There it is again, this unsettling feeling of showing something new of your vision to the public. After months of iterating, rethinking, pondering and questioning, this is what’s going to be the cover for my book, final touches aside.

I was looking for that perfect shot, but somehow, there was always something speaking against it. Show Freeriding? No, it’s a book about FMX. Show X Games? No, it was so much more than that. Show a collage of riders portraits? No, because then you’d have too much stuff going on visually. But then it hit me. I saw this image of none other than my buddy Frank Hoppen @assihoppen , who shot @mikemetzger at the Vans Triple Crown in what seems to be 2001. Metz, at the time riding a Suzuki and being sponsored by Ecko, pulled this beautifully whipped Nac Nac in front of the crowd, and Hoppen decided to lower the shutter speed to capture this image in such a dynamic way, it screams speed, adrenaline and poetry in motion. There are no elements in the way that could shift your focus away from the rider or the trick. Metz, the Godfather, being mentioned as the biggest influence of FMX by almost everyone I talked to, deserves to be the one on the cover. On top of that, it shows him executing one of the most influential moves of moto history, in his own way.

Taking all this into account, I can truly say that I fell in love with the idea of turning this into the cover and after weeks of rethinking, I still love it. That’s the best sign a creative head could get.

The final touch to it were the logo and the typography that gives the cover a certain magazine vibe, an homage to the legendary and unforgettable groundwork that mags like Wide Open Magazine, MXMachine, motoX, FreeriderMX, Transworld Motocross and RacerX were creating back in the day.

I’m so excited about what’s coming and this is a first big step for me.