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 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.