The clocks go forward in April, and the riding level and contest season takes on more momentum as we all get psyched for the summer. What happened in April? Here are some of the highlights as I dig back in the crates at some of the key moments…
Dane Beardsley’s amazing section from Samethingdaily3 is now online mixing up flatland, trails, ditches, concrete parks, street, Dane can do it all! Flatland wise, look out for the No handed backwards death truck line at 2:20, xft shove it mccircle line at 3:47 and a whole lot more! A Good Friday treat for you from Dane Beardsley, pure BMX! A great way to start the month of April!
Cali shredder, Ahmed Johnson runs through what flatland riding is to him, the community, travelling, the bike he rides, a whole lot more! Plus some great back wheel riding footage from the 7:45 mark, enjoy this one!
On April 8th Johann Chan and Jason Forde dropped this slick edit from the infamous and endangered (at the time) South bank riding spot.
Johann Chan explains this one:
“Last Friday Jay suggested meeting at our old haunt Southbank for a quick session. We had a decent ride, pulling tricks with a surprising success rate. Inspired- we pulled the cameras out (which admittedly reduced the success rate) but still managed to catch a few links.
I managed to talk Jason into trying a new trick for the camera- a Landspeed backpacker, (which we naively thought hadn’t been done before). A few attempts later and he got it done.”
Dominik Nekolny just dropped this heavy link to celebrate a good week for him, where he did a lot of drugfree lectures and for about 650 kids. And ended the week finishing with a nice sunny session and this nice combo he wanted to share with us all!
On April 10th Pete Brandt & James McGraw were both 45 years old, to celebrate they teamed up to bring us all this amazing new edit and a huge bag of motivation! Much respect to these two legends who given back so much to our sport/artform.
Naoto Tamaru took a break from working in Dubai and headed to London for a short vacation and hooked up with James Smith whilst in town. Combine Naoto’s back wheel style and James Smith’s amazing filming and you have a good one right here!
On April 15th we dropped two videos featuring Chad DeGroot explaining how the Z-Coaster works! There’s also some flatland riding from Chad putting the hub to good use to go with it. No word on exact release, but Profile Racing said this is the month, so keep your eye out if you’re on the hunt for one.
Keelan Phillips brings some UK Fire in this awesome new edit filmed in one session! Look out for the One footed Nose Manuals both forward and backwards on down tube, and the Forward karl kneeling on the down tube! Yes Keelan!
Mates Tuček is one of the most skilled riders that regularly puts out edits here on Flatmatters! Xft side saddle hang 5’s to steam on both sides of the bike, plus a ton of variety on front and back wheel, this is a good watch! Great day for edits!
So much win about Dane Beardsley’s riding, often overlooked and definitely very underrated on the contest scene. Hit play for a great mix part, Dane can do it all, flat, street, park, dirt, those shove-it hitchhiker jugglers at 2:05 are amazing and that roof manual gapping into a ramp for the ender is insane! April was a good month for Dane!
Hippie Josh kicked ass with this Episode 4 on the Lifers series with flatland legend Ruben Castillo, great insight into his earlier riding career on Dyno through till the modern day. Well worth a watch!
Director and Rider, Shimpei Hanawa explains this great project we dropped on April 21st:
“7 years have passed since we released the dvd “the Discovery”.
Now, we’re ready to release the second edition of it “the Discovery Vol.02″.
New rider, new tricks, gets older, and etc…
“the Discovery” features Kansai region in Japan.
That is one of our bases for making “the Discovery”.
Great interview / edit here from OG Marton with James McGraw killing it during the BMX Cologne contest last year in Koln, Germany! Check this one out!
Another week, another nice Giannis Caternellis edit to check that embodies a lot of different techniques from hopping, scuffing, turbine, front wheel, back wheel, theres something for everyone in this edit!
Mo rich made a huge impression last year at the World Circuit finals in Kobe, Japan beating Matthias Dandois in a tense battle. One of the up and coming riders on the pro circuit for sure,check out his “Welcome to Spaceark” edit right here, since last year Mo Rich obviously progressed, especially liked the one footed coasting inside pedal caboose at 00:53 and theres so much more. April 27th was a good day for edits, enjoy this!
Viki Gomez recently visited Kuwait to put on several shows around the country. This edit was filmed in an hour in between shows before Viki had to fly back to Luxembourg, tjcfilms2011 and Viki hit as many different spots in and around Mubarakiya with the help of Kuwait BMX legend Mansour Al-Safran controlling the crowds and get it done despite the huge crowds and sweltering heat.
We end the month of April with the first footage that dropped from the Astrolabe5 contest, put together by Lie SeongHoon! Featuring great riding from the likes of Kevin Nukulski, Jean William Prevost, Fabien Stephan, Quentin Pelorson, Dan Hennig, Thomas Noyer and many more!
https://www.flatmattersonline.com/the-flatmattersonline-2015-year-end-awards