Here’s a name we haven’t heard from a while here on Flatmattersonline. Joel Schallhorn was a regular feature on the site around 2018/19. Want to know more about Joel, read on below not to mention check out his unique riding style.

“I view my time in China as a hiatus from real riding. I was burned out in 2019, came home from a contract and put the bike in storage and moved to the mountains, off to beijing I took my dirt jumper. In time I got a stock street bike, just something to satiate the habit of rolling around on 1 wheel but I never took it serious for any real length of time in Beijing.
A street bike is made for street riding, not the rig of choice for anyone riding flat. I did a mix of all while there. I had spurts of motivation every few months where I’d go pretty hard and fight that uphill battle for hard tricks tech tricks on a street bike. I did it, it was hard, and I am proud of that. When I did ride I had fun but it wasn’t often. Hence there were only 2 edits from my time in Beijing.

Fast forward past the dark era I have my flatland bike again and living in Singapore. I’ve come to realize that that bit of street bike training has had some interesting benefit. I did end up adjusting to a street bike and dialed in some heavy stuff, coming back to to the flat bike there are tricks I haven’t done in those years that before we’re tremendously difficult and now are much easier and fluid.

Maybe street bike flatland is the equivalent to high altitude training? I don’t know. But this past weekend I worked on getting some baseline tricks back to move forward from. I wanted to test where I’m at after this hiatus, I’m pleased with the result of these few days and look forward to seeing what I’ll learn here in Singapore.

It’s good to be back!”