Its more than 3 years since our crew went to the first trip around Europe with one and only mission - to get lost in the streets of its cities. I guess none of us expected at the beginning that this project can grow that quickly and with episode become bigger and bigger. The level of riding, filming, editing and media visibility grew up with every episode as well and this year the Lost in Series became officially supported by DIG BMX and became visible worldwide.
First episode in cooperation with DIG brought our crew during the late autumn to the German city Hamburg. City of reddish bricks, water channels and futuristic architecture. The crew consisting of riders such as Michal Smelko, Jiri Blabol, Raul Jula, Jason E and Greg Layden is guarantees that only bangers are gonna happen. And you know what? Just take a look at the final result and make your own opinion as it surely was like that or not.
Shots & words: Fred Murray // DIG BMX
Let's face it, in this day and age it's pretty difficult to get lost, and if you have some sort of cellular device, near impossible. However, this doesn't mean you have to lose the thrill of the adventure. As often with any international bike riding holiday you can take the easy route and venture through your phone book in search of a connection and spot guide in said city, or as the modern traveller would now do, post a question on your social media while putting minimal effort into any fact finding of your own.
This time, we left the button bashing and relied on the old fashioned act of the spot hunt. You've got to lay your markers and find the lay of the land. First point of call is usually to locate a hill, as for hills mean spots, but if you've ever been to or even know anything about Hamburg, it's as flat as a pancake. In this situation the more intellectually inclined would pull up a map of the city and decide on a variety of factors and thus select a route that made sense. We were not that way inclined however and took the title of this Monster Energy X DIG series a bit too literally.
It took a while but the bar ice hard-180 happened.
Jiri may have let his bike reach the outer atmosphere for a minute of two but she came in for a smooth landing in the end.
If you don't like a play fight, don't mess with Jiri Blabol. He's just a big harmless bear though...
Jiri is a fireball of energy - he literally never stops all day and then seems to hit empty in no time.
Drive-by on the way to another spot, until 20 feet down the road Smelko got another flat.
Smelko had a nightmare with punctures on the last day.
Multiple patches and some cross-city bike shop hunting later and we were good to go.
You gotta feel sorry for someone when they get the misfortune of a series of flats and all they want to do is cruise with their mates.
Hamburg isn't easy to navigate even with a faint sense of direction. With the mass WW2 bombings of Hamburg reaching it's pinnacle in 1943, the city was left devastated and much of it has been rebuilt since, and they definitely weren't shy of using a brick or two. This is all very interesting but can give the impression of everything looking like a clone of the other. Combine that with more bridges than in Venice, Amsterdam and London put together and you've got one confusing journey on the cards as soon as you drift from the waterfront. In addition to the the high volume of pointless pedalling we also encountered our fair share of German showers, and i'm not talking about the version you might find on the internet late at night. It rains a lot there. Thankfully though we managed to book a place to stay that looked onto a free indoor skatepark that would prove very helpful during the boring wet days.
As for the crew on this first Lost In trip of 2018, we called upon the skills of TBB-Bike's barspin and tailwhip Instagram sensation Jiri Blabol, another TBB young recruit Raul Jula, Monster Energy's spelling-B nightmare Jason Eustathiou, DIG friend and Glaswegian handrail hanger-on Greg Layden, and finally the Czech technician and TBB vet Michal Smelko. The dream team you could say.
From a photographic sense Hamburg was awesome.
It's look is like a combination of New York and Venice combined with any other German city.
In 1943 Hamburg saw an enormous amount of bombs drop and it devastated the city and you can still see many signs of it to this day.
Raul swings into a perfect flat ledge under one of the city's many bridges.
It's always the way... you're all done for the day, heading back to your apartment as the sun dips away, when the best spot of the day rears its head.
Jason couldn't leave without saying what's up with this rail hop to fast 540. Guaranteed we would have been kicked out of there during the day anyway.
Smelko has a massive, heavy bag of tech skills and this was the perfect setup to unload some weight.
Ice, manual, feeble, backwards smith to indian.
I'd been here before on another trip and knew of it's security issues.
When we arrived this night the light was going down and Raul wanted to barspin over the rail into the bank, and I could already envision what was about to happen.
He's up there ready to go when the ghoul-faced security guy came out, his knuckles dragging on the floor, and as usual came straight up to the guy with the camera - me.
I murmured something about not even knowing that guy on the bike but the big flashes 30 feet to my left and right clearly gave me away.
Despite a sly attempt at blocking my photo, a quick sidestep and some photoshopping removed old potato head.
Video filmed & edited by Tomas Carda
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