Author Topic: Flatland is best underground  (Read 4722 times)

Offline ortho

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Flatland is best underground
« on: April 03, 2020, 04:01:53 AM »
So the Rona finally got my tennis court spots closed here in whereverville USA, after a week or so of seeing masses of tennys showing up after work stopped in our area. And i'm feeling like "good", man i never felt like flatland belonged at some sports complex anyway, elbowing it out all these years with the ballers, tennys, frisbees, and golf drivers (even), i wanna be done with this environment. To me flatland is best tucked away somewhere in some hole where "the public" can't ruin it. We don't belong with sports, we don't belong in any city center to add to the wonderful diversity, no one wants us. We deserve to concentrate our studies in neglected areas like dirty ass parking garages or anywhere society could give a crap about. Anything less is just bullsh*t and you know it. Don't do this for recognition. 

Offline mal

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Re: Flatland is best underground
« Reply #1 on: April 03, 2020, 09:32:03 PM »
My favorite riding spots are the ones that are completely clear of people.

Flatland is my meditation,people disrupt my meditation process

Many riders want to be seen and be admired by random pass byers,to boost their ego.Different motives..

I also think that when you ride surrounded by people you tend to do tricks that you already know well,to impress them. Highly unlikely you try learning a new trick,falling down a million times,doing the same 1 second move for 3 hours if you are on a public spot surrounded by people watching.
« Last Edit: April 03, 2020, 09:36:53 PM by mal »

Offline ortho

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Re: Flatland is best underground
« Reply #2 on: April 04, 2020, 04:34:12 AM »
Good thoughts, peoples. I am only being 3/4 serious in the sense that I'd love for it to be different and it may well be one day, and props to anyone pushing it forward in the media and the olympics, etc. Definitely some of the best times of my life were at contests or big events or just meeting up with friends to session/hang, but all of this stuff as well as working with the public on just about anything is all secondary to what flatland wants from you. And you know what flatland wants. 

Offline ortho

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Re: Flatland is best underground
« Reply #3 on: April 04, 2020, 04:42:08 AM »
I swear flatland is like a biological process. It leads you to pore over maps in search of the perfect plot of land for it to lay its eggs, which you are to return to when they beckon, and you have to grind like hell to raise the lil bastards up to be adults

Offline FlatismŽ

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Re: Flatland is best underground
« Reply #4 on: April 04, 2020, 09:17:06 AM »
In all seriousness, I do tend to agree that the underground was favourite.
It became like a lab.
Some of the dank, brutalist concrete backdrops in moody carpark spaces provided the best riding / scenes; a
way from the rat race basics above.
« Last Edit: April 04, 2020, 09:28:40 AM by FlatismŽ »
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Offline khelagger

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Re: Flatland is best underground
« Reply #5 on: April 04, 2020, 04:49:51 PM »
This sport thrives when it's underground where people are concentrating on the art, their riding skills,having fun.

Offline Timmer74

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Re: Flatland is best underground
« Reply #6 on: April 05, 2020, 05:21:15 AM »
"Flatland is my meditation,people disrupt my meditation process"

Amen to that Mal! I ride to get away try and forget the day to day grind(s)... I brought this up in another thread where I feel like flatlanders don't get a lot of respect from people. It's my 'yoga' and so when yoga mom shows up with her kids and doesn't pay attention to her kids (or at least ask them to leave the weird old dude on a little bike some room) I want to ask her where she does yoga so that I can show up and ruin her zen moment.

I agree though that a lot of the 'holy crap, what did he just do?!' type stuff was probably learned out and away from the masses/crowds/etc... like Rodney Mullen and skateboarding. but, at some point, these flatland magicians need to come out of their underground bunkers to show the rest of us what they're been up to and motivate/inspire/just share the awesome.

sadly, my 'best' spot to ride is not in a well lit batcave. I dodge the soccer/basket/foot balls,  frisbees, dogs, idiot adults not giving me any room,  kids riding bikes with training wheels under me when I ride. I wonder how much of these distractions are keeping me from progressing. When a big part of your mind is focussed on trying to do something on your bike and then you have to leave another portion open to 'where did that kid go...is he under me...oh no, there's that damn dog again..etc...' that has to affect your progress...right?

Personally, I don't ride to impress anybody. I don't care if somebody watches me try the same trick over and over and over and over and over and over... that's on them. maybe watching me ride is their moment of zen.

With that said, there was one dude that rode with me very briefly... he rode to 'show off'. It's all he talked about... well that and money... and 'back in the day'.... He didn't understand how I wanted nothing more than to be left alone so that I could ride. Not a bad dude... just totally wired differently I guess...

I don't even know if my reply was on topic :).... I just figured I'd reply when I saw Mal's post.


ride on...

Offline DaddyCool

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Re: Flatland is best underground
« Reply #7 on: April 05, 2020, 10:19:16 AM »
This is an interesting discussion!
I remember an interview with Alexis Desloneux in the German "FreedomBMX" magazine in about 1998. He said that for him riding is not even about tricks, but about the feeling you have when you move with/on the bike. I thought about this again and again for years and this is totally true for me. It is not to impress anyone and I also enjoy spots where I ride totally alone so I can focus and "meditate" and just enjoy the feeling of executing a trick/combo.
I also wondered very often why so many riders want to make flatland bigger and more well known. I mean if I ride alone at an "underground" spot, at this time it does not make a difference how many people in the society have an idea what flatland is. So basically it is not important to me. On the other hand it is kind of strange to see that for many years I know almost all riders when I come to a contest. No new riders for years... And if this goes on the scene will decrease and one day you cannot buy flatland parts because it is not worth for any company to produce thme because there is no market for it. Then it would be too less riders and so a little bit of "advertising" might be good for flatland.

Offline mal

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Re: Flatland is best underground
« Reply #8 on: April 05, 2020, 08:40:27 PM »
The only reason flatland shouldn't go completely underground for me is parts.


We already have a hard time finding flatland parts and all of us know well that they are so more expensive than the street/park/etc parts because they are made by small companies that can't deal a better price because of the orders numbers..

Check out aluminum pegs prices for example,for 400grams of aluminum (4 pegs) you have to pay 140 euros. Because they are made in such a small quantity.Thats insane! Thats almost half the cost of a new frame!

I personally import 100% of my parts from other countries,nobody is selling flatland products in my country anymore.So if i break something flatland specific i have to wait 7 to 10 days to ride again.

It can't be a lot more underground than it is now to be honest,we are numbered! I would keep riding flat even if i was the only one left,i do it for myself,but..we need the parts!

(and also for supporting all the flatlanders that are running a bmx business for living.Most of them have contributed and had chosen the difficult path of making bmx their life fulltime,got to respect and support this!)
« Last Edit: April 05, 2020, 08:58:01 PM by mal »

Offline nosubsteve

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Re: Flatland is best underground
« Reply #9 on: April 06, 2020, 11:50:14 AM »
Has flatland ever been overground, wombling free? I admit I'm not 100% with the history, there were freestyle comps before I was even conceived, but during my era (say, 2000 to present) the majority of riding was street, park, vert (well, in x-games) and flatland riders were usually separate to the rest of the scene.

The exception being Japan, where it seems to have been embraced, and with no ill effect. I'm not aware of cheap parts companies flooding the market anyway.

Offline nosubsteve

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Re: Flatland is best underground
« Reply #10 on: April 06, 2020, 10:13:47 PM »
Oh believe me, I don't claim to know anything about the history, or even the current version of flatland, so I'm really happy to hear about it..

I consider myself more of an observer than an active participant, but honestly, anything I can grab on to and register as current, recent, previous would be a blessing, it's so hard to get any perspective of what happened in 1990, 1995, 2000... You really have to search to figure out what happened when, who invented what, etc. Its really a geek game, and I feel like it should be readily available knowledge. I'd love to know this sh*t. I bet a couple of other folk would like to know, but it's hard to figure out without the correct platform. I have no idea how that would work, but wow that would be so nice.

Offline 89schwinnsting

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Re: Flatland is best underground
« Reply #11 on: April 06, 2020, 10:48:11 PM »
I'm an older rider, and I've either been riding, or just keeping up with BMX as a whole since the mid-eighties. Flatland is its own beast. That being said, it's gone from overtaking racing back in the 80s, to nearly disappearing adter the market crashed and everything went to hell in the last paer of that decade. But it survived, and helped to give birth to rider-owned comapnoes and 'zines thst covered different scenes and spots across the cointry. Flatland contined to grow without the help of a large TV presence, and a lot of classic jams and contests were birthed out of this so-called "dead zone" of BMX. Riders who only rode for fame and glory were pretty much phased out during this period, also. Contests will come and go, as well as medis coversge. As long as riders ride, flatland will never die. Hell, Japan has taken over flatland and the future looks bright. There are flatland schools springing up in other parts of the world. Riders uploading videos and clips to Instagram and Vimeo that can be seen worldwide. If anything, the community of flatland is growing, coverage be damned.

Offline ortho

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Re: Flatland is best underground
« Reply #12 on: April 07, 2020, 12:38:57 AM »
A lot of the reason I started this thread was just to remind myself why I ride in the first place and primarily it is like DaddyCool pointed out what Alexis said, just moving around on the bike, making it go where i want. Learning new positions, dialing in tricks, and not forgetting tricks (!) are also on my mind but not as essential. Everything else is even less important to me: growing the sport, teaching kids, competing, posting edits, bike parts/perfect bike, catching up with friends. They're important, but not indispensable to my experience, and sometimes they mess up the whole process. And yeah when you ride around people, it does try and exert influence which tricks you perform, even if you don't let it.

The "Sport" can go wherever it needs i suppose. Not really wanting it to end up like the double front flip bike flip Olympics-or-bust world but eh, whatevs. It's not like that stuff ruined the rest of bmx. People still appreciate a clean 360 or basic tabletop.
« Last Edit: April 07, 2020, 12:40:44 AM by ortho »

Offline mal

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Re: Flatland is best underground
« Reply #13 on: April 07, 2020, 12:41:20 AM »
Oh believe me, I don't claim to know anything about the history, or even the current version of flatland, so I'm really happy to hear about it..

I consider myself more of an observer than an active participant, but honestly, anything I can grab on to and register as current, recent, previous would be a blessing, it's so hard to get any perspective of what happened in 1990, 1995, 2000... You really have to search to figure out what happened when, who invented what, etc. Its really a geek game, and I feel like it should be readily available knowledge. I'd love to know this sh*t. I bet a couple of other folk would like to know, but it's hard to figure out without the correct platform. I have no idea how that would work, but wow that would be so nice.

23mag has a big archive if you like digging
http://23mag.com/index.htm

Offline mal

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Re: Flatland is best underground
« Reply #14 on: April 07, 2020, 12:42:18 AM »
I'm an older rider, and I've either been riding, or just keeping up with BMX as a whole since the mid-eighties. Flatland is its own beast. That being said, it's gone from overtaking racing back in the 80s, to nearly disappearing adter the market crashed and everything went to hell in the last paer of that decade. But it survived, and helped to give birth to rider-owned comapnoes and 'zines thst covered different scenes and spots across the cointry. Flatland contined to grow without the help of a large TV presence, and a lot of classic jams and contests were birthed out of this so-called "dead zone" of BMX. Riders who only rode for fame and glory were pretty much phased out during this period, also. Contests will come and go, as well as medis coversge. As long as riders ride, flatland will never die. Hell, Japan has taken over flatland and the future looks bright. There are flatland schools springing up in other parts of the world. Riders uploading videos and clips to Instagram and Vimeo that can be seen worldwide. If anything, the community of flatland is growing, coverage be damned.
yeap,totally happening in japan right now