Lane 8 BMX Podcast

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20 year old Jesse Asmus is a determined young man. He clearly knows what he wants to do in life and BMX. He told me in order for him to become the best he's going to have to leave Australia. He says Sam Willoughby has inspired him to strive for greatness. 

Presently Asmus is ranked 4th in the world for U23. Last year he won the Oceania Championships and the overall Australian National series. Crazy to think it was his first year doing international racing. Asmus says the bigger the race the more pumped he gets to succeed. 

In 2024 he's working on his gates and first straight. He's planning to do the World Cup Calendar and spend some time here in the U.S. racing. 

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Factory Full Tilt is a dope team. The team got their first number one factory title back in 2018 as Full Tilt Bike Co. Since then the Minnesota based team has been under the guidance of Jim Buchanan.  He's taken that team to five straight titles including one in 2023. 

When I spoke with Buchanan he was at his shop. He told me there were times last season that he didn't think the team was going to be able to keep the streak alive. By the time Grands rolled around he says they won the R.O.C. and Grands. Damn! Buchanan says it's really a testament to the parents and kids who travel all over the country to make it happen. 

In this interview Buchanan and I talk about organizing a team, how he picks riders for certain races, picking riders for the team, and the misconception people have about the pressures of riding for the best team in the nation.

Here's an interesting little fact about Buchanan, he restores old cars for a living. 

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It is the first day of 2024 and this is the first episode of the new year. Leading us off is a young man from Switzerland, Arthur Claessens. We did this interview at the end of 2023. At the time Claessens was in the middle of his military service with the Swiss Army. Sitting down with him and doing this interview I quickly realized I liked him. Claessens is intelligent, motivated, and humble at the same time. 

While doing his military service Claessens is working on his 2024 preparations for the new season. He's hitting the gym and literally riding on tracks in the dead of winter in Switzerland. He told me they have to shovel snow to ride tracks. 

In 2024 his focus isn't what you would think it would be. He's not concentrating on the Olympics but rather the World Championships and World Cups. He's looking further down the road to the summer Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028.

He finished his season at the prestigious St. Etienne BMX Indoor race. He made it as far as the semi on Sunday. Truth be told, any and everyone I've spoken to about that race has told me the fields are stacked and the racing is fast. Crazy thing is he's raced St. Etienne for 14 years.

Claessens comes from a family of BMX racers starting with his dad Vincent. In fact his dad started one of the first BMX clubs in Switzerland in 1983. Out of six kids in the Claessens family four are currently racing. If you don't know is sister Zoe Claessens you've been living in a cave. She's dope. 

Arthur, I wish you the best of luck in 2024. 

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Charlie Williams has a long history in BMX. He's raced for such iconic teams as Robinson, Hutch, GHP, and currently Zeronine. 

Lately though he's known more for the incident that unfolded at Grands with Harry Leary. He took an elbow to the back right after the finish line from Leary. Over the next month things went viral with Leary's response to the incident on social media and an interview with this very podcast. For his actions he was dropped by Factory Daylight and given a suspension from USA BMX. 

Since Williams was on the receiving end of the elbow by Leary I thought it best to reach out to him and get his side of the story.  He graciously agreed to do an interview with me. Not only did we speak about Grands but also about racing for Hutch and his recent move to Florida. I rather enjoyed this interview not just because of the Grands stuff but getting to speak with Charlie on all things BMX.

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By now everyone has heard or seen what happened at Grands between Harry Leary and Charlie Williams who rides for Factory Zeronine. Leary says it's been an on going thing between him and Williams all season and it came to a head with an elbow to the back at Grands . 

This interview with Leary took place on December 7th while he was driving. I wanted to hear from him and get his views on the incident, the backlash, and losing Daylight Cycle Co. as a sponsor. In the end he's been suspended by USA BMX and under the same circumstances he told me he'd do it again. 

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Michele Tomizioli is in the process of preparing for the 2024 season. He recently ended his season at the famous St. Etienne Indoor race in France. Just for reference St. Etienne is about an hour or so outside of Lyon. 

Tomizioli is from a town called San Giovanni Lupatoto it's not far from Verona, Italy. 

The 25 year old elite rider is coming off a difficult season. It all started with a back injury from the 2022 season. Right after racing the Verona European Cup in 2023 he had to pull the plug for two months. It took him a minute to get the thing straightened out. Once he got going it was like playing catchup the rest of the season. 

Tomizioli has made some much needed changes. He's changed from an Italian to a French coach. This means he'll be spending more time in France next year. He thinks the change will help him when it comes to the technical skills on the bike. Literally we did the interview when he'd just come back from France from having a training camp. 

Surprisingly Tomizioli's focus next season will primarily be the European Cup series, selected World Cups and the European Championships which are being held in Verona, Italy. 

Dude is cool and a fun interview. I hope you enjoy our talk as much as I did.  

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Quillan Isidore is one of my favorite pros. I've followed him on social media to YouTube for years. So when I started my own podcast he was one person I wanted to interview. Meeting someone you admire doesn't always turn out how you want it. But with him I had a blast getting the chance to know him. 

In this episode we talked about him getting 3rd in round 10 of the World Cup in Argentina. Both weekends in Argentina according to Isidore were his most consistent. He even says it changed his mentality. 

Isidore had an up and down season with winning races in Tours, France, a couple Euro cups, a British Championship, and injuries. He has a no give up attitude I admire. 

We touched on his long time friendship with Tre and Kye Whyte, the changing of the guard from coach Marcus Bloomfield to former pro Kyle Evans, and the young guns Ross Cullen to the ever stylish Paddy Sharrock.

At the moment Isidore is back in training for the new season and hopefully a place on the GB Olympic team in Paris. 

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Richard Huvard is the founder and owner of Daylight Cycle Co. This man has a long and prolific history in BMX.  Huvard has a design background, he's started two tracks, worked with Mike Redman, ran Staats, ran factory Diamond Back and he helped with the transition of the ABA to USA BMX. 

When it comes to Daylight he says he's the guy with the ideas and he has a genius team around him that bring his ideas to life. 

In this interview we talk about R&D of products, The Daylight name, his team roster and where he sees his company in the future. This is one of those interviews I would advise you to make some time for it, grab a drink and prepare to learn. 

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Robert Raymonde is originally from Queens, New York. His family eventually moved out west to Colorado. His cousin and George Goodall were racing at the time and it peaked Raymonde's interest and he jumped in the car with them. His first race was in Aurora, Colorado. 

He says the scene in Colorado in the 80's was hot. At a local race he said they'd regularly have 70 motor. Raymonde says state wide at the time there were close to 10 tracks. He raced mainly in the Denver area racing mostly on the weekends. Raymonde says he wasn't a natural at the sport. He was fast but struggled with skill and crashed a lot. 

Once he finished high school Raymonde packed up his van and drove out to California. His first stop was Sacramento. He stayed there for a bit but eventually moved to Southern California. The pro bug bit him and he raced mainly in the A-pro class. He said he knew how to work the system to not have to move up with the big boys. In 1987 Raymonde left BMX. He'd gotten married and those responsibilities took charge. 7 years he was away from racing but in 1994 he was back on a track. Ever since then he hasn't stopped and he's not planning on it. 

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Brandon Cato is an enigma for me. I don't mean that in a bad way. What I mean is he simply moves to his own beat. One minute you'll see him at the track and the next minute he's focused on school and you don't see him for a while. It's not that he doesn't love BMX it's just that Cato has a variety of interests and he likes to explore them. 

Here's the crazy thing, when he gets back on the track it is as if he never left. He's crazy fast and hella smooth. It's as if the guy is never out of shape. At the moment he's in school and preparing for Grands. 

Being the private guy that he is I was surprised he agreed to do an interview with me.  I caught up with him on a Saturday while I was in Minnesota. I literally did the interview in my hotel room. I brought my podcast equipment with me because I wasn't going to miss this opportunity. 

Sitting in my hotel room looking out the window we talked about school, riding and racing for B.A.B.S, his admiration for Sam Willoughby and Maris Strombergs and the future.