FATBMX Your Online BMX News Resource Since 1998

While wandering around at the pits of the Supercross in Anaheim I stumbled across a set up that I had not seen in a while. The GT/Schwinn team had set up camp to do bicycle stunt shows with the 9 feet tall transportable quarterpipe and a box jump. I have done plenty of these shows in the past with GT but I have to admit that I don't miss them one bit. It's a good thing to show BMX to a new audience but to me it feels like the sport has moved on.

Contests and parties go hand in hand. A super contest without a party isn't great. A great party combined with a terrible competition doesn't win any awards either. Finding the perfect mix is the way to go. The Pop!Session in Tallinn was good in both respects. Team Holland (Barry, Martin, Bas, Mark, Souf) had arrived early on Wednesday and did not skip an opportunity to go out. Paul and I joined the crew on Friday. Last year we spent a lot of our evening time (and money) in some stupid discotheque. We did not have a clue where to go and in the end it worked out fine.

BMX takes you to the strangest places. Tallinn, Estonia would not be on my list of places to visit when I have a weekend off but actually, it wouldn't be a bad idea. Where the hell is it you might ask? To give you an idea I would say former Russia but organizer Risto Kalmre corrected me on that: "We don't think of us as former Russia:). Native Estonians have no relations with Russians and not even with Latvians or Lithuanians. We and our language are related to Finland and Hungary but stands as its own. But of course the fact that many Russians have been living here after the Soviet Union came here in Second World War cannot be denied. In Tallinn there is quite big populations of Russians."

Over the weekend the Pop!Session contest took place in Tallinn, Estonia. With 67 riders in street and 7 in vert it made for an exciting contest. Achim Kujawski scored his first victory in 18 months on the RedBull Vertical ramp and Ryan Nyquist put it together once again in street. Full results right here: BMX Street Final Standings 1. Ryan Nyquist USA 2. Tobias Wicke GER 3. Allan Cooke USA 4. Josh Harrington USA

Everyone knows how hard it is to ride in the wintertime. When the Impact park called for a BMX jam on a Saturday night it was time to make it over there. It was BMX-only from 6pm till midnight. That's 6 hours of riding for a fee of 5 Euros at an indoor park. Not bad.

When Dennis picked me up in his rad double cabin VW transporter van I only noticed 1 bike in the back. Paul, Bern Buster and Rob were coming along for the fun of it. The case of Bavaria and the 12-pack of Bav-twisters promised nothing but trouble, uh, I should say, it promised good times.

You haven't visited a FAT-JAM if you haven't visited the party at OJA. This year's entertainment was a good one again. We got the Dutch premier of the wethepeople ETC. DVD and also two bands + DJ Nikolai. The scheduled time of the wethepeople DVD premier was 20:00hr. Of course there was some delay so it started a bit late(r). The TV and sound were very amateurish (OJA style) but the action was good. Because of the late start, the first band started plugging in and playing away. With 90% of the people watching the DVD it made for some good loud background music.

The Braun Front Brake Revolution recently took place on the South Coast of England. The event was the first of its kind to focus on technical front brake riding and attracted riders from around the globe to sunny Dorset, for 3 days of mind-blowing tech BMX.

Halfpipe opening party by Peter Geys Overpelt, Belgium If you're in your thirties and spend over $18.000 USD on your own backyard ramp you better know you're not done riding. Peter Geys worked hard on making his dream come true. The brakeless vert rider from Belgium spent all winter working on the construction of his huge vert ramp. At 4,16 meters high it's one of those monster ramps. It has a metal frame, wood ground layer and metal top sheets. At 12 meters wide it's a good thing Peter has a big backyard.

The Festival International des Sports Extremes (FISE) in the South of France has been going strong for 8 years. The FISE usually started off the outdoor season for everyone who is living up north, as the event took place over Easter weekend. However, after a long cold winter, people packed their cars and drove down to the beach of Palavas hoping for some sunshine. The sun was not always around, so the organisers decided to move the event from April to July. We made the 12 hour trek down South with Achim Kujawski, Andy Zeiss, Paul and I. We were the BMX judging team for the weekend and hoped Paul's unreliable Volvo would take us there.