Its official, the new iwake.com movie will be titled “Momentum”! The guys at iwake.com
Chad Sharpe in Shasta
finalized it the other week, and we’re all stoked on the title. Now to the riders…Rusty, Chad Sharpe, Brad Smeele, Kyle Alberts, Joey Bradley, Austin Hair, JD Webb, and myself! Its a mixture of guys that have been in the biz for awhile and new riders bring it up to the next level, pushing each other to make a video thats not just another wake vid. The journey began in Texas, iwake.com’s headquarters, in the spring with a few of the team riders. We spent a week shooting before the PWT Dallas stop. It was the first time any of us had shot with Joey Archisz, the filmer behind Momentum, so was good to get used to his filming style and what he was looking for. Next, we took the vid to Cali, to spend a week on Shasta shooting with a RED! A RED is the best camera out at this time, shooting 138 frames of HD video a second! In the future, there are plans for the Bahamas, Philippines,
Shasta
and South America. Needless to say, no corners will be cut in the production of the video. We already have never-before-done tricks, 10’s and many other gnarly tricks that will make this vid the one to check out next year. I’m stoked! And will keep up with the updates!
During my stay in Denver, my good friend Sam introduced me to the site, StuffWhitePeopleLike.com. At first it looked like every other site, with half funny info that might not make sense. After reading over a couple of the posts, I discovered that I could directly relate to every one of them, and each was unbelievable funny it a different way. Check out the site, and if your a white person, appreciate how well the author knows each one of us. If nothing else read, the Ed Hardy Post! The #1 thing white people enjoy is Coffee, and of course, i’m a total coffee addict. So, i’ll keep on reading this site and learning more about myself, you should do the same.
I know on a lot of my blog titles I use explanation points, but this one needs to be amplified. I just arrived to Lake Shasta in Cali for the first iwake.com DVD shoot, and am as stoked as it gets! We have a week on a 3 story houseboat, Spencer Smith out to shoot pics with his loaded down Xstar, and a rider lineup of Rusty, Chad Sharpe, Brad Smeele, Kyle Alberts, Austin Hair, Alex Brown, and myself! Theres a RED in front of me ready to catch all the action and hammers that will be dropped throughout the week! About 30 mins ago I sat in on the first meeting discussing the direction of the movie, the riders involved, and the filmer’s (Joey Archisz) view on it all. The iwake.com guys never do anything medium, and i’ll be the first to say that this vid is going to hit the wake scene next year with shit that has never been seen. The official rider list will blow minds. But unfortunately, all the details of the vid, the locations, and the riders is
on lock right now. Just be ready for groundbreaking riding and a new avenue to view a vid, taking a melting pot of movies like Slick City, Push Process, Rewritten and the snow scene and blending it into the lifestyle wakeboarding brings us.
As I was flying into Denver, Colorado, I had no idea what to expect from a state that’s know for its world-class winter resorts and snow. Unfortunately, for my first visit, I was not visiting Denver in the winter, but in the middle of summer for the PWT stop 4. Upon landing, everything reminded me of a ski town, which was a cool change from the normal stops of the PWT. We had flown into Denver a day early to shoot with Sam Saslow, a old friend who lives in Denver, for an online video about our travels and riding in Colorado. Denver definitely does not have the plethora of lakes like Orlando, so our riding spots were definitely limited. We ended up at Sloan lake, a small circular lake located almost directly in dt Denver. The Hagoods were nice enough to take us out on their Super Air for a ride, which definitely was an experience. The first thing, was that Denver is pretty nice, its clean, everything looks new, and has a fresh feel. But, on top of all that, there are a lot of bums…everywhere. And Sloan Lake was no expectation. On benches around the shoreline the bums would sit, watching and even cheering, as we went by. They were definitely a different type of bum that the ones in Orlando, which are constantly nagging everyone for money and are really dirty. Also, the laws of the lake were that every boat had to go around the lake in a counter clockwise direction. So, at one point we had 7 boats circling the lake with us, which as you can imagine, created some crazy waves in the middle and just about everywhere else. We made the best of it, and had a great day. The local wake crew also built a rail off to the side of the lake in a little canal that we had a chance to winch a couple times to get some shots for the vid. It was apparent that the crew of riders in Denver were all cool people with a love for wakeboarding, and love for sharing it, which was the best part of the day! That night Sam and I hit up the downtown bar scene, which kept with the ski town theme, and was definitely too good of a time. On Friday and Saturday we went up to Colorado Springs for the PWT stop and to check out God’s Garden, which had some of the craziest red rock formations, similar to Sedona Az. The location was perfect, and the riding stepped up a notch with the perfect conditions. For a full story on the stop check out http://bit.ly/9p53IW. Once the fun of Saturday night was over, we went out to a gravel pit to ride with air chair’r Darrin Dinkel behind his 2010 Malibu VLX. The gravel pit wasn’t fully dug out, which allowed for only a 3 trick pass. If you’ve never been to Denver, because of the altitude, almost anything gets you out of breath, and turning every 3 tricks exhausted us very quickly. Still, the boat was sick, with a 450 HP engine, and the lake was completely flat so each one of us had pretty good rides, and were able to get some alright footage. The highlight of the day had to be when Kirby Liesman stomped a moby dick 5! We all went crazy, and he was all smiles for the rest of the day! Now we’re back at Sam’s place, relaxing, waiting for our flight out to Lake Shasta for the iwake.com photo shoot!
Stoked on this little video my roommate showed me yesterday of some guys using their imagination and making a dope video. When I was watching it, I felt like the guys were actually surfing, which is rad. Its crazy what people think up, and this is definitely one thing I want to try!! Probably not as cool as it looks, but still legit! Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
Spent the day riding with the guys who get coached by Time On the Water with me. It was me, Lewis Link, and Mark Moss out on my Malibu VLX on Pickett. I’m pretty sure we were the only riders in town as Nationals in Reno was this weekend also. The wind was definitely blowing, but we were still able to find a shoreline with some rideable water. Mark brought out his camera so we were able to get footage of our riding, and I threw together a little vid to put up on iwake.com. Check it out, more to come soon. Thanks to Time-OnTheWater.com for helping out with coaching and pushing our riding.
The 3rd stop of wakeboarding World Series took place in Abersoch Wales, which was the host of Wakestock. Before going, i’d heard a lot about Wakestock, mainly, how crazy the weather was, and how much crazier the people were. Upon arrival, the weather definitely lived up to its reputation. Coming from Orlando, I had definitely climatized to hot weather, so when it was about 60 degrees, rainy, and windy upon arrival, we all became pretty bummed. The competition took place on the ocean, so not only did we have to battle winds, rain, and a small wake, but also the ever-changing tide on the course. It became interesting as the tide would go out and the rails would become larger and larger for each rider. Needless to say, the riding adapted to the conditions, and no one threw any crazy tricks, with the exception of Phil Soven. After seeing the video of him doing a whirly 5 behind a jet ski (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuA6dWTO5NE), I knew he could ride in any conditions behind anything. He wowed the crowd with a whirly 5, toe 7 (the only 7 of the whole comp), crow mobe, and tantrum to blind, to take the win! It was impressive to see those tricks while the wind was blowing 30 mph and the wake was incredible small. Check out the video of finals at my website, NickJonesWake.com, under the travel tab and Wakestock UK!!
Wakestock UK was about much more than just the wakeboarding, as it has become one of Europe’s biggest music festivals with over 20,000 crazy English in attendance! I didn’t recognize any of the band names other than DJ Goldy Rocks, whos dating my friend, and the Ting Tings. But, none the less, all the bands got the crowds going crazy, and everyone into the festival spirit. One thing I took particular interest in, was the fashionable Wellies that everyone seemed to be wearing. Maybe it hasn’t caught on stateside yet, but just about every female in attendance had her own pair of custom Wellies , with high socks to match and jean short shorts! At first, the look was odd, but by the end of the weekend I’d become a fan of the Wellies look, and hope it migrates to the US soon! The boat comp was at a different site than the music festival, which was somewhat of a bummer, but they did put up the legendary Wakestock pool gap right in the middle of all the festivities. If you can remember from Wakestock Abu Dhabi, everyone was stoked on the rails and overall setup of the pool gap! The UK boys brought the same set up out to Wales, and dropped it in the middle of the most crowded area of the festival, making for some crazy crowds and good times. Aaron Rathy came away with the win, after faltering in Abu Dhabi to a third place, with second going to Englands own CK!
Overall the whole event was different than any wakeboard competition I’d ever been to. The water conditions were worse than I thought possible, and the party’s were of epic proportion. After some bad weather days, we were fortunate to have beautiful weather for the last couple days of the contest and for our day checking out London. For more pics and video on the event, check out NickJonesWake.com.
Its definitely been awhile since i’ve updated my blog. For the last week i’ve been traveling throughout the UK for Wakestock, and unfortunately didin’t have internet for much of the trip. After getting back to the US, and recovering from the “english” lifestyle, I’m back in the swing of things. I’ll be getting out a blog about Wales and England, featuring everything from Wakestock and our travels to Perth Cable park and London. Until then, check out the link to some photos our friends from wakeworld.com took when they came out to our home lake for a quick afternoon set! Click for Photo Gallery
Last weekend was the 2nd stop of the PWT in Dallas Texas. Once again, it was held at Texas Mastercraft, which always is an amazing site and one that every rider looks forward to. This year, the wake was big, and it was unbelievably hot. I rode amazing on the first two days, but came up short on Saturday, and ended up in 16th once again. Starting to get really annoyed with that position. In some crazier news, Harley didn’t even make finals, opening the door to Phillip Soven to take the win and rusty to get 2nd with a 1080 off the double up. After the comp, in flash decision, I decided to cancel my flight home, and drive up the Kentucky to stay with Mike and his family who own NicksBoatDock.com with Andrew Shear, Austin Hair, and Julian Cohen. After our all day, all night drive, we found ourselves in the middle of a true wakeboarders paradise. The lake we’ve been riding on is called Rough River, which happens to be the calmest water i’ve ever rode on! With all its curves and hills surrounding it, the locals don’t even know what rough water is. These pictures are just examples of what the water looks like everywhere. Video coming soon…..
I’ve been in Texas for the last couple days shooting for iwake.com with Aaron Katen and Joey Archisz. We’ve been lucky enough to ride behind Alex Browns all white 08 Malibu VLX. I wrote about it a couple posts back, as being the old wakeworld boat, and just like before am stoked on the wake. Alex has always been my friend who always wants the bigger wake and trying to push the limits of what our boats could carry. So, now that he has his own boat, he definitely weights it to the limit! The weather hasn’t been cooperating as much as we would like, but we’ve still been getting out there doing work! Okay, on to whats important! The other day I had a chance to sit down and talk with Jeremy, the man behind iwake.com, and talk about his vision with the upcoming video and where he wants it to go. I was pretty excited to hear everything he had to say, and stoked on the upcoming trips he has planned. Two of the most exciting will take place in California on Shasta lake, and in Costa Rica!! Definitely motivating to push my riding to get some good shit on the trips. To sum up his vision, together with Joey Archisz, they’re looking at a combo of Push Process and Slick City. These days, lifestyle is what sets a video apart, as Slick City demonstrated, but it needs to be backed by good riding. Although we don’t have Harley Clifford to kill it, but some of our riders will surprise everyone.
on lock right now. Just be ready for groundbreaking riding and a new avenue to view a vid, taking a melting pot of movies like Slick City, Push Process, Rewritten and the snow scene and blending it into the lifestyle wakeboarding brings us.
