When some major companies decide to put on a three stop festival and combine it with bands, you can ask yourself some questions. Why do they need us to bring their message across? What have they done for BMX? Why do I need to get involved? You can make your own answers and if it's not your cup of tea, you simply don't go or skip this update, fair enough. But it looks like things are turning in the right direction. The Duisburg stop was sold out for a start. Maybe the crowd did not come for the BMX action alone but it was packed when something happened, 10 deep or more.

With the right people involved it can't go all that wrong. Andy Zeiss and Achim Kujawski organise the BMX part and they know what they're talking about. They invite their friends to help out and ride and have a good time. With cool people around it's hard not to enjoy yourself.

The contest was a head-to-head comp. Two runs each, best run counts. Winner transfers to the next round. Loser is out and can enjoy the rest of the riding from the sidelines. Losers in round one were: Axel Juergens, Romuald Noirot, Mike Buse, Sven Lehmann, Moritz Kauper, Benny Paulsen and Tobias Wicke who tried to jump but crashed a few times and called it a day giving Ben Wallace an easy transfer to round two.

Those who counted the riders will notice that something ain't right. If you have 7 rounds (14 riders), you end up with 7 winners. This is where the Lucky Loser Text voting comes in. The rider who is out in the first round but received the most text messages will transfer to the finals. This makes it 8. With T-Mobile and Sony Ericsson as sponsors it's a way to make some money back, or have people use their mobile phones and start talking about it. Local Benny Paulsen won the text message voting and received a spot in the 2nd round.

Benny Paulsen got paired up with Ryan Nyquist and his participation stopped right there. Patrick Guimez had a killer first run against Ryan Guettler who had to step it up to make it through to the next round. He did. The battle between Ben Wallace and Ben Hennon was close the two Ben's aren't very familiar with the big dirt jumps or dirt jumps in general but they have skills to adapt. Hennon is on a Colony these days and claims it to be the best bike he's ever had. Ben has been riding and building some trails in Newcastle too so he was in fact getting ready for this comp. Even a broken nose in practice didn't stop him but Ben Wallace eliminated his fellow countryman and it was the solid 360 downside whip on the last set that did it. Kye Forte met Markus Hampl in round two and the German kicked out the 2005 world champ.

A "Best 360" contest was thrown in for everyone to enter. First prize, you guessed it, a new mobile phone! Some riders hucked themselves over the last set but the winner of the comp was Ryan Guettler who pulled a sweet 360 backflip in front of the loud crowd.

In round three we had Ryan Guettler versus Ben Wallace, and Ryan Nyquist against Markus Hampl. Again two runs each with the best score counting. Ryan Guettler had been doing huge frontflips over the big first set. It was amazing to see how consistent he had those fronties. The former Dew Tour Dirt champion of course had plenty of tricks for the next two sets and pulled something new out of the hat every time. He was stepping it up when he needed to and took it safe when the transfer was in the bag. Ben Wallace just got on the bike after a wrist operation and did not want to risk things. Especially when he was leaving for the USA for three weeks on Monday after the comp. His bike had shown up and he was stoked about that. It would have sucked big time to have not bike at the comp and fly to the Local Exposure tour without a bike. Ben Wallace started off with a scratch run and Guettler did a good one. Ben's second one was a scratch too so it was easy cruising through the 6 pack for Ryan on his second run to make it to the finals. Nyquist eliminated Hampl by using his first run score. He too could use through the pack on his second run after he knew that Hampl had not beating his first score on his second solid run.

If you are tired of reading this report by now you should know how tired the riders were at this point. The waiting in between the riding was long and walking back up that starting hill took its toll. The finals suffered from it as Ryan Nyquist won the comp with a mediocre run (for his standards!). Guettler had a scratch run and bailed on a 720 on the last set after he had done a front flip and a single tailwhip on the previous sets. Nyquist first, Guettler second and Hampl beat Wallace for third.

1. Ryan Nyquist
2. Ryan Guettler
3. Markus Hampl

Best Trick comp: Ryan Guettler

One down, two more to go. Maybe we'll see you at Pinneberg or Berlin. Your choice.

BdJ

2010/9/1 22:25:24 - GFFT Video Contest - Anton Örn Arnarson
2010/9/1 22:00:00 - Woodward West Adds Massive MegaRamp
2010/9/1 21:00:00 - Road Fools 18 Edit 2 - Daddy & the Tree
2010/9/1 19:20:00 - Channel 4Down BMX :: Boyley Jam 2010. By Channel 4Down
2010/9/1 10:19:20 - Eurobike 2010. Open for 2 hours and the first update of the new 2011 BMX products. By bdJ
2010/9/1 9:50:00 - Akin edit. By Craig Tull
2010/9/1 9:30:00 - Road Fools 18 Edit 1 - Pre-trip
2010/9/1 9:00:00 - Tuesdays with Miles: Scott Ditchburn
2010/9/1 4:20:00 - Backyard Sesh At Mike Spinner's
2010/9/1 1:30:00 - FAT FAVOURITES list with Pat Casey
2010/8/31 22:50:00 - Kamil 'Robak' Nowak Promo edit. By Bodziu.
2010/8/31 19:20:00 - Sunday Edit - Horsham. By Ben Foster
2010/8/31 15:30:00 - Extreme Playgrounds miniramp contest Pinneberg, Germany. Report by BdJ
2010/8/31 13:50:00 - Stereo Bike Co. Mini-Trip Madrid 2010 edit. By Stereo Bikes
2010/8/31 11:30:00 - FAT FAVOURITES list with Damo Wilkinson
2010/8/31 10:06:48 - King Of Dirt 2010. By Lénaïc Maréchal / LMVisual
2010/8/31 6:30:00 - Mike Vincent "Back on Track" interview
2010/8/31 4:20:00 - Running the new line. By Bicycle Union
2010/8/31 4:10:00 - New line of Products offered by Insight BMX
2010/8/31 4:00:00 - VANS . US TEAM . LORDS OF DIRT. By GREENFILMS
2010/8/31 3:40:00 - We-Ride.net Project
2010/8/31 2:00:00 - Bikefight 2010 Randers. By Lasse Soeltoft
2010/8/31 1:50:00 - THE JAG BMX GLOBAL CHAMPIONSHIP Daytona, Ormond Beach, Florida December 18-22, 2010
2010/8/31 1:40:00 - Leatherback Chandler Bike Park edit. By Bink Seavey
2010/8/31 1:00:00 - Jared Swafford for Season bikes. By Levi Brewer