June was one busy month. On the road every weekend now that the contest season is in full swing. Here's some random HARO related news:
- First up the injury updates.
Ben Shenker (Hungary) broke his wrist a few weeks ago at the first stop of the Local Heroes tour in Hungary. He did a simple roll back and stepped off. Ben is now at RedBull's raining center in Austria to see if he speed up things to start riding again without taking any unnecessary risks. He's been digging some trails near his house with the cast on so he has something to ride when he's good to go. Second team rider that is injured is
HARO Europe's Stefan Geisler. He broke three bones doing a vert demo in Italy and got some pins inserted to help the healing process. The pins were removed a few days ago and OBG is riding MTB and spending time in the gym every day to make sure he's ready when he can hop back on that Carolina blue Mirra Pro.
Mike Cleveland (HARO USA) is out for a while with a broken hand.
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Senad Grosic (Austria) went to China for some sort of China X-Games and placed second behind Colin MacKay. After that it was straight to Austria to do some shows and then off to Munich for the LG Action sports tour. Senad made the finals there and placed 5th missing out qualifying for the LG finals in England by one spot.
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Ryan Nyquist came over to Germany for the BMX Masters contest and entered Pro vert, dirt, street and mini. He made all finals finishing 8th in dirt, 2nd in vert and won both street and miniramp. The vert class was won by Belgian
Peter Geys.
- Talking about Peter, he recently went to Louisville, Kentucky to try to qualify for the Dew tour. Peter didn't do too well. He was slightly injured (decided to sit out the 2005 Worlds in Prague with a sore shoulder) and was super nervous for the contest. This resulted in a first run crash and it was hard getting ready after that. Peter is going to give it another try in Denver and with a bit of luck he will qualify. The HARO Benelux rider left for the Ukraine again to do some shows.
- The Gravity and X-Games are two of the bigger events of the year. It's getting harder to qualify for those but expect
Ryan Nyquist and Dave Mirra to be in there representing HARO Bikes. Both Ryan and Dave didn't do too well at the first stop of the Dew Action Sports Tour in Kentucky but you can count on them to be back in Denver.
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Steve Paraskevas is the proud father of newborn Ryan Matthew Paraskevas. Ryan was born on 20th June 2006 at 3:07pm weighing 7.5 pounds. Steve comments: "I will give him a few years and he will be on a Nyquist 16" pulling double back flips in the back yard." Congratulations.
- Aussie
Jamie Gray is staying with fellow
Aussie Warwick Stevenson in the USA and both of them are getting the racing groove on. Latest race was the one in Rockford. Dooder Chad wrote a full report for the HARO Bikes site so go [url=http://www.harobikes.com/news/paper.php?Article=062205§ion=bmx]check that out[/url] when you have some time. Expect Warwick to come over to Bercy, France for the UCI BMX world championships from 29-31 July. He's going to defend his Elite men title there. Also coming over from New Zealand are HARO riders
Ash and Kurt Rawson. The race should be an exciting one.
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HARO UK will be present at the NASS contest next month. They're having a booth set up and the HARO UK team will be riding all weekend. HARO is a co-sponsor of the Nass event.
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HARO China are helping the development of BMX racing in China. With the Olympics coming up in 2008 the HARO importer has helped built BMX parks in 6 Chinese cities (Wunan, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Beijing, Suzhou and Jinan). The goal is to have one of those BMX parks built in every province. Not bad.
- For those already planning their rounds for
Eurobike, our HARO booth is number: HALL: A6 BOOTH: 204. It's in a different hall than last year so make a note.
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HARO Benelux signed on as a sponsor of the Garden of Vert contest to be held at Peter Geys' backyard halfpipe in Belgium from 12-14 August.
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HARO UK's Ben Hennon went to Prague with fellow HARO riders
Ben Manuel and Anthony Pill and did very well. The youngster qualified for the finals in the packed miniramp class but decided to give it a miss because his body was already feeling sore and he had the street finals coming up the next day. When those finals came around, Ben was ready to rip it up. He slow speed gearing gave him the extra speed to do big tailwhip transfers from quarterpipe to flat bank landing. Ben also made it up high on the wallride to tailwhip out. The 360 whip transfer from the spine to the flat bank was sick. Hennon then spent some time trying to pull a flipwhip over the spine with barrier. After multiple attempts he semi-pulled one (landed it with on his seat with his feet off the pedals - ouch) and had to call it a day. He ended up in 5th which was a great results considering all the international pros that had made it to Prague. Time for some Pivo's.
- Senad Grosic (Austria) went to China for some sort of China X-Games and placed second behind Colin MacKay. After that it was straight to Austria to do some shows and then off to Munich for the LG Action sports tour. Senad made the finals there and placed 5th missing out qualifying for the LG finals in England by one spot.
- Ryan Nyquist came over to Germany for the BMX Masters contest and entered Pro vert, dirt, street and mini. He made all finals finishing 8th in dirt, 2nd in vert and won both street and miniramp. The vert class was won by Belgian Peter Geys.
- Talking about Peter, he recently went to Louisville, Kentucky to try to qualify for the Dew tour. Peter didn't do too well. He was slightly injured (decided to sit out the 2005 Worlds in Prague with a sore shoulder) and was super nervous for the contest. This resulted in a first run crash and it was hard getting ready after that. Peter is going to give it another try in Denver and with a bit of luck he will qualify. The HARO Benelux rider left for the Ukraine again to do some shows.
- The Gravity and X-Games are two of the bigger events of the year. It's getting harder to qualify for those but expect Ryan Nyquist and Dave Mirra to be in there representing HARO Bikes. Both Ryan and Dave didn't do too well at the first stop of the Dew Action Sports Tour in Kentucky but you can count on them to be back in Denver.
- Steve Paraskevas is the proud father of newborn Ryan Matthew Paraskevas. Ryan was born on 20th June 2006 at 3:07pm weighing 7.5 pounds. Steve comments: "I will give him a few years and he will be on a Nyquist 16" pulling double back flips in the back yard." Congratulations.
- Aussie Jamie Gray is staying with fellow Aussie Warwick Stevenson in the USA and both of them are getting the racing groove on. Latest race was the one in Rockford. Dooder Chad wrote a full report for the HARO Bikes site so go [url=http://www.harobikes.com/news/paper.php?Article=062205§ion=bmx]check that out[/url] when you have some time. Expect Warwick to come over to Bercy, France for the UCI BMX world championships from 29-31 July. He's going to defend his Elite men title there. Also coming over from New Zealand are HARO riders Ash and Kurt Rawson. The race should be an exciting one.
- HARO UK will be present at the NASS contest next month. They're having a booth set up and the HARO UK team will be riding all weekend. HARO is a co-sponsor of the Nass event.
- HARO China are helping the development of BMX racing in China. With the Olympics coming up in 2008 the HARO importer has helped built BMX parks in 6 Chinese cities (Wunan, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Beijing, Suzhou and Jinan). The goal is to have one of those BMX parks built in every province. Not bad.
- For those already planning their rounds for Eurobike, our HARO booth is number: HALL: A6 BOOTH: 204. It's in a different hall than last year so make a note.
-HARO Benelux signed on as a sponsor of the Garden of Vert contest to be held at Peter Geys' backyard halfpipe in Belgium from 12-14 August.
- HARO UK's Ben Hennon went to Prague with fellow HARO riders Ben Manuel and Anthony Pill and did very well. The youngster qualified for the finals in the packed miniramp class but decided to give it a miss because his body was already feeling sore and he had the street finals coming up the next day. When those finals came around, Ben was ready to rip it up. He slow speed gearing gave him the extra speed to do big tailwhip transfers from quarterpipe to flat bank landing. Ben also made it up high on the wallride to tailwhip out. The 360 whip transfer from the spine to the flat bank was sick. Hennon then spent some time trying to pull a flipwhip over the spine with barrier. After multiple attempts he semi-pulled one (landed it with on his seat with his feet off the pedals - ouch) and had to call it a day. He ended up in 5th which was a great results considering all the international pros that had made it to Prague. Time for some Pivo's. 
After doing a BMX 'zine for ten years (1987 - 1996) FATBMX made it on the internet. The year was 1998. Here to stay.