2010 Flashback 5: Big In Bavaria Report. By BdJ

Dec 27, 2010

Written by Bart de Jong

Read 4406 times

I’m not a fan of rain. I only like it when the trails need some but then not too much either. It had been dry and hot for weeks so going to the Big In Bavaria contest in Munich, I found myself without a warm hoodie or anything along those lines. When it’s hot at home, you pack differently and for sure I didn’t expect to be sitting in the rain for two days straight at the BIB. It plain sucks when you’ve worked on something for months and you see it all fall apart because of the weather. People had traveled from far to ride,build, announce, judge and watch the event and because of the weather there was nothing you could do but wait.

The organisation had done all they could to keep the riders happy and all the effort paid off on Sunday when it was dry for the first time so the comp could be started. Even if it meant straight finals, people were just happy that some riding was going on. The jumps survived great because they’d been treated with concrete (a lesson learnt

from the previous year) and they sure lived up to the Big In Bavaria reputation. The drop in was just nuts and took many a few moments before the first attempt was made. Surprisingly the following jumps, which looked humonguous from the bottom, were overshot by many. The left hip to right hip step up to set-up jump to final set all worked out and when done smoothly, looked fun as hell.

After two days of eating, drinking and killing time 14 BMX riders dropped in one by one, three times in a row. With the best two scores counting, there was only room for one scratch. Two bad runs wouldn’t get you anywhere but three solid runs on the safe side wouldn’t get you the 8000 Euro check either. Yes, the purse was big, € 20.000,= Euros in total. It didn’t change the minds of those who rode the Dew Tour the same weekend but it did convince Dane Searls to book a ticket to Munich all the way from Australia, just for the weekend. Imagine if it had rained on Sunday too…. that would have been a long trip to sit in the rain for a weekend. But yes it dried up and Dane was on it from the start. He looked great in practice and stepped it up in the finals.

The life scoring and the big screen informed the riders where they were at. After two runs Dane was leading and with one run to go he knew he had it in the bag already. After almost running over the Bavarian presenting lady he cruised to the last jump in back-can style and got so sideways on the last jump that he crashed. But he got up laughing and wouldn’t you if an 8 grand check ($15,000 Australian) plus keg of beer were waiting for you at the prize givings. Second place (and 5 fucking thousand Euros) were for a well stoked Ben Hennon. The rocking and rolling Brit put two good runs together and beat Markus Hampl (3rd), Ricardo Laguna (4th) and Patrick Guimez (5th).

Straight after the finals it was off to the airport. The bags were pre-packed so it was

an easy trip home. Made it to my own bad at 1am. Next morning I threw out the dirty clothes and put in some clean ones for the holiday to France. We’ll see what sort of weather we get and if I packed right this time.

BdJ

The final TOP10 results in a short overview:
1. Dane Searls (AUS / Unit Clothing)
2. Ben Hennon (GBR / Eastpak)

3. Markus Hampl (GER /Twenty Bikes)
4. Ricardo Laguna (USA / Dans Comp)
5. Patrick Guimez (FRA / Monster Energy)
6. Dusan Antalík (SLO / Nike 6.0)
7. Bob Manchester (GBR / Amity)
8. Jean-Baptiste Peytavit (FRA / Twenty Bikes)
9. Daniel Juchatz (GER / Vans)
10. Sven Lehmann (GER / KHE)