#brucecrisman

During the mid to late 2000's, Edd Allen produced a series of amazing Federal web videos featuring the Federal pro team in a different metropolitan European city. This series was marked by a noticeable higher quality of editing and filming then what most companies were putting out on the web at the time. Even though the trip web video format is now widely popular, I'd like to credit Edd Allen for it's popularity.

During this time period, Federal Bikes saw a division that nearly ended the company itself. Ian Morris took a good portion of the previous Federal pro team and created, United Bikes. In shambles, Federal recruited young, up and comers and former B-team members to fill those spots. A lot of people were unsure if Federal would be able to survive after that schism.

After the Fit/Cult happening, Cult created a successful DVD to cement their place in BMX. I think what Federal did with this series was similar and just as successful. Each series showed the growing talents of what the then Federal team had to offer. Bruce Crisman was just coming off Facad, Dan Cox got a freecoaster(which is more exciting to watch than say), and Dan Lacey is beginning to cement his place in the BMX legacy.

Even though today the Federal brand is strong, and the team consists of a lot of heavy hitters, in this pivotal moment Federal proved itself as brand and moved on.

Dan Cox, Mike Mills, Dan Lacey, Bruce Crisman

Say It Again by Little Brother

Federal BMX - London(2007)

Facad was quite a surprise. When 'As One' came out no one was quite sure what Facad was about. Who are these two grimey looking young rippers from the Northwest? Seth Kimbrough was working on something? How do you pronounce it; fuh-saude or fay-kade? And most of all what happened to Bruce Crisman?!

I don't mean that in a bad way. It was just that prior to this Bruce was the 2001 X-Games Park Gold medalist. He won over the crowd favorites such as Nyquist and Mirra, who absolutely dominated that era. It was just strange to see an X-games medalist make a complete turn around and strip his bike down to bare minimum, ride a freecoaster on street. Who even cared about freecoasters at the time, outside of flatland and a few weirdos. I guess what I'm trying to say is most people just expected Bruce was at some foam pit somewhere learning flip whips for the next X-Games. Nah, this section is what we got.

It's not even the type of street riding that you associate with park riders like back rail fufanus, big rails, and big stuff. His 'As One' section showed a more line oriented technical style with a healthy(or actually unhealthy) dose of big drops going fakie. No one even bothered to try those outside of a handful. Plus who didn't freak out when they saw that fakie to fakie Ruben. That was the it-trick that every coaster pro jocked like a few years later. It was hard not to be taken back a little bit by all this but in the end it was a pleasant surprise that definitely shaped BMX in a substantial way today.

Bruce Crisman

Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday by Stevie Wonder

Facad - As One(2006)