August in Europe, 2009

Shane Badman put together an edit from his recent travelling through Europe.

The guys over at Newcircle have posted it up, you can check it out by clicking here now.

2010 Flatland Calendar

For the second year in a row Fat Tony and Flatland Fuel are proud to present an exclusive Flatland BMX Calendar. The 12-month 2010 wall calendar features 15 original flatland photos of riders from six countries shot all around the world. Each month features a different rider in a unique location including Japan, Monaco, France, Australia, Czech Republic, Panama, and the U.S. In addition to the twelve months, there is also a bonus poster so you can keep flatland on your wall even after '10 has passed. As the only calendar of its kind the 2010 Flatland BMX Calendar is a must-have for flatland riders worldwide, but the only way to get one is to place an order with Flatlandfuel.

The best part about the '09 Flatland Calendar is that the calendars are absolutely FREE when you place an order with Flatlandfuel (while supplies last)!

For a preview of the calendar, click here & for an interesting interview on how it all came about click here.

Riders Include: Dominik Nekolny, Terry Adams, Chase Gouin, Moto Sasaki, Adam Kun, Kotaro Tanaka, Max Roth, Denes Katona, Matt Wilhelm, Dane Beardsley, Chad Johnston, York Uno, Shane Badman, Matthias Dandois, and Bobby Carter.

The 2009 Flatland BMX Calendar is proudly sponsored by Flatland Fuel, Cream, Flatware, Suelo, KHE, Fourthirty Clothing, Quamen, OG Bike Co., Hoffman Bikes, DK, S&M, Ares Bykes, and Colony. A huge thanks goes out to each company who helped make the calendar possible. It is support from companies like them that keeps flatland growing!

Kevin Browne interview

Thanks to Mizo for hooking this up! Great to see Kevin getting out there, first met him when he was in a Australia a few years back, then at The Green Mile in London a while later - top bloke!

It was a nice hot summer day when me and my friend Reverson, after days of riding at the same location decided to get our bikes and head to a different spot. We choose Waterford, the capital of the Sunny South East of Ireland Founded in 914 AD by the Vikings (??). Well the fact is that we didn’t expect to find a flatlander riding over there! We know the Irish scene is not big but for our surprise we were wrong. From far away we noticed a guy riding a BMX, and I first thought it could be a street rider (there are a lot of riders around so we didn’t care) but suddenly we saw flatland moves going on so we looked at each other and shouted "WHAT THAT HELL?" . After finishing his tricks, the dude who looked completely shocked at us was Kevin Browne.

Kevin has experienced untold tragedy in life. He lost employment and went out of control after the passing of his mother, father and sister . He got himself in a lot of trouble with the law and had to get out of the country moving to the UK, then Australia. There he made new friends and started flatland. Over the years he has changed, matured and learned a lot. Now he's come back and moved on, cleaning up all the trouble that was left and found in BMX a new life.

Fair play to you man, ride on!!!!

Mizo 2009

Kevin Browne from mizo on Vimeo.

Fl!pbykes Flatmaster 2K9

The guys over at Fl!pbykes in the Philippines are holding an international Flatland Contest over December 12 & 13. Shintaro just let me know that he's going to be making it & the word around is that there are going to be a whole bunch of other well known riders involved as well.

For more info check the flyer below & click here.

New Shintaro Misawa Autumn 2009 edit!

Spied this over on Effraim's Flatmattersonline blog, Shintaro has just put out a new Autumn 2009 edit & as always with a bunch of super tech switches thrown in....

King of Ground photos

Shintaro Misawa has had a great year. He's travelled all over the globe & been consistently placing in nearly every contest he's been in & rounded out the year with a 3rd place finish in the series result for the 2009 King of Ground.

Shintaro also sent over the following photos from the weekend. Great to see Brett Dighton, Ronnie Rampton & the Queensland crew in amongst it all - look forward to hearing the stories from their trip soon!

Good luck to Brett Dighton who will be having his Japanese wedding shortly!

King of Ground Round 3 - pro results!

The finals have literally just finished! Get the world exclusive Pro final results here:

1. Shinichi Kiba
2. Hiro Morizaki
3. Nao Yoshida
4. Tomokazu Morinaga
5. Yoshiki Uchino
6. Akira Okamura
7. Shintaro Misawa
8. York Uno
9. Takahiro Ikeda
10. Yoshihiro Nishikawa
11. Tsutonu Kitayama
12. Moto Sasaki
13. Yoshihiro Shinde

Ronnie Rampton at King of Ground

News just in from Brett Dighton over at King of Ground in Japan is that Ronnie Rampton is having a good weekend!

Ronnie qualified in 4th place in the Novice class out of 51 riders throwing down near flawless runs. In the finals he touched a couple times but still finished in 8th place... awesome effort.

Looks like he's gonna be on a mission for round one of the Newcircle Down Underground going down in Perth next month....

Karl Hughes interview in Cream Magazine!

Karl Hughes aka Paradoxium on the forums, does a lot for flatland. By now his work on the World Bike Projects is known world wide so it wasn't going to be long before a big name magazine recognised his efforts & wanted to know more.

Click on the pic below to read the full interview....

Attila Godi from Hungary!

Ok, so this isn't directly involved with flatland but Shane Badman was recently over in Hungary for the OG Summer Camp & Contest & while over there he spent a day with fellow Colony rider Attila Godi in his hometown of Pecs.

While there he put together the following edit...

Attila Godi - Hungary - One Day in Summer 2009 from Colony BMX on Vimeo.

R.I.P: Parris Whakarau

It is with great sadness that on October 7, 2009 well known New Zealand flatlander, Parris Whakarau, passed away.

He was known as a very talented rider in both the New Zealand & Australian scenes & beyond. He was also part of the group of riders that included Kerry Gatt, Dylan Worsley & Dion Geaney.

A Remembrance Page has been set up for him on A Memory Tree - please stop by to pay your respects by clicking here.

Our thoughts & condolences are with his family & friends - R.I.P Parris Whakarau

Australia & beyond news roundup!

The KOG finals will be going down in Japan over the weekend of October 17-18. Colony rider, Shintaro Misawa will be there along with a bunch of Australians: Brett Dighton, Ronnie Rampton & 4 other Brisbane riders will be making the trip over. Brett will be going over for his wedding & luckily the KOG was around the same time. Good luck to all the competitors, i'm sure there'll be some good vids coming out of this!

Simon O'Brien recently had a few pics up on the Colony site of him on his new Colony Deja Vu ride. Check it out by clicking here & if you're looking to sort yourself out with Simon's signature Colony parts then click here!

Kit McKenna has been working & riding over in the UK for the best part of what must be coming up to a year now. Having just finished in the UK, he's currently dodging bad traffic, over enthusiastic street vendors & cold, Northern European weather by spending time in Egypt before coming back to Aus in the next month or so.

Spotted this awesome photo of Andrew McDermott throwing down in front of his new baby on the Freestyle Now! site.

The new Colony catalogue is also out now carrying their whole range including the complete flatland line. Also has a great photo taken by Cooper Brownlee of Focalpoint of Shane Badman doing a blender on top of a mountain in Queensland. Check out the catalogue by clicking here!

Speaking of Focalpoint, Issue 18 is out now so get along to your nearest bike shop & pick a copy up - they're free to a good home! Click here for more info.

National Flatland Championship - Peru

Francisco Lindo does a lot for flatland in Peru. A good friend of Melbourne's Karl Hughes, Francisco sent over a video from Peru's National Flatland Contest that went down over the weekend.

The contest was really nice. We had some problems, because this is our first contest in a lot of years, but the riders are really inspired to ride the best they can. The floor doesn't help too much, because it's a parking lot and not as flat as we expected but what ever, all of us do our best effort to make what we all do, riding flatland.

Some problems with the tires, like four of us had holes in the tubes, but when the problems are resolved we start to ride. The contest took like 2 and a half hours, hard to judge, but here are the results:

1st place Williams Perez

2nd place Antonio Marrache

3st place Jorge Nazario

Congrats to you guys, and keep the good riding!

One Cup 2009 videos now up!

The One Cup 2009 event that went down recently in Japan was crazy as always with the level of riding always off the hook.

Thanks to Shintaro for sending these vids over...

Qualifying Round including places 5th to 23rd & more..

Top 4 finishers..

Videos thanks to Zols Entertainment.

Simon O'Brien update & Reason DVD review up!

Simon O'Brien is always busy. Not just with finishing renovations on his house, working on his solo DVD, putting his new Deja Vu rides together, but up on the Colony site is some more info about a recent demo he did in Sydney. Click here for more info....

Also, the new Reason DVD from Japan is out featuring a ton of great riding from the following:

Hirokazu Miura
Shintaro Misawa
Shinichi Kiba
Yoshiro Nishikawa
Hideki Kawai
Susumu Morioka
Yoshiki Uchino

Effraim has done a brilliant review on the whole DVD - you can check out flatmattersonline by clicking here.

Shintaro wins the One Cup 2009 in Japan!!

Colony rider, Shintaro Misawa just won the One Cup 2009 in Akita, Japan.

Final results:

1st: Shintaro Misawa

2nd: Kentaro Nishiwaki

3rd: Keiji Nakamura

Congrats Shintaro!!

News from here, there & everywhere...

newcircle have an interview on the Rebelyell website - you can check it by clicking here. Also in Rebelyell news, don't forget that Issue #4, the Flatland issue, is still available - contact Chris Polack for more info...

Stewart Munro is currently over in the U.S for the next month & a bit. He has a few pics up on TheHGB.com from his US trip so far..

Paul Chamberlain got really psyched on this clip of Sean Parker. Click here, then click on Visual (works best on Internet Explorer) to check it out. Progression. Paul is still currently in the UK, but is heading to Asia in under a month for their next stage of travel before (hopefully!) coming back to live in Aus.

Melbourne's own Karl Hughes, famous for his work on The World Bike Projects, has an interview in an upcoming edition of Cream magazine. Karl was very humble about the whole thing, but expect it to be a great read into one of flatlands biggest assets.

In other Cream magazine news Shane Badman also has an article from the OG Summer Camp that recently went down in Hungary.

General news round up...

It was great to hear that Colony rider, Shintaro Misawa has qualified for the BMX Flatland World Classic in January, 2010! For the full rundown of riders & other information, click here. Congrats!!

Other Colony rider, Shane Badman is also back in Australia & currently in Brisbane where he will be living from November onwards. With newcircle online Flatland store now running & the Down Underground series about to start in Perth in November things will be busy!

Brett Dighton, Ronnie Rampton & bunch of the other Brisbane crew will also be making there way over to Japan next month for 11 days on a riding trip & also hitting up KOG round 3 in Kobe - all the best & look forward to hearing about the travels!

Martti Kuoppa, Ground Tactics & the Future of Flatland

The MK, Martti Kuoppa has, along with Viki Gomez & Chad Johnston recently started Ground Tactics - a website aimed at assisting & promoting the good direction of Flatland around the world.

Everyone should at least check it out & sign up to the forum. There is some great information in there about practicing/training techniques, trick ideas & generally everything you could or would want to know about Flatland is available.

Martti has also written a well thought out observation of the current state of Flatland. While sensitive, there are many areas that will make you think - you can check it out by clicking here.

Badman in the UK - part 2!

With only a week & a bit in the UK, I had to make the most of the time I had. After traveling through the South West, hitting up Bristol, Southampton & Portsmouth I made my way up to London for a few days chilling & riding with the TGM crew.

TGM, or The Green Mile, is the infamous spot in south London. It's the size of a standard soccer pitch & is perfect for any style of riding, but especially good if you're into rolling tricks as past videos of Phil Dolan will prove. You can find it by clicking here.

Always good times, it was great to see Paul Chamberlain who's been busy traveling with his wife through the Americas for most of this year. Luckily the English weather came through with the goods & it was bright sunshine for most of the time I was there. Big thanks has to go out to Jason Forde, his girlfriend Penny, Paul Chamberlain, Mario, Trevor, Marcello, Griff & the rest of the TGM crew.

Marcelo Nardi

Griff

Mario

Paul Chamberlain

Paul Chamberlain

TGM's newest rider, Yinke

Trevor Lacey

Rasta Dave

Trevor Lacey

The Green Mile

Flatland Brotherhood - UK, Australia & Brazil represent!

Griff

Gabor Szmetanko