Razer BMX Spine Battle report. By Nicholi Rogatkin.

Aug 27, 2012

Written by Bart de Jong

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The Razer BMX Spine Battle went off last weekend in Cologne, Germany. Riders from all over gathered on the Razer mini ramp to session in front of what would total to around 280,000 people at the largest video game show in Europe. A whole new contest format was put to the test: After a normal qualifier, 12 riders were to participate in a lottery. In each round, one rider's name was chosen, and that rider had the pressurizing decision of choosing who to battle against. The battle was decided by one vote from the crowd, one vote from

each rider, and one vote from each of the 3 judges.

As Catfish made the people go crazy, all of the riders sent themselves to the limit. Danny Josa did a huge 360 whip over the spine, Victor Salazar did a 720 and a decade on the spine, Sergej Geier did an insane amount of Technical tricks including a 360 tailtap to whip on the spine. Felix Kirsch did many huge flairs and almost pulled a backflip fakie to bikeflip. Paul Tholen, the youngest rider of the competition at only 13 years old, smashed the ramp, going higher than anybody else and doing tricks both ways. Jack Clark did a 360 bar bar to ice chink on the spine, and several perfect flair barspins. AJ Anaya did a 360 tuck to turndown on the spine along with many great looking superman seatgrab airs. Jack Watts did huge 360 whips, 360 tucks, and double truckdrivers on the spine before going down hard on a 540 flair. I was psyched on pulling a triple whip, a superman seat grab one hander, and the first ever flip superman on a spine.

Alex Coleborn proved himself as the king of the ramp, achieving both the Battle King and the Money King. He rode amazing all day and finished it off with a flair to footjam on the sub. The battle format on the mini ramp made for an insane contest, big thanks to Razer for such an awesome event.

-Nicholi Rogatkin