Sunday, Day 3 of my trip to Helsinki, seriously why hadn’t I been here before, I kept thinking that the whole trip! In the morning we heading to a burger joint, via a sightseeing tour of more Martti’s riding spots and some wild monuments (see above), he showed us the famous white room spot, and a few old spots where he filmed for intrikat. I personally love this kind of stuff, bit of history is great! He also showed us a new spot thats hes yet to ride at, which was two basketball courts facing back to back to back on each other, the ground felt so fast! The man is spoilt for riding spots, no joke! After breakfast we headed to the spot for the day (or so we thought), the riding spot was a huge hockey pitch, super fast ground, sadly there were hockey players there this day, Martti called it “the whiplash spot”, and opened his session with over ten as a warm up, i gave up counting to be honest! Moto and Ikeda continued where they left off the day before with new tricks session, aboutr an hour into session behind the hockey goals, Martti decided to take everyone back to the basketball courts, and jam there for the day..

The whole day was super laidback, with riders sessioning at their own freewill. Some riders went swimming as it was so hot! Others like me, sweated it out all day at the spot. This day was awesome, as I got to ride with Timo Lanki, was great to see him riding and ripping. Timo has the skills! Much respect to guys who have been in the game for over double digits! Super smooth gliding no handed switch-b’s a’la Pete Brandt back in the day (Reality Tv part 1), love it! (see below).

Bert and Aleksi had a nice session in the corner of the basketball courts, Bert was working on pedal rolaids, and hitting all kinds of whopper variations, and Aleksi was doing a really nice slowed down yammer spin direct to x foot halfpacker (see below), super hard combo, with really smooth style! Anything with x foot halfpackers in it is sick in my book. Hope to see more from these two riders in the very near future! Keep pushing guys!!

Martti rode a lil bit this day, and pulled loads of mega spin whopper mega spin combos, by the time I got my phone out to film, he was pretty tired. But managed a nice mega spin whopper mega spin to perverted out, he just touched the back wheel, so hes letting me use that one! You will have to wait for further footage on his solo dvd, its gonna be nuts!!! The day pretty wrapped up after we shot the video clip. And we headed to the afterparty for groundtactics, as part of the urb festival. It was located at this huge house, right by the river, lovely setting, sun was shining, food was laid out, tunes were blasting, really cool end to a rad weekend in Helsinki, Finland!

The mc, Michael Black Electro (see below) had me in stitches with his freestyles throughout the night, a crazy storm swept upon us in an instant mid way through the party. Never seen anything like it. Blue sky, then totally black within seconds. I guess you had to be there. It was wild! I think i freaked out Martti with my ability to know exactly when he was passing me a beer! The urb festival crew were stoked on groundtactics, we headed back to Marttis flat as i had early flight in the morning, no sleep for me! It didnt matter. Some things you just have to say you’ve done, and now I can say it! I’ve been to the home of the boss! And i will definitely be going back! Ground fucking tactics! What a success!

After the contest, we headed over the road to a spot right by the art gallery that was putting on the “urb festival”. The spot had two sides, side nearest road was taken up with flatlanders, the other side behind a large statue was a skateboard spot, with ledges and stuff there, almost like it was made for them. This spot had a great vibe, people sat on the wall drinking beers and watching flatland. I had a good session with Dane Beardlsey for a few hours, Dane was working a super nice combo, backwards two dump truck pivot to upside down wheelie shove-it turbine to ice cream to backwards backyard xft pivot wheelie out!

Dane Beardsley.

Whilst Moto, Ikeda and Toon rested after the contest, hanging with Martti and the stoked Helsinki locals. After a few hours everyone kinda joined in, Bert Ribul from Estonia rips, we featured a lil edit a few months back, and I wondered “whos that?”, Bert is a real talent! Quick bars manual to whopper to pedals for example! Look for an interview soon…Aleksi Ritsila got involved in the session and dropped his nice carved peg wheelie to downside decade with ease…

Bert Ribul.

Moto and Ikeda soon got in the mood to ride again, and the session for them turned into “new tricks session”, Moto for example dropped a sick backwards spinning two footed pedal steam on the left side (opposite?) walkover to crackpacker right hand side!!! Whilst Ikeda stubble ducked into almost all his combos, whether in caboose position or gerator position, so awesome to see these guys away from the contest element, letting it fly! So where was Martti I hear you say? Well… Martti was being a host and chatting to everyone, getting food for the riders, beers, generally being an awesome host!

Moto Sasaki, nose wheelie direct to this…

The vibe was great! Everyone relaxed, chatting with few beers and riding in between! The weather was in the 80’s the whole time I was in Finland, for the japanese and Toon from Thailand it was a welcome rest bite from the humid tempertures they endure on a daily basis. So they were psyched. Everyone started working on new stuff, inspired by the great day they had all just experienced! It didnt get dark till at least 1130, which was pretty wild! Actually in some parts of finland, i believe in July it only gets dark for half an hour. I can’t imagine that!

As if Martti wasn’t already enough of a great host, he presented Moto with a huge bottle of champagne for winning groundtactics! Moto was stoked, but didn’t look like he’d be drinking it quite yet! After this lil presentation, the beers really started flowing, it was a great end to a great day! Day three coming tommorow…

Saturday was the day of the groundtactics final! Martti had to teach kids flatland during the morning, he was stoked kids were really responding to flatland, I chilled at Martti’s flat with the guys. So we rode down to the venue around midday, with Toon as our guide, we got lost! So a quick call to Martti and he came to pick us up and ride down to the venue. The contest was scheduled for 5pm, we arrived at the venue, in downtown Helsinki at 1pm.

Martti took us all to lunch, he went out of his way all weekend to make sure the guys were comfortable and ready to compete. The rice was flowing, as Martti explained what myself and he were looking for in terms of judging criteria, and the five run format! Groundtactics is not a regular contest, this is about pushing the level of flatland higher, and the format gave the riders the chance to do that! I personally thought this was a very personal touch that only someone like Martti can bring, cause he understands the concerns and questions of a top rider.

The locals were naturally stoked to see big names like Moto Sasaki, Takahiro Ikeda and Toon in their native homeland. The whole vibe was really relaxed. The groundtactics event was part of a creative arts festival called “URB”. Just around the corner from the event was a sweet lil coffee bar with flatland photographs being exhibited. Lot of spectators came to check out the unique groundtactics contest, and more importantly stayed and interacted with the riders before, during and after the event.

The guys had a real good vibe towards each other all weekend, it was kinda funny before the runs as they prepared, this was the one time they separated all weekend! The five run format had plenty of twists, if it had been a one run format, Takahiro Ikeda would have won! Both Takahiro and Toon’s first runs were their best, Moto’s 3rd run was his best of the day, during some runs when he touched, he’d go for some insane combos, which is what we wanted, backwards spinning karl bar flip to circle k to halfpacker stuck out in my mind, as like wow, he’s going for it! Ikeda pushed his level, trying the time machine walkover to spinning gerator without laying the bike down, plus a few new moves in there, both he and Moto had a ton of new stuff. Moto dropped a wicked nose manual direct to backwards spinning karl to xft steam flip to halfpacker in practise, sadly this combo didn’t appear in the contest, nevertheless, the audience knew what was up and grasped as he threw his body into the backwards spin. It was a beautiful moment. Toon was stomping everything in practise, I thought he might cause an upset, but sadly crumbled under the pressure. His grunts mid trick were the topic of many riders throughout the weekend, Toon was a ton of fun to hang out with. He’ll be back! The mc, Michael Black electro brought a nice light hearted hip hop style to a serious contest! The riders, and the audience were stoked, from the contest we went for a session at a nearby riding spot! Much respect to Nokia for supporting the groundtactics event! What a success for the first year! One of the best events ive ever been to!

Like a dream, I finally made it to Finland, home of the boss, after many years of idealising Martti’s riding, here I was on Friday 6th August in Helsinki Finland. Only a two hour flight from London, I kept thinking “how have i not been here before?”. The first thing to hit me was how hot it was, the english summer seems to be on a break right right, we are at comfortable 60/70’s, off the plane to 85 plus humidity, groundtacticccccsssss.

Martti picked me up from the airport in his Monster van, he’s likes his marlboro smokes… We then went to meet Moto, Ikeda and Toon at one of Martti’s many flatland spots. Famous from the Kgb dvd, the floor was really compact, so very fast, slight slant. In the middle of housing estate, and art complex, so everything was cool. Really relaxed vibe, already about 15-20 riders, busting out with the ghettoblaster in full effect! Good times! First thing to notice was that Moto had a lot of new tricks! Because of his recent contest schedule I was quite surprised by this, really liked his backwards spinning xft steam (ala Yammer) pivot direct to spinning circle k, it was one of those sweet moves, I wondered why I didn’t think of that. Martti briefly took to his bike, and nailed a lovely mega spin whopper to mega spin to gliding junkyard, then like a “mind of a lunatic” rode so fast into a rolaid. So good! In between all this madness I set my bike up, and had lil’ session with the guys. Martti and myself headed to get pizza for the guys and drop my bags at his flat. Really awesome to see Martti on hometurf, totally relaxed, in his element.