I think it's fair to say that the dirt set-up at this year's FISE was the best they ever had. The podium they built as a run-up was necessary though to clear the big jumps on the first line. After the first three sets a right hander tok you to the last two sets of which the first set was a set-up jump for most. Although the results have not been announced yet, (we'll post them as soon as we can) it was a battle between Ryan Guettler and TJ Ellis for first place with the following riders doing really well too: Maxime Charveron, Rob Darden, JB Peytavit, Ricardo Laguna and onr of the Musso brothers. It was a big show that ended at around 11 at night. The lights made sure that the thousands of spectators got to witness tricks like no-handed fronties, flipwhips, 720 barspins and everything in between. On big jumps like these that is insane. The level keeps going up. 
Flatland riders always have to wait and see what they get to do their tricks on. Also this year the flatland area is far from perfect which resulted in only 13 riders on the qualifying sheets with only two giving it an international character (Lukas and Gomez). If you can manage to put your combos together though it's rewarding as there are few flatland comps with that many spectators as the FISE comp. The finals will be run on Sunday which you can see live on FISE.tv. We'll post the results when they come in. 
The FISE used to be the first big contest on the schedule but the Simpel Session has taken on that role. Still, 4 months after the comp in Estonia, the FISE is a nice place to catch up. Bar "Overtown" was the place to be the other night and iit took quite a few bouncers to get the whole group out of the place when they were shutting it down. A bit of a riot started outside of the club. If 150 people are standing in the streets, it is not smart to roll your beamer through it. Or even get out of the car. I'll leave it at that. 
Leave it to Mark Webb to kick off the pro disciplines at the 2009 FISE event in France. The Brit simply rocked the pro qualifiers on the not so monstrous Monster miniramp. People had almost expected the Braun spine at the event but the ramp provided is a bit smaller, a lot mellower and has no sub box of any sort. When you put pros like Daniel Dhers, Martyn Cooper, Alistair Whitton, Mark Webb, Ryan Guettler and Andy Buckworth on a ramp like this, the show is on regardless. Add tons of new talent to the class and you can understand that the Pro Mini comp was something not to be missed. The banks on both sides were packed and it was only Friday. This promises something for the days to come. The Mark Webb vs Harry Main show never happened though because Harry Main is dealing with some stitches in his groin and never made it to Montpellier. Too bad as the web-video battle could have continued live on the mini ramp. But it will be hard to beat Webb in pro-mini on Sunday, even for Daniel Dhers who is dealing with a hurt knee but still rides. We'll keep you posted from France. 
RESULTS BOWL PRO 1 CHARVERON Maxime
2 KALKOFF Kevin
3 BOURGUIGNON Alex
4 MASSE Julien
5 BONFIL Maxime
6 MARTIN Edouard
7 LECOMTE Adrien
8 MASSON Greg
9 NORMANT Erwan
10 AUBRY Hervé
11 LANTSCHNER Stefan
12 JACQUEMARD Christophe
13 DUBOIS Marc
14 DOE Shelter
RESULTS DIRT PRO
1 CHARVERON Maxime
PRO results King Of Bowl, Marseille, France. 1 PEYTAVIT JB
2 FOUQUE Justin
3 VALENTINO Alexandre
4 RYTELL David
5 PY Thomas
6 BADET Nicolas
7 DEBBOUZE Didier
8 PIERRI Jean Charles
9 DUBOIS Mathieu
10 MAGERAND Géo
11 DEVENDT Emile
12 CARREZ Cédric
13 KHAROUBI Patrice
14 TROME Thierry
15 LAUQUE Tommy (injured)
Looking at the last articule at Dig magazine and news about the Big Hip brought me so many good memories and I miss it a lot because we can't ride it till the next winter because we need rain to work on it and now everything is too dry. My best memories is not only riding and jumping, it's even better to see my friends going full speed and hit this big thing and getting sent in the air and see them all stoked. 
Here's a little photo gallery that we received from Riccardo Moes. Next to riding his bike and taking care of the Paul's Boutique TM duries he bought himself a camera and snaps some shots now wherever he goes. The following pictures were shot at the recent Helm Jam in Hellmond. And while we're at it, we found another movie of the jam too. If you would like to see your jam on FATBMX, simply send in a little report with some pics and we'll throw it up.
Toby Greswell of team PUW won the 1st Annual invitational competition at the "Track" the UK's biggest purpose build BMX/DIRT track park. Results are as follows:
BMX Dirt Jumping
1st Toby Greswell (Team PUW)
2nd Martyn ‘Digger’ Wetherelt
3rd Chris Czako
4th Scott Tachi (Team PUW)
King of Dirt - Open
1st Marcel Hunt
2nd Ashley Stair
After doing a BMX 'zine for ten years (1987 - 1996) FATBMX made it on the internet. The year was 1998. Here to stay.