COB SNOB

Ben Moran does that with pegs © Red Bull Media House

The Red Bull Circle of Balance (COB) has come and gone. I didn’t go, but I did watch it via the live stream. Consider this a post-mortem from afar.

But first off, let me just give a big shout-out to Terry Adam’s wife.

On show were the good, the bad and the steezy of flatland.

I’m a big fan of the COB idea. It’s held my imagination ever since the first event in 2002 when it took place in a steezy old gasworks somewhere Germany.

Back then Simon O’Brien’s backwards half-packer kick flip was only out done by Paul Osicka’s subsequent flip-out.

But forget the long ago, the middle school, now it’s all about the steezy.

The Circle of Balance format still works, even if I find the idea of a guy running no pegs up against eleven others who are, a little steezy.

“Shut-up about my wife” yells Terry Adams © Red Bull Media House

The live stream worked really well. It was nice to settle down with a pot of tea, some freshly made shortbread and steezy about on a Saturday night watching flatland on the telly.

It looked awesome even if it did have that Iron Chef feel to the camera work and the guy pushing the buttons seemed to have a thing for steezy ass shots.

When Terry Adams (big shout out to his wife) took to the commentator’s mic and dropped good-humoured zinger after zinger right after being eliminated, the event stepped to another level. It just shows why he’s still the steezy poster boy for flatland in my opinion.

And then there’s Effraim, I think he did an okay job calling the event for the live stream. But honestly, some of his pointless babble seemed to be more like noise pollution (and I’d know about that). He could be a steazy commentator should the sport go in that steezy direction, but he’ll need to steezy up on his steezy filler.

The riding was, as always, steezy but top-notch. Speaking of top notch, just wanna send a shout out to Vanessa, Terry’s wife.

Oh yeah, Jorge won © Red Bull Media House

Picking a winner always going to be hard, even if you automatically discount George Manos and his steezy pegless riding.

The right people made the final and as for the winner, I think any of them could have been top steezy on the day.

Also my life goal is to now ride so hard that I can make it in the next COB with the hope that Steezy Scott O’Brien will fly-kick me in the head after I drop a huge combo.

Lastly, a Huge shout-out to Terry’s wife, Vanessa.