I first met Steve Romaniuk when I was in Las Vegas filming the original “Trail n’ Park Boys” and attending Interbike. Steve was a stand up guy, and later that month at the Red Bull Rampage Steve would attract the attention of the Mountain Bike world with some seriously sick tricks including a no-footer off a huck that everyone else was just dropping.

While using Tweet Deck to update my Twitter status, I noticed that Steve’s facebook status read, “Sombrio=Shit Beware.” I thought strange, seeing as Steve had represented Sombrio for some time.

Steve wrote the Following, “Sombrio owes me from 2008 still.. after a long wait and hassel.. they decided is was not a big deal to screw me out of all my work for 08. Support the people that support there athletes to do this dream.. not take from them after years of contribution! I guess 15 international selling dvd’s, 3 podiums and 5 years of being on international t.v. with the gear gave sombrio a good reason to say you are not worth are agreement.”

I was shocked to see this as Sombrio was a rider owned company, started by Dave Watson…being involved in the industry for a while I had come to expect companies to pull stuff from time to time, but rider owned companies I find particularly low.

Steve went on to say, “No payment.. and believe me.. its hardly enough to even matter. Enough to buy a sofa or something! no leather action here. For all the traveling and work I do in a year… This is the first time I will ever go verbal about a problem with a sponsor.. but I think it needs to be heard. When a company will walk over an athlete that has worked hard for them.. consumers should no what goes on behind the scenes. I spend more then what they paid me to travel and promote that shit!”

Steve also eluded to that Geoff Gulevich also has had problems with Sombrio. So bottom line support the athletes…