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To save the scene in Utrecht from "the Dare Devul" it was Dave to the Resque to keep the Jam at the Griftpark going for the upcoming years. The weather was bad the day before so the Edit festival in Eindhoven was rained out but in Utrecht it was nice and sunny. It was good to see some "old" riders like Remco, FC Dennis, Gert, Casper, Bjorn, Erik riding with "new" riders like Virgil, Mayton, Robert Seuren and more new school kids.

The jam was a real "Rescue" jam so Dave arranged some speakers with a mic and that was about it but he had to buy a permit from the city of Euro 420,00 which was cancelled later by some nice people from the city of Utrecht so it didn't cost him money and looking forward to next year.

The Griftpark is a nice surrounding and the bowl is good for a nice day of riding, we might take the two grindledges down next time to give it more flow but that's another project. 

Dude, where has this story been? It's been on my mind since it happened but for some reason the street/park report never made it on the site. Now we're a few weeks later in life and it will be harder to remember everything that happened. In fact, I'm going to keep this one short. I'll save this one for the videos and magazines to come out. They'll show you what happened. It was nuts though. The crowd was massive and got the best out of each rider. Sometimes it didn't all work out for each one of them but at least they gave all they got. And that made it even better. Mike Spinner got close to a 1080 but Ben Wallace pulled his first ever 360 double downside whip. It didn't stop there as Mark Webb pulled his first ever 360-triple tailwhip! With a couple thousand people on the sidelines you can only imagine what went on in Montpellier at the 11th FISE.

France had 4 riders in the finals (Fouque, Kalkhoff, Charveron and Lauque), England had 4 (Miller, Webb, Wallace and Mark Love - Phil Aller did not start as his trip back home left before the finals started).

One more ramp was waiting for the Tour Dur Laarbeek posse, the one with the extension situated on the Bosscheweg in Aarle-Rixtel. After the three stops earlier in the day the final stop had lost a bit of its energy but Leroy Keunen made up for it on stage. His band did not want to leave before he saw a pit. He did get his pit and people from out of town were wondering what was going on here.

Looking back in my daily journals over the years, here is one of my old journal entries and also my comments looking back now: Sponsored by GT BMX October 15th, 1993

-Actual Journal Entry:
“I Rode to work at GT. During the day, I had a meeting with Todd Huffman & Big E. Huffman liked the proposal that Big E gave him about me riding a Fueler & me being sponsored by GT. But Rich Long (owner of GT) is out of town ‘tll next week. So I won’t know for sure until then. He said I could put the bike together and “test” it. So I stayed until 7pm building the bike with Big E.

Dennis and I overtook the Tour Dur Laarbeek stage on the way to Beek en Donk. The tractor wasn't moving fast and it even had to be bump-started every time it needed to fire up. It didn't have a lack of people who wanted a ride on a real tractor though and the seats on both fenders were full on every trip.

The plan was to start at 4pm and we had made up some time and were only behind on schedule for a few minutes. A nearby festival ended at 4pm so that was good planning on Mike Smits' side. Some music was played so people noticed there was something going on.

As soon as the band started playing they were tested on how long they could handle it. Good stuff. Kees even joined the local band for a Minor Threat cover and received a big round of applause and a straight edge Bavaria beer for his efforts.

After the first stop in Mariahout, the gypsies left for Lieshout, home of Bavaria beer. The 90 degree hipped miniramp was waiting for everyone to be treated right. We were already half an hour behind on schedule and this was only the second stop.

Banners were put back up, the tractor arrived with the stage for the next band and the PA system was set up. In the meantime a contest took place.

With the registration done and judging sheets ready, already some time was saved compared to stop one. It was a jam session for everyone but with the band playing, it was hard to tell the riders when it was time for last trick or when time was up. Not that it mattered much. Everyone just rode for the fun of it. Ed entered at the last minute and so did Kees. It didn't take long for Kees to take himself out so he could watch from the sidelines again.

"Can somebody get me beer, it's hot in here," was the comment of the lead singer of the band 5 Dollar Shake after they opened up the Tour Dur Laarbeek in Mariahout last Sunday. It was noon and the band was already asking for cold beer. Sweet! The Tour Dur Laarbeek is a fun event. We'll explain it in short: 4 miniramps were on the program for one afternoon. A competition was held at each stop. That meant that after stop one, everyone moved to the next one. Banners were put up during warm up and the sound check was being done during part of the contest. It was chaos and unprofessional but we wouldn't like it any other way. It ruled.

After each stop, the stage was moved to the next ramp by a little tractor. Competitors threw their bikes in the big bus and felt like they were on RoadFools for a day. Others just rode to the next town, it was that close. 

At the moment I'm in a weird situation. I have a copy of the etnies Grounded DVD in my possession and I visited the pre-etnies Grounded premiere jam at the Marnix bowl in Amsterdam but did not stay for the first showing at the Kriterion. I could have beat everyone there by popping the DVD in the player at home and watch it but I did not. Tomorrow we will have the premiere for the Grounded movie in OJA and I am holding off until that moment when everyone is there and the big screen is ready. It's tough though as my fingers are itching....

Due to the late arrival I missed most of the session at the Marnix bowl in Amsterdam. Riders were still around but were either limping, done riding, or already started drinking to get ready for the Grounded premiere at 10pm. Still, good old Bjorn Eulink busted a killer fastplant on request and the local shredders weren't done doing all kind of foot jam variations. I've been promised pics of Mark Vos' fufanu on top of the Red Bull wall and Barry Kohne's flair, two highlights that I missed.

The first round of the "Eastpak BMX Series” - 2007 Portuguese National Championship happened this passed weekend in Ferreira do Alentejo. The number of registered riders was a lot higher than last year, and we could also notice that they have progressed a lot since last year. The prelims started Saturday afternoon, when finally the temperature was cooler. We saw awesome tricks during practice, but it got even better when the competition started. At night we had a "super dinner" with all the riders and friends, and everybody watched a Carhartt movie.

On Sunday, the weather was the total opposite of the day before. The sky was cloudy, so the competition started a lot earlier in the day. The beginner class, for the first time had 17 riders. The first 3 riders to qualify were João Carmo from Lisbon, Jondalar Machado from Santo Tirso, and Nuno Chaves also from Lisbon. In Amateur, Rodrigo Vieira, ended in 3rd place, Marco Almeida in 2nd, and the best rider was Gonçalo Cruz from Leiria.

On Sunday 20th of May there was an important freestyle event for Russia as it was the first official competition in Russia in BMX park dedicated to the opening of the biggest BMX park in Russia and maybe in Eastern Europe.  Pro rider Alexey Malinin took the first place with a big score advantage over his rivals. Now Alexey Malinin (REDLINE , VANS , PRO-TEC, BOLLE) goes into the Russian BMX history books as the first winner of the first official competition.