Yesterday was the first dry day of my trip to San Francisco. Dylan Worsley from We Bicycles arrived in the morning, and myself, Pete and Dylan headed from Fremont to San Fran by BART. 40 minutes later, we were at Embarcadero and the Clocktower is across the road. The ground was still really wet from and early morning shower, Pete has the Clocktower on lock down and has a let blower, squeechie, and to my suggestion added a towel to the fix to get the riding spot dry.
Good morning everyone!
As many of you will know, Pete Brandt who happens to be my child hero growing up organised a go fund me page to get me out to the One Love jam in Newport Beach, California this weekend. When I was younger, my parents took me to San Francisco on holiday and I always loved the place and everything about it, so much character in this city. So as you can imagine I am still pinching myself that I am actually here. I can’t thank Pete, his wife Karissa, and everyone who donated to help me get here.
I arrived into San Francisco on Monday, after an 11 hour flight and almost three hours in the customs line I was pretty tired, but also pretty excited to get riding and make the most of this dream trip out here.
Today is all about the podcasts and Dusty Tweedhopoe is on fire with his new Flatland Immersion Podcast! Today he dropped the 4th episode, where he discusses the winners of the 2018 Flatmattersonline year end awards and all the latest edits from the New Year, Flatark news, Simon O’Brien’s Landscapes 3, Martti Kuoppa’s coaching and much more. Go and support Dusty and leave him a comment, show some love.
With Jean William Prevost aka Dub taking the 2018 Flatmattersonline Year end awards by storm, it seems to me as good a time as any to repost the podcast with Dub from last year at Bike days. It was really interesting to catch up with Dub and pick his brains and here his opinion on judging, the flatland scene, competing, and the struggles he faces day to day.
Good morning everyone!
The day is finally here, I start the week heading to San Francisco, California before heading down to Newport Beach for the annual One Love Jam. Look out for updates throughout my trip.
Martti Kuoppa is doing some great work behind the scenes with Toon Pakphum, helping Toon train ready for the contest, read on and watch the footage. Amazing!
“It is not an easy task to do a 100% no touch run at the competition. As a matter of a fact, it is quite rare in the Flatland game to see a 0 touch run. Sometimes we do see such runs but mostly performed by the riders in top 3.
Of course that is not the only thing to be taken into consideration as there are the judging criterias of Difficulty, Creativity, Variety etc. which also counts. But in my books, consistency should be valued very high if the other criterias are also in high level.
Having said all this, if the rider wants to place good at the contest the practice should be planned the way it supports the idea of doing a no touch run during the contest. And if the rider cannot perform a no touch contest run at the home spot, it is very unlikely for the rider to do a clean run at the contest (or even do a 1 – 2 touch run). In that case the performance at the contest would be relying on luck. And if we want to make a good (or great) placing at the contest we don´t want to rely on luck.
The knowledge of the fact that you have done your homework properply and you have done your full run 100% flawless at your homespot (not just once but many many times) really holds you in the midst of the pressure you face during the contest. If you know you have not done the homework for the contests, of course the nervousness will do a lot of damage on your performance when you are in the pressure cooker (your 3 minutes on a contest stage), unless you get lucky and somehow manage to stay on your bike but again, I would not reply on luck.
What I´m doing with the riders I coach is something that removes completely the idea of being lucky at the contests and prepares the rider mentally and physically to perform the run in the middle of a highly stressfull situation. If then for some reason things does not work out on the contest floor. we can at least look back and say we really tried our best and there is always the next contest to do better.
Enjoy the 3rd episode of the SHADOW PRACTICE series where Toon is presenting his updated 2019 contest run without doing any mistakes.”
Thank you very much!
-MK
It’s that time, thanks once again to everyone who voted in the 2018 Flatmattersonline Year awards and a massive congratulations to the winners and everyone who got nominated. In my opinion, if you get nominated you already won. But, as always there has to be a winner. Let’s get into this, first up the editorial votes then the reader choice. Medals will be sent out once I return from my trip to the One Love Jam, so I will be in contact with the winners over the next week or so.
Editorial Vote:
Rider of the Year:
Winner: Jean William Prevost
Runner Up: Matthias Dandois
Edit of the Year:
Winner: Jean William Prevost – Puro Flat #2 Spring
Runner Up: James White – Stop the World
Most Progressive Rider:
Winner: Jean William Prevost
Runner Up: Sietse Van Berkel
Outstanding Contribution:
Giannis Caternellis completing his 100th episode of his freestyler series. What an amazing contribution to flatland not only in 2018, but the last couple of years hunting this amazing achievement down. Thank you Giannis.
Line of The Year:
Winner: Jean William Prevost – 3:52 End Rodeo Line from Puro Flat 2 Spring.
Runner Up: Sietse van Berkel – Final Round Entry from Master of Creativity 2018.
Reader Choice:
Rider of the Year:
Winner: Jean William Prevost
Runner Up: Sietse van Berkel
Edit of the Year:
Winner: Jean William Prevost – Puro Flat 2 Spring
Runner Up: Denes Katona – Rolling Stone
Most Progressive Rider:
Winner: Jean William Prevost
Runner Up: Sietse Van Berkel.
Contest Run of Year:
Winner: Dominik Nekolny BMX Cologne Finals
Runner Up: Jean William Prevost Fise Chengdu Finals
Breakthrough Rider of the Year:
Winner: Sietse van Berkel
Runner Up: Julian Baron
Brooklyn Flatland Contest – Summer 1988 from Henry Wagner on Vimeo.
Before we get into the awards later on today, let’s go back! Check this Old school flatland contest on the streets of Brooklyn. From the Summer of 1988. The highlight is a great run by Ross Smith at the 10:35 mark, and all plenty more Ross footage in the post contest riding from the 16:10 mark. Other riders: Rich Vasquez, Chris Wilkes, and more.
Dusty Tweedhope is on it with Podcast updates right now and why not, it is winter and there is plenty to talk about. The third episode in the Flatland Immersion Podcast series is now online, listen to this one below and join the facebook page and the discussions and help Dusty out! The third episode discusses the FM year end award nominees…
Big news today, Yohei Uchino and the Arkleague crew held a press conference yesterday to announce and confirm the date for Arkleague, will include Flatland of course (Flatark), Skateboarding (Skateark) and Breakdancing (BreakArk). 27th April is the date and this year it is being held at in a different city, Samukawa, Kanagawa Japan. More news as I get it, but this is the first big contest of the year!
