One For the Road
their grandson about seeing “X-Games stuff” in America, they are referring to Craig, not you.
It’s safe to presume you have seen his part in the 2010 OSS video Football and there’s probably a 95% chance you’ve seen his part in FU5: Guy Stuff from early 2012. The sections, both equally unbelievable, have a markedly different style and approach to them, the former being a large rail and drop aesthetic, the latter being of a more ground-dwelling, tech variety. He attributes his newfound fondness of “smaller jib shit” partly to his recent elbow surgery, and partly to the amount of time he’s been spending with Charlie Crumlish. Really, he’s an incredibly dialed rider, and watching him ride or film a clip is truly mind-blowing. He may not be the ‘oneand-done’ type, but he takes care of business and people notice when it happens. Picture this scenario: You and Craig are riding a spot that happens to be near a popular tourist attraction. An older German couple is taken aback by the commotion, but quickly learn to appreciate your stunts and shoot photographs. Their lens will mostly be pointed at Craig because he is the one doing the more spectacular maneuvers, while you flop around on a foot tall ledge trying to learn smith hard 180s. When they tell
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I roll up to Craig’s house and it’s around 7:15am.We are heading to New England to meet up with some OSS teammates and ride spots around Boston and New Hampshire for a couple days. Craig is waiting outside in his car, probably smoking a morning bowl, as I park on his quiet street. While transferring the gear to my car, Craig pulls his bike from his back seat. “Okay – bars to determine how well this trip goes.” Now, I’m a fairly superstitious person and this proposition had me a bit concerned. So much could go wrong that could send this potentially jovial outing into a downward spiral of unfortunate events. Then I quickly remembered – Craig is a rider who doesn’t really warm up, per-se. His first hop of the day is invariably a barspin and close to two feet off the ground. I have witnessed, on more than one occasion, Craig film a clip ‘straight out the van’. Not surprisingly, the bars were thrown and caught as planned, and a sigh of relief ensued.“Okay, well, I landed grips so this will be a pretty good trip.” And it was.
Observations From the Driver’s Seat