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.

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!!!

Yasuyuki Takeo: The Flatmattersonline Interview

Intro/Interview: Effraim.

It is hard to put into words the influence that the King of Ground contest has had on flatland since it’s inception, from all sides of flatland, the groundbreaking riding styles, the inside wooden contest floors, use of the battle format, waving of the flags for the judges result. I feel like no matter what I say, that would be only the tip of the iceberg.

I hit up Yasuyuki Takeo, one of the people behind the scenes that helped get the King of Ground up and running along with Takashi Ito, Kotato Tanaka, York Uno and a few others. I’ve lost track how many times I’ve posted a KOG video, and hit rewind numerous times just see what the hell happened. I wanted to know more about behind the scenes information of one of the most influential contest series to happen in flatland history.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Yasuyuki Takeo interview! In true Flatmattersonline style, it’s a long read, so grab a cuppa and get educated on all things KOG. So stoked how this came out, thank you Yasu for taking the time to do work on this interview.

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Voodoo Pre Jam 2017

It may be three years old, but the Voodoo Pre Jam 2017 edit by Erik Otto that has just been published is well worth your attention. Featuring the likes of Matthias Dandois, Yu Katagiri, Alex Jumelin, Masato Ito, Yohei Uchino, Ahmed Johnson, Travis Collier, and more shredding at the Pre jam.

King of Ground 2004: Nagoya Japan

 Akihiko Takahashi just came through with 22 minutes of golden footage from the 1st Round of the King of Ground series in 2004. Round 1 went down in Nagoya, Japan, and 16 years later, most of this riding stands up today. Featuring the likes of Martti Kuoppa, Terry Adams, Yohei Uchino, Viki Gomez, Shinde, Kotaro Tanaka, and so many more. I just got through with my first viewing of this, and I’ll be going straight back to this. This is refreshing to watch, thanks Aki for the upload!

The 2019 Flatmattersonline Year End Award Nominees Announced!

As we roll into my 12th year of running Flatmattersonline, and now my 6th year of running the Flatmattersonline Year End Awards. The feeling and concept of why I started the site, and why I started hosting the awards with multiple categories remain the same. This was a chance I felt to showcase the many talents flatland has to offer via My vote (editorial) and your vote (reader vote) and not just focus on one rider.

Here are the nominees for the Editorial Vote and Reader Vote, 2019 Flatmatters Year End Awards. Congratulations to everyone who was nominated, and thank you flatland as always!

* Please note: There were a couple of ties, so there are 6 nominees in some categories…

Effraim Catlow.
11 years and counting / Flatmattersonline.

Editorial Vote:

Rider of the Year

Matthias Dandois
Owen Bohn
Dominik Nekolny
Kio Hayakawa
James White

Edit of the Year:

Dane Beardsley / that and this 2019
Matthias Dandois / Taking Hawaii
Pedro Melo / Nice Nice Very Nice
James White / Eye of the Tiger
Michele Maiolani / Straight Ahead
Regenerations / Short Film

Most Progressive Rider

Ryo Katagiri
James White
Owen Bohn
Kio Hayakawa
Jean William Prevost

Outstanding Contribution

Alex Jumelin
Irina Sadovnik
Nick Watts
Martti Kuoppa
Flatbible

Line of The Year:

Ryo Katagiri: Regenerations Video. 9:57:
Body Varial two footed backyard pivot gliding lard yard pivot switch foot peg wheelie carved in circles wind into switch handed backwards spinning switch -b to gliding opposite switch b to xft two footed trump truck Degroot undertaker out.

James White: Eye of the Tiger. 2:13.
Switch foot head grab peg wheelie into one handed switch foot peg wheelie pivot to head grab ant rider to head grab one handed rope on the right foot undertaker headtube pivot out.

Dane Beardsley: This and that 2019. 2:03,
Dump truck jump round to backwards rolling ice cream to rope then into backwards straddle come out opposite side g-roll to ice cream back regular rope back to straddle back opposite g-roll to ice cream jump to peg wheelie bar flip out!

Matthias Dandois: Hawaii. 2:03.
Whips into opposite spinning fork wheelie and casually bar scoots into backwards spinning one footed halfpacker on his opposite side with one foot under the chainring/BB into left sided halfpacker.

Pedro Melo: Nice Nice Very Nice. 1:11.
One footed spinning hitch to steam.

——————————————————————————————

Readers Vote.

Rider of the Year.

Kio Hayakawa
Matthias Dandois
Dominik Nekolny
Matthieu Bonnecuelle
Owen Bohn

Edit of the Year.

Pedro Melo / Nice Nice very nice!
Matthias Dandois / Hawaii
Mateus Beckmann / Flat Street
Dane Beardsley / that and this 2019
Jeff Desroche / After the accident 2

Most Progressive Rider.

Kio Hayakawa
Matthieu Bonnecuelle
James White
Jean William Prevost
Pedro Melo
Matthias Dandois

Contest Run of Year.

Ryo Katagiri – Fise Hiroshima Round 1
Dominik Nekolny UCI World Championship Final
Matthieu Bonnecuelle UCI World Championship Final
Irina Sadovnik UCI World Championship Final
Moto Sasaki Fise Chengdu Finals

Breakthrough Rider.

Kio Hayakawa
Irina Sadovnik
Matthieu Bonnecuelle
Nick Watts
Benjamin Hudson

THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO TOOK THE TIME TO VOTE!

Year end award winners announced:
Wednesday 15th January.

Repo: Urban Waves Day 1

Today I made the trip from Southsea to Kortrijk in Belgium via the Eurostar out of St.Pancras, London. I arranged with contest organiser, Barre Neirynck to be picked up in Lille, France which was just hour and half from London. Dez Maarsen kindly picked me up and drove me direct to the event.

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