FATBMX Your Online BMX News Resource Since 1998

The more I get involved in the MX scene the more often I come across on how many riders actually ride BMX. The Flockart brothers live 5 minutes away from the Sowerby's in Scotland and ride the Livingston skatepark every now and then. Stefan Everts has been looking into getting his own skatepark, Josh Coppins is sponsored by Stolen Bikes and factory Suzuki riders Kevin Strijbos and Joel Smets can be found messing around on the BMX track in Dessel, Belgium once in a while.

This is the second time I start typing up the Bike 04 race report. I lost the text after the "Control-Z" shortcut messed me up. I'm not sure if it's worth it or how many people will read this but I decided to get you a little inside on the pros preparation for the BMX race. The Hilton hotel bar was open 24 hours. With most BMX-ers hanging out there it was a good time. Racers stayed up late. 5am anyone?

The GP motocross series started off in Zolder, Belgium. After three years with Dorna it's back to two moto racing in the MX 1 (250), MX 2 (125) and MX 3 (grandpa) classes. Instead of 12 moto's, the season now has 32, a big improvement for the fans. 15700 people attended the opening round of the MX1 and MX2 categories. Not all that great but the weather forecast had been terrible all weekend and with the race being live on TV, a lot of fans stayed home on the couch with a cold beer in their hands.

The latest GP we visited was the one of the Benelux in Lichtenvoorde. Sander Nieuwenhuis was doing vert shows at the event so that was cool. For organizing this show we scored a free promo tent that we used to put up the FATBMX flags and put up a lot of HARO and Universal banners, both customers of EBC. We hung out for a bit at the tent on Saturday night drinking a few Bavaria's before we headed to the beer tent across the field. Once they closed that party down it was back to the vans for some sleep. Next morning the sound of the MX engines woke me up. We abandoned the stand and left for some MX GP racing.

If you're living in the United States you might think that Flatland is dead. Yes, it got dropped from the X-games and it seems like there are not too many riders around in SoCal to shoot photo's of for the magazines. This doesn't help the popularity of flatland riding. But do the riders care? I don't really think so. The tight flat community is making things work for themselves. With Braun, Eastpak and RedBull as supporters of the flatland art, things are even looking quite good. A rumored 5000 flatlanders live in Japan with 800 based in Tokyo alone. Must be big-time there. It might not be as big in Europe but it's not slowing down either.

Street The street course had to be put together in 2 days. 3 days were planned for the set-up but when the crew arrived it was cut down to 2. This meant long hours for the ones involved. The course had some new obstacles with a huge angled curved wall in one corner and different types of quarters in the other 3 corners. In the middle they'd put up a spine with hips on the west side and a jump box on the east side of it. On the far far west a double jump-ledge-hipped-quarter obstacle was constructed which all in all made for a decent street course. The street area was open all weekend for practice. The HARO duo of Ryan Nyquist and Dave Mirra showed up and were accompanied with Euro boys Anthony Pill, Ben Shenker and HARO distributor riders Senad Grosic, Ben Hennon and Ben Manuel. Yes, the 2 British Ben's are now forming the HARO squad in the UK. Further riders from SE, FELT, Standard, WeThePeople, Country Bikes, MacNeil, Hoffman and a bunch of UK individuals were enjoying riding the course without much pressure.

Right Guard BMX Championships - Results from Vans Triple Crown of BMX Stop #1 The next stop for the Vans Triple Crown of BMX is the Tylenol National Championships of BMX at Denver's Pepsi Center June 25-27. NYQUIST CLAIMS BOTH DIRT AND STREET TITLES AT THE RIGHT GUARD BMX CHAMPIONSHIPS IN SALT LAKE CITY Last Year’s Overall Vans Triple Crown Champ Wins His 10th Straight VTCS Dirt Comp Dating Back to 2001

- Mike "King of Choq" De Wit is the new creative madman at Globe shoes. To celebrate he bought an 04 Audi Avant and put 19" rims on it. Better than a white Minerva with plastic rims....... - FATBMX reached maximum bandwidth again in May. It was because the provider had not switched us to "Plan Pro" yet. We've doubled the bandwidth from 15GB/Month to 30GB/Month so the problem should be solved.

The editorial is supposed to be a personal note from the editor. This month I'm going to take it really personal and talk about our son Philip who just turned 6 months. Having a kid is a big step. Responsibility changes and you can't just go out for a ride any longer. The boy needs to be taken care of and either Wendy or I have to stay home to baby sit. But the babysitting is a lot of fun too especially when the baby is healthy and smiles all the time. What will the future bring for Philip? We don't know. He might become a computer geek, he might like music so much he wants to start his own band, maybe he'll join the boy scouts (don't think so!) or likes horseback riding (no thank you).

With covering street riding and flatland at the 25 years of BMX event in Eindhoven earlier this month, the Mini-FAT-JAM (little brother of..) had miniramp riding and dirt jumping in mind. On Saturday the PA was installed at the rather new miniramp at the Bosscheweg in Aarle-Rixtel. With a bunch of banners, flags and EZ-Up tents set up, it actually looked quite good. The weather cooperated with sunshine all day long and that was exactly what we needed to open the BMX outdoor season. From 13:30 - 17:30 the ramp was used non-stop. Highlights on the mini were brought by Ricardo Moes, Dennis Keunen and Daniel. Let's start off with Daniel. The name had been circulating on the Dutch scene as "The New Barry". We don't have many talent in Holland so "another Barry Kohne" is always welcome. Daniel has the flow and pulled the first fufanu on the fence and made it look so easy. He also pulled tailwhips, high airs and tech liptricks on his pegless bike.