison and Kimberly in Kitchener, ON around Friday midnight, where we dropped off Patty (Nissan Pathfinder) and picked up Sue (Subaru Forester)

- Hitting ridiculously terrible weather from the border to Battle Creek, MI, but thanks to Addison, Alex, and Jane (GPS system), all was ok.

- Stopping in St Louis, MO to see some of my family, and being fed some decent food for the first time on the trip. Mid-travel showers were also a huge plus!

- Stopping in Tulsa, OK for dinner at Chilis. Amazingly delicious, and another good break from sitting in a car and almost wishing death upon myself.

- Driving through our second over night to arrive in Austin, TX around 6am on Sunday morning, which was coincidentally the day of the Austin Marathon (which we were not informed about). The marathon had lots of main streets (including South Congress Ave, where I hotel was located off of) closed down, which made following Jane's directions very frustrating. http://www.youraustinmarathon.com/

- The marathon seemed to have about 11000 participants, which was a crazy experience to watch. As well, Austin is full of loads of good looking women who like to keep fit!

- Just moments after finishing our 38h trek to Austin, we met up with the Austin crew and helped them put on a post marathon show right downtown.

- Even though check in at the Austin Motel is at 3pm, the hotel staff was cool with letting us just chill by the pool until then. Being homeless in Austin, tanning by a pool, and eating Japanese food (thanks Addison!)...yup, our lives rock(ed)!

- Hitting the infamous Oltorf Garage and just seeing truck after truck (no cars in Texas, just large trucks) of flatlanders showing up. In all, I think there were about 30+ riders from all over Texas, and even some from Louisiana. When I asked some of the guys what made them come out, they said they heard the Canadians were coming. Best. Scene. Ever!

- Soooo many talented riders in Texas. Sorry I can't list everyone, but some of the highlights include:

- Diego, dude's got ridiculous amounts of style and control.

- Kenny Boucher, I'm pretty sure he can pump every trick out there, including tricks that you wouldn't have thought could be pumped.

- Adam Diclaudio, Pralex's favourite TX rider! Dude is super chill, with lots of hard, technical switches and smooth style. Looking forward to seeing you again at JoMoPro, best of luck with riding in the mean time!

- Jim Mckay, super cool style and totally stoked on flatland and life at all times it seems.

- Mark Dandridge! The jam wouldn't have been as big or as fun as it was if it wasn't for him and all the hard work he put in, making calls and sending texts all week previous to the jam. Not to mention how hard he works promoting the TX scene constantly with his videos and website, keep it up!

- Chadwick, again, another rider that puts in work both on his bike and behind the cam. Tons of other riders fit in this category as well, sorry I can't list you all. :(

- Touring around South Congress and Sixth Ave, taking in the sights and sounds of Austin (which is definately a lot different than I expected, and different from the rest of Texas/US...which is a plus!).

- Waking up every morning and sitting out in the sun. Despite not getting any darker (or burnt like my white comrades), highlight of my trip right here!

- Taking a day trip to Padres Island. Despite that place giving me the creeps, got to ride and chill with Aaron Frost at a shitty spot just adjacent to the ocean, and even got to see dolphins. Who drives 40h+ from Canada to see the Gulf of Mexico? We do!

- Alligator Grill finally letting us eat there! Delicious alligator appetizers and hurricanes...no further comment.

- Home Slize pizza. Who goes to Texas for NY style pizza? We do, and it was damn good.

- Guero's Taco Bar! Delicious food, entertaining waitresses.

- Thursday's night session at the OG. Great way to cap off the trip for us, and probably our last decent session until the Toronto comp in 3 weeks from now. :(

- And obviously, spending a week (and too much time in a car) with some of my favourite people ever.

Here's a few links to some coverage (video and photos) from the Canada invades Texas jam...and a video of Pralex in Indy courtesy of Mark Dandridge.

http://www.global-flat.com/videos/index/89

http://www.global-flat.com/photos/thumbnails.php?album=756&page=1

http://vimeo.com/3305993?pg=embed&sec=

http://vimeo.com/3250461?pg=embed&sec=

http://vimeo.com/3220995?pg=embed&sec=

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kblinkz/sets/72157613987618166/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BaPnPrh50g

http://flickr.com/photos/lafphotography/show/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/31551395@N04/sets/72157614163598564/show/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/teneyck/sets/72157613948560762/show/

In other news, our Vimeo channel has reached over 1000 views, and we'd like to thank you. As well, Pralex photographer, Dylan Leeder, is now picking up flatland, and we're building up a bike for him. Look out for him at JoMoPro!

2009-02-12T13:19:00.000-08:00

Pralex World Tour poster finished, expect a "Week in Texas" flyer soon! With this, we also give you the opening of our Flickr channel...Check it out, it will be updated constantly with photos from our travelling and partying and riding too of course! Click HERE to check it out!

Terry and Prasheel Squash Beef

2009-02-08T16:29:00.000-08:00

Last weekend, at the Fight with Flight contest in Indianapolis, Indiana, North America's top rider, Terry Adams, and Canada's latest up and comer, Prasheel Gopal, settled their 8 month long standing beef. Despite having seen each other around for years at previous contests, their first introduction occured on Bourbon St in New Orleans just after Voodoo Jam.

Upon introduction, a personal disagreement arose (not over skin colour), and the two riders did not speak for 8 months. Furthermore, over this stretch of time, both riders were not even seen at the same events, as they each took care in only attending events that the other was not.

As soon as they noticed each other in Indianapolis, they talked it out, and settled their differences. They were later seen conversing at multiple points over the day, exchanging consolation hugs when Terry found a copy of his dvd Dreams sitting on the floor, and cheering for each other during the competition (notice Terry bashing scoring clipboard on the wing of the plane as Prasheel lands his last combo in the Indy footage clip!). As well, Ter-bear (Terry), Rob Roe, and Prasheel all pose for a photo opp early Saturday morning, shown above.

They look forward to seeing each other again at the Toronto contest in March, Jomopro in Missouri in April, and Voodoo Jam in August, and hopefully more events in between.

In other news, Prasheel recently received a new pair of bars, Odyssey Chase Guion bars, and despite having much less sweep than his last pair, is getting used to them slowly. Bike shown below.

Random News...

2009-02-07T15:56:00.000-08:00

So apparently I (Alex) got a full page photo in the September issue of Cream. Can`t believe it took this long for me to find out, but I`m extremely stoked on this, as its quite the honour and my first magazine appearance...Thanks to whoever hooked that up!

Pralex blog got mentioned in Effraim Catlow`s ``Flat Friday`` news on Global-Flat! Sweet!

Pralex video channel is almost up to 1000 views already...Don`t know who would want to watch us, but we love it anyways! Texas is in less then a week, where we will have our own Flickr account that we will consistently update with new photos from our trip, and update with stories on here. Expect a nice team video out after the trip!

Also on the way back we might hit up the Ath Low Key jam, and are pretty excited about that, hopefully it all works out accordingly! We are stoked to ride with all the Texas guys, and just on riding in general right now.

Matthias Dandois will be visiting Ottawa mid-March for a week around the time of Flatland Unlimited 5. He`ll be staying with us, and weather providing, we`ll be riding hard all week and partying of course. (Dominik Nekolny might be along for the ride too!)

Pat Schoolen just announced another big flatland contest in North America by the name of Jomopro taking place in Joplin, Missouri. Matt Wilhelm, Terry Adams, Tyler Gilliard, and the Pralex team have already commited to making it out to this event that sounds ridiculously well planned and is taking place along side other BMX disciplines. Should be a great chance to get awesome exposure! Check HERE for more information. Also keep an eye on Global as there is a lot of information up there, mostly anything Pat or Fat Tony posted is some good info on the event.

Flatland Unlimited 5 is coming up pretty quick, here is a list of riders that have said they are coming, it`s looking like it will be an awesome turn out this year compared to the last few years.

-Matthias Dandois (Ranked #1 in the World)
-Matt Wilhelm (Ranked #4 in the World)
-Dominik Nekolny (Ranked #6 in the World)
-Shintaro Misawa (Ranked #10 in the World)
-Gabe Kadmiri
-Cory Fester
-Percy Marshall
-Rob Shaw
-Chris Pergentile
-Adam Pergentile
-Alex Poirier
-Prasheel Gopal
-Andrew Wylie
-Bryan Huffman
-Lachlan Cameron
-Spencer Mitchell
-Christian Boodram
-Brandon Fenton
-Adrian Furniss
-Joey Kyllo
-Dmitry Koupriyanov
-Eugene Andruszczenko
-Steve Lapsley
-Mazar Kadri
-Adam Jakomait
-Lauren Clack
-Dugald Cameron
-Addison Moore
-Tall Paul

I`m sure there are riders I`m missing, so let me know and I can update the list accordingly as its posted on the facebook event, and on Global as well.

Also there was a video posted on Global from Fight with Flight that contains some footage of Prasheel and Andy, so props to them for the exposure, I sucked to much to get any exposure, haha.

Not sure if we mentioned this before, but Voodoo this year is taking place on August 1st, and will be the final stop of the World Circuit tour, which will make it absolutely nuts I`m sure. So make sure you make it out this year if you haven`t in past years, it`s the best thing you`ll ever do.

Pralex out.

Fight with Flight Video!

2009-02-02T19:02:00.001-08:00

Prasheel threw this video of the Pralex team from Indianapolis together, definitely far from our best riding, or good riding at all, but whatever, it was a blast!

Pralex Indy blog/footage from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

NYC Jam footage!

2009-02-02T19:00:00.000-08:00

This is mad old, but here it is anyways:

NYC Jam from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

Zero Degrees of Flat Photos!

2009-02-02T10:08:00.000-08:00

Dylan finally got around to sorting through the insane amount of pictures he took on our Whitby trip. You can check them out at his Flickr account here!

Check 'em out! Then add Dylan to facebook and tell him how much you love his awesome photography!

Red Bulls Fight With Flight!!!!

2009-01-31T21:36:00.000-08:00

I think the only thing to see here is "What a day!!".

We awoke at about 8am (not sure why), as we started to hype the contest before it even began. We fixed my piece of garbage bike (someone sponsor me please), then we took our turns showering and packed our multiple outfits for the day!

This blog is going to be slightly half-ass as it is almost 1am, I am tired, and have a 14 hour drive to conquer tomorrow...So we will re-hash what I say here in the next few days and make sure we mention all the names that I miss here.

First off, the am riders...Awesome. I think Prasheel and I both loved Danielle (mini-Matthias) the most. His strange array of trickery was awesome and fun to watch! We hope to see more from you asap! Next, Brysaiah...We have seen quite a bit of Bryan Huffman and Isaiah Jordan in the past year it seems, and its always a privilege. Bryan is always dominating rolling and spinning tricks, back and front wheel, and those 360 flips at the end of the day, I expect those next time we see you! Isaiah...There's no need for an explanation here, but I'll give one anyways. Your riding speaks for itself, and how much you push those around you, is awesome, whenever we're blessed with Brysaiah's presence we get very motivated...The last session of the day was so much fun!

Brant Hughes was teamed up with Isaiah (amazing team!), and he was killing the back wheel...Spinning deathtrucks...Yikes! Andrew and Chad clearly had some nice stuff making it into the final battle, including weird barflip switches and strange stubble ducks that I don't really understand still.

I was paired up with Lee "Huck" Edwards, and was stoked when I found out (unfortunately I suck and didn't land anything in the finals, plus we got stuck against Isaiah who decided to land everything in the battle against us...Frig...). Lee was rolling around the entire area, and his hang 5 turbine scuff-thingy-ma-jiggers were DIALED! See you in a few weeks hopefully!

Avram was paired with Prasheel, and he is definitely an up-and-comer. Prasheel unfortunately ruined it for him in their last battle, while Avram did some halfpacker whip around thingy that was pretty darn impressive.

Okay, I know I'm missing some beginners, but I've had some drinks, and this blog is taking far too long...So onto the pros!

Aaron Frost! I have never seen a man look so angry while doing tricks, and be so bloody hilarious off his bike. He's a great rider, but really, he's an even more hilarious dude, definitely be ready for that train in two weeks!
Andy Cooper is an awesome guy, down to earth, and kept lying to Prasheel and I telling us we're good at biking because he's just such a nice guy! His riding, is awesome, I can't even explain his style, its definitely not your standard pro rider, you have to see it to believe it. I noticed he runs a front brake, I didn't see him ever touch it though, not even fingers on the brake lever! Props to him and his riding!
Justin Miller...You all know him...Everyone is convinced he is a machine...Wait until you see his new stuff...I refuse to give away what we think he was trying...But wow...WOW. He was not in the final battle, but if he would've hit it, I would've demanded they give him first place anyways. His 360 flips everywhere are insanity. His last link of the contest (not his last trick) was one of the best links I've seen to date in the flatland world, and he did it in contest...Justin Miller, if you by chance read this, you are amazing, your riding is so damn good, even known as one of the best riders in the World, you are underrated.
Dane Beardsley, DIALED DIALED DIALED. Your impossible pivots on the back wheel are not logical, your front wheel business is silly! You are too smooth. We don't like you! And you are ridiculously dreamy...I've shown pictures of you to girls, and they agree.
Matt Wilhelm...You claimed you were going to be falling all weekend...You, sir, are a liar. The girls loved your spinning trickery this weekend! Understandable of course, Pralex also loved it! You're a machine.
Terry Adams. You are Terry Adams, it would be silly of me to describe your riding, the World knows your riding. Instead, you will soon have a blog about you on here, and how awesome you are. See you in Toronto, haha.

Now Pralex team was totally bunk in the contest (we're actually always bunk), but we still had a great time...For about ten seconds I was disappointed in my riding in the finals, then I instantly got over after slamming 3 Red Bulls and watching the pro insanity.

Results:
Am-Isaiah Jordan and Brant Hughes in first!
Pro: 1 - Terry Adams, 2 - Matt Wilhelm, 3 - Dane Beardsley

Okay, I need to go to bed...We will blog more later about the contest...And post some video and pictures of course. See Texas in two weeks! Can't wait! Big ups to Jake, Red Bull, and Scott O!

Goodnight for now!
Pralex out! We had so much this weekend here, thanks to everyone who showed up. North America was awesomely represented at this event! Good to see we're still alive and kicking!

Fight With Flight Pre-Jam

2009-01-31T05:25:00.000-08:00

It's Saturday morning and Pralex team is ecstatic for the contest today while we nurse our wounds/hang-overs from the pre-jam and after party at Denny's (which isn't licensed?!). After arriving last night about an hour into the jam, it was already well under way with lots of riders from all over the States riding hard.

Lots of riders continued showing up as time went on, Aaron Frost was riding hard the entire time, along with Andy Cooper, 'Team Bryzaiah', Tony Schniedwind, Steve Mulder, Ron Monis, Matt Wilhelm, and plenty of others with a short show of Terry Adams hitting everything.

Lots of video cameras were out, along with lots of photos being taken. If you didn't bother making an attempt to come out be patient about video/photo! Hopefully we see even more new faces today at the contest, and we'll report back soon. If you haven't met us before, come up and say hello!

P.S. Some riders brought rather attractive girly friends to look at in between riding.

P.P.S. Look forward to seeing Team Bryzaiah in the finals!

Red Bull Fight with Flight

2009-01-28T10:02:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow we begin our roadtrip to Indianapolis, IN, USA for the Red Bull 'Fight with Flight' contest being held by "IndyJake" and some of the other Indianapolis scene. Pro riders Matt Wilhelm, Terry Adams, Andy Cooper and Aaron Frost will be in attendance, along with some rumoured other pros making the journey to the American Midwest.

The Am team comp prize is your weight in Red Bull...Now, I don't know about anyone else, but this is the best news I've ever heard. Whenever an event is sponsored by Red Bull, I get really excited, not only does Red Bull always do a great job, but Red Bull girls handing me Red Bull throughout the day is pure awesome.

Anyways, I now leave you with a little Pralex Promo video, see you in Indianapolis!

Pralex Promo Vid from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

Bunkness up in the Pralex HQ!

2009-01-25T16:49:00.000-08:00

So turns out I have a torn LCL...This being Alex of course...Not to sure how bad it is yet, going to get another doctors opinion on it later this week. Maybe look into physiotherapy if this pain continues...I'll still be riding in Indianapolis (can't let Prasheel break my win streak over him), although I probably won't push myself as much as I normally would. At least that's what I'm telling myself now, once I get on my bike I'm sure I'll be going as hard as ever, haha. Here's some random information if you feel like reading about torn LCL's.

I'm hoping for a quick and swift recovery, it's not going to well right now though, haha.

Alex.

2009-01-22T19:37:00.000-08:00

"Half of the game too lazy
Still sleepin' on me but I'm bout to wake em
Yep! I'm bout to take em to New Orleans and bake em
Yeah it's hot down here take a walk with Satan yeah"

So, this year's Voodoo Jam has been announced, and will be taking place on August 1st, 2009, in New Orleans, Louisiana (Lilweezyana). For those of you that don't know what Voodoo Jam is, it is the largest and most successful flatland event in North America. Furthermore, this year's Voodoo is also the last stop for the Flatland World Circuit, meaning that it will probably be the biggest Voodoo in its history.

Last year, I had the pleasure of experiencing my first Voodoo Jam, and loved every moment of it. From the drive to Buffalo to catch our flight, Friday night's prejam, waking up early to watch the beginner comp, getting (mildly) intoxicated the moment I didn't qualify for finals and watching Al kill it, every second of the pro finals, to my foggy memory of Bourbon St celebrations that night, it was unbelievable.

My trip to New Orleans was actually my first time traveling outside of Ontario and Quebec for the purpose of a contest, and my first time flying with my bike, but more importantly, my first time road tripping with Alex. We started a week in advance, heading to the North Coast Flatland Battle in Cleveland, Ohio (congrats Alex!) the weekend before, then heading to the Poirier residence in Petrolia for a few days, before meeting up with Adam in Hamilton and heading to NO with him. For better or worse, that trip essentially created Pralex.

I'd like to personally thank Scott O Brian, Bryan Ryback, as well as every other event organizer and supporter for all the jams and contests we've gone to this summer. If it wasn't for you guys, this blog might not exist. With that said, I'll leave you with a short clip of some footage of Alex and I at Voodoo last year. Enjoy, and hope to see you all in NO on August 1st!

Pralex goes to Voodoo Jam 2008 from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

Prasheel

Andrew Wylie's Debut!

2009-01-21T13:52:00.001-08:00

Alex Poirier and Team Rider Andrew Wylie from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

Here's a little debut of Andrew's riding, along with a short clip of me. Just wait to see the new things Prasheel, Andrew, and myself have in store...

Pralex out!

Pralex Past, Pralex Future!

2009-01-21T08:39:00.001-08:00

Pralex Roots... from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

This is to keep you occupied until Prasheel gets off his lazy ass and gets to his underground to film some new links. This is an older video I sort of re-hashed, if you've seen it, it's nothing new, if not, check it out! This is from the best flatland spot in North America. Riding there for one hour and we both felt incredible amounts of progression.

In other news, I (Alex), currently have a ridiculously bunk knee. Not to sure if it's serious or not (hoping I haven't torn my ACL), but I'll keep updated on that later in this week if I hit up the clinic here in Ottawa.

Last but not least, Indy is just over a week away, and Pralex is more then stoked! Prasheel, Andy and I will be there in full force, and we believe we'll once again be bringing our awesome photographer Dylan Leeder. With pro's Terry Adams, and Matt Wilhelm already signed up, it's bound to be an awesome weekend. See everyone there!

Pralex out!

Zero Degrees of Flat: Chicken Soup for the Flatlander's Soul

2009-01-19T21:21:00.000-08:00

Hello from Whitby! from Pralex Gorier on Vimeo.

Zero Degrees of Flat: Chicken Soup for the Flatlander's Soul

First, a huge thank you needs to go out to all those that were responsible for and helped out with the event. Black Pony is a name that the Ontario flatland scene (or whatever's left of it) is starting to hear more of these days. Despite being a small shop in a small town (Oshawa), they are doing everything they can to gain the support of our scene, and doing a pretty good job may I add. After being the main sponsor for last year's Flatland Unlimited contest at the Toronto International Bike Show, they've gone ahead and organized their own flatland event for us (and will also be returning as FU's main sponsor this year!).

Now, I'm not sure if it's just me, but the concept for this jam-turned-contest is something I have wet dreams over in the winter. After dealing with unbelievably cold temperatures and too many feets of snow, being given a perfect oppurtunity to get together with old friends, ride indoors, possibly enjoy an adult style beverage or two, and party is more than perfect escape from the winter blues. For their first attempt at organizing event, everything went off really smoothly. Despite the location being a little cramped, and a little slippery (both of which were basically known at the onset), there was just such an amazing, fun, and encouraging vibe to the whole evening.

The event officially started off at 7pm, and riders headed to the 'dance' floor, taking turns one at a time brushing off the cob-webs formed over the winter months. A large variety of skill levels were present, but it didn't stop anyone from sneaking in their turn to throw down a trick or two in front of the large, and possibly quite intoxicated, crowd of on-lookers. With the help of the Red Bull girls (and bar staff), rider's maintained energy levels and enthusiasm all throughout practice, which only ended at 12am, in time for the midnight battle.

The battle got pretty heated, which made it a little difficult at times to sneak in your turn, but that only goes to show the enthusiasm on the floor, as everyone wanted their chance to show and prove by putting down their best tricks to wow the crowd (who,at the end, selected the winner by applause). Throughout the whole night, the crowd was able to witness lots of amazing riding by guys from all over Ontario, each possessing their own individual style.

Tall Paul progresses so much every time I get to see him. Lots of neat fire hydrant and halfpacker switches, and an incredibly difficult spinning cliffhanger varial/barflip. Lachlan Cameron was spinning up a storm on both front and back wheels, and even showed off his signature 'hat trick' to the drunken audience, who inevitably went nuts. Brother Dougald Cameron, despite not having any cranks, tried to go back in time with a large variety of time machine variations. Maza Kadri was there with even more insane rolling positions and switches. This guy is, in my opinion, the most unique and creative, yet still flowy, rider in North America. Big ups to him and his constant progression! Pralex team rider Andrew Wylie, although a little rusty, showed everyone how to pinky squeak, and turbine steamrollers and hang 5s, all in a tiny spot. Other riders that threw down all evening include Dmitry, Eugene Andrewsomething, Brandon Fenton, and Addison (Pralex graphic designer).

Despite showcasing extreme terribleness at biking and life, Alex Poirier (Pralex's better half) showed everyone present why it is we love him so much. A pair of pants that are beyond ridiculous, and some new Stereo Panda gear that made him look oh so good (SP, holla at your boy!), and lots of high speed spinning to brutal bails earned this rider another first place finish and a new St Martin X26 stem!

Thanks again to all those involved and those that showed up. If you were able to make it out and didn't, shame on you. Although the year just started, this is by far the best event so far, and will be hard to top (but you know us, we'll try hard to travel and find out). Keep your eyes open on here, Global Flat, and facebook for photos and video. Pralex photographer, Dylan Leeder, shot over 800 on our one night trip to Whitby, so stay tuned.

Here is Dylan Leeder's Flickr page full of other amazing shots, plus one of Alex, stay tuned there for more updates and amazing shots by him.

WHITBY! ZERO DEGREES OF FLAT!

2009-01-14T19:11:00.000-08:00

This weekend is the arrival of 2009's first event, and what an event to open the New Year! Prasheel, Andy, and Alex are heading down, possibly with Mike Lubenski of Montreal, along with a professional photographer to capture the event. We'll be sure to update the next day with photos, and a write up of what went down, results, and any other stories that go along with. The contest is taking place at a bar, so I'm sure there will be some interesting stories.
Along with the contest, an after party will be occuring at the hotel we're staying at in which riders (and girls of course) are invited to come get even more drunk with us, until the early hours of the morning.
Get ready for some awesome updates with footage, photos, and write ups in the next few weeks with contest season kicking off nice and early!

PRALEX! PRALEX! PRALEX!

2009-01-11T15:11:00.000-08:00

Prasheel and I have been throwing around the idea of starting up a website for awhile. Then ASC (Action Sports Coalition) approached us with an idea for helping us keep their site updated with a BMX freestyle section that we would run. The site has been in the works for awhile now, and until then, we'll run our adventures (and any kind of news we find pertinent) through here.

First and foremost, a little update with what we've been up to, and what's to come! With it being Winter and all, I'll be honest, I haven't touched my bicycle in ages! I think it's been over two months now, riding in the fall just tuckered me out I guess, and now Winter pretty much will not allow me to even think about going riding with the snow and cold we got going on up here in Ottawa. So pretty much all I've been doing is school and drinking my face off. Prasheel on the other hand has been hitting his underground on a semi-regular basis, progressing far to fast and I'm actually worried that he's going to beat me at every contest this year...Oh well, haha. Here's a video if you haven't seen it yet of what he's been working on:

We have a big couple months ahead of us, considering it's still Winter, but this weekend coming up on January 17th we have Zero Degrees of Flat in Whitby, ON hosted by Black Pony BMX inside of a bar! It will be an amazing time, as riders from Ontario gather to escape the cold, drink some beer, and ride hard!

Next on the list, is Fight with Flight, inside of an airplane hanger! This is taking place in Indianapolis, Indiana on January 31st with a jam on January 30th. The floor is said to have an amazing surface, and the event is heavily sponsored by Red Bull and The Byke Project, check out the flyer here: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v486/flat187/flight.gif

Lastly, we have Flatland Unlimited 5 taking place in Toronto, Ontario on March 13th-15th. For more details check out www.cfobmx.ca as registration should be posted shortly. Some big names that should be there include: Shintaro Misawa, Matthias Dandois, Brandon Fenton, Cory Festor, and many more big names will be there as always!! This will definitely be a year you can't miss if you have in the past. Most likely we'll be crashing at www.grangehotel.com as usual, get ready to party!!! And ride a little bit I guess!

Also, I'd like to note that Prasheel, Addison and I are trekking to Austin, Texas from February 14th to the 21st, it is going to be a wild roadtrip, and we'll make sure to post pictures and updates as we make our way there, and back!

Well I think that's enough news for now, Prasheel and I will update this on a regular basis hopefully with riding videos, contest write-ups, roadtrip photos and anything else that we do that we deem ridiculous enough to put up here!

Peace for now,
Pralex out!