The 2021 Flatmattersonline Year End Awards Nominees Are…..

Hello everyone!

It is time to announce the nominees for the 2021 Flatmattersonline Awards. Congratulations to all the nominees in both editorial and reader categories. Thanks to everyone who took the time to vote, we had a late surge of votes this year.

Flatmatters!

Effraim Catlow

EDITORIAL CHOICE NOMINEES ARE….

RIDER OF THE YEAR.

Yohei Uchino.

Kio Hayakawa.

Matthias Dandois.

Viki Gomez.

Terry Adams.

MUST WATCH EDIT OF THE YEAR.

Matt Wilhelm Until We Ride Again.

Viki Gomez Rise 3.

Heresy Mix tape.

Sean Fontenot Escapes.

James White System Overload.

BREAKTHROUGH RIDER OF THE YEAR.

Takato Moriya.

Ren Oshima.

Julian Baran.

Dan Hennig.

Varo Hernandez.

BRAND OF THE YEAR.

Nous BMX.

Heresy BMX.

IGI BMX.

Colony BMX.

Viking BMX.

OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTION.

To be announced Sunday 30th January.

READER CHOICE NOMINEES ARE…..

RIDER OF THE YEAR.

Matt Wilhelm.

Kio Hayakawa.

Viki Gomez.

Pete Olsen.

Varo Hernandez.

EDIT OF THE YEAR.

Matt Wilhelm Until We Ride Again.

Heresy Mixtape.

Sean Fontenot Escapes.

Viki Gomez Rise 3.

Moto Sasaki Jam.

FEMALE RIDER OF THE YEAR.

Erin Donato.

Leticia Moda.

Irina Sadovnik.

Louise Seigneur.

CONTEST RUN OF THE YEAR.

Joris Bretagnolles Battle in the Rockies qualifying

Kio Hayakawa UFL Round 3.

Hiroya Morizaki Jeep Real Games.

Kio Hayakawa Never off Battle.

Yu Shoji Jeep Real Games.

LINE OF THE YEAR.

Yu Shoji Jeep Real Games First Trick.

Pete Olsen Upside Down Walkover.

Yu Katagiri 360 Bikeflip Chimera Games Final.

Kio Hayakawa – Our BMX Nora Cup ender.

Hiroya Morizaki Real Jeep Games Final.

Winners announced: Sunday 30th January.

Heresy – South Of France Tour

This past September, the Heresy crew chose to embark on a week tour in the south of sunny France where they also filmed their last team video “GROUP ASPHALTANIC RITES”, and took part in jams with the locals in Bordeaux, Toulouse and Montpellier. Good vibes throughout, plus head over to the DIG BMX website for the story and photos.

https://digbmx.com/videos/heresy-south-of-france-tour

Ten Years of Flatmattersonline – Episode 2

Thank you everyone for an amazing response yesterday to 10 Years of Flatmattersonline! My phone literally did not stop all day between the website posts, Facebook, Instagram and private messages.
As I said yesterday we continue with my celebration of 10 years with Episode 2 featuring Pete Brandt, Jay Marley, Sebastian Grubinger, Pete Olsen, and Austin Luberda. Hope you enjoy the episode! Feeling the love!

Must Watch – Group Asphaltanic Rites / Heresy BMX

GROUP ASPHALTANIC RITES from HERESY BMX on Vimeo.

This morning I woke up in Monument, Colorado to a special treat from the Heresy BMX family. It is almost goes without saying that many of you will not even read this description before hitting play on the video, that’s the hold and respect the Heresy crew have on the flatland community.

The flatland team seems to be a thing of the past for the most part so it’s great that Alexis is able to continuing growing the team adding Pete Olsen to the team who totally fits the HSY aesthetic, and this summer Pete joined Michaël Husser, George Manos, Sebastian Grubinger, Matthieu Bonnecuelle, and head honcho Alexis Desolneux for a summer tour around various spots in Southern France. Combine that with that amazing work of Tom over at Sevisial who captures the chemistry and aesthetic of the brand and in turn whets the appetite somewhat.

From the opening triple backwards two footed backyard walk around by Pete Olsen you just wait in excitement like a little kid as to what is next to follow. The subtle change to colour was almost a nice touch in my mind, as with all Must Watch edits and particularly edits like this I like to highlight what I loved about it.

1:00 & 3:34: Sebastian Grubinger’s lines throughout are absolutely amazing. He and Pete are really pushing the backwards style in this edit and generally and it’s so good now they are repine’ the same brand. Like I said before, the fit makes sense.

4:09: Loved Michael Husser’s whiplash to two footed frontyard round the bars line is so good, and look at the dust on the ground. Even more amazing, loved the style.

5:09: Matthieu Bonnecuelle has so many nice intricate moves throughout the edit, especially loved this g-turning switch foot whiplash jump to pedal manual 180 out to jump off pedals switch foot fakie whiplash and out. The variety between each team members styles are really refreshing throughout.

5:26: One of my favourite lines of the edit, one that myself and James McGraw called out when we first watched the edit this morning, Sebastain’s gliding gerator g turned to backwards two footed backyard half backwards decade off the pedal. Subtle, but such a treat!

The shove pedal 5 line that George Manos drops at the 7:06 is absolute poetry in motion.

And the ender, x-up ride in to brakeless straddle roni from Pete Olsen is so point. Another masterpiece from Heresy, who deserve all the plaudits they will get from this edit I am sure. This is flatland and that is why we love it. Big up everyone involved in this production.

The Flatmattersonline Top ten edits of 2015!

With the awards dropping on Sunday 10th January, I wanted to share with the flatland community my choice for the Flatmattersonline Top 10 edits of 2015. And thus my break down of how I arrived at picking the nominees and also the winners. If you are paying attention to the site and reading the comments, you will have seen I didn’t count DVD video parts into the mix, as the category was “edit of the year”. I left it plain and simple, edits only (not dvds or dvd parts for example) I also didn’t take one trick edits into the equation, in my mind an edit is multiple clips combined together. This made my life easier shortlisting and narrowing from the hundreds down to 5 down to the winners. With that being said let’s crack on with my top ten list for 2015:

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James White – 2015 Flatmattersonline Year end awards / Editorial Edit of the Year

After much gnashing of teeth, my editorial vote for the 2015 Flatmattersonline edit of the year goes to James White for his epic “James White and the adventures on the wheel of steel’ edit that in my opinion ticked every box I look for in an edit and smashed one out of the box too, no music, this was purely about the content.

Flatland in 2015/16 for me is all about details, and the godfather of UK flat gets it better than anyone. The revisited bike flip bunnyhop around the 00:23 mark nailed cleaner blew my mind, it’s not too often we see a totally brand new trick anymore. Not to mention the stationary body varial, that probably had us all wondering. Why has no one see done that? The best ideas are like that! Congratulations James, you definitely blew the Must watch firewall off!

S&M team mate, Pete Olsen is my runner up for edit of the year, who like James ticked all the boxes I look for and admire in the modern era of flatland.

Look for interviews with both James and pete in the near future here on FM!

Lookback: December 2015 – The Flatmattersonline 2015 Year end awards


We started the last month of the year with this sick xft pedal turbine mega spin opposite foot decade clip out of Jason Plourde.


On December 2nd, Alberto Moya published this really nice edit from the jam the day after the Com’in Lyon contest a few weeks back featuring Alexis Desolneux, Charles Paty, Fabien Stephan, Alberto Moya, Kevin Jacob, Mates Tucek and Matthieu Bonnecuelle. Definitely worth a watch!


Joel Schallhorn has been progressing a ton since his return from China back to his home in Denver, Colorado. Joel definitely stands out to me as he rides so differently than almost anyone I can think of, in this edit you will see lots of new opposite bar flips, gadget whips variations, and a fun new no footed steam holding the stem (3:57 + backwards variation) that was inspired by Martti Kuoppa at a Tintadome session at BITR last month. Really enjoyed this edit, keep on shredding Joel!

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