Landscapes Review

Review: Effraim.

DVD’s in the modern era are a sad rarity in our scene from my perspective, during the last two years you can count those on less than one hand. Dane Beardsley’s Same thing daily project and IGI’s travel video are all we have had. Stewart Munro from Australia stepped up to the plate with an ambitious project to collect and edit together rider sections from all the planet, when you think about that in the modern internet culture and free edits available everyday it almost seems like a thankless task.

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Thankfully Stewart stuck to the task which being so far away from all the other riders is I can imagine a tough task to collate together. The downloadable video straight to your laptop is catching on in other sports such as Skateboarding, more recently massive companies such as Adidas are releasing their projects for a small fee online. Will it catch on to what is essentially a small flatland audience? Only time will tell…

Enough of that intro, and onto that video which features sections from:

Simon O’Brien, Alex Worden, Yorihisa Shiota, Seppl Pospischil, Viki Gómez, Iwata Tang-meng Hiroki, Masashi Itani, George Manos, Sebastian Grubinger, Noyer Thomas, Brandon Fenton, Paul Chamberlain, Scott Powell and mixtape section: with Matthieu Bonnecuelle, Shane Badman, Andrew Wickham, Alberto Moya, Sean Fontenot, Bobby Carter, and Tim Knoll.
Music by Sonny Blake, AF The Naysayer, and Lexicon.

Masashi Itani has the all so important first section up in the video, the quality of the filming and editing is amazing, something I really liked about the video before I get into trick details of who did what, was the fact the opening titles at the start of each section displayed where the rider is from. I think that gives some perspective into the amount of work it took to put this video together.

Masashi Ito has a really fast, fluid back wheel style and he rips the Marina riding spot in Long Beach a new one. Having been to this spot, which isn’t the smoothest I was amazed at his lines. Standouts for me: Switch handed Xft rolling lawn flip to two footed backyard to opposite side switch handed one handed forward rope bar spin to regular side ice cream to two footed backyard 360 bar spin pivot ride out, the speed Masashi goes into his lines is amazing, switch foot dump truck ride in pivot on the same foot left footed backwards ice cream pivot inside switch pivot spinning g-roll turbine rope pivot pumping xft peg wheelie x over and repeat the opening switch foot dump truck turbine g-roll line ending this massive line with a 360 varial scuffless gerator! Heavy start to the video, and if you ask me Masashi is super underrated, so great to see he got the all so important opening part. I say all so important because if that doesn’t hit, it’s leads you to fast forwarding the video before it’s begun. I definitely wasn’t fast forwarding!

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Variety in styles is always one my favourite things about flatland, and the contrast between Masashi’s riding and Scott Powell’s couldn’t be much greater! Scott out of Cleveland, Ohio opens his section with a peg less hitch, if you are familiar with Scott’s riding you will know he regularly switches bikes and set ups and this sections reflects that, switching numerous times throughout according to the trick and style of trick. One of my favourite lines of his section is the backwards stem 5 with front brake jump backwards bar hop ride out, an unexpected ballsy move for sure, not to forget his upside down decade mega spin direct to pedalling upside down mega spin! The last line is absolutely mind blowing, I’ve hit the rewind several times already trying to describe it, but here goes: backwards stem g-turn to multiple left foot stem pinkys switch foot jam back tyre to upside down decade and out! I’ve left a lot out of what else Scott did, truly one of the best sections of the video and he’s holding stuff back too! Amazing!

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Next up: George Manos out of Ioannina, Greece, and it’s daylight! Kind of used to see George riding in the dark, so this is something out of the ordinary. No matter how many times I see it, I never truly understand George’s opening line, the xft pedal nose manual ride in body varial to some kind of backwards foot jam tea kettle squeakerson type move turbine forwards and backwards and out that’s about as close to describing it as possible, still amazes me every time! George’s section flows quickly, pegless whiplash, shove it pedal 5 whiplash downside boomerang pedals out, no foot can can backwards carved nose manual anyone??!! and one of my favourite moves is his no footed karl, held much longer than I have seen before, so good! Real nice flowing section from George!

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From pegless flatland to liquid flow, we have Thomas Noyer from Albi, France! Before the opening titles come up Thomas hits a crazy hard line: Forward karl halfpacker two footed front yard turbine whip two footed front yard turbine pivot xft inside steam bar flip to steam fire hydrant circle k halfpacker two front yard whip direct to backwards spinning halfpacker out halfpacker hang 5 step steam ride out ! Did you follow all that? Over the last few years, Thomas has tightened up his riding so much, truly one of the best to watch in the game right now. Thomas follows that unbelievable line with his signature BB crackpacker whip to halfpacker two front yard turbine xft ride out. Perhaps my favourite line from his section is the forward karl halfpacker almost direct to backwards spinning halfpacker to pendulum whip back halfpacker two footed front yard xft pivot xft inside steam jump pedals exit. Solid section from Deco’s finest!

Sebastian Pospischil out of Stuttgart, Germany is a name you don’t hear much of these days. He delivers a solid section here: opening with his signature xft whiplash ankle death move pivot to circle k to halfpacker pivot to xft halfpacker half body varial out! Seppl’s section has a mix of street nibbles as well as uber tech moves, multiple whiplashes with pedal 5’s thrown in between each whiplash is no joke and Seppl makes that one look easy. Seppl mixes a lot of bar scoot fire hydrant combos with his whiplash stuff, like I said solid section. Great to see some fresh footage of him!

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Next section goes to the new Fishbone recruit Yorihisa Shiota out of Suzaka, Japan! Yorhihisa has some of the wildest front wheel switches right now in the game, of particular standout in this section was the fire hydrant spinning ck turbine backwards and switch feet to backwards facing spinning ck without touching the tyre that continues and ends with his signature spinning stem tomahawk to crackpacker, and my personal favourite spinning ck switch hands one handed to one handed jump switch and body varial landing in backwards spinning xft opposite steam, a really subtle switch which is so hard to do! Yorihisa is amazing, keep an eye out of him!

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We are roughly half way through the video, I have obviously left a lot of the moves out, so you have something left to see and be surprised about when you download the video! Stewart breaks up the video nicely mid way through with friends mix tape worldwide section featuring Sean Fontenot, Bobby Carter, Alberto Moya, Andrew Wickham, Tim Knoll, Shane Badman, Matthieu Bonnecuelle for me has the standout lines in this section, both clips are off the chart, beautiful executed multiple whiplashes to karl jump guillotine seat grab turbine, and the backwards facing multiple whiplashes backwards halfpacker left side backwards backpacker pull out right side backwards facing whiplash out, this left me wanting a full section with this quality of footage, absolute treat anyway!

Brandon Fenton out of Toronto, Canada has the next full section, Brandon opens his part with a lovely backwards fire hydrant to backwards forkwheelie backwards halfpacker dropped into backwards backpacker pivot to xft hitch out, and then follows with multiple backwards whiplashes to backwards fork wheelie to backwards halfpacker and out, as always serious moves from Brandon! Much like his recent edit, his section has a lot of whiplash combos, forward and backwards, really liked his steam to halfpacker no handed backpacker turbine and out line, and again like I said before the turn of pace in riding style keeps the video flowing and interesting and you can kind of feel how Brandon progressed with his part as he filmed it. Great stuff!

The next section up falls to Deco rider, Iwata Tang-Meng Hiroki out of Hyogo, Japan. And again a completely different turn of pace from Brandon’s section, now more fast paced front brake tech lines filmed mostly at the infamous Kobe Meriken Park riding spot we see on all the Spaceark videos. A couple of lines I really enjoyed from Iwata’s part were the quick nose manual step to xft inside steam backwards and forwards to full bar scoot foot jam whip tomahawk position fire turbine out + the xft fire hydrant ride in to pivot opposite foot x handed steam without holding seat switch to steam pivot xft opposite steam and out, so clean! Iwata mixed his section nicely with a few street nibbles to break the footage up, rad to see him get a section.

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Alex Worden out of Colorado has the next section, we really don’t see a lot of Alex’s riding so I really looked forward to this section and it doesn’t disappoint. Standouts for me include the dump truck body varial stall walk around decade to pedal out, multiple opposite xft steam flips and between each flip switch to double footed walking karl! So nice! His signature no footed coasting dump truck sat on the pedal is amazing! There’s a lot more besides, don’t sleep on this dude! Great work Alex!

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Paul Chamberlain has without a doubt one of the best sections of the dvd, and I guess that is reflected with being towards the end of the video! Ex UK resident, now living in Sydney, Australia has a slow technical riding style, if you are not familiar with Paul’s riding get to know it! Some of the standouts for me were: the hang 5 double foot vadar style pinky backwards hang 5 kick forward hang 5 double hitch juggler out, half whiplash ride in step body varial one footed front yard to right foot candy bar one handed pedal 5 to x-up one handed bar flip 5 out, the execution is amazing! The final banger hang 5 step xft fork wheelie body varial two footed front yard body varial opposite xft wheelie backwards fakie whiplash out. Bloody nice section from Paul! Stoked!

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Heresy’s Sebastian Grubinger has the next section opening with some beautifully shot backwards rolling whiplashes across the spot in Vienna, Austria. Really like the foot jam pedal 5 xft whiplash jump regular whiplash line towards the beginning of his section, simple idea that I have never seen before. Sebsastian lost the majority of his riding spot during the filming of this video, but nevertheless the banger is so good in a tight area! No handed peg wheelie to xft walk around pedal backwards ice cream and out! No nonsense section that gets straight the point!

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Viki Gomez out of Madrid, Spain now living in Luxembourg has the next section and despite some of this stuff looking a lil’ old it still hits hard. The opening forward rope undertaker to xft peg wheelie pivot to two footed backyard 360 spin pivot forward g-roll multiple two footed ice cream turbines pivot backwards xft peg wheelie decade is so good! It is testament to Viki’s riding that he can compete all over the globe multiple times a month, produce video parts online and still throw combos I haven’t seen him do on this video!
Lot of long front and back wheel lines, and the standout for me is the backwards hitch pivot xft opposite halfpacker pivot direct forward hitch to half hiker pivot kick xft karl halfpacker 360 boomerang to backwards backpacker pivot xft hitch xft steam out! Big respect to Viki who somehow manages to hit hard at all levels!

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And the last section deservedly goes to Simon O’Brien out of Erowal Bay, Australia who after his well documented health problems comes back as hard as I have ever seen! The section opens with Simon walking out to his back garden riding spot, how many of us have dreamed of having that??!!

Simon obviously put a shedload of work into this section, standouts for me: The Andrew Faris esque 360 bar flip ride in to backwards halfpacker turbine pumped halfpacker backwards spinning halfpacker out, backwards bar forward karl to halfpacker bar flip direct to backwards spinning halfpacker!, forwards karl jump backwards halfpacker almost direct backwards halfpacker juggler to multiple backwards kick flip half packers backwards whiplash out – I mean that is just off the chart!

Great to see Simon revisit his classic moves and up the ante, personally feeling that a lot! And it continues: Forward karl stop dead kick flip halfpacker roll backwards halfpacker backwards whiplash out almost at a dead stop, pedal time machine to backwards smith decade anyone? And if I had to pick a standout, which is hard in such comprehensive section, I would say the forward karl jump backwards halfpacker pivot xft steam flip steam crackpacker bar flip to backwards halfpacker backwards juggle backwards backpacker pivot xft hitch out and the blender one footed no handed coasting straddle time machine flip to upside down pedal mega spin for a second flip xft caboose for a second ride out, all the switches are so fast and execution on those last two lines is absolutely as cutting edge as it gets! Massive respect to Stewart and Simon, and all the riders and filmers for putting this together. Are you downloading the video yet? Have you already downloaded, if you have, what did you think of the project?

Download yours:

https://gumroad.com/l/bBlK#

10 thoughts on “Landscapes Review

  1. Its a good video. One of the issues he may be facing is not being able to control the content once it has been downloaded,aka anyone can share it once it’s out there. Back in the day we had more control over the media-vhs at a much lesser quality. This is honestly why I made Doses 3 and 4 freeware downloads and just had people send clips. But I do admire the effort put into this and would much rather watch something like this than say a web edit – where 75% of the 3 minute video is pans,tilts,zooms of the city,traffic,pedestrians, etc etc… . Unfortunately technology as much as it benefits us also detracts the riders ability to make money off videos. In closing I feel this a true modern day piece of art without the “FILLER” . Great job.

  2. It’s worth the 5 bucks just to see someone do a no footed-sitting on the pedal-stick-b.I think this is a super good video.Scott Powells part is my favorite.He has to be the best rider running brakes out there.Everybody is soo good in here it’s crazy.

  3. @Aaron Frost / Stewart / Flatism

    Thanks guys! Enjoy your weekend motivation Aaron and Flatism!

    Cheers Stewart, and congrats again for an ambitious flatland project !

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