Saturday marked Day 2 of the Ruhr Games for me, and and the first day of the contest. We kicked off with a contest at 12 to get the rider order for Saturday nights semi final which will take 8 riders to the final out of the 11 invited riders.
Category Archives: Articles
Repo: Ruhr Games Day 1
A few weeks ago I received a nice message from Michael Steingraeber asking if I would like to judge the Ruhr Games contest in Dortmund, Germany. I eventually got a nice flight price from Southampton which is closer to my house than London gatwick or Heathrow. So it was a yes and here I am.
Last Times with Gabe Weed
Intro: Effraim.
Photos: Mike Gambill.
Since the awards went down in December, I have been thinking of a way to have some exclusive content on the site with a fast turn around. For anyone that does not know, interviews are a long drawn out process. I started digging through some old ‘zines I made, and randomly I came across a “Last Times” feature, quick answers, easy to digest. Ideal, I turned a few pages and there was an interview I did with Andrew Arroyo, and Gabe Weed! Easily over 20 years ago, Gabe might not even remember it. Gabe and Andrew were two of my favourite riders growing up, so I’m getting this feature started again with the man himself Gabe Weed.
Enjoy, and let us know what you think in the comments section, thanks!
Giannis Caternellis Flatmattersonline Interview Part 2
Intro/Interview: Paul Chamberlain, Todd Carter, Rodney Williams, Effraim.
Photos/Trick descriptions: Manthos Ekteman & Giannis Caternellis.
Part 1 of the Giannis Caternellis Flatmattersonline interview caused a positive reaction on the site a few weeks ago. Rather than ask all the questions myself, I discussed with Giannis about asking a few riders to chime in questions. This second part of the interview is focussed on questions from Paul Chamberlain, Todd Carter and Rodney Williams, let’s do this!
Giannis with a move he calls the Michelin.
Giannis Caternellis – The Flatmattersonline Interview Part 1
Intro/Interview: Effraim.
Photos/Trick descriptions: Manthos Ekteman & Giannis Caternellis.
Hello everyone!
It’s hard to believe that it’s been over a year since the last in-depth Flatmattersonline interview, but that sadly is a true story!
Many of you in the comments section of the site have requested an interview with Giannis, around that same time period people were asking, I was already putting wheels in motion to make that happen. Who better to bring back the interviews than Giannis Caternellis!
Who is he, where is he from, what is he all about, what’s his background? During the last 3-4 months that it took to put this together I have tried to dig as deep as possible into questions that I felt would get into Giannis personality and find out more about Giannis that I came to realise whilst making this interview, is a purist. He lives and breathes flatland, as a rider and as a fan, it’s no secret that putting these interviews is my favourite part of publishing FM. Grab a cuppa and enjoy this. Let’s get into this part 1 interview!
Battle in the Rockies – Day 5
Day 5 is already upon us, Friday was a goooddddd day! We all met up at the Tintadome before heading down to the Expo Center, the first person I was greeted by was old school legend, Dave Nourie! Great to see him again, plenty of other riders started arriving, everyone was excited to get a ride in at the contest venue.
Battle in the Rockies – Day 3
The days are going so fast here, already on Day 3 out here for the Battle in the Rockies contest! Yesterday was by far the busiest day yet, the morning began with heading to the Tintadome to work on last minute tweaks for the event, finishing off trophies, visiting a few local bikeshops and so on.
Battle in the Rockies – Day 1
Yesterday I made the long trip out to the annual Battle in the Rockies contest this year being held in James Mcgraw’s hometown in beautiful Monument, Colorado. After a pretty smooth flight out to Denver, I was greeted by James telling me to held it right there, he wanted a photo of me above the immigration sign. It was a welcome sight after a long day travelling to already by greeted by a joking, hyperactive McGraw. Somethings never change, and perhaps they shouldn’t.
The trip from Denver to Colorado Springs is around an hour, I wanted to get a taste of America right away so we headed to what James called Donald Trump’s favourite restaurant “Five Guys”, and discussed the week ahead. Unlike previous years I have been here, there is no snow at the moment, and it’s 70 degrees, blue skies with amazing views of the rockies all around.
After dropping bags and stuff, we headed to James’ work aka the Tintadome where he also rides after opening hours. James got a session in, it was awesome to see what James is working on outside of his contest runs. I built my bike whilst we also waited for Bill Nitschke to arrive who funnily enough left at the exact same time of me 12:30 UK time, 8:30 his time, making the 1000 mile drive from Indianpolis. Pure beast mode!
I was lagging by the time Bill arrived, we grabbed a few beers and called it a night.
Stay tuned for updates daily.
-E
Landscapes Review
Review: Effraim.
DVD’s in the modern era are a sad rarity in our scene from my perspective, during the last two years you can count those on less than one hand. Dane Beardsley’s Same thing daily project and IGI’s travel video are all we have had. Stewart Munro from Australia stepped up to the plate with an ambitious project to collect and edit together rider sections from all the planet, when you think about that in the modern internet culture and free edits available everyday it almost seems like a thankless task.
Thankfully Stewart stuck to the task which being so far away from all the other riders is I can imagine a tough task to collate together. The downloadable video straight to your laptop is catching on in other sports such as Skateboarding, more recently massive companies such as Adidas are releasing their projects for a small fee online. Will it catch on to what is essentially a small flatland audience? Only time will tell…
FlatDev Photogallery Part 2 by Schogn Lee
Yesterday we featured part 1 of Schogn Lee’s amazing photo gallery from Flatdev 2016, today we feature part 2 with lesser known names as well as the Pros (thanks to Schogn for help identifying riders). Enjoy the awesome photographs!
No handed teakettle by Mohamad Shafeeq b Fathurrahman.