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In the morning we drove the remaining 30 miles to the South Coast of England. The BIC is an indoor sports center next to the beach. The sun was out on Friday and people were sunbathing although it was pretty chilly. Anyway, when entering the hall we checked out the stands from the magazines/Sobe/distributors and bikeshops and chilled at the 70-s booth for a bit. Ricky Adam had put up a nice exposition of black and white photos in this area too. The actual riding area looked good. It had a 10 feet high quarterpipe and a double jump in it to the surprise of the hardcore street rider. Is this going to be the next X-Games? The 70-s crew had done their homework and riders had asked for a jump box in the survey they returned. What the riders want, they get. Fids was working the street course (literally) as he's a self employed carpenter nowadays. Nate Wessel always jumps in to help out and so does Ryan Corrigan. Basically the course had 2 hips and the 10 feet quarter on one side and a bank to wall on the other. In between it had the double jump, a street spine, a hip with wall and a weird flatbank to steepbank-volcano kind of thing that was hard to just jump but some of the pros thought otherwise. The ramps were painted green and had the Etnies logo all over the place. The orga-team added Friday to the series as an extra day for the experts to get their game on. With 100 entries the added day was very welcome. Practice sessions were divided in groups so everyone could get some riding done before the contest began. Mark Love won the qualifying round but got stuck at 8th place in the final. Miles Davies (www.milesdavis.com) won the expert final and got on stage to sing a jazzy song (maybe not). Friday night was the night of the IOC/UCI/FUTURE of BMX meeting that ended at 23:30pm. but was continued until 04:00am in a nearby hotel bar with the help of some Bavaria's. Saturday brought Pro qualifying. Everyone and their pro-brother made it to the first round of the Backyard jam. It was hard to name 5 pros that were not at hand. The 72 street riders were divided in groups of 4 and had an 8 minute jam session to show what each of them was capable of. With Mike Escamilla and Matt Berringer in one group the crowd was in for a treat. At the end of the session the two lined up on one side of the hall to pedal full speed towards the wallride. This looked like X-Games doubles. After a shady first try they pulled the double wallride on the second attempt. As the crowd got into it they followed up with an alley-oop variation. Berringer's unique riding style (heelclickers over the doubles, flip to flat bottom, flip to rock to fakie on the Q-pipe, nacnacs, etc.) qualified him for the final but Rooftop did not make it. Gary Young (Dirtbros) is full of energy and uses that to cruise around at full speed doing tailwhips, 360-s both ways and fat-ass table tops. Gary had different lines than anyone else and qualified on spot #1. Garrett Byrnes' style is quite similar to Gary's and he added some big airs on the 10ft quarter. So did Joe Rich, Taj, Miron and Jon Taylor (who did a handplant on the 10 footer as well to qualify 21st). Riders that are ridiculously good but still did not make it were a.o: Sandy Carson, Ben Shenker, Cielencki, Barrett, Mahoney, Martinez, Kimler, Sergio Layos, John Heaton, Joe Rich, Chris Arriaga and Rooftop. That group would make a great final at any comp. Saturday night brought the party people out. The Etnies party had free drinks for the Etnies riders, well, not even that and according to Ruben Alcantara Etnies TM John Povah is great with the food but bad with the free drinks on the company card. Smart man. Alcohol, friends, music, ladies; good mix. Learn more about the BMX nightlife in an upcoming FAT PAPARAZZI article on www.fatbmx.com. Sunday brought a few changes to the street course. A straight up wall had been added and the hip with wall had been moved next to the double jump. Practice started at 10:30am and the finals took off at 14:30pm. Paul Roberts was on the microphone. He's the best BMX MC. The stands had filled up completely. It was good to see a sold out house for a BMX comp. Spectators came over to watch BMX as they paid 12 quid for a weekend of watching the pros ride. None of them went home disappointed as the riding level gets higher every week. To catch every trick done you've got to buy yourself the next Props, SOUL, or any other video magazine that was around. Be sure to train that rewind finger as you'll need it more than once. I'll just name a few standouts: Taj's air on the 10 feet quarter. The T-1 rider/owner has been riding The Gute's vertramp lately and even bought a new fullface. The "training" showed off in the smooth Q-pipe style. Mark Webb had made 720-s over the double look easy until he tried a 720 variation in the final and broke his leg. Not a nice sight and everyone was faced with reality for a moment. Get well soon Mark. Allan Cooke had paid his own way to England to enter the comp and was having a good time (at least at the bar). His big wallride to barspin did not get the crowd on its feet but 4 years ago it would have been crazy. Just a sign how fast things are developing. Allan scored 16th place. Ben Hennon changed his Felt bike for a HARO which did not slow him down much. Flipwhip transfers and big table tops were some of his contributions to the high level of tricks that were being done in the finals. The Berringer show was on again. Even without Rooftop around he had the crowd going with funny tricks. He ended his run with a fly-out onto some ledge on the wall that was 15 feet high. Only Berringer....... Dan Sieg has got some serious skills. Tailwhip to fakie over the spine was just one of the tech moves from the Standard rider. Osato simply tells his bike what to do. When he says; 2 full rotations over the spine, the Primate will obey. 360-whip over the crazy volcano; check. Paul Kintner did 360-s in both directions and finished 8th. He was flowing all over the course with plenty of flow. Kye Forte got the crowd going with his tailtap on the wall out of the 10ft quarterpipe. Absolutely insane. Nate Wessel seems to pull tricks that are not from this world. The 90 degree corner jump out of the wall and into the quarterpipe in the final was nuts. You seriously have to pull that bike to land where you want to land on that move. Next time you know Nate is doing the same gap but lands in fakie and pulls it clean. Talking about raising the bar here, nuts. Revelation of the comp for me was Luke Marchant. He might as well have won. Never heard of the dude either but I'm sure next time I'm flipping through the magazines I'll see his pictures. Let's put it this way, he can do it all. Baz Keep ripped it up doing tricks in both directions and you can't even see what's regular and what's not. Alistair can adapt to any terrain quickly and had no problems with the Backyard Jam course. Mr. Whitton is a well rounded rider and has tricks for every obstacle. His footplant on the wall was sick and the boomerang/tailwhip jump still has me puzzled. I'll grab the remote for the rewind button a few times next time I see the trick on TV. And then we have Jay Miron, the Canadian Beast. At 30+ he still got what it takes. When Jay starts joking around on his bike he is having a good time. It showed. Big hip transfers to wall ride, huge 540 on the quarter, no-handed flips over the shady volcano and a tech nosewheely 180 to 180 on the wooden double jump. Jay was on and when the Beast is on you better sit back and watch. 2nd place. First went to San Diego's Gary Young. The energizer bunny was fading towards the end of the session when he attempted an icepick on top of the wall at least 8 times before he pulled it. It's probably what did it for the judges who were having a hell of a job having to score all the riders over the weekend. We said our goodbyes and headed back to the ferry a.s.a.p. . It was a great weekend. Thanks to the Seventies crew for pulling this of. Bart de Jong PRO FINALS 1 Gary Young 94.60 2 Jay Miron 94.40 3 Ali Whitton 93.40 4 Bas Keep 90.20 5 Luke Marchant 85.40 6 Nate Wessel 82.40 7 Kye Forte 81.20 8 Paul Kinder 80.60 9 Dave Osato 79.00 10 Taj Mihelich 78.20 11 Dan Sieg 77.80 12 Garrett Byrnes 76.80 13 Matt Beringer 76.60 14 Ben Hennon 76.20 15 Tony Mortenson 75.60 16 Allan Cooke 75.40 17 Dave Freimuth 73.80 18 Ruben Alcantara 73.40 19 Mark Webb 70.40 EXPERT FINAL 1 Miles Davies 88.20 2 Luke Elliot 88.00 3 Andy Hall 85.20 4 Rick Tribble 83.80 5 Steve Artus 83.00 6 Liam Eltham 81.20 7 Steve Saunders 80.80 8 Peter Meakin 80.60 8 Mark Love 80.60 10 Tom Bridges 80.00 11 Georges Pich 79.40 12 Daniel Rodger 78.20 13 Garry Wells 77.60 14 Nicolas Lefeure 76.80 15 Edward Mullins 76.40