** Sorry my spell checker is not working. **
Back in the day, before youtube, videos came on VHS, later on DVD.
Big bmx companies made DVD’s, BMX magazines and ‘Props bmx’ also made DVDs.
When barendbmx.co.uk made a dvd I got to ask mark about it and he helped prettyshady produce the dvd.
pipe williams and poll helped too, as I didn’t own a video camera. I think some people sent in clips?
When finished, I started to burn dvd’s one by one. I didn’t have a printer so I thought it would be a good idea to make covers, and ask friends to make covers. Each cover being individually drawn and different. quality was very low.
The DVD is a mess, it is bad. The VTS files are not in order,
vts 04 – prettyshady start? – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL1aM1VQ9qw
(The intro was really important to set the tone of what prettyshady dvd’s were going to be. So its going to be loud, silly, unexpected and diverse in what it offers, First 4 tricks are no footers, the rest is pretty random.
vts 06 – first section? – https://youtu.be/vuL3zJHmzwg
(The first real section, the old style footage must have been sent to me. old style backline, then some trails footage sent to me. lots of todge, not seen him in a while! Its a bit of a second intro.
vts 13 – winchester – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Swr2Hdhi6Zo
(Its hard picking music for videos, I got this one a bit wrong but looking back its ok. My thinking at the time was, with the park and ride scheme being built the trails were set to be ploughed. Somehow, they still exist today, in the end they got encircled by roads and carparks. The video tried to show every jump, as well as locals then also the good times as it was such a meeting point for riders in every direction. A big thinkyou to those locals. The music was the chilled out track in the album, even black sabbaths paranoid album had a chilled out track… because the beatles did said ozzy. )
vts 15 – trails section, leaves are brown – https://youtu.be/5MJFLyZ2p9o
(burlish trails, todge in swimming shorts, poll riding my old jumps, overview of bp then liam rides them. I remember we turned up here to meet the local, and the sun was just setting. we walked in the woods and it was geting dark. The entrance walks you to the roll in. Rather than waste the last moments of light, we dropped in and tried to follow a local and every ended up down differnt bits of the woods. it was a wild ride.
poll riding some off churtsey line, then some epsom. Jonny was intimidating before I got to know him, I went to the trails a few years ago, and they are gated off and I could not get in but could see him in there. I was in the area for a model train show.
Poll in the red tee shirt, we used to have no money no job in summer and used to build jumps and sometimes go places on a show string budget. he made prettyshady one possible,
vts 19 – trails section, some churtsey – https://youtu.be/iuTnJmahho4
(churtsey, I think it was george salmond who took me here first in 2001. I didn’t ride as that was the ettiquetee back in the day, don’t ride first visit. Rory and some winchest locals were there as well as pete, wish and cambridge. I took some video clips/freeze frames for knowlhill.com. James brooks was the man in charge and had a keen lad helping him, who he made water and sand the jumps to get them smooth. James had a hurt knee and was about to go to america or something, the biggest trail star i nthe UK at the time. This kid .. PHIL! crashed on the hip so bad, he got his leg trapped behind his seat, hard to explain but his rear tyre rotating forward moved his thigh in under the seat. He was trapped for a while.
Phil came up to me years later, 10 years later in a nightclub in cardiff and said a very friendly hello, great chap.
none of this text is relevent to this video)
vts 21 – riding jumps – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gLmoc3Z_U0
(wisley, old jam line, super old wingham, they used the guest book and invited us. Jimmy at epsom and I forget the next guys name he was a big deal at the time. bamber at leatherhead, we went differnt ways. skeldings trails, don’t how we got here but when we arrived they were having a massive mud fight and due to the mudfight action didn’t notice us.
The white jumps were in a kids garden who had a jam, no idea where, was fun.
The cool trails with the berm got ploughed before the video even came out iirc.
last clip, look how smooth george is, he was the only bmxer in my village when I was young! He had some ace jump and I once watched an amazing session there with the last day ending trick being a barspin.
vts – 11 – riding trails section, https://youtu.be/7j6prjhU0ok
(pete!, knowhill, I grew up riding there in the late 90’s and they got ploughed and rebuilt a bunch, in the end the land owner gave up and let us use the bottom section, the jumps used to be in the upepr woods.
Jimmy and jack had some bad people turn up in a stolen car and I was building at nettlebed in the other direction and we all started going to nettlebed trails and that was ac before I left for uni. At some point some others not 100% sure who made knowlhill into a new line and it was proper good. It was weird being in your old house but with new owners. The jumps got ploughed. nettlebed got ploughed, my jumps in bournemouth got ploughed and our trails in henley got ploughed every year. I had trails ever year since I was a kid for 10 years, every year they got ploughed.
old woburn was super fun, new woburn looks amazing.)
vts 14 – a fun section! – https://youtu.be/08KcQSHFhUo
(pretty sure this is extras, trying to do something WAY different with the music. Did it work? I don’t know. Jimmy was insane even back here. He used to hate me doing 360’s infront of him back in 2003 so story goes he got a bmx learnt to 360 the crap leatherhead skateprak jump box in winter then did 360’s in 2004 infront of me!
I love the clip where I over take jimmy, no idea where I learnt to go low, I never raced.
next place is when I tried to make colehill trails, it was lonley.
over trails jam ,fun day.
next jumps were a guestbook find again, near harefeild.
near a bsx track?
I am riding a race bike, a standard race bike. If you know about harefeild it was a secret set of trails with a no turning up, no photos, no videos rules. After befrending the locals, one day we got to ride. Since I knew the place liek the back of my hand from 10 previous visits I went at it full attack. The trails had like 68 working jumps and ther was one jump I had not jumped, it felt too long and I took 6 or 7 bitch runs. Sun in my eyes from the setting sun, putting faith in the builders I just sent it. As I expected, I bike racked it snapping my frame. The moment Elliot walked in the woods he saw someone try the biggest jump there and biek rack it. he thought it was my first run and he thought I was a shit rider. Later that year we would ride together, elliot, poll and my self and we had some fun. I did some 360’s and we did some trains on transfers and it was great times. He was kinda homeless, often spent nights in a mud hut at the trails, his bike was a timemachine to the 90’s ripped old jeans and an old slipknot hoodie. He used to turn up to winchest jam with a skinny dog. No idea where he is now. Harefeild is not in this video.
vts 08 – peynier – near the end of the video- https://youtu.be/0e6TiNBM_UE
(I went to france on holiday and enjoyed it)
vts 02 – telephone (sound is copyright claimed) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AtuVCN1BW4
(I can’t get this to play on youtube, off youtube I can watch it and its plenty of 2004 bangers)
/ / / / // / / / / / / / / / / // / / / / / / Extras, / / / / / / / / / // / / / / / / / / / / / /
vts 17 – lima – https://youtu.be/la9g1DQDBzo
(I sent this to lima and he said you can see his style change as the video goes on. In my view you could see lima improve every day I saw him ride. I have seen 100’s of riders and none close to lima’s ability. He is one of those people who is just better at things then I am. it was an absualute joy to watch him ride, and he gave prettyshady.com crediability with his insane riding. magic, great guy, since about 2004 when he first tried a vert ramp I said he should take up vert riding. Just take 10 tricks he does at grove half pipe, do them on vert, then at x-games because there was only like 6 very riders and he could place 7th behind denis macoy as all he was doing in the 2000’s were one hand one footers etc and earn big money for the next 20 years. I kept asking him to take up vert riding up untill about 2016 when he said please stop its not going to happen.
vts 07- – poll – https://youtu.be/0pjcJTr3YAs
(poll made this possible, he filmed so much, and it was awful being a rider filmer. when the session got good so often I would throw a camera in his hands. thank you poll )
vts 03 – glen coe – https://youtu.be/_VdH52hxMyo
(wild man, great guy. I saw on instrgram today durring this lockdown covid he dug up his little lawn to make a pump track for his kids. Its so awesome. I have plans in my head to revisit england and one goal is to see this guy ride woburn again)
vts 18 – pipe – https://youtu.be/ZYjhO004_DM
(I am disapointed that pipe never got to make his perfect video section. When I was away in france he got really good, year 2008? did flips and also some great 360 varations. ge could x-up so clicked like turn the bars beyond 180 like a normal xup, beyond 270 but at 360 degrees….while doing a 360!. But I never saw all his tricks combined into a video and its a shame.
I don’t think he liked this cooky section, but I enjoyed workign with pipe making great content.)
vts 20 contests, nass, urban games – https://youtu.be/la9g1DQDBzo
(I am too tired to rewatch this)
vts 09 – my riding – https://youtu.be/t_Xrxw3mDQg
(daft to put myself in a video but no one else was going to do it. I tried too hard to be good and did tricks that I thought would be cool rather than just the things I enjoyed. weird to look back at that)
vts 05 – extras secton – https://youtu.be/Ma4-R-c0CzI
(no time to rewatch this)
vts10- ramps? – https://youtu.be/weHBDeqLBrw
(no time to rewatch this)
vts26 – summer of 69 song – https://youtu.be/wUaKIQHy9_0
(maybe this was in the main video? again I don’t have time to rewatch rigth now)
vts 25 – extras – some little roadside jumps – https://youtu.be/sy16UQ8_k1Y
sometimes I would say if you buy a video I will put you in it, this would generate sales. not even sure this was the case here. These jumps were either on the way home from work or on the way home from colehill. we had a laugh here.)
vts 23 – extras section – https://youtu.be/omukS1ZtUAo
(no idea)
vts 27 – peynier, one session, – https://youtu.be/fCPw4Jj-eBs
(filmed one session, made a section. typical prettyshady)
vts 22 – extras? ramps, – https://youtu.be/T3f39pwCQBs
vts 16 – extras, riding a line the wrong way – https://youtu.be/cAfw230OyVo
kiddlington trails were great in the early 2000’s, They were not in shape in 2004, but this is a fun clip.
vts 12 – extras, ramp jamps – https://youtu.be/ScriOVc23zA
vts 29 – a good shots extras section – https://youtu.be/N54eULM0vqM
vts 31 – extras maybe – https://youtu.be/N54eULM0vqM
vts 28 – someone biting a dead mouses head off etc – https://youtu.be/Hy8HbTMJ_TM
(decoy jam, we were at pipes and the plan was to go to bed then go to decoy jam in the morning.) I knew that was a shot plan as we would wake up 9 or so, and hit the road at about 10, and get there at 3. So I said pack right now, get in the car(4 people, 4 bikes ) and you guys drive till your tired, then I will take over the rest if the drive.. We arrive at like 2 am? We walked around a 24hour tesco and slept in the car then arrive at the trails before anyone else. Liam hated that, I was wrong, it was a terrible plan sorry. We all rode not 100% that day)
vts 28 – french trails jam – https://youtu.be/AtfONrOAkiA
(greoux. I could not speak french and some guys took me by car to a street spot durring the contest and we got back late so I missed like the best bit of the finals. It was a kid napping)
vts 24 – onboard, socks and brown tape, before goPro’s. – https://youtu.be/45f0XpVMAYc
(pre go pro. the camera with some socks to absorb the shock and brown tape holding it on with a fish eye brown taped to the front. The camera was taped to the side of my frame, with a hole cut in the tape to access the on off button.
I loved this section as I grew up loving on board F1 etc, others hated it.)
THE END
Its kinda embarasing all that old footage, but its so old its historic. This is up here for the riders. Save your clips,. don’t trust me to be able to save all this or trust youtube to still have this up in a few years time. Thank you for a great 2004 guys,
I want to make a new prettyshady video, 2020 or 2021? I have the plan in my head