Catching Up with James McGraw

James McGraw invited me over to judge the Battle in the Rockies 2017, Round 5 in the 2017 AFA series who better to interview for the FM “Catching Up series than the man behind the BITR contest and the return of the AFA series than James McGraw. You definitely want to tune in and listen to this one, this is possibly my favourite catching up yet.

00:31: History on Battle in the Rockies, introducing the video contest as a chance to compete at the event no matter where you are in the word.

1:21: Has James original intention with organising BITR stayed the same four years on?

2:58: Bringing the AFA Back for the flatland scene, what was James intention in doing so?

6:07: What is a successful flatland contest for James?

9:16: How long has James competed for, and his fondest memories looking back over the years?

10:15: James was the first rider to do a backwards bar ride in a contest.

12:01: Moto Sasaki couldn’t make it to this years event after winning the free ticket last year, how did you arrive at inviting Mates Tucek to Colorado?

14:51: Plans for the AFA and BITR in 2018?

19:28: Behind every event there’s always a ton of people working to make the event happen, who are some of the people that help you out and deserve some recognition?

Master Of Creativity 2017 Final round / 11 – 6 places edit

Did you listen to the Martti Kuoppa podcast by Scott O’Brien yesterday? The 2017 Master of Creativity finals went off with such high standard from all the finalists, featuring Joe Cicman, Harutada Shimoyama, Tomoaki Yoshimura, Romain Dodelier, Mateus Beckmann, and Will Redd! So many great styles brought to the game, thank you flatland!

The 2016 Flatmattersonline Year End Award Winners are….

It’s time to announce the 2016 Flatmattersonline Year End Awards! Congratulations to all the winners, and also nominees! Plenty of you voted again this year in all seven categories, making it uber tight in some categories! I will be catching up with the winners over the next week for address details, and for interviews during the next few months.

Whilst I was going through the months via the Lookback features on the site it became apparent to me that one rider in particular unselfishly took himself out of the running for the World Circuit title in order to help make our sport more credible, whilst also throwing down an incredible edit and placing well at so many events throughout the year. Not forget his running his brand as well, so like last year as I hinted when I announced the awards, there is an extra category!

Thank you once again to everyone that voted, let’s make 2017 another great year for Flatland!
Effraim Catlow – Flatmattersonline

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Lookback: October – The 2016 Flatmattersonline Year End Awards

We start the month of October with an amazing edit!!!
It feels like I have given out the Must Watch tag a lot recently, it’s already been quite a week for progressive edits and today Joe Cicman’s new Curriculum Vitae 2016 certainly lives up to the hype he’s thrown at it! Curriculum Vitae 2016 documents Joe’s progressive journey as he has pushed his riding month to month working on new ideas for the Master of Creativity confine contest.
The edit really builds from June, and the format quickly going month to month really makes this easy on the eye! Joe has really pushed the Jaffa Whip concept to new levels and the banger what Joe is calling the “Terradoom” at 2:17: a no handed crackpacker no handed jump to no handed backyard is absolutely bonkers and ballsy to say the least! I will stick my neck out and say that is one of the moves of the year so far! This left me wanting more, as all great edits do. Thank you Joe you just pushed flatland up a few notches!

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Lookback: January – The 2016 Flatmattersonline Year End Awards

Hello everyone,

I dropped the 2016 Flatmattersonline year end awards just a few days ago, thank you to everyone who has already voted.Today I begin the task of going through the entire year and seeing what went down. In order to keep this as concise as possible, I will posting just what has happened in 2016. (In January there were a lot of edits posted from the previous year…)

Effraim Catlow/Flatmatters Online

2016 really kicked off with the Quest BMX Sponsor Me contest, with a whole load of quality entries form across the globe arriving, in the end Jeremy Brosset and Gurvan le’ Brok won the competition and place on the team. Refresh your memories and take a look at their entries right here:

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RealCitySpin 2015

RealCitySpin 2015 from IGI BMX on Vimeo.

So many beautiful moments captured by JMK films from the 2015 Real City Spin contest in Montreal, Canada! This whets the appetite nicely for this years event which is happening on August 27-28th. But for now take a few minutes of your day to watch this amazing edit!

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MapleVibes Hype – Toronto March 4/6th 2016

The annual Toronto contest is around a month away, book your tickets now for what is widely regarded as the curtain raiser for the international contest scene each year! Thanks to Joe Cicman for putting together this hype edit for the event organised by the Canadian Freestyle Organisation, this year the event had a rebrand and is now called Maple Vibes. Jean William Prevost has taken the win in Toronto three years in a row, can he make it a 4peat?

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https://www.flatmattersonline.com/toronto-maple-vibes-2016-march-46th

TerraDome 2015 Year-End Update

The TerraDome Sports Science Research Centre is proud to present the 2015 year-end update featuring contributions from resident and adjunct researchers: Phil Brunet, Todd Carter, James McGraw, Joe Cicman and a surprise guest. All the TD crew come through with some amazing riding, look out for Joe’s ender at 5:51! So good!

Lookback: September 2015 – Flatmattersonline 2015 Year end awards

September is always one of the busiest months of the year, and this year was absolutely off the chart. Take a check through my highlights and you will see what I mean!


September 4th will be remembered for Martti Kuoppa’s, 10 Stemlashes! You can always count on the boss to raise the stakes, as if this isn’t enough the description hints of a return to KGB? Great news! Someone looks like they are ready for flatark…

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Battle in the Rockies – Day 2

Joel

Yesterday was my first full day in the US, this year we are around an hour away from where the contest is at in Denver at James Mcgraw’s house in Monument, Colorado.
The first part of the day was taken up with airport pick ups, Michael Sommer, Moto Sasaki and Martti Kuoppa all arrived, during the evening we headed for a fun session at James’ Tintadome riding spot which his workplace during the day, riding spot during the night. My body clock was screaming bedtime, so I decided to take the time to shoot some photographs.

JoeC

MK

If you are following flatmatters on instagram, you will have also seen the distraction training video with James McGraw taking out Joe Cicman with a roll of paper towel, myself, Moto, Michael and Moto were all adjusting to the time change so it was pretty chilled and a good time hanging out and joking with all the riders, check out the photos I shot.
Thanks to Joel Schallhorn for the use of his camera. Today we had to Evolve skatepark in Denver for jam day. Check out a selection of photos I shot below that I feel some up the day quite well! Once again like last year, the vibe is great between the riders, looking forward to riding today! Stay tuned for more updates on FM!

Moto

JM

MS