Sources: FAT #23, Go january 1992 (Mark Noble report), Invert october 1991, ...
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Date: august 24-25, 1991. Place: Southsea, Hampshire, UK. Organisation: famille Catlow.
The KOC is one of the few contest in England where you don't have to be a member of the UKBFA to be able to enter.
Flatland, miniramp, bowls, street and halfpipe.
A, B and C poule in most of these events.
To be King Of Concrete, you had to enter at least 3 classes.
If you've never been to Southsea Skatepark, this is what it's like. There's a big metal surface vertical ramp, it's 32 feet wide and 12 feet tall incorporating a foot and a half of vert (it's primarily a skate ramp). There are two steel mini ramps: the smaller is 16 feet wide and 5 feet high, the larger has stupid metal transitions and is 16 feet wide and 8 feet high (it's so mellow you can't hit your chainring on it). The flat area is a large smooth flat rollerrink about the size of a football pitch. There are four main bowls. The snake run is a Cresta-Run style high banked snake leading into a bowl which is perfect for jumping out of. The new bowl at the bottom of the park is nine feet deep and around like a donut. There is also a peanut shape bowl with small to medium sized transition banks. The Keyhole is the deepest of the lot -it's about 12 feet deep with a vert extension, a footslap board, and decks. This thing is mental. The whole park is crazy and there is TONS of stuff to ride.
The year 1991 saw the biggest entry yet. Over 100 riders entered the contest. Riders came in rented minibuses, borrowed cars, on trains, by bike, by plane, and by boat from all over Europe. Germans, Dutch, French, all over the UK, and a couple of riders made the trip from America and Canada.
FLATLAND
Flatland kicked off the whole shebang on Saturday. The rollerrink was cleared and the jam tape was slapped in the PA machine. Effraim Catlow (yes, son of Geoff and virtually lives at the skatepark) flowed through such tricks as hitchhiker to backpacker and onto locomotives and connecting via a number of hard moves... as smooth as silk. Effraim took the worldchampion title in Denmark a couple of weeks earlier and didn't take no crap from his B-class competitors. Whilst Phil Dolan shook the park with his pure speed and aggression: chainsaws, hyperspastic spins, super fast links, beyond comprehension. Phil is original and does not see the need for duplication, hence the lack of a trick list. Phil Dolan won A-poule. USA-man Jim Dellavalle got second followed by Geoff Martin who knows what spinning tricks are.
B-group flatland results:
1.Effraim Catlow
A-group flatland results:
1.Phil Dolan
2.Jim Dellavalle
3.Geoff Martin
STREET
The rollerrink was suitably endowed with all manner of street furniture: a funbox with two transitions and two flat banks, a table with a step bit and a flat bank and a handrail, a small flyoff parked near the handrail around the bleacher section, a large plastic tube (really), and an 80-degree wallride ramp. Highlights during the morning of intense street action included: Dave Clarke pulling the sickest variations over the funbox-like fully stretched no hander to fully clicked turndown in one jump. He then pulled one of the baddest slams, nose diving a nothing to no-footer into the ground, to face, to casualty department. Chris Hardy helped organize the street section creating a fine course, and also provided things like bus drivers, bomb drop wall runs, peg grinds up the handrail (so fast he would launch off the top), and many street tricks for the delight of the amassed crowd. GT rider Mark Atkins adapted mini ramp tricks to the street apparatus and hence nosepick to decade dropins and tailwhip nosepicks were pulled. Jon Taylor ruled the roost with the raddest trick of them all, however: a launch off the flyoff connected with the handrail near the bleachers and he peg grinded for a good twenty feet and just hopped off the end. Sick sick sick.
Bart DeJong.
dennyd71, www.youtube.com: taken from my first vid half & half back in 1991.
BOWLS
Steve Geall flew high and smooth and flung his legs about all over the place in his usual controlled manner. Simon Tabron (who had already done a 540 in the pool) set the standard early in the jump bowl session as he rode first and pulled a clean high 720. John Yull soared out of said jump bowl with the hardest 360's and highest variations. Thomas Loison from France can only do two jump styles -tailwhips and decade jumps (seriously). The Keyhole was then attacked by the likes of local Dennis Wingham, who cranks hard from the other side of the skatepark and launches himself way above the eight foot tall footslap board. No one rides the Keyhole like Dennis (he can even 540 in it). Brian Wills also pulled a 720 and Dave Beveridge decade jumps out of the bowl.
Zak Shaw. Photo: Mark Noble.
dennyd71, www.youtube.com: taken from my first vid half & half back in 1991.
HALFPIPE
The C groupers went first, followed by B, and logically A. Highs is B group (aka Amateur) included Steve Geall's runs (again), and Dennis Wingham (again) attempting a 540, then a 900, then a backflip (not even coming close on any), but got up smiling every time. If only he could ride halfpipes as well as the Keyhole.
A group vert. Simon Tabron pulled four back-to-back 540's, high connected variations, and all sorts of grinds and won a bag of goodies for third place. He was on a borrowed bike and didn't do the 900 thing (which he pulled at the Worlds in Denmark two weeks earlier). Mark Atkins, who had been at Southsea all week practicing on the big ramp, took the second via nosepicks, tyretaps to nosepicks, front peg picks, grinds, high airs, and a tailwhip air. Jamie Bestwick is ruling UK ramp riding at the moment, busting out the highest airs of the day, all flavours of airs back-to-back, high 540's, slowing down for a section of flowing lip tricks with lines, and a tailwhip air. Highlight was his cherokee where he twists the bike around until it's practically going backwards. Has to be seen to be believed.
Jamie Bestwick on the cover of Invert october 1991.
dennyd71, www.youtube.com: taken from my first vid half & half back in 1991.
MINI RAMP
Focusing on the 5 foot tall mini, the entrants had two runs each. That man Steve Geall shone again -his skill at adapting to varying terrain is unique. On the mini he was seen doing invert airs to nosepick, no-footed manual rolls, alley oop grinds, abubaca to no-footed back-wards drop-in, and huge fakies.
What do you get when you pull off 540's and tailwhip airs out the top of this small tight undervert mini? Ask Scottish rider Andy Burke, who also won the overall title of King Concrete for the second year running by combining high points from ground, mini, street, and bowl. Brian Wills footplanted the deck handrail and landed smoothly back in. After the riders' two runs the fire was calmed and the prizes were handed out. And believe it or not, the weekend's festivities were over.
dennyd71, www.youtube.com: taken from my first vid half & half back in 1991.
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