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A few years ago, we only had a few contests in Europe. The world famous FAT JAM in The Netherlands, the King of Concrete in the UK and the BMX Freestyle Worlds somewhere in Europe. Since that, things have changed dramatically and there is a BMX contest almost every weekend of the year and during the summer time, we can choose from multiple contests and jams each weekend. There are big contests with a fixed time schedule and there are contests like the BMX BOK Series in Deventer: no pressure on the time schedule, just relaxing, chilling and some bmx riding with your bmx buddies.

The qualifiers were scheduled to start around 2.00 PM, but of course not all riders had shown up yet. Approx 3 hrs later Herm and Paul decided to start the qualifiers. The qualifiers were in a jam format, where riders could earn a place in the finals by proving their BMX skills with their best tricks. Riders who qualified earned a really ugly tie, of which 12 were available. During the qualifiers it showed that Daniel Wedemeier and Franky "Kruimel" Elshof had their tricks wired:

And so ends the Dew tour for the 2 wheelers. Scotty Cranmer won the finals but Ryan Nyquist and Daniel Dhers sure made him work for it. Cranmer rocked the crowd with an x-up down a huge drop off, 360 double tailwhips and a front flip tuck no hander. Today's run had far less interaction with the medical staff which was good. Nyquist definitely had the crowd behind him in his runs and his first one was dialed. It was the Nyquist staple with bar spins-a-go-go, a couple of flips thrown in for good measure as well as some flips and flairs. The crowd went nuts as he pulled a bar spin as he was 180'ing out if the large wallride onto a flatbank. Fellow Haro rider Colin McKay had his own set of lines going showing the creativity each rider holds. Steven McCann on his Mongoose bike pulled a 720 to turndown which was impressive. Austin Coleman was there yet again bringing fresh style to the finals. His one handed tailwhip is something a photograph just truly cannot capture (well mine can't anyway). The man with the always green helmet , Allan Cooke hit the course going upside down and around getting the better of his injured knee. Garret Reynolds

The 5th edition of WUPcontest is over, with 73 riders competing (45 amateurs and 28 pro), and also some “big” name, like Daniel Penafiel, Francisco “Perico” Jimenez, Stefan Lantschner etc. The skatepark was not so big, therefor I decided to organize the training in groups of 10 / 12 riders, and this was a good solution to have more space to ride the park. The qualifying run on Saturday, and the riding level is the best ever seen in Italy, also on amateur class. On Saturday night the beach party made some alcoholic victim, and the girls were not just watching the boys having fun. 

Today in park prelims Mike Laird after having the 10 yard stare for years finally snapped and killed the entire front row while Norwegian death metal played in the background. Scotty Cranmer knocked a vending machine over, put some pedals on it and front flipped the jump box. Dennis McCoy crashed and damaged his rubber mask revealing what we all knew was under there all along: a robot. But seriously, straight out of Venezuela ya'll better make way, Daniel Dhers killed the course today. He has it all: flips, flairs and can perhaps travel back in time. He is also riding with a gum guard in his mouth.

Dirt Finals: The level compared to last year is much higher to say the least. If you looked quickly you would swear that Parslow was Nastazio. Huge airs and fluid style from the Aussie. Fellow countryman Cameron White landed a triple tailwhip on the second to last set. Rounding out the Mountain Aussie tour was Dave Dillewaard, Ryan Guettler and Corey Bohan. Bohan was flawless and was the only rider to not have to pedal his ass off for the last jump but instead used pure flow. Doyle rode like Doyle always does: super smooth. 

Dew Action Sports Tour San Jose Park Practice:

The riders hit up the street course today in practice. I saw Scotty Cranmer manual over the jump box take off , over the deck and then front flip onto the landing. Pretty crazy. Later on I caught him eyeing up this huge drop off gap. We will have to wait until Sunday to see his run. Morgan Wade was blasting the corner wallrides and doing huge pocket air transfers while wearing a moustache the entire time. DMC was blasting the course like a fresh 32 year old. Daniel Dhers looked great with fluid style and he just seemed to do everything effortlessly. Kevin Kiraly looked to have double whips dialled and was pulling them over the huge step up jump which looked hard enough to clear never mind do a whip over it. DK bikes rider Brett Walker was also wearing a moustache and doing 360 barspins.
Must be Pornstar month. 

Vert Finals : Who else would win but the king : Jamie Bestwick. Smooth as always and landing a bar spin to X-up after the clock ran out to make himself happy. Kevin Robinson also pulled a double flair after the clock. I did not witness it or get the picture because the venue staff were distracting me. He looked very disappointed when his first run ended with a small crash but came back charging in his second run. Koji Kraft put together a great run on his T1 bike and landed a double tailwhip. Simon Tabron wins the best goon run for throwing in some bizarre amateur moves in the closing seconds of his run. 

The dirt course consists of a series of hipped jumps unlike last years straight in a row set. Mike "Hucker" Clark's nose dive 360's are like nobody else's and he also went for a double flip attempt. Corey Bohan looked really, really dialled throwing in a series of combo tricks. Tim "Fuzzy" Hall built the course and pulled a 1 footed can backflip lander. 720-s were pulled by Guettler (1st), Nyquist (4th) and MacKay (10th) and it's good to have Stephen Murray back in the finals. His clean 360 flip helped him get there (6th). Dew tour leader Anthony Napolitan squeezed in in the last second and will have to do well to keep his lead because Luke Parslow is on fire these days.

San Jose is the 10th largest city in America with people driving cars fueled by vegetable oil. This can only be the Bay Area where the Toyota Challenge leg of the Mountain Dew Tour is being held. Watching vert practice and prelims it's clear that the final tomorrow will be between the king of smoothness Bestwick and Chad Kagy. Both looked really good and in control. Simon Tabron, Jimmy Walker and Tom Haugen also looked good and will be fighting for the last spot on the podium. 

Prelim results vert San Jose, CA.:

Ok so I shouldn't be putting this as the beginning; let's face it, it could have been left out but I have to be honest with you ­ I was livid that I had to work the same weekend as the Nottinghill Carnival, Reading festival and a mates party in Leicester but hey that comes with the territory of organising jams. I have to say though that I'm now sitting here eating my own words with a huge slice of humble pie for desert because Bristol was INCREDIBLE!!!! I have never been to Motion before so I was glad we popped in on the Saturday to check out the park and instantly loved the atmosphere. It was clean, fresh and friendly and although it is compact, the space is really well used to ensure smooth lines.

After watching a cross footed flip over the box and some of the riders launch themselves into the foam pit, which sparked a major shoe search, we left the park for the hotel ready to sample the Bristol night life.