Photos and text: Effraim

Session going down!

Pat Kucza, Jersey/Portsmouth transplant, shows a lil’ raditude on this x hand hang five!

The idea to have organised sessions follows on from what I was saying on my recent flat webtv interview. I decided it was time for a change, do a lil’ experiment in my local scene and see what happens.

Two weeks ago I held a advertised session at a local public skatepark in Milton, Portsmouth. The skatepark has a basketball court next to a couple of ledges, and the worlds worst quarters and fun box.
I’ve rode there quite a few times this spring/summer, and over that time I have met street riders who are curious about flatland, or bike control as they call it. Maybe not as the modern day flatlander sees it, but its still flatland in my book.

On this sunny saturday throughout the day, about 20-25 riders came in and out of the sessions. Chris Carter made the trip from Oxford. A few street, dirt riders made the trip from nearby Southampton. Local kids did hang fives, Milton local “Pat I am” even does x hand hang fives as smooth as you like across the whole basketball court (check the photo), other riders did truck hops, hop whips, even hop whips to foot jam all went down with ease from various people. Some kids rode backwards, did rollbacks, footjams, whatever, it was all good! It was actually interesting that most riders didn’t hit up the ledges or the boxes, but instead rode flatland. Perhaps just because of the day, whatever the case, that’s what happened.

Myself and Chris gave advice back and forth pretty all day in between sessioning most of the day, whether it be why our seats were so high, or hang fives, fakie whiplashes, etc.

These sessions aren’t hard to put on, it really is just about letting people know about it, being open to new people asking questions, having a go, encouraging them, thats the key for me. Because the session was so relaxed it was easy to be helpful to the kids who did ask questions.

Chris Carter came all the way from Oxford for the session, and impressed all the locals with his skills. Guillotines are no joke!

It was a great day, I plan to keep the momentum going with this. You never know what might happen. At the worst your seasoning with friends, you might learn a few new tricks, what could be better?
Organise a session in your town, make an event on Facebook if your on there, let other riders know whats going on, involve younger and older riders, see what happens…

It could be the start of a beautiful thing….