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As a basic rule contests should be fun. This seems
to be a concept that has been totally lost by ESPN and the Hoffman
Crew. "What? You didn't enter? NO! You can't
ride!!!"... "Oh, you want to watch? That'll be five
dollars!" HUH? What happenned to just having fun at a
contest. Showing up and seeing people ride that totally blow you
away and then spending a couple hours in a corner trying your own stuff
just because it's fun? There is a contest series that has
exactly what you are looking for. But you have to leave your pads
and full-face helmets at home because there are no ramps here.
This is flatland only and enterring their second year the American
Flatland League changed their name to the International Flatland League
(IFL), which means we can look forward to a contest North of the border
later this year. For now though the first stop was Maplewood, New
Jersey. Initially, our plans were to leave on Saturday,
get a good nights sleep, then drive over and spend the whole day at the
event just having fun. Plans, as always, can change quickly.
This meant that we spent the night at my house, stayed up all night
partying, then drove (on no sleep) the four hours to Maplewood and after
finding the YMCA hidden in the back corner of the local junior high
school, we were told that the place would be open in an hour. Time
for a quick nap... zzzz..... 10:00AM
rolled around and we got into the building and I took advantage of the
open contest floor to do some riding while I was still concious.
This only lasted about an hour or so before more and more riders started
showing up, so I put the bike down to focus on what I was going to do
for the rest of the day - video tape. There was plenty going on
and the rider turnout in the morning seemed kind of limited. There
wasn't much notice of the event and I expected that no more than a
couple dozen riders would even show up to ride. This
would have been a good thing though. You see, the riding area was
inside a gymnasium. Not a big one, but a small gym with just about
enough room for two people to use the area at the same time
comfortably. The floor, initially, seemed a bit slick, but
actually turned out the be almost perfect. Perhaps a tiny bit
slippery, but nothing people didn't adjust to. A big improvement
over the typical ice rink that flatlanders often face. For
some reason the short notice on the contest didn't bring out a couple
dozen riders. It brought out about fifty or more riders who were
running full tilt snake sessions around each other while trying to warm
up for the days events. I wandered around the middle of the
practice area, video camera in hand, annoying as many people as I could
(no - really, sorry to anyone that I got in the way of) and got some
incredible footage for this Summers BMXTRIX video. Right from the
start though there was little question about where the spotlight was
aimed... Jeff Desroche made the trip down from Canada and
for whatever reason, rides like Canada doesn't have a winter that he had
to deal with. To put it into words would be almost
impossible... But in an lame attempt to describe two tricks that
are basically impossible: He was doing a forward karl cruiser to
540 barflip. He basically does the karl cruiser, jumps straight
up, throws the bars, then lands with his left foot on the front peg, his
right foot on the rear peg, and both tires on the ground. It's
beyond sick. The other trick he was making everyones jaw drop with
was turbined cross-handed steamrollers. On the pedal. That
would be... Your right hand on the left grip, your left hand on
the seat, so you are in the cross-handed steamroller position. Now
lean the bike WAY down to the right so you are going in tight circles
and you turbine (go from forwards to backwards/backwards to forwards
without grabbing the brakes/scuffing) your left foot would normally be
on the front left peg... but Jeff had his foot on the pedal and it was
just stupid to watch for how impossible it was. Oh, and
Jeff is still riding without brakes. ~SICK~ Mike
McFadden was also down from Canada and was busting out sick brakeless
combos all day. Mike and Jeff ride together, but watching them you
would almost never know it. Just a completely different style from
each other. While Jeff does a lot of front wheel bar flipity
stuff, Mike busts out the long rolling combos, transitioning from one
trick to the next with a smooth style. Mike was busting stubble
duck gerators like they were nothing. He was also hitting hang-5's
with one foot on the pedal to coasting, holding the seat with one foot
over the bars, rolling on the front wheel, to backwards
cliffhangers... The list went on - and it was all amazing. Gabe
Kidmari (sp?) was there along with Brian Tunney and a few other pros
that were all riding pretty decent, but seemed to be hampered by not
being able to really practice hard due to the limted riding area. Probably
the best part of the contest was that despite only about 30 or so people
enterring, there were ten riders in the beginner class. TJ, who
made the trip up to New Jersey with me, won the class (time to move
up!), yet the showing from a bunch of others was promising. It was
to bad that there weren't more intermediate riders there. The
intermediate class was combined with the experts due to lack of
turnout. VERY lame, because there were a bunch of intermediate
riders there that should have been enterred. Oh, and
first place for beginner - A Standard Tao frame. For
expert/intermediate there was a Shamen and an... ummm... I
forget. Something else pretty damn flatland oriented. It
was all said and done by 7:30 for us and we loaded the cameras and bikes
back on the van and made the four hour journey back home. We were
all tired, but had a good time and look forward to the next IFL contest
that we can make it to. If you have any way to make it to one of
these contests, do it! Simply put, the IFL contests are what
contests are supposed to be. They are about riding and having fun,
not about television and making a buck. I know I didn't make a
buck, but had fun. Results of the contest will be up
shortly - for now, the beginner runs are posted using what I REMEMBER as
the placings, these are not the official placings and I apologize to any
that I got wrong. Note: These are BEGINNER runs only!
No expert, no pro, so you newbies can take a look at what every level of
beginner there is. ~P~ |
PHOTOS
Complete
IFL Gallery
VIDEOS
(Beginner Runs - All Riders)
1st Place
TJ - Run 1 - Streaming
- HQ
TJ - Run 2 - Streaming
- HQ
2nd Place
John D - Run 1 - Streaming
- HQ
John D - Run 2 - Streaming
- HQ
3rd Place
Rich - Run 1 - Streaming
- HQ
Rich - Run 2 - Streaming
- HQ
4th Place (tie)
Lee - Run 1 - Streaming
- HQ
Lee - Run 2 - Streaming
- HQ
Mark - Run 1 - Streaming
- HQ
Mark - Run 2 - Streaming
- HQ
6th Place
David - Run 1 - Streaming
- HQ
David - Run 2 - Streaming
- HQ
7th Place
Steve - Run 1 - Streaming
- HQ
Steve - Run 2 - Streaming
- HQ
8th Place
Michael - Run 1 - Streaming
- HQ
Michael - Run 2 - Streaming
- HQ
9th Place
John - Run 1 - Streaming
- HQ
John - Run 2 - Streaming
- HQ
10th Place
Eric - Run 1 - Streaming
- HQ
Eric - Run 2 - Streaming
- HQ
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