Battle of Elsinore 1998 went down in Toronto, Canada. An event that was once primarily a flatland event went street, and flatland eventually got the axe from the program. I’m not sure about the details on the organizational end, but the name changed and the annual event is now known as the Metro Jam.

Despite all this, in 1998, flatland was embarking on a journey into a new era, as Martti Kouppa made his debut on the global flatland scene. After a mesmerizing run at World Championships, rumors were flying everywhere in North America-“Dude, there’s this guy in Europe, he’s like the next Kevin Jones!”…Sponsored by Chiquita Bananas and adorned in bright colors, it was hard to miss Martti Kuoppa, throwing down the new tricks and styles people had been hearing about. From that point on, Martti continued to change the face of flatland, chronicled in the Intrikat video series.

This clip also showcases other flatland moguls of the time, Chad Degroot, Andrew Faris, Dan Rigby, Brian Tunney, and Cory Stratychuk. There’s also a Dan Rigby interview as a bonus! I personally feel that in this era, the most varied types of techniques were being widely used in flatland- rolling, scuffing, barflips, front brake, back brake, turbines, g-turns, undertakers, etc. -Framestand locomotive to cross-footed stick-b, sick!
Text by Bobby Carter.

Text by Sam Foakes.

As part of the Bolton Get Active Day, Chris Massey organised a Flatland/Trials demo and a Flatland competition for riders from the local Flatland Youth Clubs (of which there are now two!). Ashley Adams was in attendance on a borrowed bike and is showing great progress every time I see him. Today he did not compete, instead he spent the day coaching and mentoring the younger riders.

The contest took place in the pouring rain, with all riders needing their rims dried before putting down a run. It didn’t hold anyone back as everyone went for their best stuff.
Conner is a rider I have not seen before, and has a lot of energy for flatland. He learnt cross footed endo’s for the first time today and then pulled it first trick in the comp. 3rd place in comp and winner of the best new comer award.
Ashley pulled a two footed hopping mc circle and a nice run for second, and has only been riding for a short time. Good to see.
The winner of the contest was George, who showed good flow and consistent tricks. He showed definite potential for the future.

The riding during the competition was grass roots flatland, with the focus being completely on new riders. All riders got prizes, big cheers and a great experience of Flatland competition.

Big thanks to Chris and Warren for a great day.

Results:
1-George
2-Ashley
3-Conner

Runners up:
Liam
Jay
Jake
Devontay
Dan

Best Newcomer:
Conner

James pays homage to his props groundworks part last weekend at the TGM jam, funny stuff!!

Text + Video by Bobby Carter.

This is the historical “Rain Scene” from Diversion 3.0.
Rain killed a good session in New Orleans, but Terry didn’t let that stop him. A sprinkle turned into a monsoon, but Terry kept riding. At certain points the water was about 8 inches deep. Somehow he was able scuff, pivot, spin, barflip and just about everything else on on a water slick bike. It was was a crazy phenomenon of mind over matter. This was released on VHS tape back when you-tube and vimeo didn’t exist. In case you missed it, here it is. Enjoy!

Text by Bobby Carter.

King of Ground is the longest running flatland series in the world. It was created in 1999 by a group of pro flatlanders that wanted to help build the BMX scene in Japan. The series was successful. With the absence of skateparks at that time, flatland blew up in Japan.
There are three events in various parts of the country, allowing most riders to participate regionally. Although most of the media out there is of the pro class, if you go to the event, there is a very large amount of AM participation. Hundreds of AM riders come together and have fun at each event! The video presented here is a throwback clip of an early KOG finals in Tokyo!

Keelan Phillips, spinning cliff on his way to First place.

Photos by Marcelo Nardi.
Text by Effraim.

There a million things running through my head after this weekends Odyssey Flatware contest in Luton. The event was part of arts festival in the city town weekend.
It turned out a sunny day in the end, and a good amount of riders turned out and even a few faces, which I was psyched to see.
The format was simple, battle format, one rider against another, in the event of an odd number in the battle three riders would battle for the top two spots, one rider would go out.

The expert class had a decent turnout for the UK. With a lot of fresh faces, which was great to see, the format was quick based, and before I knew it I was announcing the semi final, pretty crazy!!! Highlights were definitely Salvador landing his first decade that day! By the end of day he had landed six! Congrats dude! Salvador took his brakeless decades, backwards gadget whips, backwards cliffhangers to third place. There were some great battles along with the way with the likes of Random Rob vs. Salvador, new faces like Michael and Norbert  were the highlight of the contest for me(sorry don’t know their second names,) Michael ruled with a very Alexis Desolneux type of style, brakeless g turn front scuff to pedal 5 out, pedal 5 half bar flip out, and pedal 5 bar flips, it was debateable that he should have won, Norbert did nice turbine hitches, and front wheel boomerang type combos but struggled on the floor, Faqe and Adhim brought their flava into the mix, along with Bmxism’s Trevor who laced together a nice fire hydrant turbine and turbine mega spin to win his first battle, the first place spot went to Jimmy Bondi, a French rider living in Andover, who did bring more variety to the mix, rear wheel backpackers to caboose, time machines, and took home the win and whole bag of goodies from Flatware, he was psyched. Props to all the am’s competing, I really think this contest was about them, these are the riders that matter, these are the future!!! Keep it up!!!

We ran the pro class right after the Ams finished, there were an odd number of riders in the Pro, so one battle was three riders. Lee Wilson made the step up to Pro, and rode consistently in the battle with James White and Jason Forde, I think Lee was surprised as anyone, but 4 clean links took him through with James and Jason sweating over the second spot, it was a tight decision with neither James or Jason pulling a great deal, the decision went to James…

Keelan Phillips had no such trouble, easing his way through his battle with Kevin Brown, meeting Steve Green in semis, Keelan’s consistency was too much for Steve, although Steve in his battle with Lee Wilson for the third place spot, laced a lovely pedal manual to brakeless decade out,  one of the best tricks of the day, stoked to see Steve busting out, Lee had bit of trouble getting it together, which was a shame after starting so well in the opening battle, what is good is we have new riders stepping up to the plate! Much respect!!!

James White got it together after an early wobble to face Keelan in the final defeating, or was that a Beyonce booty shake, the final battle which I already posted up, had the crowd cheering the loudest of the day, Keelan rode flawless with hitchhiker, cliffhanger and crack turbines all over the floor, whilst James touched a few times, James degree of difficulty was higher, but not enough to defeat the consistency that Keelan brought to the hardboard cobbled floor, Keelan deserves mad respect for being able to deal with that floor, I for one couldn’t, hence why I announced…

Judges and Flatmatters hard at work…

Much respect to everyone who turned out and supported,Aleks for organising! Odyssey Flatware for supporting the UK scene, I do believe we need to reach some kind of standard as to what is required to put on a flatland contest, we have had two contests in the last year in the Uk, where the floor has been terrible to put it nicely, let’s learn from the mistakes and build the scene!!!!