Picking the Edit of the year is always tough process, thankfully this year my life was a great deal easier thanks to Viki Gomez and Martti Kuoppa and their collaboration they dropped on September 1st “Bombarderos”. To me and judging by the hundreds of votes clear this video was in the Readers Choice awards, you almost all thought the same thing. What a rarity that is, flatlanders agreeing, surely not?!

Watching this edit gave me the feeling I had when I first watched a Dorkin’ video back in the day, it’s pretty rare these days to see one NBD (Never Been Done) in an edit let anyone above 10 NBD’s, I lost count to be honest. And particularly in Martti’s riding, I saw the artist return to flatland and take off where he left, leaving us all with moments of genius. The triple stem lash both ways comes to mind first, or me first screaming at the screen when he did the stem steamroller pivot to crackpacker. This video changed the game in a big way, Martti doesn’t even need to do anymore, but I am sure he will. That’s a measure of the man. You will know no doubt have already have seen other stem variations, but this comes as a result of one man and his originality. And you can’t forget Viki Gomez, Viki delivered a crazy amount of crazy hard kick flip combos in signature buttery fashion that complimented Martti’s raw stem style/short sharp bangers. The two approach riding so differently, but when you put them together, it’s almost like all sides of flatland are covered. The combination is killer!
Congratulations to both Viki and Martti. Total whitewash this year, taking both the editorial vote and reader vote for Edit of the Year! One medal each? Quite fitting. So well deserved!
Also, shout out to Camilo Gutierrez at Wildschnitt Film & Photography who put together this amazing edit!

Thank you Martti and Viki for taking flatland to a higher place!

Effraim Catlow / Flatmatters