The build up to this weeks 10th anniversary has been a massive learning curve for me and running the Flatmattersonline site. Today it is Sam Foakes, James White, Nikola Olic and Viki Gomez turn in the hot seat.
Category Archives: Interviews
10 Years of Flatmattersonline – Episode 3
It is hard for me to believe, and take in that it’s been 10 years of Flatmattersonline! I wanted to show something special for the 10th anniversary of the site and today I have episode 3 featuring another selection of some of my biggest inspirations. Martti Kuoppa, Chad Johnston, Johann Chan, and James McGraw take their turn in the hot seat.
Enjoy!
Throwback Thursdays – The Abe Hamilton Interview


Intro/interview EC, photos provided by Abe.
If you have seen “Same thing daily” you will know this name, Abe Hamilton, previously I had never heard of this guy, and he delivers one of the best sections I’ve seen in a while, unique whiplash body varial tricks with savvy style the section was short and left me wanting to see more.
Without further a due, lets get started with this interview.
I don’t know much about you Abe so first few questions will be obvious ones. I guess onto first question. Introduce yourself , where are you from? How long have you been riding?
Well… My name’s Abe, I’m from the beautiful and industrious city know as Hamilton, Ontario. and I’ve probably been riding the better part of a decade?
How did you get into flatland?
Flatland in specific, I guess cause I used to walk home from school with this guy who had some crappy twin top tube haro, I thought it was cool, and when we got to his house he’d show off by doing endo’s and catwalks, then double ride me home. After a while I figured I should just get my own real bike and learn cool stuff too. Then shortly after I ran into the Pergentiles, and they were already pro. It just kind of rolled from there.
What’s your bike set up?
Comfortable. It’s Fly Campillo (sp)? with what ever the cheapest offset forks with a brake hole the bike store had, I think they’re old Mcneil forks, and slam bars. Other than that, big seat, big gear, normal stem, classic powerbites, and a front calliper stolen from a garbaged bike.
Stolen from a garbage can haha nice, how did you hook up with Dane Beardsley for a part on his dvd?
I knew him for a bit before the videos, from Jams and stuff. He used to come up and hang out and whatnot for a few days before each HamJam. Then one day he asked to film a whiplash combo for Video name. Then a year or so later, after a Jam he asked if I wanted to film a part or few clips or whatever I wanted for his new video.
Hows the riding scene in Hamilton? Many riders? Good spots?
It’s a good little street city, it had a lot of flatland riders, but people grow up and get real lives and stuff, you know. There’s always spots around, but I’ve pretty much rode in the same spot ( Bethel ) for how ever long i’ve been riding, and they just built a skate park down the street from it, so I’m set.
Were you stoked with the reaction to your section on Same thing daily, no one knew who you were, and boom, one of the best sections?
Reaction? boom? best? haha wow, I don’t know’bout that, but thank you. I was content because I had a few tricks that took me years to pull and that I thought were cool in it. I just tried to film stuff and a part that wasn’t boring or full of filler, to me. I think it’s pretty cool if some people thought it was alright.
Any new videoparts in the works Abe?
That’s classified, but maybe, no promises.
The body varial whiplashes are insane, how did you get into that stuff? What inspired you?
Drugs, space, flow regimes, fibonacci. No, I don’t know man. After learning all the whiplashes I got hung up on learning the basics, switches and everything without holding my seat cause I thought holding your arm out and holding your seat looked really silly and lame. I dunno, some stuff just feels right when you’re learning it, and that kind of stuff did/does to me, dunno. No real inspiration really. It just ended up that way. I like simplistic stuff that flows and is right to the point, no whacky direction changes, no filler.
Do you see yourself ending up doing all that stuff brakeless, like your bike set up is ultra basic, doing that stuff brakeless would be the logical step? Simplify everything..
Haha, it pretty much is brakeless. The “fake-brake” is a piece of crap, it seriously doesn’t work at all. I just have so I can pull my barrel adjuster all the way out and have some feathering in case traffic’s bad when I bomb down the mountain road access, .. and to cut my thumb all up. Sometimes when I’m trying stuff, having my hand on a lever or squeezing one tricks my brain into thinking that i wont eat shit. It helps, but has no real function.
True undergrounders are very rare in this world of the internet, but you truly could be regarded as one, do you keep up to ate with whats going on in flatland world, or not of a concern to you?
Oh now, I don’t want to be regarded as “underground” or anything, That’s always got some weird “reclusive hermit” like stigma attached to it. I just ride a bike and have no desire to make enough effort to care about being out there. Some might call that, Aloof or uninterested, or maybe just lazy.
Up to date or no concern?
Honestly? No, no concern, no real super interest, not really. I like good flatland, and the people I’ve met from it and sometimes I’ll search youtube for videos or browse the blogs and stuff. but yeah…I’m not fanatic about it.
What riders if any do you look to?
Anyone who just rides for fun i guess, no one who takes it serious.
Any shoutouts?
They know who they are.
Thanks for your time Abe.
Ten Years of Flatmattersonline – Episode 2
Thank you everyone for an amazing response yesterday to 10 Years of Flatmattersonline! My phone literally did not stop all day between the website posts, Facebook, Instagram and private messages.
As I said yesterday we continue with my celebration of 10 years with Episode 2 featuring Pete Brandt, Jay Marley, Sebastian Grubinger, Pete Olsen, and Austin Luberda. Hope you enjoy the episode! Feeling the love!
Jorge ‘Viki’ Gomez – Gillette World Sport
Jorge ‘Viki’ Gomez meets up with the Gillette World Sport TV channel in Madrid, Spain to talk about flatland, his bike, creativity, judging, and all he loves about our sport. Enjoyed this one!
Ten Years of Flatmattersonline – Episode 1 + Editorial
Ten Years of Flatmattersonline.
After much pondering, on the 27th November 2008 I walked out of a store on Albert Road here in Southsea and decided to start a website. I wanted something basic to begin with to learn online posting, something that was all new to me at the time…. the Flatmattersonline blogspot site was born, Flatmatters had out grown it’s monthly page in Ride UK and it was time for something new that would help the scene. Looking back the first month or so was pretty amazing, all exclusive content.
Ten years on, my first article “To Scuff or not?” is still one of my favourite articles I have done on the site and it’s especially interesting to see where it’s at right now in relation to that article. I wanted to have more writing and depth about flatland online and proud today ten years on today so stay I am contributing what I set out to do. Scroll down on the archives section on the right hand side of the site and have a read when you have a spare moment.
I think my most proudest achievement running the site, is that my initial ethos and theory behind why am I going to this site still runs true ten years on, and has grown over the years.
The initial idea was a simple one, I wanted to wake up everyday and have something for you to look at to motivate you the flatlander at home, no matter where you are in the world to get out riding that day, and I didn’t want to governed by anybody or any company.
Whilst I miss the qualities print has that the internet can never touch, you can’t deny that the internet has brought the world closer together. I can reach so many more people via FM then I ever could making a magazine.
I wanted to do something special to mark 10 years of Flatmattersonline, I realise the website is known for posting riding videos every day, but it’s not often I go behind the scenes and interview the people that inspire me.
So throughout the course of this week I reach out to riders and friends across the globe to ask them a couple of questions, in places some riders have gone on a tangent from what I asked. There are no rules here, I want to celebrate the site and feel pretty proud to be able to help inspire new riders, older riders, seasoned pros, help riders get sponsors, teach kids tricks, there’s always something new happening with the site its pretty mind-blowing to me and helps to grow and branch out in different ways.
I wanted to do something special to mark 10 years of Flatmattersonline, I realise the website is known for posting riding videos every day, but up until now I haven’t talked at all about the people that have inspired me on this journey. So these set of episodes attempts to focus purely on the people that have inspired me, not their riding which we all know every well.
After some brainstorming, I decided I wanted to go away from the riding (which I feature everyday) and dig beneath the surface of the site and ask my inspirations about their thoughts on FM. I reached out to a whole host of people who inspire me in so many different ways, most have responded and a couple not which is disappointing, but I kind of expected that to happen.
I asked the following questions:
What would you say over ten years is Flatmattersonline biggest contribution to the sport?
When you think of Flatmattersonline what do you think of?
What was your first memory of Flatmattersonline?
My next thought as I was sending emails out to riders, was to have exclusive content every day for an entire week. And go back to how I started FM ten years ago pretty much. Sometimes I feel I go away from that, with the daily demands of “edit, edit,”. It’s time for me to shut up, grab a cuppa and reflect on 10 years of running Flatmattersonline.
You all make flatmatters what it is, so I thank all of you who are tuning in. It’s been a lot of work keeping the site going, 15,490 posts later we are here celebrating our tenth anniversary!
Here’s to ten more, I hope you all enjoy the Ten Years of Flatmattersonline episodes…
Effraim Catlow / Ten Years of Flatmattersonline.
Alex Jumelin Interview by Lionel Cardoso
Lionel Cardoso sat down recently with flatland lifer, Alex Jumelin for this exclusive interview with the focus being around Alex now being 40 years old and arguably in the form of his riding career. How is he doing that, what steps and sacrifices is he making? Hit play, grab a cuppa (coffee in Alexis case) and go and subscribe to Lionel’s channel. Really enjoyed this!
Black Rainbows Podcast #1 ft. Pete Brandt
Pete Brandt is a San Francisco Legend. Probably best known for his time holding it down at The Clocktower on Embarcadero and it’s only fitting he sets off this SF based Podcast. He talks about growing up riding around SF, 360’ing the Gonz Gap back in the day, his diet and staying in shape, contests, doing shows for the Golden State Warriors, his character in NBA2k19 and much more. Really awesome podcast from one of the true lifers in the game.
Terry Adams Spacebrothers Podcast

Photo: Matt Coplon.
Kip Williamson and Chip Riggs run an amazing podcast called “Spacebrothers”. Terry Adams is the latest rider on the show, pretty much everything is covered here from getting riding permit at the Hobby Lobby, hustling sponsorship and magazine covers, battling Matthias Dandois and a while lot more. Really enjoyed this one!
Hit the link below:
https://soundcloud.com/user-410519765/episode-16-terry-adams
Talking All things UK Champs with Davis Dudelis
After we got wrapped up with a session on the Friday at the UK Flatland Championships at the Cycle Expo, in Harrogate, Yorkshire. Matti Hemmings wanted me to interview Davis Dudelis as a bit of pre hype for the event, as it turns out the Wifi wasn’t the best and when I got home my laptop died once again so I am little late uploading this.
Considering I had no preparation going into this, I am pretty happy about how this turned out, we discuss Davis’ hilarious party antics, the nose manual world record, his flat street style, struggling with motivation, what he thinks about the UK, why he always comes back to the UK Flatland Champs, his favourite Matti Hemmings quote on the mic and much more. This was good fun, so thought I would post it.