20 years of kunstform (2003 - 2005): the founding years

Between 2003 and 2005 the Stuttgart scene kept growing, and kunstform with it. The stock of BMX parts got bigger, and at some point the first online shop went live, so you no longer had to call or write a mail to order something. And people kept riding where it had always been best: on the plaza at the Haus der Geschichte.

Flatland on the plaza at the Haus der Geschichte

Flatland in front of the Haus der Geschichte

A bedroom turns into a warehouse

At some point the first pallet arrived. A whole pallet of boxes outside the door of a flat whose living room was already full of bikes. People rode anyway, between the crates if necessary. Whoever was there mostly remembers how little room there really was.

Flatland in the middle of the living room

On the road with our own stand

We were at the BMX Masters in Cologne, the biggest contest there was here, and at a lot of smaller flatland jams, always with our own stand: a table, a gazebo, parts you could pick up. Back then that was the only way to show people what you carried.

Flatland in front of a building in Stuttgart

Visitors from everywhere

In those years riders came to Stuttgart you otherwise only knew from videos: Nathan Penonzcek, Michael Sommer, Jesse Puente and Hiro Morisaki. Our Japanese friend Daiske stayed a full nine months and lived the whole time in Seppl's flat in Hackstraße.

And afterwards there were parties

Every jam had a party attached, and the parties were often the part everybody remembered afterwards. It was never only about tricks, it was about people from all over the country being in one place for a weekend.

The first own product: the ooh rings

The first own product came along in those years too: the kunstform "ooh rings". Small rings that let you match the length of your grips to your own hands. Nothing grand, but something that came straight out of riding, and that is exactly what a first own product should be.

The kunstform "ooh rings", the first own product

The first commercial

And then our first commercial ran, in the place where you watched BMX back then: on the common European BMX VHS tapes, in between the video parts.

In the magazines

The Stuttgart flatland scene was worth whole features to the magazines, and kunstform ran its first ads, back then still with Seppl Pospischil and Christian Ziegler in the pictures.