The Smith Shoot
Feb 14, 11:50 PM
It started out just like any other monday morning in Santa Barbara, bright and sunny, birds chirping, phone ringing…What?¬? It was the old boy Gibby (aka John Gibson pro photog) calling to tell me that his plane had landed and¬? I was late to pick him up. “Oh shit” I thought Chopper was kidding when he said he was going to show up on my door step with the whole Smith team. Lucky for me, Gibby was about a day ahead of the rest of the crew, this gave us a little time to prep. Word on the street was that Paul Basagoitia, Geoff Kabush, and the head honcho¬? from smith the Chopper himself were coming in. The Goal? To Shoot pictures so sick it would give everyone in the marketing department at Smith a boner!
Gibby and I spent the day scouting locations around Santa Barbara. We found quite a few rad urban stunts, and scoped some of the world class single track that S.B. had to offer. It was a good start and the boys would be landing first thing in the A.M. so we were looking good.
First thing in the morning the boys rolled up in the Cadillac cts rental ready to rock. We went to the bike shop to slap some bikes together. When we finished building the bikes we made a 
quick stop at the burrito joint and headed out. We went to the beach front were Paul Basagoitia and I rode some urban. We rode till dark and then it was time to roll out to the next spot. My buddy Shred Dog had built a little kicker out of an old water bed. We swung by Shreds pad to grab the “Boostarampa”, then rolled down to the strip club. Now the strip club is nice and all but we were there for something else. On the side of the club was a huge graffiti mural that looked sick. We set the boostarampa up and sessioned the graffiti wall ride while Gibby shot stills. We rode until the late night then called it a day.
The next day we started out early in the morning and went to hit some secret dirt jumps during sunrise. It was a little sketchy riding the lines with little to no light but as soon as the sun came up we were ready to session in the killer morning light. Paul was having a good time riding the DJs, he is really fun to watch, he will pull something out of his bag¬? of tricks when you least expect it. As soon as we were through Kabush was ready to ride some nice single track that was close to the dirt jumps. He looked like he was having a pretty good time riding in the fresh crisp morning wearing nothing but a little orange lycra suit. Haha, I like to give Kabush a hard time but in all seriousness I really respect that guy and what he does. He is a very cool guy to hang with and he is a true athlete who still knows how to have fun. After our epic morning shoot we went and had a pretty massive breakfast at a local breakfast spot named Esaus, pancakes, bacon, bacon, and more pancakes is the secret for some of the fastest guys in the world. The rest of the day consisted of shooting out the back of the Cadillac at Tom Danielson who is the young hot shot on the Discovery channel road team. We went up and down the mountains behind SB getting some sick road shots of him. I dont think the guy even broke a sweat. It was cool to see the guy pin it. Tom might look cute in his little SPANDEX outfit but I have a feeling that guy could beat the crap out of most every other roadie out there…. he’s pissed and that makes him alright in my book!¬? After a big dinner we all hit the sack, it had been a good day and we all deserved some rest.
We woke up to a semi-overcast day which is a rarity in our neck of the woods.¬? It was kind of a bummer but we went out to make the best of it. Gibby, Kabush, and I went to the top of the mountain to run some DH trails. Kabush?, you ask. Believe it or not the guy shreds DH trails, the best part is he rides DH with his seat post all the way up. We had a great day, crap weather and all. The Gibster still popped off some sweet shots and we closed out the day with some prime single track through the SB hills.
Throughout our three day adventure in SB we only destroyed one rental car, pissed off less then ten people, and received one ticket. I think we did a pretty good job staying out of trouble. We ended up with some great photos and some good stories. Chopper was stoked, we were stoked…Mission accomplished.