Rose Bikes Dirt Wars FMB Bronze Series Round 4 Ramps Dirt Park 2018 Full Report

 

Ramps Skate Park is situated in a little Welsh town called Llanelli and has been a huge sucsess since being taken over a few years back by Adam Williams (Dirt Wars UK Head Judge and Ex Rose Bikes pro freestyle MTB rider). Not only does Ramps have an awesome Skate Park it also has a Dirt Park under development on the huge chunk of land next to the indoor and outdoor park and that’s where the Rose Bikes Dirt Wars FMB Series Round 4 went off on the 5th of August.

 

Saturday saw quite a few of the riders turn up for practice and also to help do the final changes to the course ready for Sundays round 4 of the series. After a few hours of raking and whacking the landing the jumps were good to go and the riders started to ride them in. With the sun going down and the course all ridden in it was all set and ready for the morning.

Sunday morning the riders hit the course as the crowd started to grow and all the locals came out to see what all the noise was and what was going on, all had smiles on their faces and made the usual “Woooo” noises as the riders started to go upside down and spinning through the air with their 360’s.

With all the practice out the way we decided to run Qualifiers/Seeding with all the riders together instead of the usual Open first then Pro after as this seems to push the Open riders on as it feels like their competing against the Pro’s. The Open riders were throwing out Tyre Grabs, Tuck No-Handers, Barspins and the occasional 360 attempt whilst the Big Guns were putting down 360 Tailwhips, 360 Double Barspins, Front Flips, Flip Tucks.

With all the riders having taken their 3 runs the Open and Pro scores were separated ready for the finals (The Finals were held separately).

 

Once all the riders had had lunch at the barbecue (Provided by Ramps Cafe) it was on to the finals and to see who could impress the judge panel of an Olympic BMX Athlete, an Ex Freestyle MTB Pro and a Pro Bmxer to walk away with the prizes for Open and Prize Cheques for Pro.

First up we had the Open riders and the level of riding had upped massivly from practice with Finlay Evans (Llanelli homeboy) pulling out 360’s and supermans on the last whilst Scottish rider Aiden McMillan struggled to get his runs together (Unusual for Aiden) and crashed out on most of his runs. Sam “Sloth” Wood managed to get his 360’s in and pull out the X-UP Tabletop but unfortunately his riding buddy Rhy Griffiths (RPG) was still left side lined after his huge crash at NASS where he broke his leg. Larn Baldwin was full of surprises as he has obviously been working hard on his trick bag throwing down the Backflips and Flip Tucks as has Harry Bolton extending his signature Tyre Grab by adding the X-up straight after. Little 9year old Finley Davis was back on his bike after breaking his collar bone and he was riding as strong as ever pulling out double tyre grabs on the first then flipping the second walking away with a 4th place podium.
But the main show was between Joe Simkins and Andy Crawford with Joe chucking out a 360 Table on the first then a 360 X-Up on the last against Andy Crawfords 360 Table on the first to a 360 Barspin on the last taking himself the 1st Place win. With all the riders results in the top 5 were as follows.
1st Andy Crawford 2nd Joe Simkins 3rd Larn Baldwin 4th Finley Davis 5th Harry Bolton
Next up was the Pro Final and all the riders were set to get on the podium but as we all know there can only be 3. Rose Bikes rider Harry Campbell was first up and as always Harry comes out swinging with the bangers throwing out a Frontflip on the first then going for a huge 720 attempt on the last unfortunately crashing out and not quite getting himself in to the top 3 luckily he had already secured himself a safty run. The same for Banshee Bikes Alex Cahill after putting down a FlipBarspin and a Cannonball Alex was unable to get his second and third run dialled. Privateer Zac Rainbow wasn't having much luck either after pulling Flip Tucks on the first jump he was unable to get anything in on the second which was the same for the welsh mammoth Privateer Danny Pace (AKA Joseph Pasheee) after pulling off near perfect Backflip X-Ups on the first at an amplitude of 20,000ft he was unable to get anything on the second jump.
Chromag Bikes Joe Aldridge had upped his game from NASS putting down a few cool runs with a 360 one legger on the first and a double Barspin on the second whilst his riding buddy Dartmoor/Slam69’s Alfie Stephens threw out the most stylish Nac on the first then a huge 360 Tailwhip on the last not to mention the super dialled double Tailwhips in his other runs. After time out on the bike travelling Bali chasing the surf Privateer rider Jack Ambler was back on comp form and slowly getting his trick bag back putting down FlipTucks on the first then 360 Tucks on the second it wont be long before we see Jack back on the podiums where as Specialized Bikes Tom Reynolds after taking 1st at NASS didn't seem to have his flow as normal but still chucked out Double Tailwhips and his signiture 360 One Footed Tables although it wasent enough to get him on the podium.

Saracen Bikes Sam Hodgson slipped back a little after qualifing in Second his runs seemed to slip a little as the FlipWhip didn't come out for the final but he did pull out a huge CandyBar Backflip sending our MC Dylan Stone Crazy..

The weekend was owned by the top 3 riders with 3rd place Smuggling Duds Freddy Pulman throwing out the Backflip Barspin to Tuck No Hander on the first followed by a Huge FrontFlip on the second but it wasn’t enough to shut down 2nd place Privateer Cam Crozier as he slayed a 360 Double Barspin on the first then a massive Double Tailwhip on the second.

1st Place went to GT Bikes Tom Isted and well deserved it was to with Tom launching a Double backflip on the first followed by a 3 Downside Whip on the second sending the welsh crowd mental and the riders alike.

1st Tom Isted

2nd Cam Crozier

3rd Freddy Pullman

4th Harry Campbell

5th Alex Cahill

 

 

We want to say a massive THANK YOU to Adam Williams and his team at Ramps Skate and Dirt Park for all the hard work they put in getting the course ready for the weekend and hosting the event, The riders, Spectators and especially all our Sponsors at DWUK Thanks again guys.

 

Round 5 will be at Rocket World in Henstridge Dorset on the 26th of August

See You There