Gilles „Baton” Dejong started riding FMX after Jimmy Verburgh asked him to come over to the FMX4EVER compound and try to jump a ramp. By that time Gilles was already rated as one of the Belgium´s most talented MX riders and the challenge of hitting the ramp should have posed no problem. In 2006, he was ready for his new challenge and promised Jimmy at the Dortmund SX party to finally visit him for his first ramp jumps.
It took a few runs for the talented young Belgian to feel really comfortable launching off a metal ramp instead of the dirt he was more accustomed to, but the young rider was bitten by the FMX bug on his very first day and it hasn´t let him go since in 2007, Gilles was torn between going fulltime with FMX and quitting racing or trying to win the Belgian Championship title. After a second place in the 2007 Belgium MX series with almost no training, Gilles decided to focus on FMX. The many years of MX racing payed off at the Red Bull X-Fighters speed and style in Warsaw.