Kona dirt demo in Assen at the baggelhuizerplassen, the Netherlands.

Three Dutch riders were asked to give a dirt demo during the 6/24 hour mtb race at the baggelhuizerplassen (That’s in Assen in province Drenthe, The Netherlands). It was the best thing!Two riders were at the location some days in advanced to help built the dirts and the roll-in. local rider Jeremy Struik and Kona Grassroots rider Kevin Katinas, managed to build the dirts with some other local help in only two days. A five meter double was build, with a second and final dirt of close to four meter.

Roy Groenenwegen, another Grassroots rider arrived on Friday as he had to travel from den Haag, which is on the other side of the country, the south-west and most alive part of the Netherlands. It was a long travel for him, especially when he arrived in Assen and forgot to get out of the train. Getting out is an important an crucial part if you want to arrive at the right spot. So he travelled on to the most North east part of the Netherland, to Groningen, to get on the next train back to Assen. He was amazed to actually find some sort of human life up there in Groningen. So, one hour late from expected, and with me already arrived a few hours earlier, Groen also entered the scene.

From there it was riding to the demo location as fast as possible, as we really wanted a sunset photo shoot, and Groen already got us one hour late. Ok to be honest, I really wanted to shoot some sunsets, and I was really amazed to find the guys so stoked when seeing the sky turning into colors that aren’t that usual.

As a photographer it was so fantastic being there, I most of the time shoot in our local bikepark Heerenveen, and I’ve shot 360 degrees around the park a long time ago. So it was motivating to get out again and to try new settings and new angles in such a nice environment.

So as the Friday evening shoot started, the sun was only one hour from leaving us to hide behind the tree line to wake some other people up more west of us. At the same time the riders started out warming up and doing some mellow tricks like x-up’s and no-footers. The pictures turned out to be great, so they started riding harder and harder, and with every shot the pic’s showed up sicker!

It was also so crazy and scary to see my brother Kevin ripping it so hard. His almost famous green bike is falling apart so bad at the end of the season, but he has to cope with it for at least one more month. He’s frame has cracks, his fork and headset is done for and making terrible sounds, his fork actually broke on the last demo day. His bottom bracket is so messed up that he’s cranks start to rotate as he pulls his feet of. If tried his bike out on the road, which was scary enough with all those squeaking sounds, and he does super flip’s on it.


So, that was a blast! Good thing that the real demo was on Saturday with another great evening to enjoy! The next day I arrived close to the start of the demo, putting up gear and seeing the crowed with allot of young kids fired up to give a box or high five’s! There were three demo’s planned for that day, and the riders wanted to give it all at the last demo. So Big three’s, tables, nfcc‘s and one footed x-ups by Jeremy Struik.


Kevin showing superman seat-grab’s, dump three, with one being inverted, but he crashed it. He ended with a super flip, he missed the pedals as they were rotating during the flight.


Roy Groenenwegen showed many different tricks: nac nac, tailwhip, nothing, barspin, nfcc one hander and sick superman‘s. Everyone loved the demo‘s, especially the kids that wanted on photo with the riders and a autograph. Of course.


Then the relaxation started at the Kona stand, eating, drinking and talking, just having a good time. I had already packed up my gear, because everyone was tired and done for that day. Besides, they had to ride one more demo at Sunday. But luckily for me another rider started riding that wasn’t on the demo team. Hinne is a surfer but he loves to ride his mountain bike by doing back flips in a style I only see him doing, it’s great stuff, so I unpacked my gear again. After he started riding, the others also put away their beers and went for a night session.



For me it was the end of the weekend, I missed out on Sunday’s last demo. Although the communication between the riders and the organizer of the 6/24 hour race wasn’t what I would call ideal, the show turned out to be a great success and definitely a great 'learnfull' (is that a real word?) pilot for upcoming dirt demo’s in the Netherlands. I really hope it has fired up the spirits of some kids too leave soccer for what it is and to start riding mountainbikes. Hinne, thanks for driving me back to the train station two times!

http://katinasd.pinkbike.com

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