Groundtactics Day Two (Part 2)!

After the contest, we headed over the road to a spot right by the art gallery that was putting on the "urb festival". The spot had two sides, side nearest road was taken up with flatlanders, the other side behind a large statue was a skateboard spot, with ledges and stuff there, almost like it was made for them. This spot had a great vibe, people sat on the wall drinking beers and watching flatland. I had a good session with Dane Beardlsey for a few hours, Dane was working a super nice combo, backwards two dump truck pivot to upside down wheelie shove-it turbine to ice cream to backwards backyard xft pivot wheelie out!

Dane Beardsley.

Whilst Moto, Ikeda and Toon rested after the contest, hanging with Martti and the stoked Helsinki locals. After a few hours everyone kinda joined in, Bert Ribul from Estonia rips, we featured a lil edit a few months back, and I wondered "whos that?", Bert is a real talent! Quick bars manual to whopper to pedals for example!Look for an interview soon...Aleksi Ritsila got involved in the session and dropped his nice carved peg wheelie to downside decade with ease...

Bert Ribul.

Moto and Ikeda soon got in the mood to ride again, and the session for them turned into "new tricks session", Moto for example dropped a sick backwards spinning two footed pedal steam on the left side (opposite?) walkover to crackpacker right hand side!!! Whilst Ikeda stubble ducked into almost all his combos, whether in caboose position or gerator position, so awesome to see these guys away from the contest element, letting it fly! So where was Martti I hear you say? Well... Martti was being a host and chatting to everyone, getting food for the riders, beers, generally being an awesome host!

Moto Sasaki, nose wheelie direct to this...

The vibe was great! Everyone relaxed, chatting with few beers and riding in between! The weather was in the 80's the whole time I was in Finland, for the japanese and Toon from Thailand it was a welcome rest bite from the humid tempertures they endure on a daily basis. So they were psyched. Everyone started working on new stuff, inspired by the great day they had all just experienced! It didnt get dark till at least 1130, which was pretty wild! Actually in some parts of finland, i believe in July it only gets dark for half an hour. I can't imagine that!

As if Martti wasn't already enough of a great host, he presented Moto with a huge bottle of champagne for winning groundtactics! Moto was stoked, but didn't look like he'd be drinking it quite yet! After this lil presentation, the beers really started flowing, it was a great end to a great day! Day three coming tommorow...