'What's Good?' Luke Snelling X 'How Hard Is It'

Welcome to round 20 of the latest LUXBMX journal segment, 'What's Good?'. To reiterate, we reach out to one of the homies and get a hot tip on the latest biking madness. It's called 'What's Good?' and for this instalment, I've sought out Perth based biker, Luke Snelling to find out what got his blood pumping in terms of a BMX video. 

I was trying to think of how to describe Luke and what he's about, and I'm coming up short. To be honest, I don't know the dude all that well, despite having spent a couple weeks with him (and the TMPRD crew) in Berlin in 2019 as well as a few other random trips over the years. I think for all I can say, beyond him coming across as a grounded, thoughtful and modest guy, one to avoid the focus of attention and just get on with things, I think this photo does best to inform as to what makes the dude tick. 

I get the sense that Luke has respect for his elders, those that came before that set the path from which we now benefit. A path which values the timeless elements of BMX, a classic table, heavy metal, authenticity, adventure and risk taking. Whether I'm on track or not is irrelevant, I'll let you make your mind up as we delve into the dudes classic selection for LUXBMX 'What's Good?', episode 20. 

how hard is it-section 1 kie from closingtime on Vimeo.

"When Vocko asked me if I wanted to take part in this, the very first video that came
straight to mind was the Perth classic by Grays, 'How Hard Is It'. I cant remember the exact year I saw this video (maybe 2007/2008ish) but I do remember it being around the time I was still discovering the world of BMX that was outside of just me and my friend circle. This was the first video I had seen from Perth and it blew my mind! Not only was the riding crazy but just knowing in my kid brain that the dudes in the video were local guys from my city just made it even cooler. It opened my eyes in a huge way just to see what was out there to ride in my own city. It got me and my friends so psyched that I remember one of them named his new dog at the time Kie.

This was also around the same time that my mate Sion Bourne was getting into
photography and filming so it inspired us to get out there, find some of these spots and skateparks and film some clips for ourselves. Doing that stuff really cemented my love for BMX as a whole, not just the riding but the overall good times of hanging out and adventuring. Fast forward maybe 5-6ish years and I had slowly started to meet some of those guys from that video, dudes like Jake Corless, Gray, and Kie Ashworth became some of my best friends and still are to this day. I always love looking back and thinking how full circle its gone, from seeing those dudes in this video when I was growing up to now having my own video parts in DVD’s right next to some of them.

As for the video itself, it's straight up, nothing fancy, no bullshit. Just the way I like it! The soundtrack is perfect, I still have those songs in rotation now. The riding is such a great mix of everything. No one was labelled as a street rider or park rider or whatever, they just rode bikes, had fun and filmed it all and this video captures all of that. Every section is amazing, but the parts that stood out for me at the time would have to be Kie’s, the riding is sick but he was one of the very few in the film that I had actually heard of at the time so I guess that made it feel a bit closer to home in a way. And Mike Cernotta’s end section was just insane to me, the riding is wild but was cool to learn at the time that some of his clips were from places like Barcelona and America.

Anyways that’s enough rambling and reminiscing from me, if you haven’t seen this then do yourself a favour and check it out online along with Grays other video 'Closing Time'."

Cheers Luke. 

If you're motivated to watch the other sections, head over to Vimeo and sus Grays channel.