Author Archives: Effraim

San Francisco Trip: Day 8

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Yesterday was by far the most productive day of the trip so far for me personally, fresh back from the One Love Jam. It was time, to start working on new tricks and try to capture clips for an edit I am working. Pete had the day off work, and it was a nice day in SF. That only means one thing, Clocktower!

Right from the off, Pete was smashing the Clocktower a new one. I got my fix of tea from across the road ay Starbucks and started chasing clips. Half hour into the session I bagged one, then Pete pulled his straight bar steam bar varial to pedal steam line, and the session started going off! I got inspired by Pete’s turbine hikers and started working on them again.

After about ten minutes I started to get into them and figured out how to get speed out of the turbine hikers without pumping. Once the technique was there, I got an idea that I have never thought of before, and an hour later the line I wanted was captured with around 10% left on the phone battery. To say I was stoked was an understatement, it’s absolutely amazing to get to ride with someone like Pete on the daily, and both go after tricks. That feeling when you get something new and see Pete get his will never get old to me.

This was the best session I have had yet at the clocktower, today it’s raining so its a forced chill day for me. The forecast looks good for tomorrow, so I cant wait to be out there again nd chase a few more clips, super stoked to be progressing again after a month off with this knee injury. The KT tape I am using on my knee is working much better than the knee support I was previously using. We ended up the day with a couple of beers, and hung out with the SF Skater locals and called it a day. What a day, everything I love about flatland happened in 24 hours. Absolutely buzzing, and still a few days left of my trip out here…

Repo: The One Love Jam

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Text: Effraim.
Photos: EC, Juan Lopez.

Around mid-day Friday, myself and Pete set off for the long drive to Los Angeles for the 10th anniversary of the One Love Jam in Newport Beach, California. We met up with Dylan Worsley about an hour out of SF, and travelled down with Dylan. Like last year, we stayed about an hour outside of Newport Beach, in Corona at Robert Castillo’s house. Friday was a full day of travelling, and when we arrived full party mode was in full effect, we were greeted by Robert, his wife Stephanie, Ruben, EZ Chris, and Bill Nitschke.

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San Francisco Trip: Day 4

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Day four of my trip out to San Francisco took a different turn than all the previous days with heavy rain for most of the day. That meant a Clocktower session was out of the question.
Luckily, Pete has a rad garage riding spot with a fast floor, and we could ride with tunes on!
Like the previous days, both myself and Pete worked on new tricks. Pete was working on his straight bar steam varial to pedal steam, and nailed it numerous times. The man is a machine!

I had a good session, working on individual parts of lines I am experimenting on and nailed a few stall tricks a couple of times. It felt rad to be riding, even though the weather sucked and get my third day of riding in a row under my belt.

We were going to be travelling to LA on Thursday, but if we did that would mean the One Love Jam poster boy, Dylan Worsley wouldn’t be able to make it. So we are travelling down today with Dylan, so we won’t make the pre jam. For any of you going to the jam, see you saturday. Looking forward to the 10th anniversary jam, come and say hello if your going.

Hope you are all enjoying these daily updates from my trip.

San Francisco Trip: Day 3

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Day 3 of my trip out to San Francisco, and it was basically more of the same of Day 2. In the morning there was a small matter of presenting the 2019 Flatmattersonline Year end awards. After publishing the awards, I took the BART down to the clocktower and arrived for a session at 1:30, Pete showed up right as I got there. But he unfortunately got called to work, so his session yesterday was a bit more chopped up than mine.

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The 2019 Flatmattersonline Year End Award Winners Announced!

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It’s about that time where I announce the winners for the 2019 Flatmattersonline Year End Awards, both in editorial and reader categories!!!

The awards are now in their sixth year, and this year was noticeable to see the efforts of many of you to get in the mix for edit of year as the deadline drew closer. That in itself felt like a win win situation for us all….

This really is a chance for me to give something more back to the flatland community, and not just award one rider with an award. Nice in my opinion to have a mix that recognise the talent within our community, without a further a due lets get right into it!

BIG congratulations to all the winners (I will be in touch!), and also everyone who got nominated. Huge honour in my opinion to get nominated from your riding peers. Thanks again to everyone in the flatland community who took the time to vote, great to see such a healthy participation for 2019!

Effraim Catlow / Flatmattersonline, 11 years strong.

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San Francisco Trip: Day 2

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Yesterday, Tuesday 14th was my first full day in San Francisco. Once I had my bike built up I made the 40 min journey by BART to the Clocktower to meet Pete for a session. Pete works literally down the road from the CT, so regularly starts work early so he has the afternoon to ride.

I got off at the Embarcadero stop on BART, the Clocktower for all of you that haven’t been there is literally a 2 minute pedal if that to the riding spot. I met Pete at the spot who was already way into his session as I arrived at 1pm. The sun was shining, a little windy but hey it’s January. I was glad to be outside riding in a t-shirt, as I hear news that its blowing a storm at home. It made me feel even more grateful to be out here in SF riding with my child hood hero, some things in life you just cant script.

One of the things that stood out in my mind, was Pete saying no day is the same at the CT. Today we had some busker playing metal all day, as our soundtrack. Well mine, as Pete has headphones. And hardly any skaters the whole time we were riding, maybe 5-6. I met a skater from Berlin who was in town filming for a new part, then heading straight to Barcelona. Yesterday had totally different dudes from Monday, Pete said this is completely normal down there.

We rode for a good 4 hours back and forth sharing the spot, super motivating session. About three hours in Pete started talking about a new hitch he wanted to do. Straight bar steamroller step to the tyre bar flip to pedal steam, I started to relearn teakettle pivot to halfhiker in order to do something new with it, after I landed mine. You could tell Pete was not leaving till he got it, but unlike mine. Pete was throwing a line into the new switch, after about an hour he landed it! Today we both pushing the concepts further, where I for the most part ride on my own it was super cool to share the drive with Pete to get what we wanted and actually watch it get done!

After the session, I wanted to grab a tea at Starbucks across the road. Yes I know, I am so English! We reflected on the session, music, spots in SF, and started talking about Wednesday’s session already. When we headed back to the CT, there had to be over 20 skaters at the spot and again all different people from the day before. I asked Pete, how many skaters would you say live in SF? “Has to be around a 1000 skaters!”… Can you imagine going somewhere and asking the same question about flatland, that would be crazy to say, yeah there’s around 1000 flatlanders. We headed back to the house to meet Pete’s wife, Karissa and the kids. The first full day was a belter, more of the same today!