FATBMX Your Online BMX News Resource Since 1998

Rampworx hosted the first Backyard Jam qualifying round for the expert riders. The riders who made it to the top 10 are allowed to enter the Backyard Jam. If you did not qualify in Liverpool, you have 3 more chances:  

Sunday 16th July - Y2sk8 -  Peterborough, England
Sunday 27th August -  Motion -  Bristol, England
Sunday 30th September - Unit23 -  Dumbarton, Scotland

This will be a new type of event for BMX … combining street riding with a massive social session at Epic and even some orienteering. This is how it will work:
- Teams of three - two riders and a driver/filmer.
- Teams win the event by scoring the most points.
- Win points by visiting each spot, with some spots worth more than others.
- Teams score the biggest points by doing the best tricks/riding at each spot and recording this on film. 

Sophisticated Rider recently began providing AOL’s new partnered Action Sports content portal, Lat34, with a series of Blogs. Weekly blogs from the crew can be found on the [url=http://www.lat34.com]lat34 site[/url]. As a result of all the links they’ve provided [url=//fatbmx.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=1552]us[/url] on their site, we’ll be a bit more on our toes with our site, posting some regular (Sophisticated) downloadable freebies. One of our first exclusive treats is a small video of [url=http://www.sophride.com/updates.html#]John Parker's Draino[/url], 13 years in the making. The photo sequence will be out soon through our friends at UK Ride. Thanks to John Saxton for the video clip, and for bringing back Vander Rolls.

In the very near future we’ll have some videocast clips for the iPod gurus, as well as some free cell phone wallpaper. We are a print mag, though, so for the real updates check out lat34 throughout the season, (now in its BETA version).

The fifth issue of Sophisticated Rider will be out next month (July).

Flybikes sent in the updates on the Pantera 2, Mosca 2 and Diablo 3 frames. They all have some of the new features of the 3amigos and some more. Here are the new details on them:
- Integrated gusset. We are using now the asimetric tube to have an integrated gusset. It has a 2mm. Thickness on the bottom and 1.2mm. on the top so you have a gusset without the weldings that can weak the tube.

Pro Park

1      David Dillewaard
2      Michael  Cleveland
3      Chase Hawk
4      Diogo Canina
5      Gary  Young
6      Brian Hunt
7      Brian Foster
8      Ryan Guettler
9      Morgan Wade
10    Colin  MacKay
11    Cameron Wood
12    Daniel Dhers
13    Garrett Reynolds
14    Mike  Shirley
15    A.J. Anaya

In the past we had 5 European BMX freestyle events going on in the summer and that was it. We traveled from event to event until the summer holiday was over. These days we've got 3 events going on each week!

On the weekend of 16-18 June the park and vert riders can check out the etnies Bielefeld City Jam in Germany.

Friday is open for practice with the contest being held on the 17th and the 18th. There's a Pro and Amateur class and the loaction is Busbahnhof Kesselbrink in Bielefeld-City (follow Innenstadt-Zentrum signs).

If you're a party animal you should be there on Saturday. At 23:00hr the official event party starts at the Ostbahnhof.

Following the news about the demolition of the “Oeiras” pool, Paulo Martins decided to organize a Jam with the intention of showing to the “Camara Municipal” (City Hall) and the local people that the pool continues to be an attractive place for the practice of sport activities like the BMX, Skate and in-line. At the event we could find regulars since many years from this mythical place in the national history of BMX, friends from other cities and two reporters from the local newspaper. In what concerns to the riding we cannot say we saw something amazing, mainly because it was a (very!) hot afternoon, but also because the central goal of the Jam was to put together old friends.

Lakejumping has never been easier. A new ski slope was opened in Eindhoven yesterday which makes for the perfect set-up for an afternoon of lake jump fun. Times of digging a jump in front of the canal or losing a launch ramp from the pick-up on the way to a lake jump session are definitely over. The ramp set up is 6 meters high and works for skateboards, snowboards, telemark ski's, freestyle ski's, body slides and of course BMX bikes. It's downhill straight to a 4 feet high launch ramp that sends you to the IJzeren Man lake. 

This coming weekend FATBMX will be off to England for the Download festival. With bands like Tool, Guns 'n Roses, Metallica, The Prodigy, The All-American Rejects, Deftones, Korn and Sick of it All [url=http://www.downloadfestival.co.uk/lineup/index.asp]live on stage[/url] during the Snickers Bowl BMX contest it should be a good weekend. The Pro BMX rider list looks as follows:

-Jamie Bestwick
-Simon Tabron
-Koji Kraft
-Joe Rich
-Ruben Alcantara
-Matt Fairbairn
-Dennis McCoy

Elite men results Day one, Saturday 3 June 2006:
1 Arturs Matisons/LAT
2 Maris Strombergs/LAT
3 Artis Zentins/LAT
4 Rob Van Den Wildenberg/NED
5 Arnaud Dubois/BEL
6 Arno Kanis/NED
7 Kelvin Batey/ENG
8 Manuel De Vecchi/ITA