Welcome to the
website of Grant “Goba” O’Brien. I am a photo journalist from Australia based in Northern NSW who specialises in capturing the action and lifestyle of motorcycle related sports. I am also passionate about music, adventure, travel, extreme sports, nature, people's stories, and am available for photography/journalist work covering all of the above so if you need a moment captured in either medium then please contact me at gobadirt @ gmail.com (no spaces) or phone
+61466598525 to talk further. I look forward to hearing from you … Enjoy the
site!
New Breed – Josh Sheehan
Written by Goba
Australia and New Zealand produce
great freestyle motocross riders, with the most common ones being – Robbie
"Maddo" Maddison, Blake "Bilko" Williams, Cam
"Sincs" Sinclair, Levi Sherwood, Nick Franklin, Matt
"Schuie" Schubring, Kain Saul, Robbie Adelberg and Steve
Mini to name some of them. Per capita we’re kicking arse compared to other
countries around the globe. Most of these pro riders have been around since the
beginning of the sport Down Under. They’ve worked their way to the top the hard
way and won’t easily be knocked off their perch. Then there’s the riders in Oz
we don’t hear much about. The ‘New Breed’, the ones working twice as hard to
push their way in amongst the heavy hitters. They dream of the big time, riding
X Games, X-Fighters, and they know they have to do what the pro guys are doing
better if they stand a chance of opening doors where the stadium is already
quite full. These kids need help so I thought it would be a good idea to give
them some exposure through ESPN in a section I’d like to call ‘New Breed’, and
my first one off the block is with West Oz ripper Josh Sheehan, a young rider
who is bursting with style, and enthusiasm to make it on to the world
stage. To read more 'click here'
Josh Sheehan has one of the biggest Ruler Flips in the business Pic: Simon Makker/FRMX
Wolverine Lives To Ride Another Day
Written by Goba
My latest affair with a motorcycle
started a few months ago after I was dreaming up ways I could score myself one
– enduro, motocross, adventure, trail – hell I wasn’t being fussy, I just
needed some wheels to scratch the itch I was feeling from being too long out of
the saddle. Maybe I should have been more specific with my dreaming though as
15-minutes after snapping back to the reality of my MacBook screen and photos
found surfing moto sites I get this out-of-the-blue phone call, “Hey Goba, its
Steve Crombie, remember at the ADB ride day you mentioned your looking for an
old adventure bike to get you going until you can afford one you really want”,
Ah yeah, I replied. “Well I’ve got a deal for you”, he said, in a way I felt
this could be really good, or maybe not so good, but hey I was bike-less and
was prepared to give anything a go.
Last week Red
Bull X Fighters pulled together a collection of professional FMX riders and
creditable industry people to help re-evaluate the current judging system with
the aim to come up with a fairer one that can help steer the future of
freestyle motocross in a positive direction.
The Red Bull judging clinic, one step close to getting FMX judging on the right track
I pulled my head out of the sand
the other day. It’s been stuck in there for about a month, well it has when it
comes to knowing what’s happening with FMX Down Under. I’ve had plenty of other
things pop up to distract me from the world of freestyle, but hey that’s life,
‘C’est la vie’ as they say in French.
It’s surprising how fast you can
drop off the radar to what’s going on. This time last year Kain Saul and Levi
Sherwood were fighting for the Australian FMX championships and looking at this
year’s series there’s no freestyle in sight. This got me thinking … What’s
going on with FMX this side of the globe? Where are all the comps? I pulled out
my address book and dialled a few numbers to get back up to speed.
When Travis Pastrana executed the
first Double Flip I really wondered who would be brave enough to follow in his
footsteps. Scott Murray gave it a shot and failed more than he succeeded. On a
very good day he nailed it, but was very hit and miss with perfecting the
double rotation.
Then came along Australian Cam “Sincs”
Sinclair, who proved the Double Flip can be consistently executed after he
successfully rode away from 20-plus during the 2009 Crusty Tour and several competitions
world wide. Then Cam raised the bar and included the Double Flip in his
90-second run at the X-Fighters rounds he attended. All seemed to be going well
until the pressure of linking a smooth run together at the Madrid stop in Spain
saw him under rotate the Double ending in a near fatal accident that he was
lucky to survive.
Two months later Cam made his
first public appearance at Robbie Maddison’s Red Bull XRAY freeride event with
his brother Mick and manager Adam Bailey, so I sat down with the Sincs brothers
to talk about what happened at Madrid, the recovery process, and will we be
seeing him back on a bike any time soon.
Mick left and Cam at Rebull XRAY, Cam's first outing since his accident at X-Fighters in Spain
