| Deuxième édition du Circle Cow. Date: 10 et 11 février 2001 Place: Servon (77) Organisation: team Asphalt (Pascal Mintovt et Ismaël Bambouvert) et team Animal de Servon (Antoine, Fabrice Falandry, Jean-Marc) |
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| Effraim Catlow, www.theflatlander.com: It has been almost ten years since I last went to a contest in France, which for how good contests are in France is way too long. In fact, it's absurd being that the country is so close to England. Sam Foakes and his mum and dad invited me to the Circle Cow Contest in Servon, which is in the surburbs of Paris. I met Sam and his parents on the outskirts of London early on Saturday morning (2am to be exact) and took the Channel Tunnel across to France. Due to the marvels of technology it only took 30 minutes maximum, sure beats taking that f'ing boat. It seemed to take hours to get to Paris and find the place. With hardly any sleep, Sam and I somehow managed to ride all day Saturday, both of us had to ride qualifiers, the hall was really big and the amount of French riders there was crazy. Almost as soon as we arrived there, all the other pros showed. Frank Lukas made it over from Germany, Alex Jumelin and Jimmy Petitet, Viki Gomez who was staying with Alex, and the session was on. Practice was the usual unstructured mayhem, crash into riders all weekend type deal. The main things I remember from Saturday were snapping my chain as soon as I started riding, thanks to Roman from Bonn for helping me out with some chain links! Lionel Cardoso was the emcee, and there were DJ's there all day scratching and stuff, good vibes!!! Alex and Viki were jamming. Alex was doing spastic forward death trucks scuffs on the pedal, on his new dope looking Ares. Viki was just combo-ing up beyond belief, two footed steamroller flip to cross foot halfpacker to backwards hitchhiker. Frank Lucas was doing that pedaling upside down mega spin with enough speed, check out his riding on Infinite pieces for the scoop. Saturday felt like the longest day. After enough hours of riding, Sam Foakes somehow woke up and qualified first in the expert class, I don't remember too much from expert that day, sorry! Pro qualifiers had about 16 riders, the cut was down to eight, and there was some crazy riding going on. Armin Batoumeni was trying Cliffhanger twist to cross footed backwards rolling cliffhanger, that is crazy. Viki ripped the qualifiers apart, with fluid style and enough difficulty, pulling halfpacker to cross foot hitchhiker (that's the switch the way he does it by the way). His buddy Alex Jumelin was in second, pulling some nice stuff, halfpacker body varial jump into switch hand steamroller combo springs to mind, as well as Cliffhanger turbine to spastic tomahawks. I qualified third, half hiker to halfpacker jumped round into flap jack combos and out to the back pegs. My fellow Carharrt teammate from Germany Frank Lukas was in fourth, with crazy strings, his speed is relentless, fire hydrant to spinning hitchhiker out to opposite steamroller to x-up mcCircle to spinning hitchhiker with the bars crossed and out, the pedaling upside down mega spin and much more. Everyone was having good runs. Jimmy Petitet had a bit of trouble pulling that 360 bike flip to caboose combo that he normally drops, but did plenty of smooth bar flip tomahawk combos that flowed really nicely. Those are the top five. Armin Batoumeni did no footed death trucks and made the cut. Alain Massabova of Cream fame also made the cut and fresh from the expert class, Mustopha, made the cut. The finals were set for Sunday and were going to be dope. Saturday night the organisers arranged a party at some club, and the video premiere of "Solitaire 2" which you should check out by the way. After having no sleep pretty much Friday night we decided to give that a miss and chill at the hotel. Sunday quickly rolled around. The morning was a little more chilled in the contest area than Saturday, so more rolling tricks were possible. I filmed some stuff with some dude from Original Flava video magazine (France) whilst the floor was rider-free pretty much. The contest soon came around, and once again Sam Foakes dominated the expert class, he pulled a super dope combo that went something like this: hang five to halfpacker to crackpacker to steamroller to fire hydrant whips to double decade. The place erupted, the French are very respectful of the riders, which is really cool, they like their flatland and they show it in their passion which is great to see. Philip from Germany (I forget his second name) pulled a rad cross foot halfpacker to 360 bar spin to karl kruzer. An original move, I've never seen that before, that ruled. I forget the other riders, sorry! Pro started with a small jam session with all the finalists. One in, one out .that kind of thing, which worked really well. Armin Batoumeni ran out of room during his no footed death trucks, and tried that crazy cliffhanger bar spin combo also. Mustopha had clean runs, full of tomahawk bar flip combos. Alain Massabova was pulling flips to upside down mega spins jamming to "Cream" by the Wu. I messed up a bit in the final, but pulled a halfhiker flip to cross foot hitchhiker to backwards backpacker, that made my weekend so I was happy. Jimmy Petitet had trouble once again pulling that 360 bike flip, but pulled some dope bar flip tomahawk combos for fourth. Frank Lukas jammed for third hitting most of his combos. He pulled that spinning hitchhiker route that I mentioned earlier perfectly and hit that pedaling upside down megaspin into spinning gyrator on the pedals, dope! Alex Jumelin was riding fast and controlled. I saw Alex do a bunch of new combos in practice but in the contest he did stuff I had seen from last year. The patented hang five 360 varial to tomahawk to 360 bar spin ride out, a dope Cliffhanger turbine to tomahawk combos for second place. Riding to Metallica, Viki Gomez deserved the win. No one had a clean run, but I think his riding and the Jorge 'Viki' Gomezcombos he pulled deserved it. Boomerang to switch foot forward karl kruzer to switch foot streamroller pumped into a whole barrage of flap jack combos that get confusing to describe, you have to see a video really. Switch hand ride in to crackpacker turbine jump to two footed rolling backyard to walk over out, dope Viki, dope! Shortly after Alex Jumelin won the longest funky chicken jam, with something like 17 minutes, he gave his prize to the guy in second place which was cool to see! After the contest, I did an interview with Alex Jumelin and Jimmy Petitet for Ride BMX UK and wished them luck as they were off to the CFB in Florida. This contest ruled, thanks to all the organisers and French riders for a great time. I must go to France more often! Armin Batoumeni, www.agoride.com: Session De Rattrapage. La dernière jam de Servon dans le 77, avait été organisée à la hâte du fait de la lenteur de l’administration qui n’avait donné son accord qu’à la dernière minute. Du coup les organisateurs, Pascal Mintovt, Ismaël Bambouvert et les locaux du team Animal de Servon ont eu envie de se refaire une petite session de rattrapage le week-end du 10 et 11 février. On compte de plus en plus de jams de flat en Europe. Les gens ont compris qu’il fallait s’organiser et s’occuper de sa discipline. Du coup à chaque jam de flat, il y a de plus de plus de riders qui viennent d’un peu partout en Europe histoire de rider en groupe, de se remouiller, mais aussi de rouler en intérieur pour mieux préparer les contests du printemps et de l’été. Côté rider on était gâté, avec une multitude d’inscrits en amateur et en expert. En Pro on a eu droit à la visite de Georges Gomez dit "viki " et qui déchire. Effraim Catlow, un habitué des X-Games, et Sam Foakes, l’un des meilleurs experts du moment représentaient l’Angleterre. Les Allemands étaient aussi en Force, avec Stephan Tamme, Stephan Heinrich, Franck Lucas qui n’était pas venu pour blaguer et bien d’autres. L’expert Steven Blatter représentait la Suisse. Côté français, on retrouvait les visages habituels: Alex Jumelin, Armin Batoumeni, Jimmy Petitet, Emmanuel et Alain Massabova, Christophe Dassié, Ismaël Bambouvert, Thomas Dehove, Sébastien Bonnot, Moustapha Meghaizerou, le petit expert qui monte, s’est fait plaisir en roulant en pro histoire de se frotter un peu à ses aînés. Lionel Cardoso qui n’était là que pour le practice, s’est improvisé aide-speaker de Pascal Mintovt. Alexis Desolneux, qui a le bras en vrac à cause d’une mauvaise chute en Street est venu à pied accompagné de sa future japonaise de femme et s’est improvisé juge. Beaucoup d’autres riders ont fait le déplacement comme la bande de Vincent Warin descendu de LILLE, les frères BADRE de Châlons en Champagne, des riders de Nantes, des experts de Lyon, bref plein de monde motivé pour faire du flat en indoor et voir ce qui se passe en hiver. Une fois les portes du gymnase ouvertes, et le DJ en action, c’était la bataille pour rider. Imaginez une aire grande comme un Terrain de Handball ou de basket avec une cinquantaine de mecs qui essayent de rentrer leurs tricks avec des trajectoires incompatibles. En bref, pour ceux qui ne maîtrisent pas bien leurs tricks, ou qui ont besoin d’espace, c’est soit l’énervement, soit la patience, soit la résignation. Une fois les experts et les amateurs passés, la seule solution était de réaliser une jam pour permettre à tout le monde de passer chacun à son tour et de profiter ainsi de toute l’aire. Et là les patrons du jour étaient incontestablement Viki, Franck Lucas et Effraim Catlow. Viki est vraiment chaud bouillant avec des enchaînements incroyables sur l’avant le tout à vive allure. Exemple: Switch foot steam roller into saut autour du guidon into inside donut guidon droit into steam roller into squeak en elephant glide into backpaker guidon droit en cercle into cross footed hitchiker. Hang five guidon retourné into switch foot steam roller into cow-boy squeaks. Départ de trick le guidon retourné et les pied croisés into backward crackpaker turbine into locomotive into switch foot caboose. Départ le guidon retourné into switch foot half lash into saut vers steam roller sur l’autre pegs into boomerang to switch foot elephant glide into steam roller into roling junk yard into turbine forward deaht truck spastic. Fire hydrant guidon droit into switch foot elephant glide squeak into steam roller into switch-hiker en cercle turbine into circle cross-footed halfpacker turbine into hitchiker. Ca y est vous êtes calmé ? Allez, je vais encore vous faire mal avec la routine de Franck Lucas. Fire hydrant into steam roller spastic into front wheel megaspin guidon droit into spastic backward spinning crackpaker into body varial to inside donut into spastic steam roller into inside circle-K à la Chase Gouin into front yard devant le guidon into switch foot backward front wheel megaspin. Le même enchaînement en commençant par fire to hitchiker. Megaspin into Spinning into saut vers un inside caboose de l’autre côté into upside down megaspin into spastic rope-roni sur la pédale ! ! ! Bon je vous achève avec Effraim Catlow qui roule depuis des millénaires et fait un nombre impressionnant de tricks. Backward steam roller into one-handed pinky squeak rentré en sautant sur les pegs arrières. Switch foot backward rolling lawnmower into gerator into inside caboose into gerator into switch to gerator le tout " avé le staïle ".G-string into pedal side squeak into bar whip into full bar whip. Switchiker into bar whip into cross-footed hitchiker into side squeak. Switchiker into halfpaker en passant sur le coté into circle-K, into saut au-dessus du cadre vers un inside donut into steam roller into bike varial into inside donut et retour en sautant sur les pegs arrières. Backpaker caboose into inside caboose into upside down megaspin into inside switch foot caboose. Switch foot hitchiker into backward backpaker. G-string into 3 backward wiplashs into whip pedal side squeak. On notera aussi les time machines bien spastic de Sam Foakes et sa maîtrise des doubles decade. Pour résumer il y avait vraiment du gros niveau international à Servron. Cela prouve encore une fois que le flat européen est en place. Pour le reste des riders français, c’était du classique, rien de bien différent de ce qui s’est fait lors de la dernière session de Servon en novembre dernier. PROS 1.Jorge 'Viki' Gomez 2.Alex Jumelin 3.Frank Lukas 4.Jimmy Petitet 5.Effraim Catlow 6.Armin Batoumeni 7.Alain Massabova 8.Moustapha Meghaizerou EXPERTS 1.Sam Foakes 2.Steven Blatter 3.Charles J Barreca 4.Gregory Gonzales 5.Mickaël Bureaux 6.Cédric Decosse 7.Raphaël Chiquet 8.Stéphan Henrich AMATEURS 1.Florian Guitteaux 2.Julien Lorentaire 3.Francis Bessiene 4.Silvere Celier 5.Arnaud Cinioni 6.Florian Laroy 7.Richard Robbé 8.Cyril Missou |