| Date: 2005. Medias: Soul 38, Props 57, Cream DVD 3, Cream 14, Zwanzig 14, ... |
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| MINI RAMP | |
| Bart de Jong, july 2005, www.fatbmx.com: Before the contest took place at the MellowPark, the kink got taken out of the ramp. This helped with the riding both in amateur and pro class. The ams had an important contest ahead of them with a free trip to the USA up for grabs including a week stay at Woodward Camp. This is every rider's dream that entered the mini contest and althought the contest happened on Saturday, the results weren't announced until Sunday afternoon. I bet non of the riders slept well on Saturday. Felix Kirch came out the winner. Felix was ripping with big boosts over the spine, backflip fly-outs and 540-s and lookbacks to disaster. Damn those little ones are getting good for their age. The GT rider even got an Around the World bike bag from Eastpak for his victory so he'll be appearing in style at Woodward camp this summer on some time next year. Congratulatons Felix. Pro Mini. Osato, Layos, Alcantara, Gross, Millar, Guenther, Wicke, Holzinger, Guettler, Cools, were just a few names that climbed on top of the mini ramp to win one of the three award titles. That's right, instead of doing the regular best overall run score, the system at the Rebel jam worked like this: Riders were judged on style, creativity and hard tricks. Every "award" had a top three so the 10 finalists had three chances to win part of the 7.000 Euro prize money that was on hand per class. Qualifying went in the traditional way so to make it in the final the riders had to go through the regular system. Creative: Hannuh Cools is a hard rider to judge. One thing's for sure, he always comes up with different lines and different use of the ramps. The Creative award was up his alley. Hannuh not only used the barrier of the mini but also the quarter on top of the ramp and the light pole next to this quarter. Hannuh might get underscored in regular comps but he took the Creative Award at the Rebel Jam. Hard Trick: Deciding why one trick is harder than the other is next to impossible. Doing a tailwhip drop-in from the extension or a 720 over the spine....you tell me what's harder or takes more balls/skill. Dave Osato and Tobias Wicke are known to have some hard tricks in the bag but it was Australia's Ryan Guettler who surprised everyone with his back to back hard tricks. 3-whips over the spine, 720-s, flairs, 360-turndowns, tailwhip tiretaps to footjams, 540-s, downside whips, handplants, do you need more? The SE rider rode to his first award of the weekend. Style Award: You either have it, or you don't. Riding loads can get you in the direction because the more comfortable you feel on your bike, the better it looks. It's control, flow, smoothness, that helped 19 years old Sergio Layos win his first style award at the Rebel Jam. Painting your front wheel red just like Sergio won't help you score more style credits. It's not the way your bike looks or how you dress, it's how you ride your 20 inch and Sergio knows how to do that very well. Holzinger was stoked to make the finals. The German put some great runs in but missed out on top three in each category. With such big names on the platform, making the final was a victory in itself. Local Tobias Wicke could barely walk the night before so seeing him ride a bike at all was impressive. A hard slam got him confused a bit but the bad boy got back up and showed some tech. Paddy Gross whip 2 disasterAn injured Paddy Gross passed his final spot to Bommel who gladly took the opportunity to rip it up on his local ramp. Clint Millar was also a rider who looked pretty wasted on the night before the mini comp but he still managed to pull his downside whip to nosepick. Brakeless rider Owain Clegg had a perfect qualifying run where he pulled fufanus, nosepicks, tiretap to barspins and 540-s over the spine. He picked up one of the checks for his riding and would like to thank Hurley for sending him to Berlin. UK's James Hitchcock missed his qualifying run after partying too hard the night before. He still would like to thank Eastpak for sending him over. Nice one! |
Rebel Jam Amateur Mini: 1. Pro Mini 1. |
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| STREET | |
| Bart de Jong, july 2005, www.fatbmx.com: The Mellowpark is one amazing place and the perfect location for the Rebel Jam. Andy Zeiss and Mike Emde worked together with the Mellowpark crew to pull off their first Rebel Jam. After doing a strong promotion campaign of print advertising, setting up a killer website, printing plenty of leaflets, making buttons, and spreading the word at numerous events, one would expect a huge turn out in both the riders field and spectators. Although there were enough quality riders and enough spectators, the Mellow park wasn't as packed as you would think afer such a strong promotion. This makes you think what needs to be done to get the people there. Are there too many contests that people simply pick their closest event to go to? With the World's in Prague, the Snickers Bowl in Donington, the LG comp in Munich, the BMX Masters in Cologne and the LG contest in Paris going on in June prior to the Rebel Jam, you might think that it was a bit contest overflow for some. But when do you have the chance to see riders like Ryan Guettler, Van Homan, Ruben Alcantara, Dave Osato, Sergio Layos, Dustin Guenther, Clint Millar, Kye Forte, Axel Juergens, Hannuh Cools and more ride together in a relaxed atmosphere? The Rebel Jam was just that. By riders, for riders. No count downs for TV, no crazy branding and fair prices on entree fees. Just riding and partying together with the best riders out there should be enough of an excuse for most to visit an event like the Rebel Jam. It wasn't for lack of trying from the organization side, that's for sure. Those who did show up had a good time and that's the most important thing. Okay, enough of that on to the street contest. Let's start with the ramp set up. It was huge. Both in space available and the height of the ramps. They ordered a regular meal and got the XXL version. Something like that. The ams didn't seem to have a problem with it either. Dutchman Leroy Widmann carved the curved wall like it was nothing and others did fufanus and blunts on the highest obstacles on the course. The Woodward flight and camp ticket went to local Tobias Wehlisch who did whips, tables and no-foot-cancans over the hip, and even went for a double whip. Tobi is another stoked teenager that will take a plane to Woodward due to his victory in Berlin. Nice One! Pro street. Big, bigger, biggest. The last discipline of the contest took place on sunny Sunday afternoon. First place qualifier Alessandro Barbero already celebrated his qualifying result the night before and could not repeat the next day. Not that he cared about it or did bad, his prelim run was just insane and with the final scoring being different with awards in style, creativity and hard tricks, the Italian went home empty handed. Das Bommel tailwhip tiretabBommel rode really well. He’s got the park down as a local rider but he was also working the bar the night before till early in the morning. He made the best of the weekend and pulled his tailwhip tiretap on the box as well as a bar-spin disaster. Bommel’s signature move is the seatpost clamp no-footer and we saw that one on dirt as well as street. Fun, fun, fun. Tobias Wicke is another Mellowpark local and seeing him ride the park was a treat. Big, tech, burly, he showed it all for the hometown crowd. Berlin had another rider in the finals. The rather unknown rider with the blue bike (Robert Kroenig) simply killed it! Full throttle all the way, from beginning to end. We’ll be hearing more of this guy in the future. Jurgen Funk to tableHannuh Cools found lines no-one else did proving once again his creativity. Want style? Sergio Layos is the man. It looks like he’s just cruising but he indeed does hard stuff when you consider he does all tricks both ways. Markus Wilke going techMarkus Wilke uses the course in his own way. He rode well and would have placed well with the regular scoring system but missed out on any of the top three price categories. Van Homan took home quite a few “awardsâ€ù he went big, used the course in an original way and also had style doing so. Words won’t describe the transfers he did, you have to watch the videos for that and that footage probably won’t do justice to the distance he traveled. You should have been there to appreciate it. Van Homan going bigAnd that brings us back to the top. If you have the chance to see BMX riders like these, simply go. Do anything you can to get there. Rebel Jam 2006, here we come. |
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