17 YEARS OF FLATMATTERSONLINE

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27th November 2008, it all began as a blogspot for Flatmattersonline!

It’s quite fitting, that I celebrate 17 years of Flatmattersonline today here in Japan, widely known as the most progressive country in the flatland world.

What do I celebrate about 17 years of running FM? I celebrate the flatland community, everyone who’s made a video, and in turn shared it the community, the original ethos of the website hasn’t changed in the last 17 years, and it’s something still use in my own riding day to day.

“To document, share and progress! “.

For personally, I think the biggest celebration is the fact I’m still going all these years on, you can’t really realistically wish for anymore than that, more recently faced a big challenge with the website keep going down. Thankfully my good friend, Martin Northern was able to save the website and all that content.

Thank you Martin! 

Who’s been here since the beginning? Would love to hear people’s first memory.

Happy 17 years to Flatmattersonline, long may it continue. 

  • Effraim. 
  • It’s also almost time for the 2025 Flatmattersonline year end awards, again this is something I wanted to do to give back to the flatland culture, and celebrate much more than rider of the year (although that’s of course an important award!). Stay tuned for that announcement around mid December! 

Naoto Tamaru & Carin Hommura win 2025 Flatark + Full results

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The annual Flatark contest just went down this past weekend at the Yokohama Urban Sports Festival! 

Congrats to Naoto Tamaru taking the win in the Open class hitting all his signature stuff with style and flow he is infamous for, followed by Ren Oshima (see photo below) and Takato Moriya in the third place spot mixing bangers front and back wheel!

In the women’s class, Carin Hommura took the win, just ahead of Nanue Takahashi and Nina Suzuki in third (see photos below in order of placing), the level is getting better each event as cliche’ as that is to say, it’s true!

Great to watch this event using a similar style to street league in skateboarding, each combo pulled was scored live. 

Podium Results:

Open Class.

1st Naoto Tamaru 

2nd Ren Oshima 

3rd Takato Moriya

Womens Class.

1st Carin Honmura 

2nd Nanae Takahashi 

3rd Nina Suzuki

Expert Class.

1st Sota Watanabe 

2nd Ginsei Kawauchi 

3rd Ryuya Kanamoto

Novice Class.

1st Jiro Kaneko 

2nd Joji Harafuji 

3rd Hiromu Ide

Photo credit: @hikarufunyu 

Olly- Hood Cast #2: Yu Katagiri Podcast

Jigen Omothehara just started a podcast, covering Japanese riders that many times I’ve said with riders globally “we don’t know much about”… Jije hits the ground running with his second episode guest being the 2025 UCI World Champion Yu Katagiri.
They discuss contest formats, the need to be aggressive in the contest environment, rather than focused on consistency, the national federation, contest surfaces, relationships, switching from front wheel to back wheel, Yohei Uchino’s inspiration and much much more.
Thank you Jije for getting this started, I’ve been waiting for something like this from the Japanese scene.
Well worth a listen with the English subtitles…

Yu Katagiri wins the UCI World Championship 2025: Men’s Elite

Congratulations to Yu Katagiri who held onto the first place spot from qualifying, thus taking the UCI World Championship title back to Japan in a tense final that right down to the wire.

Yu nailed his 360 bikeflip line to seal the deal with a score of 91. Closely followed by Jean William Prevost from Canada, who carried the fight for the title with his insane back wheel pivot skills, and third place went to Dustyn Alt from Germany who had one of the most impressive runs keeping the tempo high for the whole 3 minutes. What a contest, great to see the Riyadh crowd loving flatland and the level getting pushed in the contest pressure cooker atmosphere!

Thanks Ryan Russell for the podium shots!

Chiaki Todaka wins the UCI World Championships 2025: Women’s Elite

Congratulations to 15 year old Chiaki Todaka taking the UCI World Championship title back to Japan, followed by Carin Hommura and Sona Yoshimura in third place with Hungarian Veronika Kadar in the fourth place spot. The level was the highest I’ve seen so far in the Women’s class, really exciting to watch the progression each event. (Check the socials for some mind blowing lines from these shredders!).

Chiaki Todaka takes top spot in Women’s Elite Qualifying at the UCI WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Japanese domination in the Women’s Elite class with the top three all Japanese, out here at 2025 UCI World Championships in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Chiaki Todaka in the top qualifying spot, ahead of Carin Hommura and Sona Yoshimura and Veronika Kadar from Hungary in the fourth place qualifying spot. Good luck to all the finalists tomorrow.

Ross Smith: 2010s

Golden footage from the archives around the 2010 period, from one of the best to ever do it. Non other than Ross South, double rolaids, check, double straddle-ronis, check, backwards xft-ed hitch jugglers, its all here! Ross is one of the masters of feathering the brake, a technique sadly lost and overlooked in the brakeless era!