Paul Chamberlain: TGM/Brighton Jam weekend

This weekend in London was a banger!

Phil Dolan announced a jam at the Green Mile on Saturday and people came from miles around to attend it.

Being particularly keen to ride with some other people I headed down at about 10am and was greeted by Lee Wilson and shortly after that by a new by the name of Yingke. Within the next hour or so there were about 10 of us which eventually became about 20. The weather was lovely and we rode all day. Manu Massabova was filming and James White, Phil Dolan and Jay Forde were busting out. The Green Mile is a great spot to ride. It’s massive and less windy than surrounding areas. Phil’s backwards nose manuals are immense. It’s great seeing them in real life. Anyway, I won’t say too much more about the Saturday because I’ve got no pictures!!! A great day was had by all.

On Phil’s word we all headed to Brighton (a seaside town that hosted the infamous clashes between the mods and rockers in the 70’s) the following day.

A few of the Londoners made the trip over and we were greated by a different cast of around 20 riders that included Effraim and Lincoln Blacksley (Southbank legend). The session went down again and ascended into drinking as the sun went down. It was the coldest day I’ve experienced since I left England and was a real taste of things to come in the autumn here!!! OH dear… I was stoked to be riding though and stoked to see how stoked Effraim is about riding. Phil went for a swim in the sea which was cold and England-rough.

The following day I hit the mile and rode mostly on my own. I was joined by Yingke after a few hours. On Saturday Phil told him that if he learned a new trick by next Saturday he’d give him frame. Well he’d already learned one on the Sunday and then Mario showed up, taught him another one and gave some ammo for the rest of the week! Now that’s flatland!

I met loads of new riders over the past few days who have started in the past couple of years. UK flat is alive and the jam was a great demonstration of that. Phil and Effraim were talking of getting some more jams going soon. Count yourself lucky guys. Soon it will be highs of 5 degrees and getting dark at 4 O’clock here!

I’m pretty stoked and have made good progress over the past few weeks. Time to re-flatland the bike setup! I’m on Flatlandfuel right now putting an order together. Some pegs over 10cm long and some Freq G’s should do the trick!!! See you at Down Underground!!!!!!