Throwback Thursdays with Props 65 & The Red Bull Circle of Balance 2007

Happy birthday to Viki Gomez, this weeks TBT is dedicated to Viki. The Red Bull Circle of Balance in Tokyo, Japan went off. Stew Johnston flew out to Japan to document the event for Props Video magazine, this section still rules to this day. So much good riding, you don’t want to sleep on this one!

Jean William Prevost wins Fise World in Chengdu, China

Congratulations to Jean William Prevost who took the win at the final stop of the Fise World Series in Chengdu, China. Dub was followed on the podium by Moto Sasaki and Matthias Dandois, you can watch the top three runs, check the results and the whole finals below. Congratulations also to Matthias Dandois who took the year end Fise World title, followed by Alex Jumelin and Jean William Prevost.

Final Results:

1- Jean William Prevost
2- Moto Sasaki
3- Matthias Dandois
4- Alex Jumelin
5- Dez Maarsen
6. Viki Gomez
7. Raphael Chiquet
8. Takumi Isogai

Watch the whole finals:

Alex Jumelin wins Chimera Games Replacement Contest in Tokyo, Japan

Congratulations to Alex Jumelin who just won the Chimera Games replacement contest in Tokyo, Japan followed on the podium by Viki Gomez and Fumiya Kanna and Jean William Prevost tied for third. Alex won all three of his battles to take the spot with a final battle against Viki Gomez. The event almost didn’t happen because of a big storm arriving in Japan but Trinity Skatepark saved the day and a replacement contest went ahead. Big up everyone involved making this happen despite the weather conditions.

Repo: Vienna Jam by Sebastian Grubinger

Text/Photo captions: Sebastian Grubinger.
Photos: Peter Provaznik.

Edit: Tom Sevisual.

VIENNA JAM 2018 from Sebastian Grubinger on Vimeo.

Good people bring good vibes and this is so evident from this years Vienna Jam. BMX and flatland needs more of this level of event. Look at all the smiles and good times from Tom Sevisual’s Vienna Jam edit above and Sebastian’s repo below. Big respect to Sebastian for putting this event on and helping grow flatland at a grassroots level whilst on a big stage.


Dustyn Alt killed it all weekend long. Winning the Best Trick on Sunday and collecting plenty of euros during the cash for tricks jam.

What a weekend, but let’s start from the beginning …

It’s been 8 years ago when voices got louder that it’s time for a Flatland Jam in Vienna. It didn’t take long and an already closed BMX Shop and I organized a small jam. Nothing special, just some fun contests like Hang-5 slalom, some goodies from several BMX companies and time to jam together. The main goal was to bring people together and have a good time. From this time on it happened every year …

Now, 8 years later, I got the chance to organize the Vienna Jam at one of European’s biggest bike festivals. The “Bike Festival Vienna” happened for the 20th year in front of Vienna’s city hall on the „Rathausplatz“. It has over 100 000 visitors on the weekend and shows all kind of bike sports.


Vienna Jam 2018. 35 riders, 14 nations. An amazing weekend for Flatland.


Sietse van Berkel. On and off his bike is amazing. And you should see him teaching flatland to the kids.


Akos Bordas representing Hungary during the cash for tricks and the best trick contest.

Repo:

But now about the weekend …

Friday the Vans Vienna Pre – Jam went down on Vienna’s local spot „Heldenplatz“. Already a lot of riders showed up and spent the evening together riding and hanging out. A very promising start into the weekend.

Saturday all started with Flatland workshops. Viki and me offered everyone who’s interested to ride a BMX bike and try some tricks. To be honest I didn’t expect so many people and I have to say a huge THANK YOU to all the riders who helped out. Workshops were scheduled for 2 hours but it happened to be all morning. Anyway it was a blast to see kids riding and trying their first tricks! The future is bright!


Mates Tucek impressed everyone with his mind blowing x-ft skills.

Around noon more and more riders arrived and started to rock the spot. The „Cash for Trix“ Jam late afternoon turned turned out to be huge: 35 riders from 14 nations. We had 500 Euros in small bills to give away and everyone, from beginner to pro, was killing it while DJ Preddy was spinning his 45s.

Right after the Cash for Tricks Jam all the riders moved from Rathausplatz to Heldenplatz to throw down the biggest jam I’ve ever seen on my home spot! Amazing vibes.
We ended the day at a local pub with around 20 riders – cheers!


Dustyn Alt mid best trick winning line.

Again, after a few hours of workshops on Sunday morning, everyone got ready for the Best Trick Contest. 1,5 minutes for each rider to show the best combo or trick. Price money for top five (700, 400, 200, 100, 100).
19 riders from 11 nations took part and everyone rode amazing! Some landed the combo first try, some in the last second. A huge audience was amazed!
Dustyn Alt took the win. He started the Contest and had to leave right after his 1,5 minutes to drive back 6,5 hours to Germany to go to work. Second place went to George Manos, followed by Gilles van de Sompel. Wolfgang Sauter and France Granic placed 4th and 5th.
Again the day ended on Heldenplatz with a big jam … well and for some of us later in the same pub as the day before 🙂


Showing his talent not only on Belgium TV, but also at the Vienna Jam. Gilles van de Sompel.

I can’t thank all of you enough who came to Vienna and made this event and weekend so special! You all rule!

The Vienna Jam will be back for sure – I don’t know when and I don’t know where but I promise, the main goal, like 8 years ago, will be: bring riders together and have a great time riding BMX!


Viki Gomez at the Vienna Jam for the second year. Here, mid death truck line.

Fise Jeddah 2018 – Flatland Final Highlights

Springtime is finally here, let’s start off a big week on FM with this Fise Highlights edit that Ride BMX put together from the flatland finals at the weekend at Fise Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. Hit play and check this one out!

Inside the Flatlander’s Mind: Overcoming Riders Block.

Intro/Article: Effraim.
Photos: Bobby Carter, Kai Kuusisto, Alicja Korbinska, Tom Sevisual, Keith Mulligan.

All so often we only see the polished finished article, we turn up as riders at a contest and amazing riding, and flawless runs, or we see a “Must Watch” edit here on Flatmattersonline. What we don’t see is the blood, sweat, tears and psychological games that riders struggle with behind the scenes. I have faced this quite often over my riding career, and when it comes, it tells me “it’s time to switch things up”.
Every rider is different and that is one of multitude of things that we all love about flatland. I found something as simple in concept as learning something with bars forwards or backwards, learn something opposite or sometimes ride a different spot than I normally would. I have this saying in flatland, “learn everything you can, there are no bad tricks to learn, as flatland will catch up and bite you on the ass when you need that trick the most. I wondered about what other riders do to overcome this natural process of riding flatland over the years. ”

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Vienna Jam – 14/15th April

Sebastian Grubinger hit me up today with some jam news for your flatland calendar. Here’s what he had to say:

“We will have 1500€ price money. 500 for the cash for tricks Jam on Saturday where everybody gets some euros for the tricks he lands. And then on Sunday the best trick contest. 600 for first place. 300 for second and 100 for 3rd.
Also we have workshops for whoever wants to try flatland with Viki Gomez and myself.
It all takes place during the Vienna bike festival with a lot of other events thrown in.
It’s the 20th birthday of the event, in the past years with around 100,000 visitors on the weekend. So quite a big audience to promote flatland with a jam.

More news soon.

http://www.bikefestival.at

The 2017 Flatmattersonline Year End Award Nominees are…..

Happy New Year everyone! It’s time to announce the nominees for the editorial and reader choice 2017 Flatmattersonline Year end awards, thank you to everyone who took the time to vote. As always it is interesting to see what you the reader of Flatmattersonline thinks compared to my editorial votes. And last not certainly not least congratulations to all the nominees.

Flatmatters!

Effraim Catlow

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Throwback Thursdays – inTRIKat Land Escape: B (United Soil)

For this week’s Throwback I go back to 2003 and this amazing inTRIKat Land Escape: B (United Soil) segment that features Aaron Frost, Pete Brandt, Ed Nassbaum, Brandon Fenton, Stephan Cerra, Viki Gomez, Martti Kuoppa, and Simon O’Brien! This is still to this day, so good. Don’t sleep on this!