Bit late with getting this repo up on the site, after a very busy summer. I finally have some time for myself to return to riding and updating the site regularly. Hope you all enjoy this one!
As I boarded my first flight home from the FA Battleground contest, I planned to start writing a report on the event for the site. Then, over the tannoy, we were told that we were unable to land in Chicago because of a thunderstorm. Off to Indianapolis we went, to wait until we could land in Chicago. I thought to myself, was this trip all worth it? The flight home was already delayed by twenty-four hours, and now was going to be even longer.
The Battleground contest had a real family community vibe that we really need right now. As this event clashed with the Olympics, I thought to myself, what do we really need to help the sport grow? More events? More jams? Better communication between riders? What is it that holds us back?
Yesterday, the annual Huffjam went off in Winston-Salem, North Carolina to wrap up the first year of the American BMX Flatland League.
Congratulations to Jean William Prevost, Bryan Huffman, Teak Gabriel, Ron Metzger, Christiana Neves, and Preston Wilson winners of each class. Full results below, thanks as always to Todd Carter for the results and podium shots.
The Vegas stop of the American BMX Flatland League popped off yesterday, congratulations to all the winners Jean William Prevost, Bryan Huffman, Dillon Parada, Donovan Santos, Ronnie Martensen, and Kaleb Bach. Great to see some new names in the mix, great work from the Vegas Flatland Association, judges and everyone behind the scenes that make contests work. Thanks to Todd Carter for the podium shots and results, check the American BMX Flatland League Facebook page for the contest runs.
Round 4 of the AFA 2023 Flatland series went down yesterday in Houston, Texas. Congratulations to Jean William Prevost winner of Pro class, Bryan Huffman winner of Masters, Troy Hebert taking the win in Expert class, Marty Ferryman winning the Olds Cool class and Julian Thompson taking the honours in the beginner class. Full results and podium shots below, thanks Todd Carter as always for the news.
Congratulations to Terry Adams, taking the win at AFA Round 2 in Detroit, followed on the podium by Dub and Dax Wolford. Check out all the full results, congrats to all the winners.
Before the Battle in the Rockies contest, James McGraw had Bruno Zebu & Mates Tucek staying at his house and of course, riding the Tintadome they got this fun edit done as a pre-hype to the contest. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to watch it in China, nevertheless all three riders kill it in their own way and this definitely worth a watch. That intro tho….
The exclusive content here on Flatmattersonline keeps coming. Whilst I was out at the annual Battle in the Rockies contest a few weeks back, I caught up with some riders to ask them who they thought was the Rider of the Year as a prelude to the up and coming FM year and awards that will be open to vote from 17th December.
After much pondering, on the 27th November 2008 I walked out of a store on Albert Road here in Southsea and decided to start a website. I wanted something basic to begin with to learn online posting, something that was all new to me at the time…. the Flatmattersonline blogspot site was born, Flatmatters had out grown it’s monthly page in Ride UK and it was time for something new that would help the scene. Looking back the first month or so was pretty amazing, all exclusive content.
Ten years on, my first article “To Scuff or not?” is still one of my favourite articles I have done on the site and it’s especially interesting to see where it’s at right now in relation to that article. I wanted to have more writing and depth about flatland online and proud today ten years on today so stay I am contributing what I set out to do. Scroll down on the archives section on the right hand side of the site and have a read when you have a spare moment.
I think my most proudest achievement running the site, is that my initial ethos and theory behind why am I going to this site still runs true ten years on, and has grown over the years.
The initial idea was a simple one, I wanted to wake up everyday and have something for you to look at to motivate you the flatlander at home, no matter where you are in the world to get out riding that day, and I didn’t want to governed by anybody or any company.
Whilst I miss the qualities print has that the internet can never touch, you can’t deny that the internet has brought the world closer together. I can reach so many more people via FM then I ever could making a magazine.
I wanted to do something special to mark 10 years of Flatmattersonline, I realise the website is known for posting riding videos every day, but it’s not often I go behind the scenes and interview the people that inspire me.
So throughout the course of this week I reach out to riders and friends across the globe to ask them a couple of questions, in places some riders have gone on a tangent from what I asked. There are no rules here, I want to celebrate the site and feel pretty proud to be able to help inspire new riders, older riders, seasoned pros, help riders get sponsors, teach kids tricks, there’s always something new happening with the site its pretty mind-blowing to me and helps to grow and branch out in different ways.
I wanted to do something special to mark 10 years of Flatmattersonline, I realise the website is known for posting riding videos every day, but up until now I haven’t talked at all about the people that have inspired me on this journey. So these set of episodes attempts to focus purely on the people that have inspired me, not their riding which we all know every well.
After some brainstorming, I decided I wanted to go away from the riding (which I feature everyday) and dig beneath the surface of the site and ask my inspirations about their thoughts on FM. I reached out to a whole host of people who inspire me in so many different ways, most have responded and a couple not which is disappointing, but I kind of expected that to happen.
I asked the following questions:
What would you say over ten years is Flatmattersonline biggest contribution to the sport?
When you think of Flatmattersonline what do you think of?
What was your first memory of Flatmattersonline?
My next thought as I was sending emails out to riders, was to have exclusive content every day for an entire week. And go back to how I started FM ten years ago pretty much. Sometimes I feel I go away from that, with the daily demands of “edit, edit,”. It’s time for me to shut up, grab a cuppa and reflect on 10 years of running Flatmattersonline.
You all make flatmatters what it is, so I thank all of you who are tuning in. It’s been a lot of work keeping the site going, 15,490 posts later we are here celebrating our tenth anniversary!
Here’s to ten more, I hope you all enjoy the Ten Years of Flatmattersonline episodes…
This week is seriously going so fast, it’s already time for Friday’s update as we head to the Battle in the Rockies an hour away in Denver, Colorado this morning. We woke up to sunny skies, and after getting the FM updates done it was time to wash the Slab before we started riding. As I started washing the floor, Bobby Burge showed up and helped lend a hand to get the riding spot ready for a session in the sunshine. It was time for the AFA pre jam at the Slab.
John Yull won three awards for the 2017 Flatmattersonline Year end awards, editorial and reader choice Most Progressive Rider and Line of the Year editorial for his Master of Creativity 2017. Being at the top, it is interesting to dig beneath and talk about the mindset riders are in to get to that level, this kind of level doesn’t just happen often and only a few make the sacrifice to achieve that level. John Yull is one of the chosen few, via some brainstorming with John and Todd Carter we came up with the following interview. Sit back grab a cuppa and show some love to John! Todd Carter caught up with John Yull during the AFA Texas weekend to talk all things Master of Creativity. Thanks a lot Todd for taking the time to interview John, this is a good one!
00:48: In this day of age of everyone being online constantly, sharing almost everything they do on a daily basis. John made the decision to stay offline.
2:13: Not stacking clips and using a strategy but instead going in hard round to round right up until the deadline.
4:07: Which round of the MOC was John most happy with?
4:46: Which round did you not like as much?
5:56: Personal satisfaction, not being happy with clips.
7:13: Riding early morning in Japan before any riders were at Meriken park so no one would see what he’s trying.
7:52: The impact of the no handed decade on social media. Did he peek in to see what was going on online during this time period?
9:46: Thoughts on judging this year’s Master of Creativity contest?
10:53: The crash section John posted from his MOC entries was brutal, was the worst slam or at least most memorable?
15:04: Focus this year after competing in MOC for the last years? What can we expect this year?
16:06: MOC not being fun, and shouldn’t be fun.
17:20: Any advice for riders on the fence, should I enter MOC or not?
18:15: If you had to pick one trick from the MOC 2017 what would it be?
