Bart de Jong crashed hard during his comeback on his MX

Riding MX is as dangerous as you make it yourself, hit the throttle and you go fast, shut down the throttle and you slow down, simple you think.

After popping out his shoulder a few times it was time for Bart to let it fix by the best doctors in the Netherlands and after 2 months of recovery it was time to start riding again. The doctor said: "do whatever you can do" and for Bart that means: Green light to ride!

We went to our local track and started to do some laps but soon Bart was beating his older brother again and he didn't slow down cause his shoulder felt right.......

You know what comes next: Crashing time! Someone was standing on the track in front of me and got me out of my trainingsession to ask if "that guy in the ditch" was Bart, and after seeing #132 the answer was: Yes!

As this was our first Jam, we did not expected too much from it. Just a few riders and hopefully some nice weather.

Our day started very good, the weather was very sunny and we took off to our big city ROTTERDAM. We had a riders pick-up at CS and from that on we took off to the Schouwburgplein in the middle of the City. Due to a festival there was little space, but we waited a bit for a few riders and also we checked the breakdancingdemo and the demo from Bram Verhallen for Braun Flatground. From there we took off to the old “LEFTplein� also in the city. We arrived at the spot and we all saw that this floor was very, very, very BIG and so everyone had enough space to practice and ride! Everyone chilled and rode the whole day so we can speak of a successfull day!

Around 17.00 Hrs we took off again to the Braun Flatground spot for another demo by Bram Verhallen and Sytse Winkel and that was more the end of our day.

MSS Event Provides Backdrop for New Faces in Finals and Young Rider’s First Pro BMX Park Victory
Pro BMX Vert field wows Sacramento crowd with halfpipe airshow!

(SACRAMENTO, CA) -- The fourth and final day of competition at the Mobile Skatepark Series event in Sacramento shone the spotlight on the world’s best pro BMX freestyle riders. As always, the gladiators of the action sports world brought fans to their feet and kept them there most of the day. Meanwhile, one of the nation’s youngest competitors on the pro BMX circuit quietly pieced together his first-ever professional victory, defeating many of his idols and mentors in the process.

September, 2005 – San Jose, CA – Dave Mirra, 31, of Greenville, N.C., today took home his first win at the Dew Action Sports Tour, placing first in the BMX Park competition. Mirra’s backflip tailwhip over the spine in his first run helped to earn him a winning score of 92.25. The higher score of two runs is taken to determine the rider’s final score.

“I did what I wanted to do,â€? said Mirra, who now sits in fifth place in the Tour’s BMX Park standings with 176 points. “Heading into Orlando, I’m able to creep back into the points race. Every Tour stop is a building block. You have got to come out strong from the start and finish even stronger. [Second place finisher Scotty] Cranmer is the future of this sport. He is an amazing athlete and he gave me a run for my money.â€?

Scotty Cranmer, 18, of Jackson, N.J. edged 26-year-old Los Gatos, Calif. native Ryan Nyquist for the second place spot with a score of 90.50. Nyquist’s first run earned him an 89.75, which he was not able to improve upon after getting a flat tire in his second run.

September, 2005 - San Jose, CA - Ryan Guettler, 22, of Brisbane, AUS earned his third consecutive victory in the Dew Action Sports Tour’s BMX Dirt competition today at HP Pavilion in San Jose, Calif. Guettler, who was knocked unconscious during a practice run and later released by paramedics, bested the field with a final score of 93.63, an average of his best two of three runs. His final run was highlighted by a one-handed front flip.

“For the entire Tour, I have been up against awesome competition,� said Guettler, who remains at the top of the BMX Dirt standings in the chase for the Dew Cup, with 337 total points. “I am going to keep giving it my best every time.�

Fellow Australian Luke Parslow placed second with an average score of 92.75. Parslow, who has consistently improved at each stop of the Dew Action Sports Tour, now sits in eighth place in the BMX Dirt standings.

September 8, 2005 – San Jose, CA – Jamie Bestwick, 34, Nottingham, GBR, wowed the crowd at HP Pavilion Thursday evening at the Dew Action Sports Tour’s Toyota Challenge during a run filled with intricate tricks in BMX Vert Finals. Bestwick’s best run, his first of the evening, was filled with a difficult mix of tricks, including an Alley-oop 540.

It was Bestwick’s first of two runs that stole the show and scored a 94.50. He also finished first at the Vans® Invitational last month in Portland, Ore. and at the Right Guard Open in July in Denver, Colo. Bestwick currently sits in first place in the points standings with 300 total points.

“It’s big pressure being in first place now,â€? said Bestwick. “It’s just been a great season. This is a prestigious title, even though it’s in the inaugural season. This is something I’m really shooting for.â€?

It was a busy week up in Canada. After the RedBull Elevation contest it was straight to Vancouver for a week of BMX activities including the Metro BMX jam. Josh Harrington won the contest and Hard Trick comp. Dave Osato pulled a 3-whip drop-in during the contest and gets a check for that one. Results? right here:

Pro street results Metro BMX Jam Vancouver, Canada
1 Josh Harrington 94.0
2 Morgan Wade 93.2
3 Gary Young 91.4
4 Chris Doyle 91.0
5 Colin McKay 88.8
6 Corey Martinez 88.6
7 John Heaton 88.2
8 Brian Hunt 86.8
9 Alistair Whitton 86.2
10 Brian Kachinsky 85.8

Traditionally the last weekend of August is the weekend of the King Of Concrete in Southsea, England. Look which riders were "On Fuego" at the 2005 edition.

Bowls Pro Final

1 Mark Webb
2 Ben Wallace
3 Gareth Wilson

Spine Pro Final

1 Ben Wallace
2 Mark Webb
3 Tobias Wicke

The morning after at the FAT-JAM does not really exist. Getting up early is not a priority. We've been around for too long to know that a morning program at a jam is useless. At 14:30hr people started meeting at the local mini ramp in Aarle-Rixtel for, again, a free jam session. Electricity for the PA this time came from an electrical outlet on the roof of the "De Dreef" building and the loud Heavy Metal CD from the day before was changed to something mellower to start the day.

Later on in the session a 30 minute "Best Trick" contest was organized. The riders had half an hour to pull a good trick. Pim van den Bos from Veldhoven did a disaster tailwhip but had a few difficulties to pull it to fakie or to manual. Daniel's no-footed cancans were sick and so were his back to back fufanus on the fence of the ramp. Kruimel pulled a fufanu to barspin on Sunday but the "FAT-JAM Best trick trophy" went to Bas Brouwer with a nice one-handed footjam. The music kept playing for a bit longer and the session continued for those who wanted to. There was no pressure, just a good session with fellow riders.

Okay, okay, I know, I'm way behind on some of the updates but I hope to get them in later this week. The LG Action Sports Tour stop in Spain is one of the reports that has just been sitting there. I wonder who wants to read about it now but for those who do want to know what happened, read on.

The stop in Barcelona had a street contest and a halfpipe demo. After two sketchy street courses in Munich and Paris, the third container showed up in Barca and made the transportable street course a lot better. A street course like this 10 years ago would have been "the shit" and still today, it could have been a lot worse.

Having the tour stop in Spain was interesting. Except for a few French riders and nomad Axel Juergens, all participants came from Spain. There are a few Spanish riders that do travel internationally (like Sergio Layos) but most of the riders here never get the chance to travel to all the big comps. For them a stop like this is a unique opportunity.

Riding vert is rough but once you make it up there, you get to exciting places all over the world to do shows. One of those places is Barcelona, Spain. When they put the ramp up on the pier next to a topless beach with palm trees, you know that practice has paid off. They fly you in and they pick you up, the fancy hotel is covered, same for food. It's show-time only three times a day and for the rest of the day you can do what you want.

John Parker and Eduardo Terreros were the BMX part of a demo that was going on during the LG Action Sports World Tour. If you think they were holding back during shows, think again. Even big crashes on flairs didn't hold Edu back trying it again and again. He pulled it in the end but the Spaniard needed some liquid painkillers at night to get the groove on and forget about the pain. Big 540-s and double tailwhips from Parker is what you get to see when he drops in. Doesn't sound like holding back to me.

WHISTLER, Canada (August, 2005) - Ryan Nyquist, 4 time X-Games gold medalist takes first with a stunning last run performance at Red Bull Elevation while James Foster makes history landing the first ever triple tail-whip!

Red Bull Elevation was developed in partnership with BMX icon Jay Miron as the most innovative and challenging dirt jumping contest of its kind.

The BMXINVASION BIKE BATTLE 4 "BIKE TO SCHOOL" contest went down at SKATE 57 PARK. BMX riders along with an enthusiastic crowd were on hand to take in all the fun and action. A great display of action packed riding was on the menue for the event. The youngster from Toms River NJ. Garrett Reynolds took home the gold as he was busting out some difficult tricks. In second place another youngster who put on great display of bmx riding is Ben Hittle. Falling into the third place position is Phillip Kane. Fourth place went to Andre Postell who was taking it hard on the flip whip but managed to recover with some cool riding.Our fifth place shredder is Mike Fede who destroyed a few bikes today attempting to kill what ever came in the way of his front tire. Mike managed to get through the run with a few loner bikes.

LG World Tour Rimini Italy

Another stop for the LG Action Sports World Tour, this time in Rimini Italy. After a Helltrip of 2 hours car drive to Germany, 2 hours flight to Italy, 1 hour busride to trainstation, 1 1/2 hour train ride in a hot train whithout airco and 1/2 hour taxi ride we made it to the nice hotel and started to recover from the trip.

Rimini is a small beach town with 150 Beachclubs so the streetcourse and halfpipe were about 100 meters from the beach at the Piazzale Fellini. Doing Halfpipe shows with girls in bikini all over the place it was a pleasure for the Spanish Fly and John Parker, they did demos with skaters Ringstrom and Dias and some Inliners to please the Italian boys & girls. No halfpipe contest this time.

The BMX Park Prelims would go down early afternoon on Saturday and the Finals would follow that evening. As we got to the venue we headed straight to the Memorial Coliseum to watch the guys practice and as we took a seat in the completely empty VIP area, we figured we would be able to just chill there at least until they opened the doors to the public if not later. But we were soon told that Media was on the other side of the course, and Alex and I kinda looked at each other like "huh" because directly across is where the riders were so we asked again and they said yes, directly across on the floor from where we had been seated, so we walked over there. We felt so out of place because there was no Media there yet so it literally was us and the riders and their team managers. None of the riders or managers said anything about us being there but still feeling awkward we left to go check out the Festival Village and to find Noah, who was our Media guy, to make sure that's really where we were suppose to be seated haha.