Place: Toronto International Bike Show, at the National Trade Centre, Heritage Court, Exhibition Place, Toronto CANADA
$10,000 U.S. Pro purse / Amateur prizes
Sponsored by: Little Devil, Square One, Axion Footwear, SoBe, MacNeil Bikes, Federal Bikes, Props Visual, WeThePeople, Primo, Ten Pack Distribution, Chase BMX Mag. and Backlashbmx.com
Props Metro Jam DVD.
The big surprise of the weekend was 16-year-old Scotty Cramer qualifying in first place for Pro Street. You'll be hearing a lot about this kid in the future. He did the biggest wallride-to-whip of the contest, a perfect flip-whip over the hip, and lots more. After he qualified in first a lot of riders were walking away with "Yeah, but..." syndrome. That's where you say things like, "Yeah, but his dad owns the Incline Club skatepark," and "Yeah, but he learned some of that stuff in a foam pit." Excuses, excuses—this kid is badass. His runs in the finals didn't go as smoothly as in qualifying, but he still got ninth out of 15 riders.
Kevin Porter was the Metro Jam ruler in the finals. X-up wallride-to-crank-flip out, 720 on the hip, plus tons of spinning manual lines. On the spine, Kevin even came close to pulling a 540-to-disaster-to-180 over-to-manual-to-180 out, but he couldn't make it all stick. But who cares? He still did enough good stuff for the win.
As usual, Ruben Alcantara was amazing. During qualifying he nose-bonked over a ledge and then landed going double-peg down a rail that was four feet away. Then while everyone was still cheering from that move, he came back and did a wallride-to-grind down a ledge as well. Ruben qualified in second, but he hurt his knee and had to sit the finals out.
Brian Vowell broke out his Hang 5 book of tricks all over the course. At one point he did a can-can footplant on the spine, let the bike go into a tailwhip nosepick, and then he jumped back on the bike and came in Hang 5. He also 360'd the spine to Hang-5 out, but he didn't roll far enough to make himself happy.
The "driveway" box was basically a long pyramid with short transitions at each end, but the distance was so far and the lips were so small that riders didn't have time to do many jumping tricks over it. Rob Darden and Alistair Whitton both did long-distance 180s over the whole thing, and somehow Matt Beringer flipped it as well.
John Heaton was the definition of the term "dialed" in Toronto. He tailwhipped everything, went three miles high over the spine, and did a manual line over a rail and down a ledge that no one else even tried.
The course got a facelift this year with the addition of a rad Jersey barrier and billboard set-up. Some people would monster truck straight up the barrier to wallride on the billboard, and Alistair Whitton somehow did it to a perfect downside-whip out of it, too.
Matt Sparks was a tailwhip machine. He pulled a double-whip over the hip in qualifying, and he pulled another double-whip straight over the spine in the finals.
Steve Schwartz put a smile on everyone's face whenever he started riding. Two of my favorite Schwartz tricks were the fakie wallride nearly out of the giant wallride, and his brakeless curb endo-style nosepick on the billboard ledge.
Dave Osato upped the tailwhip ante again in Toronto with an opposite tailwhip-bunnyhop drop-in, and he also went for a double-tailwhip bunnyhop drop-in for his last trick. He gave it about three tries, and the first attempt was the closest. Had the drop been a little farther, he could have had it.
It was worth the price of the trip to Toronto simply to see Mike Aitken ride. Even video can't capture what it's really like when Mikey drops in.
Dustin Gunther took second place with wallride-to-whips, a 720 over the hip, and a perfect tailwhip-to-feeble down the driveway ledge.
Van Homan went off as usual. Icepick grind across the billboard platform, big whips over the spine, and a barspin-to-icepick over and back to finish the contest off.
Chris Doyle rode so well that you almost forgot that he's supposed to be a dirt jumper. His long legs made every tailwhip trick look like some kind of superman, and his 270-whips over the hip looked incredible.
Kris Bennett debuted Square One's new video, Wide Awake Nightmare, Saturday night after the contest. All of the riding in the video is solid, but the Chris Doyle, Corey Martinez, and Brian Wizmerski sections are off the hook. After the video ended, the typical BMX party mayhem ensued when someone threw a garbage can through the front window of the bar and multiple riders got arrested. The most incredible event of the night, though, was when Matt Beringer and Shawn "Elf" Walters started talking trash to a random hooker on the street. The hooker called her pimp on a cell phone and within minutes multiple pimps were on the scene, beating the crap out of Elf. Eventually everything got broken up, but that will be one night Elf and Beringer will never forget.
Am Street Final 1.Shawn Swain 2.Simon Trebanier 3.Cole Dow 4.Karl Engstrom 5.Eric Galipeau 6.Andrew Gobbo 7.Thomas Clappison 8.Justin Clappison 9.Glen Hoerdt 10.Ghislain Gingras 11.David Berube 12.Josh Lichti 13.Mark Hoerdt 14.Chris Silva 15.Chris Stechlinski 16.David Berube 17.Drew Nelson 18.Paul Berger 19.Dennis Dombrow 20.Jordie Lepage 21.Jeremy Hooper 22.Keith Gagne 23.Kent Swanson 24.Eric Trepanier 25.Mike Knutson 26.Patrick Denis 27.Eric Hardy 28.Greg Austen 29.Josh Clark 30.Paul Hoerdt 31.Jeremy Deme 32.Matt Morren 33.Aaron Ippoliti 34.Darren Bolton 35.Adam Mrowka 36.Matt Barber 37.Jordan Ross 38.Anthony Olivero 39.David Wininger 40.Stacey Mulligan 41.Chris Livingston 42.Mark Winch 43.Nina Buitrago 44.Peter Miller 45.David Thomas 46.Ben Falkenham 47.Nolan Simon 48.Dan Groen 49.Jeff Robinson 50.Ryan Garvock
Martti Kuoppa and Viki Gomez were in effect. Viki rocked all of his links like only he can, pulling all of his do-or-die tricks. Martti was a little bummed at the judging, so he did one run consisting of a gut lever and a bunch of Pinky squeaks. Martti still has the moustache, too.
Am Flat Final 1.TJ Perry 2.Kevin Desautels 3.Sebastion Grubinger 4.Justin Miller 5.Eric Effinger 6.Jeff Foster 7.Robert Leschanz 8.Bill Moorey 9.Ryan Silva 10.Tim Hill 11.Nicholas Vaes 12.Tony Schneidewind 13.Lachlan Cameron 14.Chad Carpenter 15.Jeff Hewitt 16.Dave Petrin 17.Adam Pergentile 18.Chris Pergentile 19.Tim Knoll 20.Barry Mielke 21.Brandan Derbowka 22.Mark Kuhlman 23.Jon Dowker 24.Adrian Furniss 25.Norias Mignel 26.Matt St. Gelais 27.John Findlay 28.Jean-Francois Boulianne 29.Simon Marsan 30.Dugald Cameron 31.Neil Tuuri 32.Jed Hubic 33.Aidas Rygelis 34.Prasheel Gopal 35.Mike Maloney 36.Eugene Andruszczenko 37.Jeff Smee 38.Xavier Wallach 39.Clay Jassett 40.Prashant Gopal