*Updated with both runs*
Looks like I was first to see this video! Moto was the talk of the weekend, switching from no brakes to brakes, as you will see from his first run, not a whole lot difference in terms of his combos when he was brakeless. Enjoy!
Putting brakes on is one thing, but I’m more concerned with the switch up of bars. Gold to chrome? That probably took a while to adjust to and get his tricks dialed again.
#whoisthisguyandwhatdidhedowiththerealMoto
hahahaha you do crack me up! 🙂 curious how long were the runs?
thanks for posting.
well deserved win.
However i feel a bit bad for alex Jumelin. Seems like what i feel is a more minimalistic approach to riding (because using less tricks and for a shorter time), doesn’t really fit the contests judging system. I love his riding even though there are less tricks and it last for a shorter span of time…but it’s not a very competitive style of riding with todays judging standard…Flatland is so hard to judge.
anyway motos riding is always amazing to watch, hope i’ll get to see him ride someday !!
Well you say that Julien and he just got top 5 at Toronto and beat last years winner, Terry Adams, who by contrast does long combos, so….
Pro had 2 x 3 Minute Runs with a “last trick” option at the end.
Thats awesome! Thanks Sinn!
Runs were 2:30 for pros (2:00 for experts and 1:30 for novice I believe), with an optional last trick (not landing your last trick doesn’t count against you).
Makes sense! So that first run, was a one touch run from Moto! Look forward to more footage!
Great run! Did he even pull his brakes?
Didn’t look like it… You can ride brakeless with brakes 🙂
Hey Effraim, I wrote a long post and it isn’t showing up. Any suggestions?
And it was the best run that counts, not an average between the two. I judged the originality category. Originality and difficulty were scored out of a range of 70-100, and variety and consistency were scored out of a range of 60-80. This translates into originality and difficulty being worth more so it ends up being an incentive to go for your best and most creative stuff to keep pushing flatland forward. In my category, I thought that Moto scored first but overall I thought that Dom was going to take it since his first run was just massive. When the scores were tabulated it was very close between 1st and 2nd.
I don’t think that there were any massive injustices in the rankings. I thought Dub deserved to be higher but I was only judging originality so I wasn’t looking at things like the number of touches, or variety or whatnot and when the numbers came in we ended up with the rankings we had, which none of the judges considered to contain any glaring problems. Individually we may have wanted to see one or two different people ranked one or two places higher but, again, we were each focusing on only one criterion which helps to mitigate against any bias at least a bit I think.
I think one of the most important things about the judging system we used is that it has been consistent year after year and it holds no surprises for the riders. Everyone knows what they are up against in terms of what is being looked at in their runs. Given that these details are known by all competitors I don’t think that one can justifiably hold the judging system responsible for ones personal disappointments. If the riding style that you choose to pursue doesn’t work out for you under this kind of format it doesn’t mean that your tricks aren’t good, it just means that you may be neglecting or had some trouble in one or more of the categories. To this day, I don’t think that anyone has come up with a more fair and universally applicable model for judging something so personal unique to the individual rider.
Sorted! Is there a word count limit per post?
I will look into it, must admit I haven’t checked, as most posts are short… I’ll get back to you on that…
What is the judging system Brandon? Not everyone will be happy, no matter what the system! But at least if you have a decent system in place that the riders know, they know what to practise for, and aren’t surprised by it, its consistent…
It’s crazy that, with judging VERY often being called in to question (especially online) as soon as a contest is over, I have never really heard of any complaints about the results from this contest, even after this many years.
Kudos to the CFO, Chase, Brandon, and everyone else involved.
Good point prasheel! This is surely a step forward! The Am flat contest series will continue to grow and set a judging standard, others should follow…
Moto has brakes shock horror haha joke, sick rider,sick runs love it 🙂
We have to remember that although this contest is part of the Am Flat circuit, the circuit doesn’t have much to do with the contest in terms of judging. I happen to enjoy this format and hope other contests can follow something similar.
The judging system we use is widely known as Chase’s system but it is a system that both he and I together put a lot of time into to cover as many important angles/issues as we could imagine. He ended up putting it in writing and it is his original instructions to the judges that we use to this day. We spent many hours on the phone sharing our thoughts, criticisms, and concerns over the course of several months before it crystallized into the format that we have been using for the past several years now. No system is perfect and having qualified, honest, and capable judges is a very important component to making it work. Some aspects of flatland don’t translate well into a measurable criterion. For instance, many people think that doing the same tricks for several years in a row leads to stagnation in flatland (I agree), but it can be very difficult to factor in what you might call ‘freshness’ among the other categories since, it would take a great deal of awareness of just what every single rider has been up to in order to have a handle on such a criterion and most people probably wouldn’t have the same degree of knowledge about all riders since some get more attention/coverage than others.
It might be able to get factored in to the difficulty category since something you’ve done for 5 or more years should be a lot easier for you to do than something you’ve picked up that year but again, this means that your difficulty judge would have to have a really good handle on what each competing rider has been doing for the past few years. Unless the judge has that knowledge on all the competing riders it would be unfair to only deduct points from the familiar faces for doing the same things for a while since even more obscure riders that the judge might not know about could have been doing the same stuff for a long time too.
more vids from vertical smile
We talked to Moto at the contest about his brakes, and he told us he wants to learn old school tricks. (Multiple decades, smith decades, ect..)
He said he always thought they looked cool and fun to do. It was weird watching him struggle with double decades.
In reply to Mark McGrade, whether old school or not, this is healthy. I sometimes think a double decade rideout would be awesome, compare it to lets say, a steamroller one kick pivot out that Andrew Faris popularised in 1997. Both are old school, one gets tarnished, one doesn’t….
“It might be able to get factored in to the difficulty category since something you’ve done for 5 or more years should be a lot easier for you to do than something you’ve picked up that year but again, this means that your difficulty judge would have to have a really good handle on what each competing rider has been doing for the past few years. Unless the judge has that knowledge on all the competing riders it would be unfair to only deduct points from the familiar faces for doing the same things for a while since even more obscure riders that the judge might not know about could have been doing the same stuff for a long time too.”
I don’t think this was put in place Michael, Brandon is kind of saying this would be hard to put in place, for a number of factors.
Brandon!
While I agree that a trick or link will get easier for a rider to do after a long time of doing it, I don’t agree that that fact should be held against him, if that’s a propper way of saying it. That would also mean that a rider who just plain practices many more hours than others should get points deducted because that makes tricks easier for him.
On the other hand I absolutely agree that we as a community and especially contest judges should reward people for progression/new tricks. Judging our sport, which is also an artform, is and will always be difficult and debatable.
Michael
Effraim!
I know, but I just see problems with it as described. I think it has been said elswhere before: in a 100 yard dash you don’t punish someone for having longer legs, do you. Or for beIng an athlete for more years than the next guy.
Judging is and always will be difficult. I know what it feels like to be judged, remember? Egos always come into play, it’s only natural I think. As much as I enjoy competition and I believe it has a place in BMX I always hope riders will never forget that they ride to reach the goals they have set for themselves trickwise or just for the pure fun of riding and learning. And probably pulling tricks/links.
Michael
Good points Michael!
We have all been judged in the past for sure. It is a subjective sport. Great analogy with the 100 metre dash. 🙂