../people/Chase Paul Gouin

Sources: Ride BMX US, BMXicos, OG videos, BMX Plus!, Ride BMX UK, www.theflatlander.com, Freedom, TWCpmwdg, www.pedalbmx.com, www.odysseybmx.com, Ride BMX UK february 2004 issue (interview by Jared Souney), www.bmxfreestyler.com, Chase magazine, fatboy972, http://www.artbmxmagazine.com, ...
If you want to add any info, please contact buissonrouge@23mag.com.
1971 Birthdate: november 4, 1971.
Birthplace: Ontario Canada
early years Chase: I have always been interested in bike riding. At age 3, I took of my trainingwheels and began to ride by myself. I grew older and started to do wheelies and a little bit of jumping. 1981/82 I saw my first BMX-Action magazine and became more interested in freestyle riding.

Chase: I played hockey, baseball, soccer, track and field, guitar, skateboarding, and BMX up until age 12. Although I did fairly well in all of them, I never seemed even remotely content with any of it. At age 12 I quit hockey to practice flatland exclusively. Up until then I had always done BMX riding -jumping, wheelies, etc. But a boy my age moved in next door and showed me a BMX magazine. At the time, I had a red and yellow Raleigh and he had a Redline 600a. Then I got a Redline 500b bike which I ended up putting some Skyway pegs and some mag wheels and some Standing Gear forks and the first official flatland trick I did was a track stand in my front yard. I rigged that bike to do a few tricks, then got a Haro Sport. By this time I was definitely full-on doing flatland every day. I learned a single decade in my basement, then a double. I had no Gyro, so I ran a long rear cable and pre-twisted it the other way so I could try more decades and ride away. Flatland put me in a more personal space where I was the only one in control, or to blame. Then I moved on to a Haro Sport, then a Haro Master and then a Dyno.

FIRST COMP.
Chase: My first comp was at Albe's in 1985 when I was 14 years old. I was expecting to be a bit nervous but it was much worse. I was so affected by the contest atmosphere that I was shaking, got cramps and diarrhea. I could barely compose myself enough to sketchily pull a few tricks. Every comp after that I was also nervous, so I think that is just the way I am. It's my personality.

Chase: Being raised - oops I mean lowered - by a stern, full-fledged Christian Mother, was the base factor in the suppression of my natural yearning throughout childhood.
young chase

1984
1984 one handed power mower.
1988 Chase: Between the ages of 16 and 18, a few things happened that dramatically increased my desire to get away from my family and Windsor. I bunnyhopped a post-topost chain, and hooked my back wheel, resulting in a concussion and thrashed face. My parents wouldn't let me ride even after the doctor okayed it. They locked my bike in the basement, but one day I broke the lock and went riding. They found me at a parking lot, got out of the car and the both of them literally tried to pull the bike away from me. I yanked away and took off, but went home that night anyway.
Not long after that, I got a call from Steve Brough who was in Niagara Falls, Canada. He said that I could come and stay with him at some apartment there. I didn't need much convincing. So I planned to run away from home. I snuck out one morning at 5am and went to Niagara with Steve, and his dad who thought I had permission. I got there and stayed a couple nights, but then the cops showed up somehow and said my parents were coming to get me. So my dad and his support buddy convinced me to reluctantly go back home.
1989 YORK.
Chase: One day Steve Brough called again. He said he was living a few streets over from Kevin Jones in York, PA. I was like "What the f-k? -'What's going on?" He explained that a few of the Plywood Hoods and friends had passed through his town in Niagara, Canada, in their van. He said that he started talking to them, he threw his skateboard and backpack in the van and they agreed to take him to York. He said that he had told Kevin Jones about me and that I was welcome to visit and ride with them. Obviously I couldn't believe what I was hearing. That's some crazy f-king shit if you ask me. First that he met them, and secondly that he just abandoned everything and tagged along with them, regardless of who they were. So immediately I planned a trip to York. I flew there for a week on March break during grade 12. I stayed at Mark Eaton's and rode with him and Kevin at the Mt Rose parking lot. I remembered that they were cool and seemed stoked that I could try a few different tricks on request. I was in a state of utter dismay that I was there with those guys. Then I flew back home. I practiced hard, pushed my existing tricks, and learned more basics.
1989
1989 before moving to York.
1990 Chase: Things were rough at home, and in my head. Once I was staying at a friend's house for a couple days. I remember having the magazine with the Hoods article (Freestylin) and dreaming about going there to live. My parents sent over some church guy and he temporarily talked me down. It was inevitable though that I would eventually go there whether my parents liked it or not. So at age 18, on March 9, 1990, I moved to York. I had two bikes, $300, and a bag of clothes.

Chase: Pretty much immediately on arrival I started changing, mostly because I was not under my parents' control for the first time. This gave me the benefit of feeling unleashed from them and their restrictive overshadowing. I was in a different country and around all-new people all at once for real this time. This freedom quickly manifested in my exploring of the 'indulgences' the world had to offer - namely alcohol and sex.

Chase: On the riding scene, Kevin and I became daily practice partners. When I showed up there, I could do a fair variety of tricks and was pretty good at some of them. I was predominantly a left-footed scuffer, yet my good peg-coasting leg was also the left. This was a partial handicap because it kept me from doing some of the newer type combos coming out at the time. I could scuff right-footed and could do a few tricks both ways, but that wasn't enough to really move forward. I was aware of this impairment, so I decided to start learning as many basics as I could both ways. Kevin had already done some opposites of course, and so had I, but we began choosing tricks and we each did them our opposite ways. Like taking turns with little games or challenges. We covered a lot of ground that way, generally gaining more bike control. The basics could be anything like, tailwhips, chick-whips, scuffing positions, small opposite combos like half-lashswivel-fire-hydrant-decade, rolling, etc.

Chase: We worked decades and whiplashes a lot. We'd be under a plaza awning in the rain at night and the trick was to do 100 double-brakeless-whiplashes in a row, and start over every time back to zero if one was missed... no matter if we were at 99. Another one we'd do was where we had to do no-brake-whiplashes 1-10 - like single, then double, then triple, etc., up to 10 or start over.

Chase: With the two of us combined, we sometimes learned 15-20 new moves a day with 8-10 hour days, and we pushed a lot of stuff really far. Personally, I learned most of the opposite stuff I wanted and needed, and it started coming together. I think doing two directly opposite tricks gave me the scope of what was possible in the middle of them or together. The diversity of the tricks, plus feeling comfortable in a greater range of positions, was the recipe for stumbling into many little connections. And of course, most of the actual trick positions I was using were Kevin's, and I was riding with him, so that chemistry was definitely also a factor. My mid-way opposite and dual trick approach to what tricks already went well together might have been what was necessary for such an outcome of variations. I can't imagine progressing like that if I had stayed back in Windsor. I think based on those things, what Kevin and I each brought to the table during that particular time of riding together, was what made it such a turning point in flatland.

YORK JAM.
First York jam august 1990.

Wearing just boxer shorts.
Chase: In the very early nineties I was making up a lot of tricks which involved getting around the handlebars. I would catch my shorts a lot, so I started riding in my boxers. I soon realized that it was just more free and out of the way for all tricks and kept doing it.
cliffhanger
Chase Gouin busting BACKWARDS cliffhangers at the York jam.
1991 Dorkin 4
Chase: The first video I was in was Dorkin'4 made by the Plywood Hoods Kevin Jones and Mark Eaton. Dorkin' 4 was filmed shortly after I got to York, so that was not much more than what I had arrived there with.

BIO.
Chase Gouin bio in Go february 1991.

DOPE AMMO.
Ells Bells, Dope Ammo III video.

SUMMER TOUR.
From june 1 through august 21, the Plywood Hoods are "rolling" across the USA on their '91 summer tour. Kevin Jones, Mark Eaton and Chase Gouin have hooked up with Peregrine and tour manager Jerry Uy to put on this tour.

HOMELESS.
Chase is riding for Homeless.
Chase, Ride BMX UK december 1992: I had heard that there was a new bike company starting called Homeless, and I found out that James Shepherd and Ruben Castillo were starting it, and I gave James a call at Trend, and I said "Hey, I heard you guys are getting your act together, starting a team called Homeless, and I was wondering if you guys need a flatlander". And it was almost as simple as that, he said "Yeah, I'm pretty sure that I need one, and I was thinking about calling you up", so I just called up, and it was pretty much that easy. It's my first sponsor, and I'm pretty stoked on it.

1st place pro flat @ 2-Hip Bike Safari, New York august 1991.
Chase Gouin was picked up by Homeless just before the contest, but I'm sure that had nothing to do with how he rode. I could try and write every trick that Chase did but it would make War and Peace look like the Cliff Notes to Green Eggs and Ham. By the end of his run the crowd was chanting "Four', but after five solid minutes of riding his best was a triple decade and first place by a large margin.

Head First video.

Standard Rogers Garage video.

Dorkin 4 1/2
Chase: Dorkin' 4 1/2 was starting to show my own direction a little. Eaton called it To Hell and Back because that's what I would shout when frustrated about tricks. But that was a perfectly fitting testament to the hell-threats in my head.
The actual first time I knew I was stoned was with Kevin. We were out riding doing 'whiplasharouny' and these girls invited us over. They showed me a bong and I had no idea what it was for or how to use it. So I tried to do as they said. Then we went out riding again to the college whiplash hill. This was the first time I knew I was high on pot. I did a row of whiplashes, and then at the bottom of the hill I looked up at Kevin with the woods behind him and said "What is the purpose of the universe?" I seemed like a tiny insignificant spec - which I am - and that just came out of my mouth. That quote was put at the bottom of the screen just before my section in Dorkin 4 1/2.

Ells Bells, 665 1/2 Not Quite Evil video.
Chase Gouin pulls off a zillion whiplashes, a triple fire hydrant to triple decade, and also a quadruple decade.
1992 Chase has migrated to the much warmer region of Austin Texas for the winter months.

Chase rides for Homeless, Club Homeboy and 2B.

BS DALLAS.
1st place stuntmen flat @ 1992 BS round 1, Dallas, Texas, january 1992.

VIDEO.
Homeless III Highway to Hell video

KOC UK.
KOC july 1992.

FAT jam Aarle-Rixtel, Holland, august 1992.

WORLDCHAMPION.
Flatland pro 1992 worldchampion in Budapest, Hungary.
Chase, Ride BMX UK december 1992: The World Championships was a really good contest. Had everything, it had vert, street, mini ramp, flatland, bowls, had everything man. There was like thirty riders in the pro flatland class, which was really amazing. And it was the biggest pro flatland competition in a long time. Basically everybody had a good time, I think everybody who competed got a little something, even if they got next to last they got something which was really good. Hungary's all right, I wouldn't want to live there though, they're supposed to have another contest next year, so if they do I think I'll just hit the contest for like a day or two and then go, I don't feel like sticking around there too long. And thanks to the ladies for giving me the motivation to pull off the gnarly tricks, well, they're not gnarly, but they're gnarly for me, 'cause I suck at street and ramps. I can see myself riding a lot more street and mini ramps though in the future. 'Cause I figure it this way: if I'm going out and I'm doing something that takes some guts to do, flatland won't seem like nothing to me. If I go out and do something like gnarly jumps or 360's real high or something, that'll take away the fear for flatland. Because some tricks on flatland that I want to try right now, believe it or not, are pretty scary, even though it's hard to think of a flatland trick that's scary. There are some I have in mind. If I'm doing really gnarly stuff, then flatland will seem like a piece of cake.

KHE.
Chase is co-sponsored by KHE.

Ride On video.

BS FL.
1st place stuntmen flat @ 1992 BS round 5, Daytona, FL., september 1992. Chase Gouin won Stuntmen Flat. He touched a little more than usual during his run, but the only person who seemed disappointed with his riding was Chase himself.

STANDARD.
Chase switched from Homeless to Standard.
October 1992 Chase is leaving Homeless (in good terms) for Standard. Apparently the lure of cash was too hard to resist.
Chase: Standard treated me very well and immediately accepted me as a valued member of their bike company. There was no contract or salary but the agreement was that they would give me just enough money to get by.

DORKIN.
Dorkin 5 video: One footed backpackers, switch foot pinky squeaks, forward death truck flipped round to regular death truck without the front wheel touching, ...
Chase: Dorkin' 5 was likely the high-point of combining the tricks we learned in the previous stages. Kevin's section and tricks in 5 was, and is, my favourite. I think my creativity, and ability to bring it all to life was at it's best around then.

INTERVIEW.
Interview in Ride BMX UK #2 december 1992.

OFF STANDARD.
Winter 1992, Chase isn't receiving support from Standard anymore.
Chase: I quit because the verbal agreement of supplying my basic necessities had been broken. Rick Moliterno and I were both pissed off about the way it ended, each for our own reasons. But it was not a vicious, scandalous separation. This winter they gave me about two hundred dollars and I drove to Phoenix, Arizona where I slightly cracked a pair of Standard forks where the top headset nut tightens. I had no money and when a kid offered to buy those barely usable forks for $30 I sold them. I told Rick Moliterno that situation and he asked me to get the forks back because they were prototypes and the problem needed to be inspected. I could understand his frustration but I didn't have any money to buy them back. I requested $30 to buy the forks back as well as a small amount of money for a couple weeks worth of groceries. For whatever reasons Rick chose not to send any money.
chase 1992
Photo by Mark Noble.


Ride on.
1993 HB.
Sping 1993, Chase is now riding for Hoffman Bikes.

BS SHIMMERVILLE.
1st place stuntmen flat @ 1993 BS round 2, Shimmerville, Pennsylvania, april 1993.

WORLDS.
2nd place pro flat @ 1993 Worlds, Limoges, France, july 1993.

BACO 4 video.

Homeless Trash video.

Eaton, Hypnosis video.
Chase: Hypnosis was good, but not my absolute best.

1st place stuntmen flat @ 1993 BS finals, Chicago, IL., november 1993.
Chase Gouin took first in both qualifiers and finals.

krtschmidt.com, december 2008: Chase Gouin’s part from the Standard Byke Company video “Happy Days”.

1993 worlds

1993 worlds
Limoges, july 1993.
1994 After Chase was let go at Hoffman (weed going across the boarder into Canada), he rode for Standard for a very short time, Chase actually stayed at the warehouse (like a lot of guys have over the years).  Then moved to Arizona and lived with Elles (hence the Ded video)

Ells Bells, Ded video.
DED is all about arguably the finest flatlander in the world. Chase Paul Gouin. As you would expect from Chase, there's some completely unbelievable flatland riding on here. There are some long sections interspersed with interviews bits with Chase, odd moments, and CPG getting it on with the good times. There is one section where Chase is linking some incredibly hard stuff together, flowing and switching flawlessly through a whole pile of tricks, and then you suddenly realise that Chase has no brakes on his bike whatsoever.

1994 BS round 1, Moreno Valley, CA., february 1994.
Chase Gouin has retired from contests and is a good victim to be a judge.

On April 14th 1994 Chase got busted in Arizona for allegedly trafficking marijuana and took off over seas. 
Chase: After getting out of Arizona, I hopped in my Honda Civic and drove straight to Detroit with just enough for gas and food. In Detroit I sold my car for $800 in one day, then crossed over to 'Windsor, Canada. I didn't feel like dealing with my parents, or anything else, so I bought a plane ticket and flew to London, England. Within a week or so I ended up living on the streets. I lived in an extra shack that belonged to this bum. It was next door attached to his. It was at South Bank near the Waterloo train station across the Thames River and Big Ben Clock. I would ride during the day, usually passing a hat for spare change, for food and cider at the end of the day. At night I would either roam the streets or try to sleep in my shack. I would lock myself in with my bike, clothes and little food, and maybe a couple ciders and a joint if I was lucky. I was basically living off the 4 b's (bread, butter, bananas and biscuits). One morning I woke up and saw that my backpack was ripped. I opened it up and discovered that some rats had nawed through the backpack and eaten a portion of my loaf of bread and dropped their shit on it. That was all I had to eat. I soon found out about a homeless food bank that served meals so I started to go there, as well as getting food and blankets from the hand out vans in the area.

Chase: Shortly after that I met up with these traveling circus gypsies. They had been living on the premises of an abandon warehouse and invited me to stay there. I did tricks as a part of their show in their street performances. The thing was, they stayed in their campers and custom buses outside the warehouse, whereas I stayed in the warehouse. I had breathed in so much dust, and that it actually caused the chambers in my nose to become infected and swollen, causing oxygen deficiency and 'brain pain.' Around that time is when I really started feeling some serious brain pressure, and was seeing black floaters in front of my vision. I soon ended up in Stevenage, England, where I worked for a short period in a factory for a Temp agency.
1995 Chase: I got the opportunity to go to Berlin, Germany and do some shows with a crew of different artist type people. So in Germany, we traveled around in a bus and did various performances. The pain in my head was an incomprehensible torment by this time, but I had no choice but to accept it as normal and proceeded with daily functions, even riding and progressing. After that tour I found some good people in Berlin to stay with, and did stage shows at night. I would ride in and underground train station for my regular practice... this was in the middle of winter. In and around this time, I pushed both opposite and brakeless tricks as a means of coping.

Chase: A friend helped me search for a doctor who would take my head pain seriously enough to try and diagnose something. While in a desperate state of brain torment, all of a sudden my appendix almost burst, and I narrowly escaped infection of my vital organs and potential death by getting rushed to the hospital for the removal of it. While recovering from that operation and laying in bed, I was trying to convince the doctors to help me find out why my brain was killing me with a piercing pressure in between my eyes. The hospital was a series of separate houses in a big courtyard. They made an appointment for me to see some doctor on the other side of the grounds. So barely able to walk from the appendix operation, I walked un-escorted in the freezing cold with a lightjacket 15 minutes to that other building. I arrived at the office to find the doctor was not in. I walked back and freaked out on the nurses and doctors to no avail or apologies. I recuperated from the stomach operation while still in immense brain anguish looking for yet another doctor. My friend and I settled for some number in the phone book, and made an appointment. This happened to be a 75 year old war time doctor who had amputated legs without anesthetics, and had his licence revoked several times for 'medical mis-conduct.' Of course I did not know this at the time. At first he tried some heat lamp on the area and something else. This was not helping. Due to translation problems I barely knew what what going on. He then decided to do some operation which I was sort of informed would involve slicing open the nasal chambers to allow the oxygen to pass. So I was put under anesthetics (the second time in one month) and the operation was done. I came out of it then a couple days later the doctor came in to remove the gauze from inside my nose. Instead of inserting lubrication and slowly extracting it, he surprised me and yanked out four feet of gauze in one pull. Immediately the blood that was trapped in my nose began to go down my throat and I was choking on it. At the same time he was telling me to breath through my nose which i obviously could not due to the swelling. He put a tray in front of me, and then I threw up the blood from my throat into it. He then took the tray of blood and whipped it across the room splattering all over the walls and the by-standing nurses, and walked out of the room. There aren't really any words left to describe this, except that I was balling my eyes out and flailing on what felt life deaths doorstep but still conscious. They gave me one extra day stay in the hospital for free then told me I had to leave. I attempted to recover at the home of the very kind couple whom I did shows for. That's when I went for the post operation procedures and a different doctor picked pieces of the butchering from my nose for a month or so. He told me that if anything of the sort would have happened in Canada or America (although you can't imagine it happening anywhere but a horror film) I could have sued for millions.

Chase: During the winter of 1995, while living in Berlin, Germany, I reached a conclusion regarding my religious beliefs. After years of serious mental stress over the issues, I dropped Christianity as my unstable, half-ass belief system. The nonsensical nature of the stories, plus its very noticeable conflict with my mind and instincts, were two main factors in my awakening.
1996 Chase: Soon after I flew back to Canada and stayed at my dad's. I went on antidepressants and anxiety / sleep aid pills. That summer Ells 'Bells' Watson flew to Windsor to film for the video Glote, when I somehow again pulled tricks that were fairly progressive and new for me, pushing limits in the most unlikely circumstances.

Chase did come back to the states and stayed at Chenga world for a while (Scott Powells place in Cleveland, Ohio).

Chase is riding for Morales.
Chase: I was under legal contract with Morales to receive $400 per month. There was always some sort of a problem with getting the money from them though. At one point, the secretary told me they were having some temporary financial problems and they could not pay me. This problem persisted for a while. Bob Morales claimed that he couldn't pay me, but at the same time they had just moved into a huge expensive in Santa Ana, California. So I have to ask, how can a rider deal with a company who refuses to pay him his minimal legally contracted salary? Bob Morales knew that I had no consistent place to stay before he sponsored me. But if he would have paid me consistently I could have at least chipped in for rent somewhere. In total I was not paid for 14 weeks straight - that's $1400. I occasionally slept in a dressing room on the beach. One morning I called Bob and firmly stated, " You won't give me money, so how can I eat to have energy to ride and promote your bike ?". He told me to find a ride to the warehouse and he would give me a few bucks. I did so but soon quit for the simple fact that it was wrong for Morales to treat me like that. It took months of small payment to receive the back pay they owed me.

Cover
and interview in Ride BMX US #21 april may 1996. Photo by Brad McDonald.

Chase decided that to be the ultimate flatlander he would remove his brakes and relearn all his tricks brakeless, stating that whithout brakes, you do the trick right or you don't pull it.
Chase: My goal is to achieve total bikecontrol but I am realistic. I know I will never achieve that so truthfully my goal is to just keep riding everyday and progressing and get as much bikecontrol as possible in one lifetime.
chase gouin ride bmx us 04 96
1997 Chase has quit the Morales team in january and is currently without sponsor.

BMX PLUS! COVER.
Chase Gouin and Dave Osato are on the cover of BMX Plus! march 1997.

Ells Bells, Glote video
Chase Gouin is seen doing amazing flatland stuff with different brake setups (front & back, just front, and brakeless). A million whiplash variations. Whiplashes switching his feet on the pedals, megaspins to decade brakeless, ...

TRIP TO JAPAN.
Chase: It was incredible, one of the best times in my life. All the people were very nice to me.

Dorkin Balancing Act

CHENGA WORLD.
Chase: I get up whenever I want to, drink a lot of coffee, watch some MTV, walk over to the Flatland-Area, sweep, begin to warm up, think of new tricks and learn them. Everyday I make up new tricks and new connections. I feel very comfertable at Chenga, I have good friends here. I think I will stay here for a while and just practice hard on my riding. I had a lot of problems in my life so my riding suffered. But now I want to rise up and come back to life and create incredible tricks.
bmx plus cover
1998 FISE.
1st place pro flat @ FISE 1998, Palavas, France april 1998.

INTERVIEW.
Interview in Freedom magazine #21.

BMXICOS COVER.
Cover and interview: BMXicos july 1998.
chase gouin bmxicos cover


BMXicos part 1.


BMXicos part 2.
1999 GOUIN BICYCLE CO.
Chase: Well, it all sort of just fell into place (aka - it fiddled itself) when Rob "Tex" Thayer started fiddling things around a bit. This somehow chain-reacted in such a way that the seeds of a frame making project were planted. Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, "no-one" appeared and presented me with "nothing." I was in a state of non-existent bliss. Things are moving steady and smoothly with the company. The first batch of "Nothing" frames are due for release in November 1999. Gouin Bicycle Co.'s Nothing frame. At first I felt weird about using my name for the company. But Tex and I concluded that my name would be identifiable to flatlanders all over the world. I'm not trying to glamorize myself or say that people should buy the frame just because of the name. Although I am putting my years of riding and recognition to work for me as a fair and honest marketing tool. Besides that, the quality and feel of this frame speaks for itself - so I'm not worried.

INTERVIEWP.

Interview for www.theflatlander.com, august 1999.

KOC.
The flatland contest at the KOC is always one of the biggest of the season. Even Chase Gouin made it over for this year's edition.

OG BIKE.
Chase Gouin left what was formally "Gouin Bikes" to pursue intrest elsewhere. Well, what he, along with Marton 'OG' Szilagyi, has been upto is the creation of yet another flatland company, OG Bike Company. The frame they have now in developement looks much like the former "Gouin Nothing", possibly becuase it's geometry is based on that of the "Nothing". The new frame will be called the "Chase Gouin Pro Flatland Frame", and bares and undoubtable resemblance to the "nothing", aside from a gusseted head tube with a hole in it in place of what was formally two different tubes connecting the head tube to the downtube. This new gusseted (with a hole) design on the head tube is suposed to add strength to the design (according to Chase) because of another tube that is inserted into the hole.
2000 GROUNDWORK.
Props Groundwork video.
It would have been nice to see more than one minute of Chase. Is he that elusive ?

BACK FROM HUNGARY.
Getting back from Hungary in september of 2000.

E-CLIPS.
In 2000, Gouin released a video of his riding titled E-Clips. The video featured Gouin as well as fellow flatlander Brandon Fenton, also of Windsor.

Props Groundwork.
2001 OG Trick Star 3 video.

OG The function victim video.

Dorkin 10 video

Problems with tendinitis, april 2001.
Chase: In both wrists I have Dequirvin's and in the elbows it's called Epicondylitis. I went for months of laser physiotherapy along with supplements for the muscles and joints plus certain exercises etc. That put it into a sort of remission where I could ride with special braces. My arms generally get sore very fast, and it's just not the same. At its worst I could barely hold a cup or do the dishes.
trick stars

function victim
2002
2003 Chase is currently living back home at his father's house in Windsor.

ODYSSEY.
May. Chase Gouin qui se remet tranquillement de son opération est rentré chez Odyssey.

24th place pro flat @ Metro Jam 2003
Chase Gouin entered! It's Chase's first contest in a few years. He didn't do so well but who cares, it's Chase!
2004 Odyssey Frequency G tires re-designed by Chase Gouin.
Chase: It is called "FREQUENCY G" with input from myself and design completed by Chris Costonas at Odyssey. I brought up the idea to Odyssey about doing a tire which was similar in design to the ACS R.L edge. I have been using that tire for about 15 years and felt it was the overall best for flatland performance.

Interview in Cream #9, november 2004.
Evolution of flatland, brakeless riding, industry, money and chubby girls.

Chase Gouin part in the Odyssey video.
2005
2006 Chase, www.bmxfreestyler.com, april 2006: My life has been pretty boring and dull for a while now. It seems like with the onset of some bad anxiety conditions and tendonitis and winters, I’ve really been struggling to maintain basic skills in recent years. Since I’ve had my own place for a few years, I’ve become a major loner. I really don't do anything else that is worth speaking of. I’m always alone and it suits me just fine actually. I've done some exercises, chill with some mellow tunes, maybe wind down with some T.V at night like South Park. Fiddle a few poems here and there. I’m waiting for my U.S border clearance and getting a car so those two things should improve my quality of life a bit. But generally I’m ok with staying on my solo riding mission: eat, sleep, ride, recover and repeat that. Seems mundane, but if my riding is doing ok, then that is all I live for anyway. Like it seems as if doing only one thing would wear on me no matter how much I love it or feel I have to do it, but it's the variety within the flatland which is what I strive for. Maybe my addiction to and passion for riding doesn't appear to be justified by my lack of skills these days, but I guess that is where my
battle is... in continuing to try matching my ability with the size of my inextinguishable flame and desire to do it well. So far I have failed, believe me.

Chase, www.bmxfreestyler.com, april 2006: I am still riding the original Gouinothing frame which Tex (Rob Thayer) made for me years ago. I am waiting for a custom personal frame which will have the same geometry but with some improvements. I run Odyssey race forks (Yes, I still run the full forward dropout offset position, probably only a few others in flatland who still do). I run a prototype version of my signature handlebars which will soon be coming out from Odyssey. I am hoping for more signature parts from Odyssey so I will refrain from describing the rest of my bike in detail. ODI hooks me up with grips.

Chase is a judge of the Flatring contest in Paris.

CREAM COVER.
On cover of Cream december 2006. Chase Gouin the legend wrote the editorial and the Flatring report. Photo by Christian Van Hanja.
chase gouin cream bmx 21
2008 Bart de Jong, www.fatbmx.com, december 2008: I just heard Chase Gouin has won a Flat contest in Panama beating a lot of new school pro's! That's the first win in over 10yrs for one of if not THE king of flat?!!
2012 BACK.
The legend Chase Gouin is back on bike ! Welcome back Chase !
Chase Gouin, www.artbmxmagazine.com, june 2012: I am “trying” to ride on some days when i feel it’s possible, but i am still sick from the effects of 5 years mold exposure. This means that my immune system is still weak and therefore i cannot ride at 100% force… maybe not even 30%. I must wait for the results of another DNA test which will hopefully show some lower levels of fungus in my intestines that has destroyed the good bacteria. I also must end this program that helped me stop taking the pain killer pills, so i will suffer more bad withdrawals very soon. The separate issue of Crohn’s disease is in a state of remission which is a good sign, but this damage to the small intestine will never really go away and may get worse in the future. I can only take care of myself and hope i don’t need a surgical tube and bag to replace the intestine. But i try to do some basic tricks to get the movements back. My goal is to eventually become a good flatlander and be able to do all my tricks from the past plus learn new ones…and of course invent some small variations. I thank everyone for their support, because without the donations and positive thoughts of riders, maybe i would never make it. As soon as I feel confident enough, i will release a short video edit. Live to Ride…Ride to SURVIVE!
2013 UNCUT.
Odyssey BMX, Vimeo, february 2012: It's not everyday we come across fresh Chase Gouin footage. After battling chronic medical issues for several years, Chase is finally back on his bike! Him and his buddies put together this video for us which documents his return. Edited to one of his favorite Alice in Chains song, this video is filled with straight-forward clips of Chase doing his thing.
Brandon Fenton, Vimeo, february 2012: Great to see Chase on the bike again and already working with new trick ideas!

Chase Gouin - Uncut from Odyssey BMX on Vimeo.