If you didn't already know, the Gravity Games are NBC's answer to the X-Games, with all the extreme sports the public has come to know and love — skateboarding, rollerbooting, freestyle motocross, street luge, and of course, BMX. (I know, I know: we don't like to call riding a "sport" and we're not "athletes"...go with me on this for now.) Since you won't be reading about this contest in Ride (due to some parent company conflicts of interest) and none of you subscribe to BMX Plus, you're stuck with my crappy coverage...unless you went to Providence yourself.

Vert

Work prevented me from getting down to see all the riding stuff. Dirt jumping was held mid-week, and although I'm relatively close to Providence (less than an hour and a half drive) I wouldn't have made it down there in time. (Local guy Ryan "Biz" Jordan got third in dirt.) Vert was held on Friday night, and I wasn't able to see that, either, although I heard second-hand that:

• the ramp was under vert ("You know it's under vert when Mirra's hanging up"—McElhinney);
• McCoy was hurt & not riding;
• Bestwick was going way too high;
• Mirra was rad and scored a 99 on his second run (which, according to some people, wasn't as good as his first run), including back to back flairs;
• Jon Parker almost hit an alley-oop 900, but a hard crash took him out of the contest;
• Kevin Robinson hit a rad-looking no-handed flair;
• Rob Nolli ripped open his thigh on a crash, resulting in 32 staples;
• Matt (or is it now "Mat"?) Hoffman was doing double tailwhips and one-handed tailwhips, among many other things.

• Dave Mirra
• Simon Tabron
• Jon Parker
• Gravity Games