With the voting closing today on the 2016 Flatmattersonline Year End Awards, its’s time to finish up on the last two months of the year. Did things slow down, hell no!!!
On the 1st of the month, I was still catching up on the Flatark contest. Viki Gomez was presented with the 2016 World Circuit title at Flatark, Viki was followed on the podium by Matthias Dandois and Yohei Uchino! Here’s what Viki had to say:
“GRACIAS! THANK YOU! 2016 competition season’s been great to me and I am very grateful for once again taking home the 2016 World Championship title! @bmxflatlandworldcircuit. Much love to you all! It’s time to celebrate!”
On the 2nd, the first Must watch edit of the month.
There is literally only one rider that could song jack Kevin Jone’s infamous Dorkin’4 part and the use of The Who’s “Pin ball wizard” and that is James White! With Master of Creativity deadline yesterday I am kind of surprised to see this, but the man is so full of surprises I should stop being surprised really!
Standouts for me include:
00:54 – Xft lawn flip gliding gerator double undertaker line.
1:04 the style on the half hiker pressure flip xft one handed karl!
1:18 – Xft lawn flip gliding gerator opposite ice cream two footed backyard gliding gerator regular side walkover decade out!
1:53 – Xft stubble duck gliding gerator to whiteski signature decade out.
The last three bangers from the 2:33 mark – Xft ride in to whiteski signature decade out! Love the simplicity! Followed by a subtle bar flip to his signature zinger bunny hop move followed by one of the best line sod the year – xft ride flip to gliding gerator whiteski smith decade jump lash off same foot whiplash out!
Go and watch this right now! Only James can song jack this, seriously!
Great edit by OG Marton of Mates Tucek killing it at the Vienna Flat Jam 2016 dropped on November 3rd, in particular the last two lines from the 1:43 mark: the xft halfpacker flip to crackpacker, and the backwards hang five jump to crackpacker!
Alos on that same day, New fire out of the talented Austin Luberda, look out for the time machine round the back full body varial back to time machine at 2:37! Hell yeah Austin!
Paul Osicka presented the Nora Cup award this year to Viki Gomez, and managed to steal the show! On November 4th, we got to see why!
Stop what you are doing!!!
There was a rumour that flatland legend, Paul Osicka dropped a little part whilst he presented the award for flatlander of the year at the Nora Cup awards in Las Vegas. Well that rumour is true, and from the 00:53 mark you get a real treat with some fresh Osicka footage, the spinning nose wheelie at 1:17 is off the chart, style for miles! Respect!!!
November 6th was an amazing day for flatland. Two Must watch edits in a day, going soft? Not at all, the 2016 Master of Creativity without a doubt has brought the highest level of the year. Congratulations to Pedro Melo who ended taking the final round followed by George Manos, and John Yull, Mateus Beckmann and Thomas Noyer!
Personal standouts for me:
Thomas Noyer: Multiple front yard turbine whiplashes directly to backwards spinning halfpacker at 00:09, one of the moves of 2016!
Mateus Beckmann: Bars backwards X hand half cab foot jam decade at 00:40 + xft backwards pedal manual to decade out no foot jam at 00:57 and the banger if that wasn’t enough: backwards whiplash jump full bar to back pegs foot jam decade out at 1:00! Incredible stuff from Mateus!
John Yull: What a year for John, fresh back from a great performance at Flatark and killing it in every round of MOC! The opening double decade to smith is hard with brakes, but brakeless at 1:09! And it continues with an amazing footage decade to opposite weedwacker stall switch to regular weedwacker stall switch to foot jam decade out at 1:18 and the absolute banger is also like Thomas’ one of the moves of the year, steamboat to backwards bar split decade at 1:31! So good!
George Manos: The opening xft no handed backwards nose manual at 1:44 is another contender for trick of the year, is that a category this year in the FM awards? And the subtle pedal switch mid no handed pedla 5 inside the bike to regular foot no handed pedal had me hitting rewind straight away, did i see that right? Watch at 2:01 and be amazed!!!
Pedro Melo: What a year also for Pedro Melo, who delivered the goods in the final round to take the win at the most progressive contest of the year!Opening with the surfer g-turn at 2:11 I knew this was going to be a string entry, but the one footed grinding hitch kick flip hitch at 2:23 blew me away! WTF!!! And the surfer nosewheelie into brakeless pinkys surfer out, so creative! Pedro is the man!
The level went up several notches for the final round of the 2016 Master of Creativity contest, so amazing to see every rider push their level, and ultimately bring a whole bunch of new tricks to flatland! Here is the 13th through till 6th place edit Martti Kuoppa just put together, so proud to be involved in this amazing event for flatland that has without a doubt brought the most progressive riding of the year out and motivated us all! Respect to everyone!!
My personal favourite lines:
Forkone: Fire hydrant chick whips stem lash at 00:28.
Kevin Jacob: Nose stemlash nose g-turn at 00:58.
Hidenori Ishizaki: Xft pedal backwards facing backyard jump to pegs backwards backyard degroot undertaker out at 1:07.
Sakis Doumas: Hitch darkside to no footed dump truck kneeling on pedal at 1:51!
Will Redd: The Mix of the old school with Xft forward side glide to the contemporary 360 pivot to halfpacker + the following elbow glide turbine line is so good!
Sean Fontenot: Xft cab line to decade off the pedals around the 2:57 mark!
James White: Xft lawn flip gliding gerator to whiteski smith decade to xft hitch juggler flip back to xft lawn gliding gerator to whiteski decade out at 3:06!
Kazuya Hirayama: The opening xft backward spinning lawn stubble duck to gliding gerator to forward death truck out at 3:40 is beautiful! Followed by backwards opposite spinning lawn direct to pedal death truck! Wow!
On the 12th, Who doesn’t love a OG Marton produced edit? Put Marton and Viki Gomez together and you have a nice treat, especially the fun vibe in this one with Viki jamming on Marton’s bike at 00;12. Blended in with the current multiple pivot style Viki is exploring on the back wheel, this is a good watch!
back to back days and edits from Viki Gomez. Instagram has been on fire this year, with crazy links uploaded almost daily from riders across the globe it’s sometimes hard to keep tabs on it. So it’s nice to see this compilation edit from Viki Gomez today! Here’s what Viki had to say:
“Freestyle is a big part of my riding and this compilations shows a kind of riding that borns and dies in the same day, Very proud to keep increasing my bag of tricks during all the trips! Small tricks lead to big tricks! Hope it will inspire others to keep on progressing!”
On the 13th, Congratulations to Matthias Dandois who won the annual Com’in Lyon contest and took home the win in the French Cup followed on the podium by Alex Jumelin and Joris Bretagnolles. In the year end points, Matthias was followed by Alex Jumelin and Thomas Noyer, congratulations to all!
On the 16th, we got to a great highlights edit from Dub’s Real City Spin contest in Montreal, worth watching again!
On the 20th, Congratulations to Moto Sasaki who just won the Battle in the Rockies 2016 contest here in Colorado Springs in an amazing final battle with Jean William Prevost and Will Redd took the third place! If you are keeping tabs, that’s two wins in a row at BITR for Moto! Dub also won the best trick contest that went down before the final battles.
Check the intense final battle again!
On the 23rd, Michael Steingraeber & James McGraw got in one last session at the Tintadome before Michael was due to fly back to Germany, as it turns out this may not be Michael’s session as Lufthansa are currently on strike. Good vibes and a lot of screaming as you would expect from James McGraw, especially liked the forward karl round the back right hand side halfpacker (and also change direction) opposite circle k to opposite body varial out!
On the 24th, Following George Manos amazing final entry for the Master of Creativity contest, I was kind of thinking he may take some downtime before releasing anything new. How wrong I could be?!!. George’s riding takes a massive leap forward here for me where you can see him developing longer links whilst riding pegless and also his backwards facing nose manual lines, my personal favourite standouts in this latest “Nlight” edit:
The xft pedal 5 line at 00:34, the footwork is amazing, drooling over this one!
No handed backwards facing nose manual to no footed crackpacker at 1:13.
Backwards facing g-turn nose manual at 1:29.
The footwork in the line at 1:36, just amazing!
Double footed spinning backwards facing nose manual at 1:52!
And the banger line, Foot jam whip to no handed grouching pedal xft five line at 1:59 finishes off this creative masterpiece off nicely! Thanks for sharing this George, an absolutely incredible level of creative riding!
On the 27th, I’m a big fan of Sietse van Berkel’s riding, so I was stoked to wake up this sunday morning to a fresh “Junglerider 2016” edit from the man himself filmed over the summer and autumn period. Especially liked the two footed front yard turbine pendulum line around the 1:17 mark, but much more than that the way Sietse moves around the bike in effortless fashion is so great to see. Thanks for sharing with the flatland world, Sietse!
November 28th and a week after BITR. Congratulations to Jean William Prevost who took the win this weekend at the 2106 International contest in South China, Dub was followed by JiangHuangJie and third was Joel Schallhorn. Dub made the trip back to China to escape the canadian winter and get some riding time in over the winter months.
Also on that same day, Paul Chamberlain won the Downunderground round 3 this weekend, that took place at the Melbourne Museum. Congratulations to Paul!
Pro:
1- Paul Chamberlain
2- Mohamad Aristyo Rahadiyan
3- Grant Cruise
Big news at the end of the month!
Big news to start the week, Nor Cal flatland legend Pete Brandt just joined the Quest BMX crew! I caught up with Pete, and the owner/manager Danny Sirkin and Steve Lapsley to get their reaction to the news.
Effraim: Hey Pete just heard the big news about you getting on Quest bmx. Firstly congratulations, how do you feel about the hook up?
Pete: Thank you man!! I really appreciate the hook up and I was in fact really looking at this frame before the hook up and was really interested in riding it. I set the frame up in 15 minutes everything went smooth and no warm up time at all.
Effraim: What are your ambitions for the 2017 season? Can we expect to see you at any contests?
Pete: Main ambition is too ride hard, progress, have fun and flow. I hope to go to contest this coming year, I always love seeing everyone and competing.
Effraim: Any signature parts planned Pete?
Pete: Signature parts would be awesome I always love doing signature parts because there is a lot of parts out there that aren’t flat specific, it would be nice to keep things coming out with specific geometry, reach, sizes and reactive.
Danny, and Steve! What a great addition to your team, what’s your initial reactions to this great scoop?
“Pete is a worldwide flatland icon. He has been an amazing ambassador of the sport for over 20 years. We are excited to not only add another great rider to the QuestBMX team, but a great person as well.” Steve Lapsley, Quest team manager.
“We are super stoked to have Pete join the Quest team! He is a staple of the flatland community and always brings such high energy to everything he does! “ Danny Sirkin, owner of Quest BMX.
Yu Shoji and Takumi Isogai have been out in the Philippines with Viki Gomez doing shows in Manilla. In between shows Viki put together this sweet edit of Yu and Takumi sessioning, enjoy watching these two young bucks do their thing!. And thats a wrap on November!