BMX Tuesday: 'King of Ground' Series Still Strong

The King of Ground series is the longest running BMX flatland  competition series in history. We caught up with Yasu Takeo, an organizer of King of Ground for a little history lesson of KOG and why it's stood the test of time.


Click play to see a video of what KOG is all about.

DTV: When and why did you start the King of Ground Series?

YASU: Takashi Ito, Kotaro Tanaka, York Uno, Mitsutoshi Nakayama and Katsu Sera (Aresbykes co-founder) started the series in 1998. Since the Japan Championship BMX Freestyle contest series, JFA, was over in 1996, young Pro flatland riders had lost opportunities to show their skills, so they ended up making one on their own. I got involved in the organization in 2001, as I had to retire from riding because of a slipped disc in my back and since then, I’ve been a part of organization.

Graphic design by Koh Yoshida.

DTV: With so many contests shutting down, why do you think K.O.G. is still going strong?

YASU: We learnt that riders are responsible for their scene on their own from JFA. Our generation started KOG and there were no boundaries between riders and organizers as we always struggled with being short on human resources. Other riders and younger generations have spontaneously supported KOG and the custom has been inherited for over 10 years now. Riders pay respect to organizers as many of them run contests and events on their own. The cycle makes it possible, I guess.

DTV: Can you see any difference between the atmosphere around the contest today versus 11 years ago?

YASU: At KOG, we were all kids 11 years ago. So everything was chaos, luckily some adults supported us so we could keep contests going at public spaces. Now, we got old enough (I’m 35 years old) and have responsibility as a member of society. Now I know the chaos that we experienced was possible because somebody took the responsibility back then as I do now.

photo by Nao Yoshida

DTV: Where can we find out more about King of Ground Comps?

YASU: It’s pretty much only our website, but I’ve not been able to update it so often. I have more volunteers now for Encounter magazine and they will update more information about Japanese competitions and events often in the near future at the website, www.sennproject.com, but it’s gonna be Japanese only as few staff speak English… We need bilingual volunteers as well!

DTV: You just started Encounter print magazine. Why did you decide to do that and where do you want to take the publication?

YASU: I’ve been to be a part of BMX media over 10 years, but they all went down for various reasons. Actually, I wanted to be responsible for publishing a magazine, but I didn’t have enough skills to publish a magazine on my own. At least you have be able to handle all basic staff as you can’t pay for design, photography and articles in the beginning. So much work and skills are needed. Since the last magazine I was a part of, Degree BMX magazine, went down the only missing skill for me was layout. I spent 4 years to be able to layout quick enough and at a decent level. But I was super busy for my real job (programming) at the time. Luckily a company hooked me up and they understand what I’m doing, BMX, and it suddenly became possible.

I hope I can sell this magazine at a book store, but I have to clear many handles to get there, like ISBN code is necessary, but hard to get, deadline is pretty strict, etc. I’m pretty much optimist, so I believe that we could get it over soon.

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Watch all the comprehensive coverage of KOG  here.

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