Extreme Playgrounds miniramp contest Pinneberg, Germany. Report by BdJ

Aug 31, 2010

Written by Bart de Jong

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The Extreme Playgrounds are going strong in Germany. They're in their fourth year and they're still bringing in killer bands, TV time and a BMX comp. In fact, there's a BMX comp at each stop with an other sport mixed in. This time it was wakeboarding but they've also had the MTB dudes at the Dirt session and they'll bring in the skateboarder at the Street session later on this year. But we were there for the BMX part. If you tried to watch it live through this site we feel sorry you had to deal with the music and wakeboarding too. Even the BMX program got changed because of the weather. The hired tent was leaking so only on dry moments the complete spine ramp was available. It was good the tent was there though because drying off 2 square meters on the ramp was better than drying off all the decks, the bikes and the rest of the equipment.

Riders were brought in from France, Holland, Germany, England, Czech Republic, and Spain for the head to head contest. 14 riders in total lined up for the first heat. The rider brackets were decided upon

at the party the previous night, some even skipped the party to be ready for the day. With a decent purse available and some riders living off of the contest winnings these days it was on for Sunday.

-Alexandre Bourguignon met up with Daniel Penafiel. It was Daniel who transfered to round two.
-Michael Beran rode against Tobias Wicke. It was a close one but Beran made it through.
-Hannes Gutzeit vs. Markus Braumann. Fairly easy transfer for Monkey as Hannes had some problems dealing with his nerves during his first big invite competition.

-Felix Kirch - Ben Hennon. Easy transfer for Felix as Hennon got hurt in practice and did not ride.
-Daniel Wedemeijer vs Alex Coleborn. The Dutchman tried hard but what can you do when you ride against Alex Coleborn? Transfer for the Brit.
-Ondra Slez versus Ben Wallace. It was on in this heat. Ondra had a killer first heat which was answered by Wallace with an even better run. Ondra returned and stepped it up in his second run but could not keep the flow going as well as in his first run. Slez out, Ben in.
-Sergej Geier vs Mark Webb. When you pick Mark Webb in a miniramp contest you have a reason not to be happy. The two made a good show out of it though and Sergej rode awesome with his tech moves on the spine, no handed vader jams, and fufs on the fence. The Webby show got him into the next round.

In round two the following riders met up:

Kirch vs Braumann
Beran vs Coleborn
Naran vs Wallace
Lucky loser Geier vs Webb (again!)

The level of riding was turned up a notch by all riders. There were definitely no easy transfers into the four man finals in round number 2. The first battle was so close that when the winner was announced someone asked if the live scoring system was defect. It was two different styles of riding with Monkey and Kirch on the ramp. Both rode amazing with Markus doing the tech moves and Felix going for height and speed. It turned out into Felix' favour with a 90.2 against a 89.2.

Alex Coleborn has been the latest revelation on the contest scene. He doesn't even know how good he is. After a sweet 18 year B-day celebration (HDT sticker team worthy) it was back to work on the mini, and this time against Michael Beran. Beran didn't waste any time and put down the highest score on the leaderboard. Coleborn had two chances to answer but failed to do so although his second run was great as well. Transfer into the finals for the Czech rider.

Wallace - Naran. Wallace is one consistent rider with a good bag of tricks that includes lip tricks, spine tricks and airs. And then he does all of them in the opposite direction too. When he rides, it simply flows and add a foot of extra height to all he does. Naran had some original tricks too but had to settle for a place in the 5-8 range.

He was back! Through the text voting Sergej Geier made it back into round number two. And there, he met up with Mark Webb again! Siggy rode well, very well, especially in his second run, but he had to deal with a rocking Mark Webb who rode like a posessed maniac. Hope you caught it on the live broadcast because it was a pleasure for the eyes. They kept it fun too. Final spot for Webby.

A Best Trick comp followed. More riders wanted to stay warm and just got back on the platform trying to get a shot at the extra check. The session was intense. Only 10 minutes long and 10 guys trying to impress the judges with a new or hard move. In the end it was Alex Coleborn with his barspin to canadian foot jam to barspin in that got first place in the best trick contest ($500.=) followed by Daniel Wedemeijer's 3-whip footjam (smooth too) and Webby's decade air TT to tailwhip in.

Since it started to rain the finals never happened which really was a pity because imagine what you would get to see when you put Beran, Kirch, Webby and Wallace on a miniramp. To

get the end results to 2nd round scores were used which came to the following list:

1 Mark Webb
2 Michael Beran
3 Ben Wallace
4 Felix Kirch
5 Alex Coleborn
6 Naran
7 Sergej Geier
8 Markus Braumann

It was another good weekend at the Playground. Bring on the next stop in Berlin on 6 December.

BdJ