3CogBlog.com

  " You know, years ago when people were fired up about something they did, they could show it. Give a fist pump or the full-on hands raised, whatever. Look at team sports, they still go nuts. But somewhere along the way, in all action sports, outside of competition, it was no longer cool to look stoked, even if you just did the sickest thing in your life. You had to contain it, and look all nonchalant. Because apparently, doing that showed you were 'so good' that you felt like 'ya, that's pretty standard for me.'  'Who came up with that one? Well I say, screw the cool-guy standard procedure, because when I'm fired up to be in a certain place or I just pulled off something sick, I'm not going to be afraid to show it. I'm gonna let people know. I'm gonna Claim !"  These are the words of the skiing legend Shane McConkey , spoken at the beginning of the greatest ski movie ever, Match Stick Production's 2008 film CLAIM. If you don...

   It's hard to believe magazines have taken such a nose dive out of relevance. Now the only magazines I encounter are on the table in a waiting room. There was a time when  that glossy stack of paper folded in half and stapled together was like a portal to another dimension. I could gaze for hours into this other dimension and see the place where I belonged. I could see my tribe.    In a bike magazine, the world existed for bikers. I could see bikes blasting into the air out of huge half pipes. Or I could see bikes doing flatland tricks on Hollywood Boulevard. It was proof that this biking thing existed.    The first bike magazines were formed out of the BMX racing culture. BMX racing had peaked before my time and was established as good clean All-American fun. It was fairly easy to explain to Grandpa that you like to race your bike around the track and go faster than the other guys. In a magazine like BMX Plus, every rider wore a full factory ra...