FATBMX Your Online BMX News Resource Since 1998

The World’s largest BMX flatland competition, Braun Flatground, is proud to announce dates for the fifth anniversary event. Since 2001, Soul Cycle have organised and developed the Braun Flatground festival in their home city of Amsterdam. This year the competition returns to the atmospheric Gashouder venue, a renovated industrial building near the centre of the city.

MEMPHIS, Tenn., Dec., 2004 World Champion BMX rider Mat Hoffman and rider Kevin Robinson meet Target House resident Tyler Emert at the Target House holiday party, where Team Hoffman athletes delivered holiday gifts purchased by families across the country as part of the St. Jude Wish List to patients receiving treatment at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

The new year is upon us. We've survived another year of FATBMX and we're not slowing down. Starting from 1-1-05 we'll be having a new web design. Jos Wissink and Rolf Thijssen have been working hard on the new set-up and it's going to be killer.

- Alain Ballering will be riding a St Martin Darwin frame from now on, he is so stoked he can't sleep anymore and threw in a party when he picked up his frame at Paul's Boutique. - Zaandam skatepark is building a giant wooden pool, hope they are not bikehaters like Area 51. - PURE BMX Distribution is forming its Factory team: Remco Elgersma (FBM), Michiel van Turnhout (FIT), Bas Brouwer (Flybikes), Dennis Keunen (Proper/Shadow), Michael v/d Lee (UGP), Riccardo Moes (SNAFU), and looking for a S&M and WTP rider..........

We announced earlier that Ronnie Chalk is no longer the BMX TM over at DC. Then we got the following press release: Vista, CA…DC Shoes, Inc. announced today it has hired Dwayne Taylor as DC’s new BMX Team Manager. In his new role, Dwayne is responsible for maintaining strong relationships with the 11 riders on DC’s BMX roster, including Dave Mirra, Robbie Miranda and newcomer Corey Bohan. He will also be providing current information on DC riders in all DC communications and will be help in directing the BMX team’s marketing efforts. In DC related news, Kim Boyle has left the company.

The back cover of the latest Bicycle Retailer magazine had a Torker ad that made me sad. Torker was once one of the coolest brands on the BMX circuit with riders such as the King brothers and Jason Jensen and later powerhouse Tommy Brackens and Hollywood Mike Miranda. The twin top tube actually made it a favorite among freestyle riders and Bob Haro based his first freestyle bike on Torker's design. What made me cringe is the fact that the Torker name is now being used to sell Unistar Unicycles, Scooters, Beach Cruisers and Trikes with not one BMX bike in their program. What happened here?

- The Dorkin' in York videos back in the day were all classics. They showed the latest in flatland riding from the Plywood Hoods which included Kevin Jones and Mark Eaton. It was tough getting your hands on the videos in the early days of vcr recorders. The NTSC tapes did not work well with the PAL system and once you did find someone who had a NTSC video recorder (often American based soldiers), the trick was to video tape the TV and record it on PAL. Mark Eaton has now released all the videos (10 in total) in a DVD box (it has 3 Dorkin' in York DVD's and 1 bonus DVD). It has all the history and is a must-have for everyone who rides flatland.

[size=large]We're sorry to announce that FATBMX is dead.[/size] The lack of updates the last couple of months was an indication of things that have been going on behind the scenes. We encountered many problems with our loved ones and employers that we spent too much time behind the computer working on the FATBMX website. It was a touch decision but life goes on. Gotcha! Of course we're just kidding here. The need for FATBMX is high as we were confronted with the question: "when's the next FAT update going to be on?" wherever we went. Glad you guys like it, good to hear you miss it when it's gone. Here's a list of updates that we need to work on still. Sooner or later they'll be up:

- The European BMX Street championship series have come to an end. Paddy Gross and Markus Wilke both won the overall title. Barry Kohne finished 2nd for Holland and Mark Koenig and Sascha Claussen tied for third. Find pics of round one (Heerlen) and two (Oldenburg) on FATBMX's freestyle section this month. Final pics (Darmstadt) will be added in July.

At the 1994 World's in Cologne the Bro Hymn song by Epitaph got played over and over again. It became the song of the contest and until this day I think about Pro-mini with Miron and Bender on the spine whenever I hear that song. Fast forward a few years and Pennywise are touring Europe with the Warped tour. John Peacy and Rick Thorne were doing shows as well and Rick totally hooked us up with free lunch, a round in the tour bus, some ice cold Nescafe coffee drinks and last but not least we all made it on the stage when Pennywise was playing.