3rd Annual Final Exam Jam :: Athens, GA :: January 3, 2004

Story & photos by Brian Chapman

Brian Tunney	Kent Pearson
Stephen Hearn	Darin Wright

The power of an Internet forum continues to prove its worth with the third annual Final Exam Jam. The PedalBMX flatland forum currently has over 25,000 posts and is growing steadily. This means that a lot of people have enough of an interest in flatland to go online and voice their opinions on riding. Even though the majority of these posts are just low-brow quick retorts, there are bits of information that catch my eye.

I found out about last year's successful jam while perusing this forum. So this year I started watching the forum like a hawk around October hoping that someone would set a date for the 2004 Final Exam Jam. Sure enough, a topic was started and the Georgia flatlanders agreed on a date and posted it for all to see. That's all it took to get me to fly a thousand miles to ride in the now-famous Tate Center parking lot. Well, that along with the fact that they got permission to use the lot and had an indoor backup spot if the weather didn't cooperate.

This year's jam attracted about 80 or so riders from around the country and beyond. Perhaps is was the fact that there won't be an abundance of contests this year that drove people to Athens, or maybe it was just that fact that this is one of the most fun jams around. In addition to last year's Smith decade contest, there was the longest manual, most hitchhiker jugglers, and a couple of hardcore games of footdown. Prizes were given out to the winners of these little contests but a good time was had by all.

Thanks to all the organizers, sponsors, and riders who contributed to a great time. Especially all you Athens/Atlanta locals who were hospitable to your visitors. You know who you are.

Tom Marsh	Biscuit	Gabe Kadmiri
frame giveaway	Stephen Bergeron	Jeff Smee
John Dowker	Leif Valin	Brandon Fenton
Terry Adams	Scott O'Brien	group shot

Updated Feb. 2004