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There was only one thing that could possibly be on every riders mind as they rode out onto the floor in Toronto.  "Holy crap, this floor is slippery!"  On the other hand, that was about the only complaint that was heard the entire weekend and despite being a pretty major complaint most riders had found out ahead of time that it was a bit slippery in the building.  The building itself is the CNE - The National Exposition center in Toronto and the event was the National Bike Expo.  About a hundred different vendors were in attendance and as you probably could guess, very little of the stuff there focused on freestyle in any form, let alone flatland.  There were a few freestyle/bmx shops who had setup for the event and Ten Pack Distribution had a really nice display.  There, we've wasted three sentences on the show which is about how much time I wasted walking around the place - now onto the event.

  

Many may forget that this was primarily a bike show about mountain and road bikes.  Well, for at least the 5 seconds I went to look at it.	The National Exposition Center in Toronto was a nice looking building with a really slippery floor.	Billy Borys was working on his kickflip hitchhikers all weekend.  In practice he was going so far as to try 360 kickflips even. Pretty damn incredible.	Phil Dolan took off his brakes because he got bored.  Bored!  Geez, if most guys could do half of what Phil does they would be beyond psyched!

Jorge (Vicki) Gomez owns you.  This is a simple fact.  Somewhere out there God has shrugged his shoulders and decided that things like gravity and natural law simply do not need to apply to some people and Vicki is one of those people that seem to have drawn the lucky straw.  Now, what he has achieved in simple denial of physics he makes up for in greed.  I think his goal is to combine every trick ever invented into a single string that he must pull off in under 45 seconds. Vicki seems to be pretty good at half packers.  He also seems to have no problem reaching between his legs while in a half packer so he can jump up, flip the bars and land in a cross-footed steam roller.  

Jeff DeRoche has come a long way since I saw him for the first time at the Burning Bike Festival a few years ago at Chenga World.  His qualifying run was almost enough to land him in the top spot of the contest and he was definitely a candidate for number one.  On the down side, he competes about the exact same way he practices.  Which means he goes for the most bad ass of tricks, and maybe is lucky enough to pull it one out of ten.  He actually did better than that during his contest, but he is always on edge.  Jeff has long been a master of the tomahawk, but only in the last year did he really begin to step it up.  That is, literally, step up inward steamrollers onto the pedal.  Coasting in circles with one foot up on the pedal and the other out for balance while turbining from forwards to backwards to forwards again.  Yeah, Jeff seems to be a halfway decent rider.  Part of what eats Jeff up in contests is that he rides so fast.  He throws down four or five turbined steamrollers without touching the tire then immediately flips the bars to a tomahawk, scuffs once, then takes it back into turbined steamrollers.  This all happens in about five seconds so you can imagine that the slightest bauble can cause the trick to end early - which it did a little to often for him in the finals.

Phil Dolan does a lot of rolling, body varial, back wheel, pinky squeak on the pedal type of stuff that you need a good set of brake for.  Phil was really working his brakes hard this...  wait... no - okay -   Ummm, according to Phil he got bored with his tricks about a month ago and decided it was time to step up the challenge.  So off comes the brakes and up goes the difficulty of everything.  One of his more 'famous' tricks, the upside down wheelie to rope-a-roni on the pedal, stepped over to the other pedal is now a trick that is just unreal.  Phil rolls about 30 feet standing on the pedal before he steps over to the other side at which point he may roll anywhere from ten to thirty more feet before he has the perfect balance to ride out clean.  During practice I saw him go forward over the bars, shooting the bike fifty feet across the floor - but during his qualifying run he nailed it solid on the second try.  This was enough to land him in the number one spot after pro qualifiers.  During the finals he wasn't quite as on as during qualifiers, but it didn't stop him from taking a forward nose wheelie standing with his right foot on the left pedal (no brakes) fifty feet across the floor and dropping it to a hitchhiker then pulling it back out into the nose wheelie again.

Matt Wilhelm was the number two qualifier and somehow managed to adapt all his spinning tricks to the slickest floor on the face of the earth.  During the finals he did a bunch of jumping body varial tricks that he is known for and linked them together nicely on the back wheel.  In qualifiers though he did the unreal...  Imagine if you will - a two footed coasting stick bitch holding the tire.  The seat of the bike is almost touching the ground.  Now jump and spin around.  Not just halfway around so you land in an upside down wheelie, but ALL the way around.  Switching hands behind your back as you go and landing back on both feet on the pegs still coasting.  Welcome to 2002 boys and girls, it's going to be a fun year.  Matt also has a nice new combo where he barflips into a wheelchair glide and without putting a hand back on the bars steps over to a hitchhiker.  He rides out of this with a spastic freak squeak taken to a time machined hitchhiker straight out to the BACK wheel, still spinning, to a no-handed time machine.  Oh yeah, Wilhelm does a pretty good blender to upside down pedaling mega-spin (on the pedals) as well.

This may be the year of the Matt's - Matt Wright joined the few pros in top five by throwing down some of the sickest bar flippity stuff I've ever seen.  The most insane of which may have been his cliffhanger to cross-footed steam roller, switch feet, barflip, cross-footed side squeak...  ummm... cross feet up on the pegs, flip bars, pivot foot on peg, switch feet, bring frame around, ride out.  Does that make sense?  Didn't think so.  Matt also shows some distinction by actually using both the front and rear wheel of the bike nicely with pivots and body varials.  He coasts backyards and pivots the bike around into upside down wheelies incredibly smooth and then continues to link up the trick to confuse you even more.

Now there are a few more guys that didn't qualify that should be mentioned for pros.  Specifically Aaron Frost who has a long smooth flowing style that seemed perfect for the floor and area.  He did really nice runs during qualifiers, but I guess the judges may have thought that he didn't mix the trick variety up enough to deserve to make the cut.  Cory Stratychuk couldn't hit what he wanted to in quals. to make the finals either - one of the tricks of the weekend belonged to him though.  He was seen pulling the kickflip cliffhanger throughout practice.  It just wasn't there for his run though.  Billy Borys nailed his trick of the contest - a kickflip hitchhiker - and still didn't have enough to go along with it to make the cut.  Mike McFadden had nice long rolling tricks that he liked to turbine forever.  This guy turbines cliffhangers, then takes them straight to backpackers which he turbines just as easily.  But, once again got attacked by the contest jitters and couldn't make it.

Amateur information up tomorrow nite!  Results as soon as we get word on all the results!