September is always one of the busiest months of the year, and this year was absolutely off the chart. Take a check through my highlights and you will see what I mean!
September 4th will be remembered for Martti Kuoppa’s, 10 Stemlashes! You can always count on the boss to raise the stakes, as if this isn’t enough the description hints of a return to KGB? Great news! Someone looks like they are ready for flatark…
Chad Johnston contributed a sick flatland section featuring Pete Brandt, Martti Kuoppa, Andrew Faris, Chad J, Terry Adams and Simon O’Brien to the 2004 Network DVD. This may or may not have gone under the radar, from the opening pedal 5 intro by Chad this is so good. The riding stands up to this day, as Chad selects some of his favourite clips. My personal favourites were Simon O’Brien’s backwards half packer kick flip line at 1:53, Pete Brandt’s multiple half karl bar flips at 2:19, Martti Kuoppa’s xft hitch kick flip to regular hitch at 2:48. Stoked to watch this one again and suggest you do to!
Plenty of nice throwback footage for you today, starting with this Flatring 2006 final battle footage with two heavy weights Justin Miller vs Martti Kuoppa. Enjoy this trip down memory lane!
All about Level Vibes today and rightly so, check this nice edit by Wudtube. Capturing some of the best lines from Martti Kuoppa, Michelle Maiolani (lookout for the foot under pedal 5 at 1:03!), Keelan Phillips, Gonzalo Bellanti, Denes Katona and much more! Well worth a watch!
Yinka Thomas just came through with the first edit from Level Vibes, and it’s a banger! Plenty of amazing riding from the likes of MK, Michelle Maiolini, Jason Forde, Matti Hemmings, Steve Green, Keelan Phillips, Alex Jumelin, Jussi Laukkanen, and many more! Below I’ve highlighted some of my favourite lines from the edit! Big up Yinka for this treat!
Highlights:
Martti Kuoppa: 6 stem lashes at 2:49 + fakie stem rebate to double opposite stem lash at 6:25!
Michele Maiolani: pedal one handed 5 grabbing the cross bar to one handed cross bar whiplash out at 5:42.
Keelan Phillips: 1080 nose manual at 3:36.
Matti Hemmings: No hand no foot dork wheelie at 4:30.
Level Vibes 3 from brian on Vimeo.
With the return of Level Vibes tomorrow, let’s go back to November 2000. LV jam style, featuring James White, Phil Dolan, Viki Gomez, Martti Kuoppa, Jimmy Petitet and Alex Jumelin. Enjoy this video from the old UKflat website!
Hit play for a great recap edit from the Flatark contest in Kobe, Japan featuring highlights from the semi final and final battles with Matthias Dandois, Moto Sasaki, Jean William Prevost and Martti Kuoppa!
Yesterday was my first full day in the US, this year we are around an hour away from where the contest is at in Denver at James Mcgraw’s house in Monument, Colorado.
The first part of the day was taken up with airport pick ups, Michael Sommer, Moto Sasaki and Martti Kuoppa all arrived, during the evening we headed for a fun session at James’ Tintadome riding spot which his workplace during the day, riding spot during the night. My body clock was screaming bedtime, so I decided to take the time to shoot some photographs.
If you are following flatmatters on instagram, you will have also seen the distraction training video with James McGraw taking out Joe Cicman with a roll of paper towel, myself, Moto, Michael and Moto were all adjusting to the time change so it was pretty chilled and a good time hanging out and joking with all the riders, check out the photos I shot.
Thanks to Joel Schallhorn for the use of his camera. Today we had to Evolve skatepark in Denver for jam day. Check out a selection of photos I shot below that I feel some up the day quite well! Once again like last year, the vibe is great between the riders, looking forward to riding today! Stay tuned for more updates on FM!
Repo: Effraim.
Photos: Matthew Dyer, Matti Hemmings, Effraim, Flatism.
A few months prior to the UK Flatland Championships, Matti Hemmings asked me if I wanted to get involved and helping him with the promotion and organisation of the event, re:Judging also. As many of you will have noticed there hasn’t been many flatland events in the UK since the King of Concrete two years ago, so it was time to put that right and get things popping off again here in the UK. With Matti’s contacts and my experience running events we made a good team going back and forth with ideas for what would work best. We felt it would be better for the scene, to work together rather than solo projects.
Martti Kuoppa, stem 5 on his way to first place, look at the extension and also foot on the top tube stopping the bike moving. Photo: Matthew Dyer.
canadians 3 from rtaylor on Vimeo.
This morning I randomly got the urge to watch Canadians 3, filmed mostly in 1997 by Jason Brown. So much good riding in this from the likes of Jason himself, Andrew Faris, Martti Kuoppa, Stephane Royer, Dan Rigby, Cory Stratychuk and many more. Forgotten styles and tricks, well worth watching again!
