Inside the Flatlander’s Mind: Overcoming Riders Block.

Intro/Article: Effraim.
Photos: Bobby Carter, Kai Kuusisto, Alicja Korbinska, Tom Sevisual, Keith Mulligan.

All so often we only see the polished finished article, we turn up as riders at a contest and amazing riding, and flawless runs, or we see a “Must Watch” edit here on Flatmattersonline. What we don’t see is the blood, sweat, tears and psychological games that riders struggle with behind the scenes. I have faced this quite often over my riding career, and when it comes, it tells me “it’s time to switch things up”.
Every rider is different and that is one of multitude of things that we all love about flatland. I found something as simple in concept as learning something with bars forwards or backwards, learn something opposite or sometimes ride a different spot than I normally would. I have this saying in flatland, “learn everything you can, there are no bad tricks to learn, as flatland will catch up and bite you on the ass when you need that trick the most. I wondered about what other riders do to overcome this natural process of riding flatland over the years. ”

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The 2017 Flatmattersonline Year End Award Winners are….

First up it’s time to announce the editorial choice in the 2017 Flatmattersonline yearend awards followed by the Reader Choice, holding the awards each year I feel is a important thing to do for the culture of flatland and show some love back to the sport that has given me so much over the years.

Congratulations to all of the winners, and the nominees. Much respect to you all and all you do to contribute to flatland, it was a great year with a lot of twists and turns. Going to be interesting to see what 2018 brings. I wanted to display the medals tonight with the winners, but there is a slight delay that I’m not in control of. I will be contacting the winners shortly for addresses and interviews. Without further a due…

Editorial Choice Winners:

2017 Flatmattersonline
Rider of the Year
Jean William Prevost

Runner Up: John Yull.

2017 Flatmattersonline
Edit of the Year
Quentin Pelorson – XTen

Runner Up:
James White/Critical Beatdown.

2017 Flatmattersonline
Most Progressive Rider
John Yull

Runner Up: Quentin Pelorson

2017 Flatmattersonline
Line of the Year
John Yull

Runner Up: James White.

2017 Flatmattersonline
Outstanding Contribution
James McGraw

Reader Choice:

Thank you to all the readers of Flatmattersonline who took the time to vote, this year in particular was pretty interesting as your nominations differed slightly from mine, would the results be the same? Let’s go through the categories…

2017 Flatmattersonline
Rider of the Year
Jean William Prevost

Runner up:
John Yull.

2017 Flatmattersonline
Edit of Year
James White / Critical Beatdown

Runner Up: Quentin Pelorson – XTen.

2017 Flatmattersonline
Contest Run of Year
Jean William Prevost / Flatark.

Runner Up:
Jean William Prevost – Ninja Spin Finals.

2017 Flatmattersonline
Breakthrough Rider of the Year:
Yu Katagiri

Runner Up: Benjamin Hudson.

2017 Flatmattersonline
Most Progressive Rider
John Yull

Runner Up: Scott Powell.

Must Watch! – Master Of Creativity Top 5 Final edit

Like Martti Kuoppa, the visionary of the Master of Creativity said yesterday on his podcast with Scott O’Brien. MOC is a different kind of riding from contest riding, and rather than consistency, riders are killing themselves for a trick they might only land once and try to capture it! The top 5 level was off the chart, I wanted to highlight what I liked about each entry.

Sietse Van Berkel: 1:55 locked in his original side packer position, Sietse takes the pedal steam standing on the top tube one handed to new levels. Absolutely incredible, go back and look at the balance point!

Sakis Doumas: I like what Sakis did here, here’s my banger and thats it! And wow, what a banger it was. Hitch dark side to knee fudegpacker, and considering the difficulty coming off the knees in that position, relatively clean exiting out! Much respect Sakis!

Lee Musselwhite: Without question I think this is Lee’s best work yet, really stoked he stepped up for the MOC finals. My personal favourite’s were the Phoenix body varial to fork wheelie at 1:10 and the backwards flail boomerang to no handed backwards crack that follows! Absolutely amazing!

Owen Bohn: Owen’s ender has had us all talking, the lawn to bike flip one handed at 00;38, executed so clean! I am excited for this guy’s future, and on a personal level the opening whip round to crack pivot hang ten pivot xft steam all in one motion was beautiful, one of the lines of the year! Respect Owen!

John Yull: Despite some bike troubles, John Yull still dug deep for the MOC Finals and continued his amazing level throughout the competition and much like Scott O’Brien said yesterday on his podcast. He dedicated his year to this event, and it showed. My favourite clips were the foot jam decade frame stand manual to stemade at 00:26, the no handed decade to opposite decade at 00:18 followed by switch foot one handed perverted rolaid that follows! Congratulations to John Yull for taking the win in the most progressive contest of the year, and all the finalists for progressing our art form so much, you can’t put a price on that….

The 2016 Flatmattersonline Year End Award Winners are….

It’s time to announce the 2016 Flatmattersonline Year End Awards! Congratulations to all the winners, and also nominees! Plenty of you voted again this year in all seven categories, making it uber tight in some categories! I will be catching up with the winners over the next week for address details, and for interviews during the next few months.

Whilst I was going through the months via the Lookback features on the site it became apparent to me that one rider in particular unselfishly took himself out of the running for the World Circuit title in order to help make our sport more credible, whilst also throwing down an incredible edit and placing well at so many events throughout the year. Not forget his running his brand as well, so like last year as I hinted when I announced the awards, there is an extra category!

Thank you once again to everyone that voted, let’s make 2017 another great year for Flatland!
Effraim Catlow – Flatmattersonline

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Lookback: May – The 2016 Flatmattersonline Year End Awards

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!

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Heading out to the Battle in the Rockies contest in Colorado!

It’s an early start for me this morning, as I head off to London Heathrow to fly out for the annual Battle in the Rockies contest in Colorado Springs. It seems as good a time as any to re-up this amazing edit from last years contest that Anthony Schneidewind put together featuring great riding from Moto Sasaki, Martti Kuoppa, Jean William Prevost, Jason Plourde, Pete Brandt, Bo Wade, John Yull, James McGraw, Bryan Huffman, Simon O’Brien and many more! See you on the other side, look out for daily updates from the event, as well as your regular posts daily.

– E

Must Watch! Master of Creativity 5th to 1st Place

5th to 1st places MASTER OF CREATIVITY 2016! from Martti Kuoppa on Vimeo.

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!

What an amazing contest, that truly delivered what it was intended to do. Congratulations to everyone that took part and helped take flatland to a better place! Just beautiful!!

Battle in the Rockies – The Lost Footage

Grab a cuppa and sit down and enjoy this amazing lost footage from the 2015 Battle in the Rockies contest, featuring Martti Kuoppa, Will Redd, Michael Shao, Pete Brandt, Joel Schallhorn, Bo Wade, Andy Cooper, John Yull, Moto Sasaki, Jason Plourde, Jean William Prevost, James McGraw, and many more!

Must Watch! Master of Creativity Round 2 / 1st to 6th

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!

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