The Tassie to Melbourne Roadtrip... by Lenny

Its 5 in the morning car is all packed on my way to pick up Wootto so we can make it for our 6.30 flight to Melbourne to ride and to catch up with everyone, checked in our luggage grabbed a coffee now we are set to leave the mania. We arrived jumped on the sky bus and was greeted by one of our good mates and fellow Taswegian the Batchmeister.

Trying not to leave our bikes anywhere for the weekend. We jumped on a train got to batch’s set up our bikes and then headed to Mik Dwyer’s Tattoo studio Purity in Thornbury for some ink, was very stoked with the end result, was good to catch up with Mik too, I would highly recommend it if you were keen on getting some lifetime art.

Whilst at the studio the infamous Ben Moran turned up to ride for the weekend. After that we headed straight Back into town for a ride, we sessioned some crazy place that was definitely designed with flatland in mind just near the crown I think, don’t know exactly where or what it was but It was short lived, Mr security guard wasn’t very happy though.

This photo was too good to leave out. We made our way to the famous Fitzroy bowl, but first we grabbed a long neck each and dropped in to see another fellow Tassie Leigh G at Anchor Bmx we didn’t make it to the bowl, but we did have a lot of laughs and a bloody huge parmy for 8 bucks at the Rochy up the Road. Very tired by this stage so we headed back to batch’s watched Agroman for a laugh it was great even for the millionth time. Ok now its Saturday time for breakfast Luke and Ben took us to a really random place called lentil as anything where they have kickass fresh food cooked and you only pay what you think it was worth, we all made pigs of ourselves, as you would too.

The weather was definitely on our side apart from a bit of wind, rocked up to Imax, had a roll with Grant, Karl, Robbo, Shaun, Luke Wootto, Ben, Jimmy and Marcus, it was an awesome turnout, heaps of rad manoeuvres went down, and there was even a few mechanical technical problems but it was all good, ya get that on the big jobs.

Grant Cruise mid pinkie

Karl - backward steamer

Robbo doing a little pose.

Ben Moran - pedal time machine

Shaun rolling some sweet backward half-hikers

We all decided to go and check out the Bali spot I was pretty impressed, a little small but very smooth and made for riding.

Wooto with a big steamer!

Jimmy with a no handed hang ten, who is a very hard man to take a photo, so I took this when he least expected it, funny guy with a very unique riding style with many tricks up his sleeve.

Ben Moran definitely pulled the weekend’s best trick, a bunny hop nose wheelie across this ledge, everyone was so stoked to have witnessed that, and Ben was pumped too.

We headed off grabbed some snags and proceeded to cook the shit out of em at Luke’s, it ended up being a long night, lots of laughs and random shit went down, I even got to sing a song about Ben Moran’s nose wheelies All in all it was a choice weekend and cant wait till the next trip, cheers to everyone who was involved in making it what it was.

And yeah this was the next day on the way home.

Chris "Lenny" Letchford 2009

Imax Jam report - Rob Barker

Melbourne rider Rob Barker sent through some great pics & a few words about a jam they had recently..

Augest 30th Sunday at 1.30 pm myself and partner Kylie (aka camera girl..lol). And the young bloke Markus got to Imax. Most people arrived around 2.00pm with Shaun, Karl and Grant arriving soon after and Jim around 3.00pm. It was a fairly cold day with a little bit of wind and a few raindrops here and there but luckily winter is slowly leaving us. There was some nice afternoon jamming: Grant was dialling combos as usual... I was doing my usual..not too much..lol... Markus was getting some tricks out... Shaun was clean with some new things up his sleeve.. Karl was just warming up and got a puncture(bums and their bottle smashing) and Jim was powering his combos out. The weather stayed average so we headed for a feed and checked at the Bali spot for a half hour afterwards.. loads of skaters and not much room with all of us guys and them there so we all headed back to faithful Imax for the rest of the arvo...

Great day!!

Most of us were there..and the rain stayed away as best it could!!

Grant Cruise

Jimmy Couwenberg

Markus

Rob Barker
Photos: Camera Girl Kylie

One sunny Winter session at Melbourne's Imax

A few of the Melbourne crew got together over the weekend to session the infamous Imax spot. Enjoying the winter sun, they snapped a few photos to share with us all. Good to hear & see the scene is holding together strong & sessions are still going during winter...

Riders: Jimmy, Karl Hughes & Grant Cruise

From West to East to South - sessions are going down...

It might be winter in Australia, but the sun is still shining (in most places!) & the sessions are happening...

Chief motivator at large, Shaun Jarvis sent me this cool email about a typical day that he Andrew "Buff" McDermott & Mike Brandt just had over in Western Australia...

I rode to the train station to meet up with Andrew as we were heading to the city to ride. There was a lady at the train station who commented that our bikes were to small for us to ride. I told her that we were stunt men and that my bike is my life and i look at my bike with the same admiration as I do when I look at my girlfriend. She did not get it.

We got to the city at about 10am and stopped at the coffee house for awesome coffee. Always a good way to start off the morning. 30 minutes later we got to the concert hall spot and we both started to be shredding... and then Charlie Chaplin comes alive and how can you miss a photo opportunity like that?? Mike B showed up about 2 hours later and he to got into the real deal. As there was a really large seniors concert on we got mobbed with old people and we were asked to move on as it was becoming somewhat hard to ride there. We were cool with that and the director dude said no problem any other day.

Off to our new spot but we were a bit unsure as it was a weekday and it might be a bust and it was. We got jacked about 2 mins into arriving there. Don't want to screw up that spot so off to the library spot...

Arrived there about 2pm and rode there till 4:30. The spot was a little bumpy but sometimes that can be good to keep your ability to ride any surface when the time is needed. I managed to pull a link I've been working on and it was the first time to get it done right. So stoked oh yeahhhh

From the library spot I decided to ride home. I thought that this was going to be the last non rain day in a while so make the most of it. The 80 minute ride home was awesome. Jump kerbs, dodge traffic, pop wheelies,bomb hills and make people in their cars coming home from work think what the hell is that guy on a bike doing - you gotta love that feeling its awesome!!

As I'm riding along I started thinking how privileged I am to be able to ride a bike. So I dedicated my day of awesome riding to every one who cant ride a bike for what ever reason that might be.


And then over in Melbourne, Victoria - Karl (Paradoxium) Hughes put a few words together about their recent session...

Weather was messued up but we had a great session all the same, using the dry area under the roof. It was my first session in months due to working everyday, so I was really stoked to be there. The guys have progressed a little since last time, so its all good from the Melbourne crew. In attendance were Grant, Jim, Michal, Ritchie, Karl and Jake.







And don't forget Tasmania. I caught up with Damon Fox recently & it was great to hear that along with his family & work commitments he he is now getting back into riding... stay tuned for more on that - but check some of the pics below...

Trial by Fire - The Mik Dwyer interview

I've known Mik a few years now. He's been the confident bloke always up for a session, a bit of banter & loves the camaraderie that flatland provides. I don't see him as your typical flatland stereotype of riding solo for a hundred hours a week in a deserted riding spot - instead you'll find him at the Melbourne Imax spot riding hard with the rest of the crew, supporting the newbies & keeping the older guys in check. Mik is an interesting person: he lives life by his own code & is not afraid to follow his beliefs or dreams in both his riding & personal life.

* Full name & how long have you been involved in flatland?
Michael Dwyer: 5 yrs riding flat but had to take 13 months off due to badly broken arm...

* So what's the story of Mik coming to Melbourne?
I came back down to Melbs to get into flat a lot more as the Sydney scene was dead in the water back then and I also wanted to come back home (Fitzroy born n bred baby!!) to try open my tattoo studio on home turf..

* I understand that you have skated at a very high level in the past...
Yeah I was skateboarding professionally for 5 years (14 yrs total) but broke my back on a 17 stair handrail at Star City Casino next to Darling Harbour during a photo shoot. I was in hospital for almost a year and pretty much had to learn to walk again - it was scary but it was a good way to go out though...ha ha!!

* How did you make the transition from skateboarding to flatland?
It was quite easy when I think about it. I had the balance from skating for so long and I had always been interested in flatland as I traded my first BMX (GT Pro Performer) for a new skateboard and the rest is history..

* How would you compare the two scenes? Similarities? Differences?
The skate scene is very tight and everyone hangs out a lot more whereas the flat scene seems quite distant at times mainly due to distance from spots and there arn't as many of us either. The similarities are when we do get together we push each other to progress and we have a lot of fun doing it!!

* I understand that you're involved a lot with body modification & that you run your own business here - can you tell us a little about this...
I own and run *PURITY TATTOO & BODYPIERCING* and I cant explain the feeling you get when you wake up and you know you are going to do what you love and get paid very well for it!! Not that I haven't worked extremely hard to get where I am mind you. I do tattooing, piercing,

scarification, tongue splitting, beading and other types of body modification as well..

* How would you compare the body modification scene to other scenes?
It's a lot more serious as there are so many things that go into it all. Hand and eye coordination is about the only thing I think they would have in common... oh and commitment!!

* You're a part of the infamous Imax family - what's the go?
Yeah it's our little family, we love it even if its quiet now. It's myself, Grant, Ali, Jimmy, Paul and a few others that come and go like ships passing in the night ha ha..

* So where do you see the future of flatland heading in Australia?
Hopefully onwards and upwards but at the moment it seems to have hit a rough spot. There needs to be more hanging out and riding instead of all the sitting and shit talking on the net (forums etc)..

* Final words...
Just get on your little bike, put your iPod on and just enjoy yourself and don't care if you're better than someone or not, just zone out and ride and always be cool and understanding to newcomers as they are the future, not invaders as some people seem to think!! Oh and one more thing,if one more fixy gets in my way at Imax I'm gonna start taking pot shots at em with a sniper rifle from the roof at Imax!!!! ha ha..

* Thanks to...

A big thanks to guys like Grant, Jimmy n Karl who just keep riding and riding and keeping people like myself motivated and talking me into trying stupid things just because they know they can. Also I'd like to say thanks to Ali Finlay as not many people seem to get on with him and give him a bit of a hard time when he isn't around because they either don't get his humour or just think he is arrogant with a negative attitude. I've even had a few disagreements with him but we always get over it and roll on. He does a lot for our sport that I'm sure not many others even know he was responsible for as in organising comps, mc'ing, write ups in mags and who else other than me really misses MFZ??,so thanks little man ;) (he hates when I call him that) and keep doing what you do!! Go the Imax crew!!!!!

Introducing: Michael Husser - a Frenchman living & travelling around Aus

I got to ride with Michael when I was back in Australia in January. The local crew in Melbourne had put a jam on at the Imax riding spot & along with a bunch of the locals, he was there & killing it.


There are so many styles in flatland & it's tough to have your own flavour, yet Michael pulls it off effortlessly. Not to mention an interesting character too, just have a conversation with him & you'll see what i'm talking about.

While abroad, Michael has been keeping a detailed website going - check it out here. Along with a bunch of cool pics, he's also got some riding footage on there including this awesome edit.


Unfortunately Michael is heading back to France in the next few weeks, but not before taking a detour through Thailand & Vietnam.


He made this excellent self-edit at the end of 2008. It's all about the flow...




To be continued...