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With Friday off from school, a jam-packed car eager to get exercised on the snow-coated roads of Sweden, and the knowledge of an amazing week-end to come, I would say that my wellbeing could’ve been characterized as top notch. The destination was set to Capital Bikepark, Stockholm’s finest setup of ramps made possible by long-time BMX-enthusiast Andreas Lindqvist. The five hour drive was supposed to be made worthy thanks to Andreas Lindqvist’s Invitational Winterjam, an arrangement with an experimental approach as far as contest format goes. 16 riders, considered to be Sweden’s best, was invited to compete in a format called “Battle”, and at least I had raised my anticipations to the edge.

Henrique Castro, a Brasilian BMXer with a lot of flow. He is always seeking his flow style, sometimes gets bored when some friends talk about lips tricks, hahaha, this guy is a kind of direction which Brasilians bmxers follow. He's a nice guy who makes us very proud, and gives you a good feeling when you session with him. Henrique is a video magazines addict, knows all the names and teams, bike parts... 

Results for 2007 - Finals:
BMX Street
1 Dave Mirra
2 Mike Spinner
3 Diogo Canina
4 Corey Bohan
5 Sergio Layos
6 Dave Dillewaard
7 Ryan Guettler
8 Chris O'Donnell
9 Colin Mackay

The second Münster jam went down the last weekend of January. It was the next real big event after the Simpel Session. A lot of people had been really exicted about the upcoming event. And you could feel a real good vibe during the jam. Jochen and Roland really took it serious to organize a rider friendly jam. A bottle of Isotonic Water and a Banana were handed out to every rider, and after the hard Battles on the track a big pasta dinner went down. Props for the food, boys. 

Australia is happening at the moment. The sun is blasting and loads of riders from overseas have made it to town to enter the comps and to simply have a good time. The BMX Games took place over the weekend and now the BMX crew is heading to New Zealand for the annual X-Air event. Find the results of the BMX Games right here:

DIRT: 1st - Ryan Guettler 15.03 2nd - Cameron White 14.13 3rd - Colin McKay 12.8 4th - David Dillewaard 12.25 5th - Cam Pianta 10.83 6th - Dane Searls 9.73 7th - Ricardo Laguna 9.33 8th - Chris Jones 8.57 

Finally it was Saturday evening, January 27. The "tjoeketjoeke" was about to go off in skateland Rotterdam. It was going to be crazy with a lot of good riders and Dj's. The organisation was afraid not many riders were going to show up because of letting them know on short notice. But thanks to the promotion on the websites: Fatbmx, soulcycle, skateland, Paul's Boutique, reload and aptraxion the group was big!
There were about 75 riders in the building, which is a lot considering the Dutch scene is small. Skateland opened the door at 8pm, and it got busier the minute. After about an hour and a half we started with the contest. Rotterdam local Jonathan tried to get all the riders together, but because that didn't work he had to use the mic. That worked a lot better. 

Trains and BMX was the contest format for the Tjoeketjoek jam on Saturday in Rotterdam. With DJ Koen Soulcycle, host Surfstad, a Jury of old guys from The Hague and all new youngstar BMX riders from the Netherlands were the ingredients of this jam. Skateland opened their doors for a Saturdaynight jam. Four riders in a team riding thru the park like a train. The teams Rearwheel, KLM and Roffa where rocking in the final.

Team Roffa had a kind of dead wish tricks from the ghetto´s of Rotterdam. While team KLM proved their flying skills by opening with a frontflip (by Nicky) and some real high moves by Daniël Wedemeijer. But the guys really riding like a train were team Rearwheel with Vladdie, Michael, Brendan and Marten.

This time of the year you see some sponsor changes happen. New budgets become available and other budgets get cut.  Being a pro rider in Europe ain't easy. To make things work you have to either go to the bigger comps with a decent pro purse or do a few shows on the side to pay the bills.

In the USA  bike companies are not waiting in line either to sponsor riders.  Even some pros who make top three in the Dew Tour series and X-Games every time are currently without  paying bike sponsors (Chad Kagy - Jamie Bestwick). Call it tough times, call it whatever you want.  If you do have a sponsor you're happy with, make sure you keep them stoked. Good luck out there.

Senad Grosic: Off Haro
Fuzzy Hall: Off Mongoose
Stephen Murray: Off GT
Ben Shenker: Off Haro

Openground bike and skate park in Reno , Nevada had its first ever competition this last weekend. The park is run by flatland rider Gabe Weed and is under full swing after dealing with all the bureacracy that comes with running a skatepark. The competition day was broken into 4 classes : Beginner , Intermediate , Advanced and Pro. The little guys were the most fun to watch giving it their all and getting the crowd behind them. A standout rider of this class was 11 year old Paris who took the boys to school with a crank flip over the jump box and super high carves on the vert wall. The atmosphere at this park is awesome and throughout the day riders were throwing themselves off park obstacles. I even saw one guy rugby tackle one of the roof pillars trying to transfer around it.

2 local bands who's names nobody seemed to know rocked out while the riders did their thing. The first band played hardcore and

Heading out to Brazil, I thought that it was going to be a breeze. Not realizing how tough it would be to get there, this is how it started. I was supposed to fly out to Sao Paulo on Wednesday, but had some visa issues. Therefore I had to fly out the following day. On my lay over, I had my boarding pass ready to go, when the unthinkable happened... I was pulled out for more visa issues! Once again, I had to miss the plane and was told that if I didn't get a visa overnight that I would not make the contest. But to me the impossible some way some how, with the help of Leslie and Jimbo (thanks a lot), I made the impossible possible and was on my way to San Paulo.