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Martti Kuoppa is always a force to be reckoned with.

Flatland:

BMX's hardest riding dicipline continues to get more and more complex. As of August 2002, there are only three people in the whole world who can tell you the names of all 625,012 different flatland trick variations and I am not one of those people, sorry. Things have been going well for Jorge 'Viki' Gomez this year. He's had a string of respectable results with wins at the Palavas FISE contest, the Toronto LaRevolution and the European X Games Qualifier among them. Nathan Penonzek has also had a good year, he's been doing a lot of traveling and competing, spending his down time in Spain's warm sun. After just recently winning the CFB year end points title (and the golden straight jacket), Matt Wilhelm should be someone else to watch out for. You don't seem to hear as much about him these days, but Trevor Meyer continues to use his ultra wide bars to come up with all sorts of crazyness. The Japanese influence on flatland continues to be felt via York Uno and Takashi Ito. Every time I watch them ride, I wonder how long it will be before someone from across the Pacific walks away with the big X Games check. Then there are the usual excellent European riders like Michael Steingraeber, Alex Jumelin, and Martti Kuoppa. Michael is riding his new signature Dragonfly frame and was looking pretty smooth when I saw him recently in France. But then again, so was everyone. I don't understand how there can be so many good riders in pro flat these days. just seems like yesterday that I was going to ESPN comps and seeing people do 500 pinky squeaks as their contest run, with maybe one spinning deathtruck attempt at the end. Now riders are linking in and out of the hardest tricks there are. Trevor's winning finals run at the first ESPN invitational this year went something like: wheelie to pedaling deathtruck to gliding deathtruck on the pedal to blender to pedaling dumptruck. Whatever.

Allen Cooke is on fire this year and will be looking for gold.

Dirt

I think the dirt riders were pretty amazed and excited and maybe even a little nervous to be riding in front of the 10,000+ screaming fans at the 2001 Dirt finals at Philly's First Union Center. But I'm guessing this year they'll take it all in stride. Personally, I loved the atmosphere in the arena, everyone was stoked to be out of the humid east coast summer heat. Plus I got to use the "media" bathrooms (the toilets are gold plated). The only annoying thing was having kids yelling "Hey! Are you somebody?" While waving their autograph books at me. Stephen Murrey stole the gold (and our hearts) by landing the first competition dirt double backflip in BMX history at last year's X Games. Speaking of that, where exactly do you go from a double backflip? Just the thought of a triple backflip or a double backflip 360 sounds stupid, but who knows what will happen in the next 5 years of riding. I do know that since Reuel Erickson didn't make the cut, his amazing Superman Decade will be sorely missed. That is a CRAZY trick. Will this be the year for Ryan Nyquist? Will Dave Mirra stop teasing him with all of the gold medals he's won (compared to just silver for Ryan)? Ask the 8 ball, because I don't know. I do know that I've really started to like Ryan's style more and more as time goes by. I used to think his riding was sort of like a video game. He pressed a button and the tricks just sort of happened the same way everytime. But after watching him at a Comp in Europe this year, I see how wrong I am. Smoooooooth nose down one hand 360's, that crazy looking suicide no foot can-can, and all sorts of barspin stuff. Ryan has really come into his own and in addition to being a really nice guy, has become a rider that I really like to watch. It's good to see trails guys like Kris Bennett and Paul Kintner get into the X Games. There's just something smooth and styley that comes from riding trails all the time (this isn't to say that the other guys don't ride trails often, I don't think you can get huge in dirt without spending some time on the business end of a shovel. But I've got to have my favorites don't I?). Though I think the quality of trails that Paul gets to ride have seriously gone downhill since he left the great Northwest for San Diego. His loss I guess.

So there you have it, a preview of the 2002 BMX events at this summer's X Games. I guess there's not much to do now but sit back, get a big bowl of snacks, and play PS2 until it's time to go ride.

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