X Games Chiba Japan: Day 2

Day 2 here in beautiful Chiba, Japan and my first full day at the X Games. The first nights sleeping is always so hard, and after waking p at 2am, I managed to fall sleep until 7am.
First things and breakfast was a fun catch up with the X Games organisers, and then caught up with riders, Broc Raiford, Terry Adams, Matthias Dandois, Varo Hernandez and many more.
After a breakfast it was time for the daily covid test, and then over to the venue, which I got a great view from breakfast.( Check the photo.)

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The Flatmattersonline Year End Award Winners 2021 Are…….

It’s time to announce the winners of the 2021 Flatmattersonline Year End Awards, as well as show some love to the nominees….

It’s a labour of love putting this together, after two weeks filming, capturing, and editing, the show is finally is done!

If you are unfamiliar with the awards, there are 5 categories in both editorial and reader choice. I made a few changes this year, adding Female Rider of the Year + Brand of the Year to the awards.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to vote, and congratulations to all the winners and nominees, tune into the Year end awards show to find out who won in each category!

Grab a Cuppa and I Hope you enjoy the show!

Flatmatters / Effraim Catlow.

Unscripted – A Flatland Film 2021

Unscripted – A Flatland Film 2021 is available for download right now, Stewart Munro’s latest video project. Looking forward to sitting down and watching this one later today!

”Unscripted is a new full-length video showcasing some of the best flatlanders from around the world featuring Kio Hayakawa, Masato Ito, Nick Watts, Simon O’Brien, Clint Millar, Jody Temple, Paul Chamberlain, Pete Brandt, Ruo Hayakawa, Yoshihiro Shinde, Trevor Meyer and Viki Gomez.” Run Time – 1 hour .

Link to buy – https://kfc.gumroad.com/l/qFmTD

Moto Sasaki wins Japanese Flatland Championship!

Congratulations to Moto Sasaki taking the win at the Japanese Flatland Championships for the third time in a row, followed by Kio Hayakawa and Hiroya Morizaki. Hiroshi over at 430 came through with a video already for you all to watch! Pro Class starts at 4:55:34…

Ryo Katagiri wins Chimera A Side 2021

Congratulations to Ryo Katagiri taking the win at the recent Chimera A Side contest in Japan, followed by his brother Yu, and the Flatmattersonline Rider of The Year Kio Hayakawa in third podium position. I have been looking for footage of the event and so far nothing. If anyone finds anything, please send it over….

Must Watch: Moto Sasaki Private Jam

So much to love about this new “Moto Sasaki Private Jam” edit by Jimalog. After a quiet spell, it seems Spring time is here, and the flood gates are opening on “Must watch” edits, and boy this is a treat.
The big news here is Moto Sasaki got a private spot, what I love about this, is rather than keeping it to himself he’s bringing in the next generation of shredders into enjoy this blessing.
As you already will know, the riding level is ridiculous with standouts from Yu Shoji, Kio Hayakawa and the ender from Moto Sasaki!
But there is plenty more from the likes of Akihiko Takahashi, Masashi Itani, Yuta Watanabe, Ruo Hayakawa, Yuo Hayakawa, Takashi Ishida, Koh Yoshida. Nao Yoshida, and Ryuga Matumura.

This edit got me so amped to ride, thanks Moto and Jimalog for sharing this, and all the heads involved providing the feel good vibes!

This one is on repeat today!

The Winners of the 2020 Flatmattersonline Year End Awards Are….

It’s time to announce the winners of the 2020 Flatmattersonline Year End Awards, 2020 was a difficult year for everyone. Flatland as a community rallied together to make the best of these difficult, testing times.
We saw riders focus more on edits rather than contest placings, as a result perhaps the rate of progression was a lot greater than previously would be, those that wanted to compete took part in numerous online contests, and in between all that the FM exclusives made to 60 episodes in 2020.
What the future holds is unclear currently, the vaccines are getting out there, and we hope to know more by spring time which really isn’t that far away.
Let’s try, and remain positive and make the best of every situation.

Congratulations to all the winners!!!

Without further a due, let’s get into the show!

Effraim Catlow / Flatmattersonline.

The 2020 Flatmattersonline Year End Awards Nominations Are……..

It’s time as promised to announce the 2020 Flatmattersonline Year end awards nominations,
I felt there was a lot to say about the awards and the year, which a lot of the time doesn’t get covered under the previous text announcement format.

So, I attempted to make a makeshift studio feel in my front room during lockdown 3.0, and present the nominations, and share my feelings on the year as well as the reader choices.
Congratulations to everyone who was nominated, and thank you to everyone who took the time to vote.

Winners announced: Sunday 24th January.

* If you don’t want to watch the whole show, you can skip through parts using the timestamps.

TIME STAMPS:

00:00 FM Title Screen
00:07 Effraim introduces the FM Year end award nominee show
00:56 Reader Choice Rider of the Year
04:59 Reader Choice Edit of the Year
8:07 Reader Choice Most Progressive Rider
11:38 Reader Choice Contest Run of the Year
15:12 Reader Choice Breakthrough Rider of the Year
19:33 Effraim introduces the Editorial Awards
20:50 Editorial Choice Rider of the Year
27:33 Editorial Choice Edit of the Year
31:06 Editorial Choice Most Progressive Rider
35:55 Editorial Choice Outstanding Contribution
39:37 Editorial Choice Line of the Year / Flatmattersonline Exclusive of the Year
46:06 Effraim Outro

Thanks for watching and listening!

Flatmattersonline / Effraim Catlow.

Down Underground 2020 Video Contest

When you have an hour and half to kill, watch this!!! This is so good, Shaun Jarvis, Paul Chamberlain and Joe Cicman and James McGraw discuss the results in each class from the Down UnderGround contest. I’ll leave this stickied at the top of the site as it deserves to be seen!!

2020 DownUnderGround , the Australian BMX flatland championships number 12 was a video only contest, open to all riders around the world. With the current global situation with Covid -19 travel restrictions are in place around the world and earlier this year within Australia. This made organizing a national contest problematic. We could not set a date as we never knew if or when travel restrictions would ease up in Australia and or if riders would even want to travel interstate with the current conditions. As DownUnderGround has had a video round as part of the contest for many years it was a easy decision to make 2020 a video only contest. To make the video even more special we had our contest judges live announce over the video after they had judged the video contest and the riders were placed in the video according to their contest placement. Thanks to Shaun Jarvis, Paul Chamberlain and Joe Cicman and James McGraw.

The format of the contest was easy, riders submit their video as if they were riding at a contest. No edits or multiple clips, one continual run, no less than 1 minute and no more than 2 minutes. Each rider’s video was judged by three judges using the DownUnderGround contest format. Each judge scores each category out of 20 points;
Difficulty – How difficult and complex the tricks are.
Consistency – How consistent the rider is in pulling the tricks within the contest run.(feet down, foot dab, smoothness of run)
Variety – This is left up to the judge’s discretion on what their own interpretation of variety is. This can take into account range of techniques (spinning, turbining, rolling, scuffing, stationary, pumping…) variety and range of tricks, types of tricks, combinations of tricks, front and rear wheel usage, backwards and forwards.
The best possible score from one judge per video run is 60 points. The three judges points are added together to determine the winner and place getters.

Due to the nature of the contest we knew we would get many international riders entering than Australian riders. This just made the contest so much more rad. The level of riding around the world is amazing. Some many great riders being able to showcase their riding and their riding spot. Nothing but pure radness in the video.

Thank you to DownUnderGround supporters – Freestyle Now and Colony BMX

RESULTS

Beginner
1st – Jhong Pantorilla – Davao, Philippines – 146 points
2nd – Seth Eylward-Piko – Melbourne, Australia – 69 points
3rd – Spencer Frueh – Melbourne, Australia – 64 points

Expert
1st – Chris Vasileiou – Ioannina, Greece – 171 points
2nd – Miguel Hernández – Oaxaca de Juárez, México – 165 points
3rd – Dwyne Lopena – Tagbilaran City, Philippines – 160 points
4th – Malte Orth – Göttingen, Germany – 158 points
5th – Matshah Matbum – Sungai Petani, Malaysia – 157 points
6th – Gauthier Saint – Montréal,Canada – 156 points
7th – Diodes Tan – Tagbilaran City, Philippines – 155 points
8th – Harif Houzey – Sungai Petani, Malaysia – 152 points
9th – Wan Kecik – Sungai Petani, Malaysia – 150 points
10th – Hiblot Guillaume – Laon, France – 149 points
11th – Kebong Evasco – Tagbilaran City, Phillipines – 148 points
12th – Philipp Frueh – Melbourne, Australia – 144 points
13th – Valkir Juliano – São Paulo, Brasil – 142 points
14th – Jayson Conde – Cagayan de Oro, Philippines – 140 points
15th – Eric Suin – Amiens, France – 139 points
16th – Bikram Sarkar – Gauhati, India – 138 points
17th – Matt Wootton – Launceston, Australia – 137 points
18th – Shaun Jarvis – Perth, Australia – 136 points
19th – Inuwnuu – Banten, Indonesia – 133 points
20th – Keith Nolasco – Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines – 132 points
21st – Paul Grzinic – Melbourne, Australia – 114 points
22nd – Kevin Filmer – Melbourne, Australia – 104 points
23rd – David Rooney – Melbourne, Australia – 101 points

Open
1st – Kio Hayakawa – Nagaoka, Japan – 156.5 points
2nd – George Manos – Ioannina, Greece – 148.5 points
3rd – “Zebu” – São José do Rio Preto city, Brazil – 144 points
4th – Gonzalo Bellanti – Melbourne, Australia – 142.5 points
5th – Martin Drazil – Prague, Czech Republic – 142 points
6th – Renz Viaje – Marikina City, Philippines – 139 points
7th – Paul Chamberlain – Sydney, Australia – 136.5 points
8th – William Do Prado Costa – Pouso Alegre, Brazil – 132.5 points
9th – Jose Buisan – Manila, Philippines – 129 points
10th – Georich Cardino – Tagbilaran City, Philippines – 128 points
11th – Alan Alfaro – Cabanatuan City, Philippines – 127.5 points
12th – Lee Kirkman – Brisbane, Australia – 118.5 points
13th – Paulo Gepulango – Bacolod City, Philippines – 116 points
14th – Heru Anwari – Melbourne, Australia – 113 points

https://www.freestylenow.net/2020/12/2020-downunderground-australian-bmx-flatland-championships

Must Watch: The Jeep Real Games Finals

I literally just posted the results from the Jeep Real Games not even an hour ago, and the final presentation of all the finalists is online already! Yohei Uchino discusses the level of riding (unfortunately not translated), but you can work out the riding!
The riding starts at the 16 minute mark with Akira Okamura, Kio Hayakawa, Ryo and Yu Katagiri, Takahiro Enoki, Hiroya Morizaki (look out for his mind blowing new whopper move to steam!), and Naoto Tamaru!

The presentation like a TV game show style, is really awesome and a fitting way to showcase some of the best contest riding I have even seen. Congratulations to Hiroya Morizaki once again and all the finalists, absolutely mind blowing level!!!