Springtime is here, and as we all look forward to the summertime. The contests are more frequent, everyone is getting more riding time, and the content on FM grows.
It’s not often we kick off month with a Must Watch edit, but we did that in May of this year, and boy was it a treat!
Japanese flatland legend, Hiroya Morizaki teamed up with Taichi Kunieda to drop these two brand new amazing back wheel lines. So great to see Hiroya is still pushing hard, hitting the rewind again!
The clocks go forward one hour, that feel good factor that the extra daylight brings, more riding time equals more time filming and documenting what you do. April was a busy month!
Deco’s Chad Degroot kicked off the month and had this to say:
“Since I starting riding my head wants me to learn as much as possible and this includes bars backwards tricks. The beginning of this link I learned this day so to make more smooth flow and no scuffing. The middle has been a gem and great feeling to whip the backend around with no brakes and keep speed. The end is bars backwards and played a huge head game for a bit because I had to push so much momentum to get into the backyard position and pump to keep speed. Real excited to move past the 15 second persona and get onto the longer story of this trick.”
13to6 MOC from Martti Kuoppa on Vimeo.
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!
Text: Effraim.
Photos: Matti Hemmings.
Nothing but good vibes this past weekend at the UK Flatland Championships in Birmingham. I made the trip up by train on the Friday, with just one change at Southampton, the train is on the doorstep to the Birmingham NEC venue.
When I arrived Matti was already dialled in with banners set up, PA ready, just the floor to clean again, and judging sheets to organise which I was one of my jobs to do. I’m still injured so I watched as Matti, TGM Maz and Chris Brook enjoyed an empty floor. Mario wanted to arrive early and get used to the fast floor, and even learnt a nice new line, flail boomerang to hang 5, looking forward to seeing how he develops that move. in the future. Chris coasted no footed manuals across the floor with ease and Matti who was suffering with a bad back was working on stemrollers.
The UK Flatland Championships is going down this weekend at the Cycle Show / Birmingham NEC! As good a time as any to post this awesome edit Jason Forde from last years event.
See you there!
Nice lil edit by Yinka Thomas from this weekends Wheels and Finns Festival, Round 1 of the UK Flatland Championships featuring the likes of Dominik Nekolny, Lee Musselwhite, James White, Alex Jumelin, Jason Forde, Steve Green, Andy Hale, Trevor Lacey, Johann Chan, Remuis Simion, and Amos Burke! Good times in Joss Bay, Kent, roll on next weekend for Round 2 at the Cycle Show at the NEC!!
What an epic weekend over at the Wheels and Finns Festival in Joss Bay, Kent. After two days at the event, most of the hard work was done. We woke up to blue skies, and with the festival being so close to the beach, meant only one thing. Chilled breakfast on the beach, before the day really got started!
Myself and Matti Hemmings made the trip to the beautiful seaside town, Joss Bay in Kent today to set up for the weekend here at the Wheels and Finns Festival.
Text: Effraim.
Photography: Effraim and Ged McConville.
Like everyone when the iBMXff World Championships were announced a few months back, I thought “Where the hell is Flatland?”, there were various trains of thoughts from most of the flatland community, but it seemed summed up with “it’s not the worlds without flatland”, emails went back and forth. If I am being honest, I didn’t think Flatland would be included with budgets and all….
Takahiro Ikeda, Xft no handed straddle time machine on his way to a huge second place.
I don’t normally give the Must Watch tag for contest footage, but….
My jaw hit the floor with the level of riding for Master of Creativity Round 2, the aim of bringing new tricks to the game seems to really be working!
