The first contest of the year is a fact. The Pop! Session in Tallinn kicked off the ‘06 season with a vert and street contest. Where the hell is Tallinn? It’s in Estonia. Where the hell is that? Just about 85 kilometers south of Finland, maybe you know where that is. Around this time of the year it’s pretty damn cold in Tallinn and it only gets a couple of hours of day light. Not that we spent a lot of time outdoors. It was either the Saku Suurhall or the bar where time was spent, more so than the comfortable hotel bed.

The Kalmre brothers and their crew had transformed the Saku hall into a skatepark for the weekend. The Red Bull vert ramp was transported in for the 10 vert guys that made it over for the halfpipe contest. The qualification round had 10 riders on the ramp. With all finalists getting a part of the 3500 Euros purse, the goal was to make next days’ final.


The final hosted 8 riders so two had to go home empty handed but with a good memory. Tuomo Ilmonen from Finland and Sven Kabosch from Switzerland failed to make the cut. Sven has improved a lot since last time I saw him ride in Belgium. Sven is riding brakeless now and that seems to help getting higher. Tuomo didn’t have his best day but wasn’t far away from top 8. Barspins, inverts, x-ups and no-handers were Tuomo’s contribution to the vert contest. All around the 6 feet mark.

Let’s move straight to the Halfpipe finals.

In 8^th we’ve got Chris Mahoney who also made the street finals. Chris has been going steady with his girl for 5 months and that seems to relax the otherwise wild Brit. With a bit of a regular pump Chris could be battling in the 4 – 6 place range but deep landings on his stretched and clicked variations had him work his way up after nearly every run. He whipped a few superman tailwhips in the ramp which the Estonian crowd liked a lot.

Dark Matter’s Anthony Pill is the handplant master. The regular handplants are in the pocket and now also the X-up one. The new variation that he’s working on is the barspin handplant and he reckons he can pull it. The Englishman also pulled barspin to no-footers, clicked turndowns and came close to tailwhip tailtaps on vert.

Aze had two to ride both finals on Sunday with the first one being vert. After 6 to 7 years of trying he pulled his first tailwhip in the huge Red Bull ramp and was stoked on that. With Aze on the ramp there is always action. This time he flaired and shot off the ramp barely missing a girl that was watching in the front row. The TSG gear made sure Atze could ride the street finals later on that day. 6th for Atze.

Tim Eichert from Germany is one to not give up. As long as the wheels are turning, Tim goes for more. 540-s, backflips and German flairs (one-handed), they don’t seem to stop the German.

5^th place was for Tim. In fourth place we’ve got another Brit by the name of Ronnie Remo. Ronnie has got the height and the flow doing back to back variations and huge tailwhips. The judges would have loved to see a couple other tricks in his runs and he would have made top 3 in Tallinn easy.

When was the last time a Swiss rider made top three at an international pro vert contest? Has it ever happened before? Maybe we should get used to it. 19 years old Jean-Marie Bärtch (JMB) has got the flow and the style which gave him enough points to penetrate the top three. He’s simply fun to watch.

In 2^nd we’ve got “Good Old” Zach Shaw. Zach has been living the family life over the winter as the closest rideable vert ramp is a three hour drive away from his warm place near London. The 20 years of BMX experience pulled through and although looking a bit rusty in the beginning, he brushed off the rust and got variations back such as no-footed cancans, the Madonna (his signature move?), X-ups to X-ups, 540-s and huge flairs. Zach was going off and it’s so rad to see him do those inverts at height. 2^nd place was well deserved.

But who was there to take first place? Bestwick? No. Mirra? No. Miron? No. Robinson? No. Kagy? No. Hoffman? No. Make that Simon Tabron. Although no gold medals were at stake, Simon gave it his best and his 540 variations are awesome. Then he also has opposite variations, huge cancans, the radical dogpiss air, stretched no-handers and the 900 air. It was time to start the Crazy Party!

2009/11/20 20:10:00 - Back! the Rad vs Lame list on FATBMX
2009/11/20 15:50:00 - FAT FRIDAY week 47. The summary of this week's BMX news.
2009/11/20 13:50:00 - Keelan Phillips flatland bmx. By Stewart Charles
2009/11/20 12:00:00 - Graffiti Art. Eindhoven.
2009/11/20 10:30:00 - ZuperMarket Flatland Jam Trier
2009/11/20 9:10:00 - Win Whitton's Vans Swag Sweepstakes
2009/11/20 8:00:00 - Coco and Simon getting ready for Berlin
2009/11/20 7:20:00 - 2010 Mirraco Black Pearl.
2009/11/20 6:40:00 - Nano Weekend Edit. By Josh Menard
2009/11/20 6:00:00 - Stealth Racing Forks from Sinz
2009/11/20 5:30:00 - A Day With Demolition
2009/11/20 4:20:00 - Marc Remmert's FAT FAVs list
2009/11/20 1:30:00 - Mitch Anderson Fall 09. By Brodie Gwilliam
2009/11/20 0:20:00 - Big tires, big boobs, but Big wheels too. 21+ Pin Up of the week.
2009/11/19 21:50:00 - Into The Woods - BMX Trails Montage. By Brian Dickman
2009/11/19 20:40:00 - Channel 4Down BMX :: The Channel 4Down Dvd Vol.2. By Channel 4Down
2009/11/19 20:00:00 - The Snafu Splitter stem
2009/11/19 19:20:00 - Michael Beran - Mini Proper Bike.co Autumn edit. By Bobbers prod.
2009/11/19 18:40:00 - Vibrations Urbaines as experienced by Leigh Ramsdell
2009/11/19 17:27:15 - WERMELS SESSION CLIP
2009/11/19 16:00:00 - RIDE UK # 134
2009/11/19 12:57:37 - Nick Dawg video
2009/11/19 10:40:00 - A day in the life of James Ivett. By Robin Fenlon.
2009/11/19 9:30:00 - Mirra Bike Co's Blink
2009/11/19 8:30:00 - AmityBikeCo Presents: Ryan Taylor. By Chris Wilmshurst