(All photos generously contributed by Keith Romanowski)

Garrett Reeves is awesome. I met him about a year ago while he was hanging out with some of my friends on a trip and I was immediately super impressed by his riding and how cool he was to hang out with. Ever since, we’ve been riding a ton and working on a couple video projects including his most recent web video which everyone seemed pretty stoked on. Garrett has a lip ring, but he’s still cool. Walk with me:

(BTW this post is stickied for a while, check below for new updates)

First off, what’s your name, where are you from and who do you ride for?

Garrett Reeves and I am from Eldersburg, MD. I get helped out from Sunday Bikes, V Club, TJD and Lotek kicks and OSS.

So since a lot of people probably don’t know too much about you, how did you get started riding and what were your early influences?

Long story short I made a small dirt jump in my yard, jumped it with a 20 inch mountain bike and I’ve been riding ever since. I think the earliest memory I have of something that really influenced me was probably everyone in the Square One Wide Awake Nightmare video. Every part is amazing and I can still watch it from start to finish without being bored.

You have a kind of unique outlook on riding… most of the spots you want to film on are wallrides, big gaps and stuff that most people aren’t into. Who do you think influenced you to ride like that?

I mean honestly I just think its me riding my bike. I don’t think I’m a naturally that good of a rider haha..I always had to kinda find my own way of doing things and nothing came very easy. I gave up on trying to go to the skatepark and learn all the new tricks a a while ago because it wasn’t fun to me anymore. Now I mostly just go ride street, find a setup that suits me and I think is cool or unique and I try to dream something up and then do it.

Yeah but dude you go BIG. Do you just gradually build up to the shit you do? Or do you just get all Colt Fake and go for huge shit you’re not sure of from time to time? Haha.

I mean I think I’ve been riding my bike long enough to really know my limits so I rarely feel like I’m hucking something. I wouldn’t do if I wasn’t completly positive that I can do it. Confidence is important. If you go into something shaking and scared you’re probably gonna eat shit.

How did the no pegs thing come about? Did you ever ride pegs?

No I’ve never rode pegs longer then an hour or 2… seriously haha. I like watching peg stuff but it’s not for me. I think not riding pegs has made me much better at tons of other things because when I see a handrail I don’t think icepick, hangover tooth, double peg. I really like creative pegless riding like Steven Hamilton or Ian Schwartz, it’s just refreshing.

Haha yeah but one day you were fucking around on my bike trying a feeble hard 180 and you said that to you, doing grinds doesn’t even feel like bike riding. I thought it was pretty funny because even though I love grinding, I can totally see what you mean.

Well it’s definetly a big part of BMX but for some reason it just feels off to me. That being said if someone forced me to ride pegs for a month I would probably have a different opinion on it… but yeah it definitely just feels foreign to me.

Okay so let me ask you about a weird aspect of your riding where you can go a bunch of big gaps and wallrides and shit all day, but then when it comes time to y’know, ride 10 blocks down the street, you always eat shit and get road rash just pedaling. What the fuck is that all about???

Well that doesn’t happen that often haha just had a case of bad luck in Boston. But I’ll blame that weekend on wet pedals, riding with things in my hands and the fact that I am very very easily distracted. I’m just clumsy sometimes haha.

How would you rate your driving skills on a scale of 1 to 10?

10/10 no questions asked.

Approximately how many times have you had sex in your van?

Uhhhh I dunno man def not counting. Not everyone keeps track of their numbers like you do haha.

I don’t think I’ve ever had sex in a van. Who are your favorite riders to watch these days?

(Long pause)

Off the record, this is a hard question.

Just say Hoder.

I dunno there are so many awesome riders I really like watching but just a few are Josh Bedford, Van Homan, George Boyd, Ian Shwartz, Sean Burns, Russ Barrone, I dunno I like watching lots of people ride, I could go on all day.

So you already filmed a really good V Club video part for their new video, and then you’ve also got almost an entire video part filmed for my next DVD. And I believe you may be filming a part for the next Sunday video too during 2010. So you might have 3 dope video parts all in one year, that’s almost unheard of. Are you just on a roll or what??

Well my V Club part is weird because I filmed a lot of it a year ago and I feel like I’ve progressed a lot sense then but i still think the part will turn out good it’s just unfortunate it’s taken so long for it to come out. I’m really excited about my part for the next DVD that your doing, I’m not even done filming yet but I think it will be something I can be proud of. I don’t know if Ssunday has any real plans for filming a full length video right now but if they did I would be stoked to film for it. On the topic of videos everyone buy FU3 when it comes out its gonna be amazing, I gotta sneak peak last night from Charlie Crumb!

Haha well I assumed you were working on the Sunday shit. Are you on flow with them officially? What’s the deal with that.

Yea i suppose flow would be the term haha all i know is Jim has been a super nice guy to me and has already helped me out with parts and frames and I’m so grateful to be backed by a company like Sunday.

How did you get the nickname Sweets?

I got that from you this summer probably because I lived off candy and ice cream for the entire month of June. I don’t usually eat that much candy but ice cream is a daily occurance.

Yeah for the readers out there one time we got done riding all day and were about to ride over the Williamsburg bridge to go home and Garrett was literally losing his mind like a crackhead demanding that he needed a milkshake. It was bizarre. Would you like to dispute that story?

Hahah I dunno man I just really wanted one. That ride back was brutal I needed some motivation.

It’s like 4 miles, pussy. So I believe that you were equally affected by the Mike Taylor visit to America as I was, what do you have to say about our friend Jersey?

Haha alright it is what it is. Yeah for sure I miss that guy. Before you meet him you’re like “man this dude looks like a roid popping rapist” and then you meet him and he’s super mild mannered. But then he drinks a few beers and he quickly becomes what you first imagined minus the roids and plus the garys.

Have you ever surfed beans with Mike Taylor?

No.

Do you have any dream tricks? Like set ups you’re dying to find? I know you’ve been looking for a set of stairs in an alley to do a wallride to opposite wallride on for a while now. Anything else come to mind so maybe some kids will take you to some shit?

Yea lots of things but mostly just weird setups that i dont feel like typing out

So your web video came out last week and it got a super good reaction, like 150 comments and almost all were positive. How did you feel about how it came out?

I was really happy about how it came out and was really happy with so many people being stoked on it. Mike did a great job which makes me even more excited about the next video part I’ve been working on.

Someone in particular though, was hating on you and basically said that I only hang out with you because you’re good at riding and that in reality, you’re a shitty person. I thought that was pretty funny. Does the anonymous hating get to you???

I thought it was pretty funny too it was a little bizzarre but honestly I don’t lose sleep over it and it’s always gonna be there i could care less if one anonymous person thinks I’m a shitty person. I think I’m a pretty easy person to get along with but everyone can have an opinion.

You had a pretty funny/bizarre coincidence where Tony Hamlin did a trick (the over crankarm slide at the end of Garrett’s video part, which Tony also did in the new Ride video), and then you went and did it and killed yourself to pull it, without knowing it had already been done. Want to give the full version of that story? Do you have beef with Hamlin????

It was weird when you called me and dropped the news but no I have NO beef! Tony Hamlin is a rider I love watching and on top of that he seems like a awesome guy with a good attitude. Just a coincidence and it’s just bikes. I’ll buy him a beer if I ever meet him haha.

Why are you on Eric Lichtenberger’s dick so hard? You guys ride the same bike set up, have the same sponsors and you keep going back and forth with the rail moves. First you crank slided up an 8 stair for my video, then 2 weeks later he had a web video where he crank armed up a rail. Then you over crank armed a rail, and a week later he over crank armed a rail in that Lotek web video. What is going on here???

What is wrong with you? Eric L’s riding is dope but I mean I think our styles are different, we just happen to share certain tricks that people don’t see as much so maybe it stands out more, ya know?

Did Allan Cooke ever locally expose himself to you?

Haha yeah once I enjoyed it.

No really though what was up with you winning Local Exposure, I wanna hear the story.

No real story I rode that Local Exposure tour thing at Haven skatepark and won the stop, it was pretty awesome because I felt like the whole thing was geared more towards Dew Tour tricks and I did a bunch of bunny hop stuff on smaller ramps because Big Daddy was dominating the box jump haha but yea they called my name and I was super surprised Allan Cooke was rad and it was cool meeting him because I remember just getting really stoked on BMX when he won X Games dirt forever ago.

Are you going to be mad when I hook up with your girlfriend?

Fuck you.

Who do you want to thank?

Jim C and Sunday Bikes, Rich at Lotek and Jeremy at V Club I think he was the first person to really give me the opportunity to film a video part and even though it’s still not out the trip was super fun and its one of those things i’ll never forget… n/h. And You (A22) for paying for my gas on trips and letting me live at your apartment for free for half the summer haha.