Oli Benet interview by Jamie Reid

Posted by pb1001 on Nov 13, 2012 in Interviews, Who? | 0 comments

Powerblading has taken off in a big way in the past year or so, and in that time it’s built up a strong and committed following all around the world. 
I wanted to pick the brains of one of the people that’s made it all happen.

Farside Alley-oop soul to Bank – Pic Urban Eye

Right then formalities first.  Name, Age, where you live, where you’re from, years skating, Brands you represent, job titles.

My name is Oriol “Oli” Benet, I live in Barcelona and am 31 years old, I have been skating for over 22 years and am currently self employed, but dedicated to Powerslide in Germany. I work for a number of their brands and segments including Kizer, USD, Xsjado, Undercover, FSK, and Doop etc. Job titles are even more numerous, but my passion is marketing.

What got you into skating back in the day and what events lead you to being in the position you’re in now?

I started skating when I was handed down quad skates from my cousins at the age of 8 (Bauer Turbo). I got my first inline skates in 1997, some Roces LAX, and shortly after my first aggressive skates, Roces 5th Elements. After a few years of hardcore skating in London, I moved to Barcelona, Spain, where I won a few contests in a row and gained sponsorship from Razors and their sub-brands. Shortly after I released a full length skate film, featuring skating from all over Spain and the UK, called Los Elegidos. I was never comfortable in Razors skates, so I purchased some Deshi skates from Ignition. I fell in love with them and contacted Deshi, offering to help them find distribution in Spain. Mark Korte put me on a trial sponsorship in around 2004, and I put 100% passion into promoting the brand. The more effort and feedback I gave, the more I became involved in Conference projects. Eventually I was asked to start a clothing brand (Stygma) which eventually led on to brand management with the other brands, thanks to the success of Stygma, but the realisation that clothing for the inline skate market was a really tough avenue. I was allowed a lot of freedom in my work, and 9 years later we continue to enjoy an incredible relationship which I am thankful for every day!

I have jokingly referred to the movement as the Powerblading army, with you as its General. Surely there must be a fair bit of pressure and responsibility to keep both the skaters and your employers happy?

Powerslide, a skater owned company, loves the idea behind Powerblading. It’s incredibly addictive, and it shares the passion that early aggressive skating had, before all the hate and fashion made it a strange sport to be involved in. It’s 100% a hobby for me, and not part of my job description, which means that the only pressure I am under is the fact that the Powerblading project has eaten up what little spare time I had before its existence. When you love something though, it’s no chore!

Rokio shot by Xavier Wiros

What is your current setup?

Xsjado 2.0 Souls with Kizer level 2 frames, 76mm UC PB wheels, ILQ9 bearings and Doop cuff and padding.

 
What is Doop?

After months, or even years of watching people arguing on skate sites about USA Vs Europe, Spin to Win and other pointless arguments, I realised that we were a little bit stuck. What is left to attract new skaters into the sport, whether a 720 royale is good or “stupid and French”? It was all so ridiculous to me. Most people don’t become Aggressive skaters from skateboarding or biking, they come from Fitness and Freeskate. I looked at commercial Fitness and Freeskate products and thought “no wonder we’re not getting anywhere!”. I believe that skating is one of the most incredible experiences a human being can have without huge investment, and I want more people to skate, it’s as simple as that. Maybe for the industry, maybe for Aggressive, maybe Powerblading…I don’t know doesn’t matter to me, I respect all disciplines of skating, I just think the world would be a better place if more people skated, so I decided to put full effort into creating something to present to Powerslide…my vision of something that could help return blading into the public eye, something attractive and high quality, with real marketing and image, attractive to young people and fitness enthusiasts. Doop is my idea of the perfect skate to help recreate the golden age of skating. What’s more the skate is compatible with Freeskate and Aggressive parts, so it’s a perfect skate to get into skating with…

Lady In Red (doops) – Pic by Stefan L. Beyer.

And now you are opening your own concept store for Doop?

Part of our original marketing plan was creating a simple, clear online store for Doop that would attract new people to the sport rather than confuse or scare them. Powerslide wasn’t ready to do this, so I realised it was in my hands to find someone or do it myself. I decided after all these years in the game I was perfectly placed to take the next step in my career as a blader. I wanted to create a simple, attractive store with only the products I believe necessary. I don’t want to stock 200 brands and options, I want the best options when considering quality/price ratio. This is also aimed at attracting people from outside the skate scene. It’s simple. You want quality skates? Doop. You want faster wheels, or different colours to match your skate? We have them. You want 6 different brands of Abec bearings, and 8 brands of skate wheels poured in the same factory? We don’t have that…http://thedoopstore.com

Pic by Alex Miro

So the Thedoopstore.com is skater Owned then?

My fiancé and I have created the marketing plan behind Doop, and I have created the store with my own investment. I skate, so does she, but then again so does my boss…everything is skater owned in this industry, but I don’t know how many tricks you have to be able to do before you are classed as a skater in this industry!

It seems like you’re always busy doing something skating related, whether it be running multiple online forums, Facebook pages, travelling and holding it down at The Conference. When you do get some time to chill what do you like to do?

It sounds terrible, but I don’t chill anymore. I used to DJ, but I don’t have time for that right now. I skate…that’s what I do in my free time, but it’s never really free time, 99% of the time I’m skating I’m testing new products, whether it be for the Conference, Powerslide FSK or doop…I’m never really getting comfortable on a product before another one arrives to test, but I’m not complaining. I do feel the stress though, more so than ever lately – but I wouldn’t change it for the world.

Sweatstance Shot by Urban Eye

It’s safe to say that Powerblading is kind of your baby, so how did it all start and then grow into what it is today?

I wouldn’t call it my baby, it was a joint vision, but it all started when I moved to Barcelona City. I was running a number of tours through the city, but had sold my car. To keep the budget down, and my own expenses down, I set up Xsjado skates with Powerblading FSK frames and wheels. After over 10 years of aggressive skating on small wheels, I was absolutely blown away by the actual feeling of rolling. Skating to sessions and switching to an Aggressive setup became more and more frustrating, killing the enjoyment of what has always felt to me like “urban skiing”. When Richie and Dustin came to Barcelona, I lent them my skates as they wanted to explore Barcelona. They were hooked immediately, so we sat down to really analize what it was about rolling that we loved. We began to realize that aggressive was often forgetting the key element of rolling. While Freeskating was a real style of skating at the time, it was never going to satisfy the hardcore skaters that we were, and neither was the hardware.

Where do you want to see Powerblading going from here?

I believe that Powerblading is an evolution of skating. It really is possible to do every trick you do on a freestyle 54mm setup as it is to do on a flat 76mm setup. It’s not freeskating, and it’s not aggressive skating, it’s the best of both worlds, and once the Level 2 come out I believe a lot is going to change.

Level 2 White, available end of November

There’s been a fair bit of hating on Powerblading over the past 18 months or so. Why do you think that is?

If Powerblading didn’t get hate, it wouldn’t be what it is. Some Freeskaters hate that people can now grind on 80mm setups, rendering a poor level of skating no longer impressive, but for the most part I have found freeskaters very positive towards Powerblading. Aggressive skaters are upset because it opens the door to Fitness skaters to use excuses for not being able to do tricks. At the end of the day, every genre of skating has levels of skill, and Powerblading is no different – see Greg Breger for example. Aside from this, Powerblading has had a bunch of bad press from a number of brands, it can be a bit of a shock, when things change…

Soul at Montjuic

I came up with the original idea of coming to Barcelona to skate with some other Powerbladers some months ago, and that idea has now turned into the Wax&Bombing event, orchestrated by yourself and Álex.

Wax&Bombing…I wanted to do something that invited any level of skater to enjoy the experience of a tour. I have done numerous tours around Europe and the world, and I’m not comfortable with people coming out city by city to watch “Pro-skaters”. I wanted to create an event that welcomed anyone and everyone to skate together, every day, and I wanted brands to support this idea – so I have to give big thanks to Roll Line Skill, Grindhouse, Undercover, Kizer and Inercia for supporting this idea.

Wax & Bombing 2012 Barcelona from Powerblading on Vimeo.

Edit by Tony Cheetah

There’s a “core group” of Powerbladers around the world, who talk to each other via the Facebook pages and have even met up and made friends with one another.  How much of an impact has this had on Powerblading, and associated products?

People have genuinely found something that makes them happy with Powerblading, myself included, and this immediately forms a bond between those that practice it. It’s simply an amazing way to enjoy your skates. I know a number of old school greats from the Aggressive haydays have got back on skates thanks to Powerblading, with people like Alex Miranda, Jason Marshall and Josh Petty rolling on PB’s to name a few. Furthermore, the Level 2 frame was designed by someone from the Powerblading Community, Mark Sundell, and it’s probably the best piece of skate hardware I have ever rolled on!

If you had one sentence to explain Powerblading to both skaters and non-skaters alike, what would you say?

Urban Ninja Skiing

Final words / shout outs. 

I want to thank my fiancé for being my inspiration, Alex Rahali and PALCO, the Premiere Powerblading Crew, Jamie Reid for being the first person in years to ask me interesting questions and for being such an influence in this game, Alex Miro, Xavier Wiros and Tony Cheetah and UrbanEye for the material and everyone (you know who you are) at Powerslide for everything.

Inercia presenta: Oli Benet – ”Beach” (FSK/Powerblading) from Inercia on Vimeo.

“Beach” by Tony Cheetah

Links:
http://thedoopstore.com
http://facebook.com/thedoopstore
http://facebook.com/doopskates
http://theconference.org
http://inercia.com
http://urbexenelolvido.blogspot.com.es/

Wax&Bombing – Barcelona 2012 Edit

Posted by pb1001 on Oct 24, 2012 in Videos | 0 comments

Wax & Bombing 2012 Barcelona from Powerblading on Vimeo.

Wax&Bombing is a week long meeting where anyone is welcome. Skate, eat, party. Leave your ego at home, because Wax&Bombing is all about a holiday on skates. Skaters include: Michel Prado, Alex Rahali, Oli Benet, Julian Coulter, Romain Tanlagneau, Jamie Reid, Richie Eisler, Mark Mc Dougall, Danilo Martins and the PALCO crew.

Wax&Bombing updates, photos and stories can be found here: powerblading.org/?s=wax%26bombing&x=0&y=0

Edited by Tony Cheetah
Powerblading Community: facebook.com/groups/221879214567440/?ref=ts&fref=ts

Thanks to:
http://kizer-skate.com
undercover-wheels.com
grindhouse.de
facebook.com/roll.lineskil.5?ref=ts&fref=ts

Wax&Bombing part 3 by Jamie Reid

Posted by pb1001 on Oct 7, 2012 in Inspirations | 0 comments

Richie Eisler long heel roll – Pic Xavi Wiros

Day 6
The morning got rained off a bit, just as we’d managed to get across town to where we were hoping to go to a skatepark the heavens opened, and Mark, Romain and I found ourselves sat in a bar drinking Lemon beer without a clue what to do.
Luckily Xavier (the amazing photographer) worked out where we were from some posts I’d put on facebook, and offered to drive us into the centre of the city to meet Alex and head to Forum from there.
Xavier didn’t even come with us afterwards, he just offered a lift to 3 visitors who were stuck somewhere. That’s what the people we met were like, decent, caring, friendly and generally awesome people.

WNS Crew
 

 

Kevin Chow
 

Wednesday really meant just one thing, the Wednesday night skate at Forum skatepark with “team Canada”. In other words skating with Richie Eisler, Dustin Werbeski, Kevin Chow and Mathias Von Gostomski.
Dustin and Mathias were chilling most of the time, while Richie, Kevin, Michel, Romain and some other local aggressive skaters tore up the park. The rest of us mostly looked on or took short runs mixed in at the same time.
If you haven’t seen Richie skate in person, you need to.
He’d say “I wonder if” and then go bust it out pretty much first time every time.
I can’t really say much more about the day than that!
Again some of the guys headed off earlier in the evening to go sort work commitments out, and we stayed on until just before midnight. Awesome night of skating, with more to come the next day!

Taking a break

Day 7
Street spots, hill bombing, and sightseeing all rolled in to one!
We all agreed to meet at Placa Espanya and head off around the town to some spots.
First off we went up the Placa Espanya side of Montjuic, using the escalators a lot of the way and stopping at a couple of ledges which attracted a bit of a crowd of locals and tourists.
From there we went to the big ledge on the side of the Olympic stadium. I say big ledge, because it really does look a whole lot bigger when you’re stood next to it.
 

   

 
Mathias basically destroyed it on his PB setup, with front Royales, Farvs, and even going for a sweaty but thought better of it. The guy is easily one of the best skaters I’ve ever seen.

Mathias VG by Xavi Wiros

We then cruised round the back of the stadium to check out the huge open arena type area, with incredible views of the city, and some fun stair sets and big curved banks that Alex and Mathias were riding. Loads of shots were taken here, so you’ll see what I mean.

Alex Rahali by Xavi Wiros
 

Alex Rahali by Xavi Wiros
 

We decided to head back into the city, as Alex said he knew of some spots there, which meant the easiest way down was to bomb Montjuic, but the other side to the one we did on the first night.
So the first night we bombed Montjuic it was dark and therefore quite scary at first. That was however on a quiet night with almost no traffic whatsoever.
This time though it was the afternoon with lots of cars, and the first time Mark had bombed any of the hills.
We hit at least 50kph, on the way down, and seeing the look on Marks face afterwards reminded me of my feeling after the first night. A massive adrenalin rush!
 

Mark ridin’ the hill
 

Mathias and Dustin at the bottom of the hill
 
Once at the bottom we re-grouped and headed into part of the town I hadn’t seen yet with Alex leading the way (as usual ).
A slight uphill skate through the town was made easier by skitching on a passing Audi, with the driver quite happy to help out. Thanks whoever you are!
Eventually we ended up at a huge rail that must have been at least 50 meters long, that Mathias managed to ride all the way to the end, only made possible by me using half of one of the blocks of wax Grindhouse supplied. Hope someone got it on camera!

Mathias Soul2Stairride by Xavi Wiros

We said our goodbyes to some of the guys then, as the next day was the last in Barcelona, and we had to get some souvenirs for folks back home, so no skating on the last day was planned.
Romain, Mark and I ended up back at Oli’s place on the way back and met his Fiancé Tina.
We made plans to meet up with a few people the following night for dinner just before Romain had to get his coach back to Paris that night.

Day 8
So this was it, the last full day in Barcelona, and the day to say goodbye to all our new friends.
Mark, Romain and I all met at Placa Catalunya where it was raining quite hard, and headed off to do some last minute shopping for gifts to take home.
It was actually quite nice to check out area’s we’d been skating past, as it meant we could take in some views that we’d missed, and grab some lunch before we headed back to our hostels.

In the evening we met Oli and Tina, Alex,Linda and Lidia for dinner at a really nice all you can eat buffet type place where the conversation was flowing like it had been all week, as if we’d all known each other for years and where just a group of friends out for dinner.

Then once finished the rush was on to walk to the coach station to say goodbye to Romain.
We had to wait a while before got on his coach, and in the meantime Oli had to head off.
Alex, Linda and Lidia had planned to go off to the Friday night skate which Mark decided to go to as well as he had his skates with him.
I’d see Mark again the next day at the airport, but this would be the last time I see any of the locals from Barcelona or Romain, all of which I now consider to be good friends.
Getting the Metro on my own back to the hostel allowed me time to think about what an amazing time I’d had, the amazing people I’d met and to start thinking about when I might meet them again.

Day 9
Time to go home.
I met Mark at the airport at 12.00, as we both had flights leaving around 3pm.
We chatted about the week, the people, the city and the skating and both agreed that we need to make it back again soon.

Then at 2.30pm, I get on my flight back to the UK, not sad about leaving, but happy that I made the trip in the first place and feeling privileged to have skated and hung out with such a fantastic group of people.

Thank you each and every one of you. Not just to those that helped organise it and made it happen, but also to each person I met who welcomed me to the city and made me feel at home.
Until the next time….

Gracias Amigos

Wax&Bombing Recap by Jamie Reid Part 2.

Posted by pb1001 on Oct 3, 2012 in Inspirations | 0 comments

Yunio cutting edge

Day 2
We wake up nice and late after getting back to the hostel at around 2am, shattered after a long day of travelling and a long night of skating.
Little did we know at the time, but the previous night was going to set the tone for the rest of the trip.
Oli, Alex and some of the P.A.L.C.O crew met us at our hostel the next afternoon to go session the local area.
We sat outside the hostel setting up skates with some new bits courtesy of some very nice companies, and then headed off in the warm afternoon sun.

Alex Rahali strapping up

We went to a few local spots, all of which were just down from Mt Tibidabo and then cruised around a bit getting some shots before heading to a skatepark that had apparently been built 20 years ago for the Barcelona Olympics ( nothing like that for London this year )
Romain seemed to have settled in to skating by this point, and was tearing up a really sketchy bowl so Oli could get some interesting shots and footage.

Romain bowl ride

We stayed there for a while until it was suggested we’d head back into the main town for some dinner.
Before dinner we popped into Oli’s house, which is like an art gallery with loads of great paintings all around, and an area where what can only be described as a collection of skates and skate parts is stored and displayed. It would actually put some so called skate-shops back in the UK to shame!
We checked out some footage from the previous day, and managed to communicate with each other quite well by this point.

Just to mention, I speak hardly any Spanish, Catalan or French, so I was really glad that everyone we met spoke English to a certain degree.
I would advise however that you learn some basics if you’re going to visit, even if it’s just to be polite and to be seen to be making an effort.
By the time I left I was able to string basic sentences together, and was quite proud of myself.

Etika Projects office/house

On to dinner round the corner, and then into the town to enjoy some music at one of the many free gigs happening over the 4 day weekend festival of La Merca ( Catalan festival )
Food and drink by this point had been a lot cheaper than I’d expected. For dinner I had more than I could manage, along with a couple of glasses of wine and spent less than €8. That just meant more money for beers!

Day 2 was a Saturday, and was a bit of blur for me as I was trying to take in the sights, enjoy skating and getting to know all the people we’d met so far.
The city on the second day was even more impressive than I’d realised. It’s almost like a town planner had a meeting with skatepark designers and said “I don’t want it to be too obvious, but let’s make it like a giant skatepark”
By this point I no longer felt like a stranger in a strange town, but like I was enjoying a day with old friends, despite language barriers and so on.

Yunio – Tattwo

Day 3
Chill out time!
Again we got up late, chilled around the hostel for a bit and then ventured back into the town to go meet the guys for a bit of a non-skating day.
There were loads of music events happening all over the city while we were there, and so we started the day by heading to an event near Oli’s place called Piknik-electronik, which was up on the hill overlooking downtown Barcelona.

 

Greg Mirzoyan on the chill

We stayed there a while, enjoying the music and the general atmosphere, and then agreed we’d go check out the bigger event down in Forum.
Oli, Alex and some of the rest had to head off early, mostly because of work the next day, or that night in Oli’s case to do work on multiple web pages.

So off to a party by the sea at Forum with Lidia, Andres, Zhivko, Danilo, Yunio, Romain and myself.
The party at Forum was basically cheesy euro-pop music, but still a really good vibe because everyone there was having a great time.
There must have been upwards of 50,000 people there that night, both inside the gates and out on the streets.
Yunio was proving his reputation as a ladies man by getting Romain to translate to a French girl for him, and then disappearing off with her.
Danilo and Lidia were getting their salsa moves on ( Danilo is from Brazil, and the boy’s got skills )
I was shattered by around 3am, but couldn’t get back to hostel easily as the Metro was closed. This meant we were wandering around until we got near to Lidia’s place, where she offered to drive Romain and I back to the Hostel.
Lidia’s place was nowhere near where we were staying, and despite her driving like Fernando Alonso, we didn’t get back to our hostel until well past 4am.
“Chill out day”…… really ???

Carlos Bernal at Forum

Day 4
The last day of La Merca festival, and the first day we met with Mark Mc Dougall.

Mark getting all royal

Mark had made his own plans to fly out from Dublin to come and skate in Barcelona, and by a massive coincidence hadn’t known about the Wax&Bombing event until after he’d booked his flight.
Turned out that he arrived late on Sunday, and would hang out with us each day until the Saturday afternoon when both our flights would be leaving around 3pm.
If you’ve seen some of the footage from the event on Powerblading.org and want to see more before the final edit ( which has probably been made by now ) then check out Mark’s too, the guy took some great photos and video.

Danilo Martins gap to rocky roll – Pic Xavi Wiros

Monday ( day 4 ) was a bit of a street spot and skatepark day, where we met up with a few more local skaters including Carlos Bernal and Michel Prado, as well as Julian Coulter from the UK who’s been living in Barcelona for some time now.

The Crew

We managed to get in some famous spots through the day. The spine mini by the seafront, the long kink rail as seen in Oli’s “Beach” edit, the curved ledges ( where I ripped my jeans in the crotch! ) the ledges that look like benches at Forum and the crazy waves type skatepark…..thing, that was so much fun to just pump around.
Michel and Carlos were going off on home turf, throwing 5’s over the rail at the back of the waves, and Julian was getting all Parkour styled hopping over the rails into the waves the wrong way.
The guy is like some sort of Bruce Lee flexible ninja on skates!
Oli had heard through one of his friends at the Inertia skateshop that there was a dried up pool nearby that we could skate, and so we all went off in a group of about 15 of us to hunt it out.
When we got there it turned out to be some sort of artificial river system built in a park within a loads of apartment blocks.

Michel Prado Topsoul – Pic Xavier Wiros
 

At first all we saw was damp and muddy ditches, but after checking it out a bit more it turned into a pretty cool place to hang and skate in for a while.
Oli filmed the whole group of us racing around, which was a bit sketchy at times because of the raised drainage points that where hidden under leaves.

After we’d been in the “ditch” for a while we all headed back into the town towards Placa Espanya to go watch the fireworks and the end of La Merca.
The fireworks show was ending just as we got there, but still managed to catch the finale.

A few of the group headed off home after wards, and the rest of us went to go Hillbomb Montjuic again.
Well that was the plan anyway. My night got cut short when I went to go get some water from a service station, and then got my lag ran into my a total dickhead on a moped, who rode off.
That was my night of skating over with, so I hobbled back to the metro with Mark, who at this point needed some dinner.
Ice and some painkiller soon saw me off to bed before 1am, which was the earliest night I had there.

Julian Coulter Fishbrain – Pic Xavi Wiros
 

To be continued…

Wax&Bombing Recap by Jamie Reid – Part 1.

Posted by pb1001 on Oct 2, 2012 in Inspirations | 0 comments

Wax&Bombing Crew – Pic Xavi Wiros

Ok, so I’ve just got back from a week in Barcelona for the Wax&Bombing Powerblading event, and have no idea where to start with writing some sort of report.
So instead of trying to sound like some sort of travel writer, I’m just going to give you all my overview of the experience as whole, and what lead up to it. I apologise if some of the days blur into one another!

Day 1
It’s the middle of June in the UK, which usually means it should be fairly warm, with clear skies and just about the right weather to go for a good skate session. Now when I say skate session I mean on my Powerblading setup, because ever since buying some Kizer Advance and some 80mm wheels my aggressive frames stopped getting used.
Just as I am about to head out the clouds open up and it starts to rain, which meant I headed back to my laptop and watched more edits of Powerbladers, including a load from in and around Barcelona.
The city looked amazing, the level of skating and the number of skaters was far higher than I’d expected.
It was at this point I made a little suggestion on the Powerblading Community Facebook page that I might want to visit Barcelona for a couple of days to skate the city. Little did I know at that time what would happen following my comment!
Loads of people, not only from Barcelona but from around the world started saying “yeah let’s do it” and “when shall we go?”
My little idea had suddenly turned into a plan waiting to happen, and happen it did!

Now before I go any further I have to take a couple of moments just to thank those people that made it happen, Alex Rahali Vicente, and Oli Benet for arranging accommodation, meetings and basically everything that went down over the week.
Roll-Line, Grindhouse and Powerslide for sending over a load of products including wheels, bearings, frames, tools, clothing, stickers……Wax ( a LOT of wax ) all for the people that were part of the event.
And also to the local skaters, photographers and friends who made the event such great fun from a socialising point of view too.
Muchas Gracias!

Alex Rahali, curved ledge roll – photo Xavi Wiros

So a couple of months go by and more and more ideas are flowing around for things to do, what exact dates will be suitable and so on, and I am starting to get really excited about the prospect of visiting a new city and skating with new people.
All that excitement suddenly turns to concern one day when I decide to dust off my aggressive setup and head to a beach event with a couple of small halfpipes.
I’d only been on the ramp for maybe 15 minutes when I went for a basic safety grab air, which went horribly wrong. I landed on the flat bottom of the ramp somehow, right on my lower back with such force that my spine was crushed and had to be taken to hospital by ambulance on a back board and neck brace and not able to feel my legs fully. I thought that was it, not only no trip to Barcelona, but maybe no more skating or even walking!
3 months on and I’m still not fully healed, but I genuinely don’t think I’d have recovered to this point already if I didn’t have something like Wax&Bombing to look forward too.

Friday night skate.

Let’s fast-forward now to the first day of the event. 7am near my home near Brighton UK, and I’m getting on a bus to take me to the train station, to take me to the airport, to take me to Barcelona!
I keep thinking how long every mile seems as the excitement is growing, but then I remember I am not the only person traveling from another country, and that my journey is actually quite easy compared to the one being taken by my new friend Romain Tanlagneau.
Romain lives in Paris, which as any of you will know it not exactly close to Barcelona, and so travel by anything other than a plane would take some time. 15 hours in a coach through the night, now that’s dedication to skating. Dedication he’d show later in the week by constantly beating his body up skating. Barcelona left scars!

Romain, sweatstance @forum

2.30pm in Barcelona and my Easyjet flight doesn’t really land so much, but instead seems to make a controlled crash into the runway. “Welcome to Barcelona” the pilot says in an apologetic tone of voice.
I’d arranged with Alex and Romain that I’d meet them at the main train station at 5pm, which gave me a couple of hours to get there from the airport, which as it turned out I needed.
At the airport train station it was 31 degrees Celsius .
(31!!! When I left my house back in the UK my car had frost on the frickin windows!)
I arrive at Estacio Sants, sweaty, hungry and tired, but as soon as I’d met Alex and Romain it just felt like I was catching up with old friends and I felt awake and excited again.

We headed to the Hostel Alex had arranged for us, called the Nice&Cozy Hostel in a little village-like part called Horta.
Alex did really well finding this place for Romain and I, It was pretty much perfect!
The staff were great, the location was really chilled, and only took 20 minutes or so to get the metro into the busy city centre. Plus it was very cheap when compared to some other places.

The Crew. Photo Xavi Wiros

Alex left us to get settled in, go for the first beer at a local bar etc and arranged to meet us later at Placa Catalunya where we’d then skate down through the busy city, into little alleys in the older parts and down to a restaurant where we’d hook up with some of the other guys.
Now there’s something you need to know about Alex, he’s crazy! The guy skates like a man possessed, and loves everything about skating and everything about Barcelona. Add the fact that he’s one of the nicest people I’ve ever met I couldn’t have asked for a better person to show us around during our time there.

Welcome!

It was at the restaurant where we met a number of the others, including the main man Oli Benet.
Oli was and probably still is as I type this, very busy with his work for Powerslide, yet despite this wanted to make sure that everything was ok with where we were staying, and that we were happy with what was planned for the next few days.
Oli and I have been chatting on the Powerblading pages since the start of the year when I joined the group, and I’d been helping out a bit with blogs, reviews and adding new members for a long time, so finally getting to sit down and share some time and a beer with him was long overdue.
Again, he’s one of the nicest, most down to earth and chilled guys anyone could ever wish to meet, and lives for skating.

Oli Benet, Rokio – Pic Xavi Wiros

Over dinner it was announced we’d be doing the Friday night skate, which meant we’d meet up with “a lot of other skaters” to skate through the city, including the old town and some beach front routes.
The “a lot of other skaters” turned out to be bloody loads! I reckon there must have been around 250 people on just about every type of inline skates on the market, all just skating around and enjoying each other’s company.
The pace was nice and slow, meaning us newcomers had a chance to see some sights and chat with some people as we skated along. We’d stop occasionally so everyone could re-group and grab a drink, and it was on one of these stops that I was introduced to sewer beers.
Basically there’s loads of Indian and Pakistani guys in Barcelona that each night walk the streets selling beers for €1. So I pay for a beer, and see one of these guys lift up a man-hole cover to find that he’s storing the beers down there. I quickly learnt to wipe the edge of the can before opening and drinking.

Beer party!

Those of us connected to Powerblading then left to go hillbombing from the top of Montjuic, near the 1992 Olympic stadium.
Hillbombing, hmmm, this is where it got serious VERY quickly!
Oli, Alex and a couple of others took a moment at the top of the hill to tell us the route we were going to take down. This talk involved being told things like “you must be careful, cars from the left come very fast, so look out” and “there’s a very tight left hand turn, so maybe watch your speed”.
The left hand turn turned out to be a bloody hairpin at the bottom of a hill that we were taking at roughly 40mph / 65mph.
I reckon I could have taken it slightly faster, but it was the first night and didn’t particularly want to leave half the skin from my legs on a Catalan mountain side.
Once we’d reached the bottom of the hill we were fairly close to where we’d started with the Friday night skate lot, and so headed back toward the coast and on towards Forum skatepark, hitting some spots along the way and getting some great shots which are now on Powerblading.org

Michel Prado fish stall – Photo Oli Benet

We headed towards Alex’s car where we’d left our bags before going off on the long skate, and were about to start skating a few K’s towards the famous Forum skatepark when Alex said we could all skitch there using his car.
There were about 10 of us I think, all holding on to different parts of his car, with me grabbing hold of the passenger side front door with the windows down.
It was fairly easy going at first, just cruising along at about 25mph / 40kph. That was until we pulled on to a wide stretch of double lane road that lead all the way down the coast to Forum.
One thing to remember here is that Alex was driving! A man with no apparent fear, and an ex motorbike racer. The lights go green, and my shorts nearly go a shade of brown!
We accelerate quickly up to around 40mph / 65kph, but that wasn’t enough for Alex and so he puts his foot down. The speed limit on that road was 50kph, and we hit 50mph / 80kph for a fair distance.
I wussed out and had to peel off to the side so that I didn’t take out anyone else as I let go.
Luckily for me Oli and a couple of others had done the same and were just behind me slowing down, although still moving at rather silly speed.
Four or 5 minutes later we met the others at the end of the road at the famous Forum skatepark, where we stayed for a while until Romain and I decided we’d head back to the Hostel and chill out, and the others headed off to a party somewhere.

First day in Barcelona, well it certainly made an impression.

Check back for part 2 tomorrow! – thanks to http://undercover-wheels.com, http://kizer-frames.comhttp://grindhouse.eu and http://www.facebook.com/roll.lineskil.5?fref=ts