LOUISVILLE X-TRIALS
BY BRYAN HUFFMAN

Here's some stuff about the first ESPN contest of the year. We showed up in Louisville around 2:00 in the afternoon on Wednesday. The host hotel was the Galt House, a real upperclass hotel right in the middle of downtown on the river. Right away, I figured they didn't really know what they were getting into by allowing a couple hundred skaters, bikers, and rollerbladers to stay there. Little did I know what was to come. More on that later. After chilling for a while, we went in search of the contest site a few blocks away. Upon arriving we discovered was is commonplace these days - the flatland area sucked. Bumps, dust, and blacktop that became soft has it heated up during the day. Great! We meet up with Effraim Catlow from the UK who had been there since Monday adjusting to the time change, etc. We rode for a few minutes until the ESPN people said we had to leave. No big deal, we were surprised we got to ride twenty minutes anyway. Next we discovered that downtown Louisville is a hard place to look for
flatland spots. Everyplace, kicked out within five minutes. We had to wait until six when some of the parking lots cleared out before we could ride.

     Thursday was expert flat. Big class here with 17 riders. The new "jam" format for flat worked pretty well, but took way too long. Matt Wilhem from Chicago took first (this kid is GOOD, he could easily place top eight in pro). Terry Adams from New Orleans was second, Kip Williamson third, and Andy Cooper from Indianapolis was fourth. Actually it should have been Andy third and Kip fourth, but I wasn't a judge. Sometimes it seems having a sponsor helps, but you didn't hear that from me. Speaking of judges, the same judges are going to be used all year this year. Judges you say? Five judges who know what's up with flatland? Let's see. Mark Losey (used to ride flat, so OK), Steve Buddendeck (Ummm), James Shepard (Hmmm), Big Island (?????), and Mike Yeager who still rides flat. Actually, most of the results turned out well. Chad Degroot won expert street.

     Friday. Vert day. Most people were there or showing up by now. I kind of watched vert in between riding. There were 24 pro vert riders, quite a big class. All I know is that Ryan N. got fourth (Variations and Height) and Dave Mirra ended up eighth due to a bad slam on a Flair. I forgot to mention that is was pretty windy which played havic on the vert riders. The contest was happening during the Kentucky Derby Festival so there we tons of people watching and hanging out. Louisville also has way too many country bars as we explored the area Friday night.

     Saturday, pro flat. 24 riders here. A lot of people were having problems with the area. Including me, I suck. Anyway there were a lot of standouts. Andrew Faris and Dan Rigby ruled in the new trick department. Sick shit. Two of my favorites from Andrew were 360 bar flip to halfpacker and backward hang five to backward halfpacker. Jason Brown was riding a GT show with Redline stickers. Alex Jumelin and Jimmy Petit from France was there. Both sick, Jimmy pulling insane combos without brakes. I also want to add that the French guys picked up about a million girls during the weekend. Mike Steingrabber (sp?) was there ruling and covering the event for Freedom magazine. Oh, and there's a Canadian freestyle magazine now
called Chase BMX. And no, it's not named after Chase Gouin. But, speaking of Chase. Chase and Tex (Rob Thayer) for those who remember Tex from the York jams have started their own bike company. Expect a Chase designed flatland bike in a few months. Art Thomason rode well and managed to qualify for the X-games. Effraim finished third. Chris Young was there promoting the new Infinity Cycles. Nice. Nathan P. and Marty were doing shows in Japan. Perry Mervar and Steve Mulder from Indy were busting OUT. I was really surprised that neither one of these guys made the finals. They both ruled and Perry was definitely the crowds favorite after the Perry Doom. Both got ripped, especially Steve. Hmmm. Leo Dumlao and Sean McKinney were there who I haven't seen in a while. Day Smith had a bad day, but did this one trick that I love. One handed, one footed Circle K with his knee resting on the top tube. If you remember the picture of Day doing the same trick during a hang five in Ride a few months ago except he was scuffing in circles.

     OK, Saturday night. Extreme athletes, a prom, people from the festival, and a soccor convention in the same hotel. Here are a few things that I found out about or saw. A few bar brawls between riders and country music fans. Did Chad Degroot start a major fight at a local bar? Troy Mcmurray and company took out a few frat boys talking shit. Elevators covered with stickers and ECD in markers. Leo Dumlao took out a frat boy with a chair. Broken glass, chaos, cops, it was all pretty funny, but my guess is that the Galt House hotel will never host another X-trials.

     Sunday. Street day. Street sucked except for a few people. It seemed no one was going for anything big. 40 riders, we watched about half then headed back to NC so maybe some good shit did happen. Here's what I saw before we left. Ryan N. ruled much to some people's dismay. He was in first when I left, even ahead of Dave Mirra. Bar spin to one handed x-up backflip. Rob Nolli who qualified in vert also rode street well. Jimmy Levan gaped out of the street course. ESPN was not happy. Colin McKay from Australia rode well. Troy McMurray is back. That's about all I remember and I'm tired of writing this so I'm sure Props and Ride will tell you about
street.

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