THOMAS STELLWAG INTERVIEW
Location: Lohhof, Germany
Age: 16??
Occupation: owner of AllRide Distribution , Soul Video Magazine,
360 Sports Shop, and BMX pro
Describe the worst haircut you've
ever had.
My haircuts are always bad, but if I
have to pick a particular one, I
would say the one I had on my first
day at school. It was kind of a
mid-long bowlcut type...hahhaha
If you had a signature frame, what would you call it?
The Pal. I think of my bike as a
good friend, who I have loads of fun with, and who deserves respect therefore. PAL is the European videonorm too, and I love to shoot
video and edit stuff.
What's your best move off of a
diving board?
I prefer stable things too jump off.
I'm not good at my timing on the
diveboard. If you can jump from
solid ground, I can do a backwards-jumped stretched backflip from
10ft. and I'm pretty good on
over-rotating frontflips
and landing on my face too :-)
What trick have you always wanted
to see get done?
Most tricks have already been done.
I've been around for a
while, and over the years the
boundaries of the trick-level's were pushed forward like crazy. I saw
how some tricks evolved. You can
list rails, flips, whips and stuff like
that: from just being pulled by a
handfull of persons, to your basic
how-much-different-variations-can-
you-do-trick....sometimes tricks are
pulled faster than you can call them
out. So at this time I'd say I'd like
to see more tech stuff in and
out-of-rails. Like barspin to rail
to whip off. but actually people can
do stuff like that already, I'm sure
there's some people pulling those already. but who knows, maybe
barspin-to-rail-to-whip will be
your real popular everday's or
beginner's trick. And then it might
even get banned by the media, like
the nac-nac or the crankflip. It's
all fun till someone looses a trick. hahhaha ;-)
What is your spirit animal?
That has to be an Eagle. Don't even
ask me why, i have no clue. I just
like eagles a lot. Probably because
they are fast and have a good style
in the air.
What is your secret talent?
I like cooking a lot, and I think I'm
not too bad at it, especially when it
comes to choosing the right
ingredients and spices. I'm not doing
extraordinary stuff, just the basics,
but it tastes good in the end. And I'd
like to play the barkeeper every once
in a while, going crazy with all kind
of longdrinks and shots.
What is the weirdest thing you have
ever seen Sam do?
Everything that contains raw meet
is pretty weird to me, but who am
I, to call something or someone
weird? I like it, when people do their own thing, and the border betweeen doing that or being so-called "weird"
is pretty close, actually it can't really
be defined, can it?
What are your hobbies outside of
BMX? You are not allowed to say photography or skateboarding.
Can I say videography then? just kidding.... I'd say just spending time with my family is a big present and I enjoy that a lot, especially with the
given situation that my wife
Monika and my son Marvin both
ride (BMX) bikes too. But any time I spend with them, feels good. See, I
work a lot, travel lot, ride a lot....so sometimes just chilling seems to be
fine, as long as i'm close to my
family or some good friends.
Have you ever eaten something out
of a trash can? What was it? How
did it taste?
Nope, I never did, at least not yet.
But who knows what life brings.
I can't even joke around here,
you know, there are people who
had a regular life, something
happens, and they find themselves
in a situation where they really
have to check trash cans for food.
What is your most prized possession?
I think that has to be my video cams
and my editing setup. That stuff
costs a lot, and it's not really
generating that much money, but I
can't help it: I'm an vidiot :-)
What was the most trouble you ever
got into in school?
I got in trouble constantly, I have
to admit. The worst was probably
when I tried to fake the signing of
my mom, after another report was
sent from school. They almost
kicked me out of my high-school therefore. I felt bad. But I can't
help it and I don't know why
either, back in school I was really
attracting a lot of trouble. I'd say
good times, nevertheless :-)
Do you personally know anyone
who has genitalia tattooed on their body?
I don't know anyone personally,
but at the Rebeljam 2005 in Berlin,
there was a girl (!!!!) who had a
naked chick tattooed completely
over her whole back, a huge tattoo.
The girl in the picture was naked
and had her legs spread...wide
open, that's all I can say. It didn't
looked like a self portrait though.
But the girl who had this on her back didn't looked too bad either...so you could look at a hot chick from the
front, or some tattooed porn on the
other side....I LOVE BERLIN!
If the entire Tree Team was dead
tired, in the van, hundreds of miles
away from home. Who would you
trust to drive all night to get you
home? Who would be the first to
fall asleep at the wheel?
I can do fine without a lot of sleep,
so I might grab the wheel myself.
I've never been on a TREE roadtrip
so far, so I can't really tell who
would be the best or the worst pick
here.
Tell me something funny about one
of your parents.
When I was quite young, like 4 or
so, my parents bought an old ranch.
They thought about opening up
somekind of horse ranch, where
people would bring their horses to
be taken care of. So my parents
tried to restore the place a lil bit.
They were just finished painting something, and they thought it
would be a smart idea to give me
a paintbrush, the paint can and a
piece of cardboard to paint on.
They didn't knew that I would
paint the whole bathroom in a new color. including the towels, the doorknob and everything else in
reach. basically the whole batroom
was painted in blue up to almot 4 ft.
I was sure i did a good job, but my parent had different thoughts about
it :-) The horse ranch never worked
out, hopefully not because customers were scared of my painting skills in
the bathroom :-)
What are you going to name your autobiography?
Don't Call It A Comeback
or
The Neverending Story :-)
How many times have you been to
the emergency room?
I was rushed in there quite a couple
of times, but most of the time they
only found smaller stuff, like
broken fingers, torn tendons and
stuff like that. My serious injuries
(total ligament and muscle damage
in left shoulder, and breakage of the second neck vertebra) where NOT discovered in the emergency room. Those things took visits to regular
docs in order to be discovered. I
was running around with a broken
neck for almost 6 weeks, even
flew over to Austin for two weeks,
as I was told it's only sore and
strained muscles. That was crazy...
What is the strangest thing you have ever eaten?
A good friend of mine, once ordered
a pizza "diabolo" and he dared to
ask to the pizza home-order-service
guy if the pizza is really hot. I only
had one bite of this pizza and
believe me it was damn hot. It did
even hurt the skin of your fingers just from holding it!
Who is your favorite fictional
character from any movie, book, television show, play, puppet show, video game, etc.
I'd pick Spiderman: whenever you
feel lazy you just use a lil bit of
your net-spray, attach it to some trees and you have a perfect hanging
mattress. Can it get better than that?
I bet Spiderman does that all the
time, they just wont show it, as it
would be bad for his image.
What's the worst job you have
ever had?
Working in the office of a insurance company. It was dead boring there.
Everybody was quite old there too,
I don't know the whole thing just
felt wrong from the very first
second on. That was my shortest
job too: I just stayed there for 4
days, then I couldn't drag myself
over there...
What is your favorite food?
I'm not much of a gourmet, but I
have to admit, I still like good food though. But as a favorite I'd pick
your good ol' hamburger, a burrito or some bar-b-q.
What is your least favorite food?
Dark chocolate with peppermint
cream. But I like all other kinds of
chocolate though.
Who is your celebrity crush?
Madonna maybe?. Or J-Lo?
Not sure, but I really love my wife,
so I never had to waste too many thoughts here. I know that might
sound kind of boring, but
i tell you i'm just very very lucky
here :-) Monika is the best wife and
friend you can ever imagine, she's
my personal VIP and celebrity
crush. She's not only supporting
me big time, she's a big part of our business and the best thing that
ever happened to me in my whole
life. Word!
Have you ever been attacked by a
wild animal?
Nah not really, wait Dave, FBM's welder, once gave me a massive
hug. He's tall and strong as a bear,
does that count? I know (and like)
Dave, and we were both happy to
meet each other again, so he just grabbed me, almost lifting me off
my feet. The funny (and scary) part
is, that it was just 2 weeks after I
broke my 2nd vertebra, what the
medics didn't realized first. (I literally had a broken neck back then)
So the hug was really kind
of dangerous, I didn't know back
then, and I think I didn't even tell
Dave the next time we met...he'll be amused, hahahahaha.
