| Bart de Jong, www.fatbmx.com: There's a diverse group of BMX-ers nowadays. With so many riders around there are events that attract different riders. In the UK you have the Backyard jams and the events put on by 414 Productions. It's not that the two don't get along, it's the type of event that's happening that one likes over the other. Where the Backyard jams are BMX-only, the 414 events are usually a part of an existing event. The annual Bike Show in the UK was once organized by the Seventies crew but since they started organizing 3 of their own events per year they left The Bike Show alone. 414 picked it up and got a whole bunch of USA riders over to attend this year's event. Here's a short list of USA riders that entered the comp: TJ Lavin, Nasty, Fuzzy, Mirra, Nyquist, Ryan Barrett, Kagy, Haugen and half Americans McCann, Dillewaard and Murray. Unfortunately Jamie Bestwick didn't make it because that visa shit is more complicated than it should be. |
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| Simon Tabron, www.snafubmx.com: The Bike 2003 event was good. There were bikes. It was good. Really, it was a very cool event. I managed to win the vert comp on what was the best contest vert ramp of all time ( Vertical Kingsize II - US organisers TAKE NOTE). I did all my usual 540 stuff and some airs and flairs and probably the smoothest 900 that I have ever done. The street comp was amazing - Mirra, Nyquist and Kagy went more nuts than anyone I have ever seen. Because this wasn't a self proclaimed 'cool' comp, use of the jump box was permitted. Mirra nailed double whip 360, Kagy a double flip and flip whip to x-up(!!!) and Nyquist confused everyone. Perfect double barspin flip, suicide no hander rocket 360...... Mirra came close on a flair wallride and he had some really smooth opposite 360 spine variations as well as a spine flip whip, nose dived, perfect and completely unfashionable. Bless you Dave, Ryan and Chad for reminding the BMX world that style takes more than a table and turndown and for blowing the lid off progression. Ryan 1st, Dave 2nd, Chad 3rd. A flat comp happened and I completely missed it. Sorry. My favourite quote of the weekend ( bearing in mind it was a show for ALL types of cycling) was the commentator during street when the crowd went a little quiet: " Come on, you would have screamed if he was wearing lycra! THIS IS BMX". That's all from the Tabronic archives. Stay good, ride hard, be happy. |
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| STREET | |
| Bart de Jong, www.fatbmx.com: Street was amazing. The level of tricks was amazing. I am going to mention a few of them just to show what level BMX is at right now: - Double whip 360 over the box (Mirra) - Turndown-360-flip to X-up (Stephen Murray) - Manual on top of the wall to barspin-in (Kagy) - Flip with double barspin (Nyquist) - 360 invert, the best ever (Ronnie Surrage) - Double loop (Kagy) - No-foot cancan front peg grab-crankflip over box (Money) - Flipwhip over the spine (Mirra) - Tailwhip to manual (Mark Webb) - 360-rocket-1-hand-x-up over box (Nyquist) - Hurricane on quarter (=180 to 360 on Q-pipe) by Chris Doyle - 1-footed-X-up flip (Benjamin Schenker) - Flip-whip to X-up over the box (Kagy) - Airs 4 feet higher than anybody else (Nasty) - Tailwhip to rock to fakie (Pill) - 720 over the spine (Nyquist) - 360-whip over spine (Tom Haugen) - Superman tailwhip (Ben Hennon) - Funfanu on fence both ways (Mirra) - Downside tailtap on 4 inch beam (Ben Manual) - Nosebonk to double barspin over the spine (Nyquist) - Quarterpipe transfer to peg grind on vert ramp (Robin Fenlon) - X-up tailwhip on box (Dave Dillewaard) - Tailwhip 180 over spine to fakie (Mirra) - 720 over the box (Mark Webb) - Flair on the quarterpipe (Nyquist) - Tailwhip quarter to quarter transfer (Doyle) Just ridiculous if you ask me. Check the results to see who got the best runs together. Even if these type of contests might not be your cup of tea, it cannot be denied that the riding that is going on is awesome. See you at the next event. |
Pro Street 1. Ryan Nyquist 2. Dave Mirra 3. Chad Kagy 4. Steven McCann 5. Tom Haugen 6. Benjamin Shenker 7. Mark Webb 8. Chris Doyle 9. David Dilleward 10. Kye Forte 11. Robin Fenlon 12= Ben Hennon 12= Ben Manuel 14. Ronnie Surridge 15. Jon Taylor |
| VERT | |
| Bart de Jong, www.fatbmx.com: Vertical has several of those King Sized vert ramps. It was a different one from the one that was used in France the weekend before. Alex Reinke even came over to help set it up. With Jamie not making it, Simon slightly injured and Mirra opting to ride street only, the vert jam session wasn't what it could have been. Luckily we have our very own Spanish Fly (Eduardo Terreros) to spice things up. The Fly Bikes rider won the high air contest on Saturday clearing 12 feet (roughly, there was no height pole to measure by). With over 15 riders entering the contest it was decided to split into 2 groups. Each group had a 20 minute jam session. It was good to see so many vert riders. Also some park/street riders decided to enter the contest, and why not, a jam session is a jam session, if you air 3 feet or 12 feet, don't matter. On his second run in the session Eduardo did a set up air of 10 feet into a flair on the other side. Edu has flairs down and does them smooth but with this one the Eject button was pushed mid-way. After some crazy good riding earlier, the ramp had won again this time. After 10 minutes on the bottom of the ramp the Spanish Fly got back on his feet. After some good warm up Simon's neck and shoulder did not seem to bother him too much any more. Turndown 540-s, long no-handers to turndowns on the way in and the cleanest 900's I've ever seen. OBG was ripping it up too. He just seems to tell his bike what to do and it better listens! His barspin to nose pick and alley oop nose-wheelies had to end up in a smith stall before drop in but it's still good to see someone working on the lip. 2nd for the One Big German. Co-contest organizer Zach Shaw stopped running around for a few minutes to hit the ramp and didn't do half bad. Zach's got the best style out there and keeps throwing in tricks out of the blue. Exciting to say the least. His flair was huge and I believe things went wrong on a huge 540. The Vertical ramp felt strong and had his second challenger on the floor but Zach wasn't giving in. He got back up for more. 3rd place for the secret agent. South American X-Games vert winner Chad Kagy ended up in 5th in front of Shaun Egglington who rode very well and Benny Kopp, Achim and Ronnie Remo. In tenth we have Mike Mullen who still rips it up as well, going high with good flow. |
Pro Vert: 1. Simon Tabron 2. Stefan Geisler 3. Zach Shaw 4. Edwardo Terreros 5. Chad Kagy 6. Shaun Egglington 7. Benni Kopp 8. Achim Kujawski 9. Ronnie 'Remo' Johnson 10. Mike Mullen 11. Dennis Wingham 12. Jon Taylor 13. Ryan Nyquist 14. Pete Marselle 15. Paul Jones |
| FLAT | |
| www.theflatlander.com: This year’s competition at the NEC had a lot to live up to in comparison to the previous year’s event where many top pros, including Martti, Vikki and Nathan, turned up. However with the help of a rather large amount of prize money ($5000 for flatland alone) it seemed certain to attract some good riders. The contest format was organised and run by Chris Job and his wife, who most riders on the UK scene will know, Chris isn’t a flatlander himself but seems to organize most of the big UK flatland events so props go out to him. The event was held over three days starting with a world record gyrator attempt on the Friday for UK kids TV (no seriously its true, Sam Foalkes holds the record if you think you can beat it but I don’t know the figure). Following that was an amateur comp on the Saturday and the finally Pros on the Sunday. Before I tell you who won the Pros I should mention the Am comp where as well as some old guys like me entering for a bit of fun there were some real up and coming kids which is always good to see for the UK scene. The comp was eventually won by Steve Green with some nice moves like half packers, hang tens and hang nothings, he won a nice new £500 Haro flatland bike which he promptly sold for £60 because he didn’t have room for it in his car. I should also mention James Smith one of the South Bank kids (went to the same school as Alex Vickers as well) who is putting together some crazy fast links with real good style – this guys shown an alarming rate of progression over the last 6 months. Anyway onto the Pros where eight riders entered, with money down to tenth place they all seemed certain to go home richer. I joked that I should enter just to get some cash, then hot of his win in the Am’s Steve Green decided that was a good idea and there were nine riders. First place went to the super smooth Mike ‘dialed’ S who threw down a virtually flawless run. This guy just flows around the whole area melting one trick into another, half packers, opposite half packers, cross footed hitch hikers (I could go on all day). Next up is second place man, another Mike S ironically, but this time Sommers. I was glad I wasn’t judging between the two Mike S’s because they both deserved to win (if that’s possible). Anyway I think Mike just has an amazing style to his riding that’s so good to watch, lots of jumping moves, like from the back pegs with a 540 bar flip straight into pedal steam rollers. He has also got nice turbined cliffhangers with a bar flip thing while spinning. Sam Foalkes took third representing the UK scene with his array of original moves like no handed half packers and super man steam rollers, Sam’s got a really solid style and rarely seems to bail out of a link or combo still its stomped. In fourth was Alex Jumelin, the hip hop soldier from France, who came riding a new signature Ares from (which is nice if you like bendy top tubes a’la the GT show, oh yeah its made from good old 4130 as well). Whenever I’ve seen him ride before Alex’s riding seemed very powerful and consistent and his runs this time were lacking a bit of the consistency which could be due to the fact that he was trying some new moves which I haven’t seen before. I saw him attempt his crazy two footed pedal steamroller and he’s got a nice ‘pumping’ combo where the trick kinda sustains itself with no scuffing (perpetual motion or something). Anyway I should also mention some more of the up and coming kids in this class from the UK, Alex Vickers and Dan Margrets who ended up in 5th and 7th respectively. Alex is one of the new breed of south bank riders and this guy can ride FAST (I see Alex riding a lot and the speed at which he can pick up a new move if amazing). Dan is a totally committed flatlander and every time I see him ride he seems to be coming up with another new move. Futher down the pack was Dino Jeffers, a UK comp wouldn’t be the same without him, Dino put out two virtually flawless runs but is perhaps let down by the technicality of his ticks in comparison to the big name pros, anyway stick at it Dino. Well I think I’ve babbled on for long enough now so I’d better sign off but if your in the area when bike 2004 rolls around it might just be worth checking it out, the riders in the UK scene are always up for a good laugh whether riding or just hanging out drinking at night. Bart de Jong, www.fatbmx.com: To be honest I did not see much of the flatland contest. There was an amateur contest (which was good to see) and a pro contest. Phil Dolan just got back from the Roots jam and missed the contest. It would have been good to have seen him mix it up with Alexis, Sommer, Jumelin, Foakes and Steingraeber. At the airport on the way back I ran into the Flatland man who kindly invited me to sit at his table while eating a few 4-quid-slides of Airport Pizza. Dino Jeffers informed me that the judges did not do a good job. He should have placed higher. Also Alex Jumelin did not pull much he said so 3rd place for him was not good. He mentioned judge D. Beveridge needs some glasses or should pay more attention. That being said I don't think the Flatland Man will receive much cash from Dave at the next Ride for Beer Money-jam, like the one that took place on Saturday. Beveridge played the rich uncle and gave out beer to riders who showed a good link. Anybody could just ride and if it was good enough for an envelope with 10 pounds inside, you just picked it up from the man. Quite funny and a good way for riders to pay for the train ticket home. This Beer Money jam also happened in vert and street. Throw down and cash in, instantly. To come back to the flatland contest, Michael Steingraeber won and will use the cash for rent because he's looking for a solid place to stay for the upcoming months after 6 months of being on the road. Michael Sommer from Austria scored second and 3rd went to soon to be daddy Alex Jumelin (pamper money). |
Am Flatland: 1. Steven Green 2. Andy Ash 3. James Smith 4. Keelan Phillips 5. Miguel Novais 6. Hector Jackson 7. Chris Wright 8.Iain Young 9. Gareth Hawkins 10. Tom Marsh Pro Flat Results: 1.Michael Steingraber 2.Michael Sommers 3.Sam Foalkes 4.Alex Jumelin 5.Alex Bickers 6.Alexis Desolneux 7.Dan Margrets 8.Dino Jeffers 9.Steve Green |