Less than two weeks after a perfect weekend in Louisville, KY for a contest the car gets loaded up again for a national event. Now the question is: What is up with ESPN's scheduling? They seem to enjoy putting contests back-to-back right before finals at school... Oh well, I'd rather ride than think intelligently anyway.

Richmond was a quick three hour drive from Washington, DC so we decided to head down on Friday morning. This put us in the city the day AFTER all of the amateur classes were run.

In the street class Chad Degroot was unable to make it two in a row but was able to still manage fifth place in a class that had FORTY riders trying to get a position in the top spots....

Vert...

Amateur flatland had some riders show up that we haven't seen compete in quite a while. Plywood Hoods rider, Brett Downs showed up with his old school tricks and smile to pull out XXth place. While not way up in the rankings it was enough to knock off Standard rider- Erin Dinato... Erin is an incredible rider when she is on, but contests have a way of throwing riders skills in the trash can. Either way it was cool to see her out on the flat competing.

JAMIE BESTWICK IS HIGH... That would probably be on the cover of the ESPN times if they cared enough about freestyle to do such a thing. Either way, the vert competition will be splashed all over ESPN in the next couple of weeks as it seems to be what they love to show more than anything else. They may go so far as to show Dennis McCoy knocking himself out in the final round and walking around in a daze for the rest of the vert competition. After making the cut he finished in the number ten spot. But Jamie Bestwick (GT rider) was easily pushing the highest airs at the contest. His tricks aren't as dialed in as the guys winning the top spots but his height is unbelievable. You would wonder if the manual to nose bonk to head stall (crash) in the prelims that tweaked his ankle had any affect on him during the finals. If so it was only enough to hold him to 4th place.

Bringing in the other top spots were Simon Tabro in third who just BARELY beat Jamie after a double tie-breaker.  Second place was all about Dave Mirra.  If you haven't seen Dave ride and you feel like talking crap about him you better think twice.   He won't beat you down with his fists... but his riding will knock you to another planet.  As strong as he rode though it wasn't enough to bring home gold...

Once again the BEAST took home the gold. Jay Miron throws down more back-to-back variations then anyone on the face of the earth. Flips, 540's, can-can's, AIR.... It all adds up to one of the most incredible riding sessions that you will ever see. He pushed it hard enough to beat out Mirra for the gold in this round. This will put Miron into the X-Games as the heavily favored rider.

Flatland qualifiers and consolation rounds were held on Friday so that they could keep the riding to an absolute minimum on Saturday. This contest had a FULL pro class that included Dave Osato and Jay Miron as well as the usual top finishers- Jason Brown, Trevor Meyer, Andrew Farris.... The break up of groups was into 6 groups of 5 riders. Two from each class would advance to the semis (12 riders) which was broken into 3 groups of 4 with 2 from each group having 2 riders go onto the finals (6 riders). All I know for sure is that I am glad that I don't have to judge this stuff. One of the second round classes included Michael Steingrabber, Chad DeGroot, Jason Brown, and Scott Powell.  Somebody asked me who I though would make the final cut... Having watched them ride all day long I knew who I would pick if they rode well. By chance they ALL rode well and Mike and Jason were the ones to go on- as I would have expected.

Michael Steingrabber, in fact, went on to THIRD place riding for Dragonfly Bicycles of Germany. His handlebar setup is completely straight and it is tough to tell if his bars are forward or backward. His style is very unique and extremely technical. One of his favorite things to do is to pivot around on the pegs- like a body varial- usually on the rear pegs while the bike is rolling and he isn't using the brakes. This usually has hurt him in contests because when he isn't hitting the trick perfectly, he doesn't hit the trick at all.

Number two spot went to GT's giant- Trevor Meyer. Gold wasn't to be had this time by the flatland machine. Trevor has a new style for 1999 and he doesn't seem to quite have it dialed in to perfection yet. Of course the X-Games are just a few weeks away and Trevor seems to like to practice.... I would expect that he will be completely perfect in time for the X-Games.

So who haven't we mentioned yet? How about the guy that bombed a couple of weeks ago? How about the BOMB- Day Smith! Day shrugged off his run from a couple of weeks ago to put together a first place win for Hoffman Bikes and himself. What exactly does one need to do to win a pro event? For Day it was perfection on tricks like one handed hang-nothings, inverted decades, and powerful kicks that get the bike rolling perfectly. If you ever talk to Day you will feel good about him getting first place. He is one of the nicest riders in the sport and has been a part of freestyle and competitions since the days of the AFA. (American Freestyle Association of the 1980's) Of course there were three more riders that made the cut to the X-Games- INCLUDING Perry Mervar, Michael Steingrabber, and Aaron Behnke. With the current field of riders heading into the X-Games it would be impossible to tell who is going to pull the win. Trevor has to be going in as the favorite for the win but Day, Jason, Andrew, or Michael have the tricks to pull an upset. It depends on what ESPN will give them to ride on for the contest and how dialed in their riding will be for that day.

Since flatland was over by about 12:30 on Saturday and there was no other riding going on for the day we decided to cut out and head home. This meant that we missed the entire street competition. I wouldn't want to guess at what was going on this time around. The course was basically the same set up as was used two weeks prior in Louisville so any riders that had the chance to ride at Louisville were familiar with the lines and ramps and really went off. Dave Mirra was the winner for Haro this time out.