Travis Pastrana and his crew do NOT know the meaning of downtime
September 23, 2009, 5:35 PM
By: Ryan Leyba
Klein/Red Bull Photofiles
Travis Pastrana has lived the life of twenty full-grown human beings. I swear, this guy is non-stop... I can't wait to see what's next.
So, yesterday I sent out a text to everyone in my phone's address book to see what was going down in the world of FMX and I had an overwhelming response. It seems that even though the sport is in its off-season, all the riders are continuing to stay busy, pushing their riding and elevating their careers — like Ronnie Faisst who's helping the AFMXA get off the ground, as well as starting his own riding schools out in Southern California. I know that I'd sure pay to ride with Faisst...
Anyway, nobody seems to be busier than Travis Pastrana and his Nitro Circus crew. Yesterday "Cowboy" Kenny Bartram sent me an update from his first day of the Great Divide mountain bike ride and it sounds like those guys are having an amazing/grueling time trekking through Colorado's roughest terrain. Travis has been on the ride since August 31st and he won't be done until early October — making it a nearly 39 day trip! You can keep up on all of Cowboy Kenny's adventures on cowboykenny.com, as well as the same with Travis at travispastrana.com. TP has also had a GPS with him the entire time and you can watch his progress live by clicking here.
Courtesy VitalMX.com
Cowboy Kenny Bartram does it all... FMX, mountain biking, rally car racing and sheep hearding. Well, I don't know about that last one, but I wouldn't put it past him.
Somewhere along the ride late last week, the message boards lit up with rumors that Pastrana had pulled off the ride to take a break and conquer the mighty "toilet paper roll" — AKA the 720 flip thingy that he attempted at this year's X Games Best Trick. Since he was in the middle of nowhere, it was hard to get confirmation, but I just got off the horn with Nitro Circus homie Andy Bell and it turns out that the rumors are true.
"Yeah bud! Travis landed the toilet paper roll to dirt! It wasn't super pretty, but he rode away. It's for the new Nitro Circus DVD coming out this November."
But in a turn of events, he also stated that Supercross icon and 2009 AMA Outdoor Motocross champion Chad Reed landed a backflip this past Monday. "Also bigger newsflash — Chad Reed backflipped to dirt this Monday! He didn't even use a foam pit and he rode out of it his 3rd time!" You can check out some crappy quality YouTube footage of Reed's flip by clicking here.
So, like I said, these Nitro Circus dudes are full throttle. Stay tuned for more photos and video from Chad Reed's backflip. I love to see racers try flips... so rad!
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Contributors
Ryan Leyba
Leyba is a bitter, retired FMX rider that likes to sit in his cubicle and call the professionals of the sport wussies for not pulling 360s and double backflips. He claims he quit riding FMX before flips were even invented... yeah, right.
Cliff Talley
Making FMX videos exciting is easy. Making them look good is not. Cliff Talley does both of these well and still manages to find enough time to piss off his neighbors with his Travis Barker-esque drum skills.
Chris Tedesco
You've seen his photos on the covers of Transworld, Racer X and more. You've also seen his tequila shooting skills at your local dive bar. Ladies, Chris is single and looking to mingle.
Grant "Goba" O'brien
FMX in Australia wouldn't exist if it weren't for Goba. Well, maybe it would, but it wouldn't be nearly as cool. I don't know why, but we can't quit calling him gobalobadingdong — it just rolls off the tongue.
Tes Sewell
Tes is the dude that's always involved in everything that's going on in FMX. How he does it, we don't know, but that's the reason we hired him to share his plethora of FMX wisdom in the form of a monthly column.
