So we made another skate trip this summer, to the Basque Country! We stayed each night at the beach or near the skatepark and prepared our meals with a barbeque or a gas cooker. When we arrived in Bilbao we just picked up our rental car and directly headed to the first spot, it was an awesome obstacle park in the center of Bilbao with a huge halfpipe and a miniramp with a hip…
Yes, we just had a post on the new Minus park in Velbert, Germany. But, on the way back from the Bergfest in the Monster Bowl in Münster, Germany, I hooked up a ride back to Cologne we Matze Preisser and Lukas Axmann who were keen for a shred in a new concrete park they had never skated, and I had never been there and wanted to check it out myself.
We hit Velbert just after it was finished. There was a big hole in the deep-end that was not closed which limited our lines a little. But overall, the bowl is realy nice to skate. Crazy lines with the bump in the middle and a nice mix of different transitions. Pool stones in the deep-end and some stairs in a quick corner.
The FLIP skateboards team are half way through a tour of germany, england and sweden. They stopped by the Northbrigade in Cologne this monday, to session the mini ramp and the concrete Owl Bowl.
This is the new skate spot in Köln, on the ‘other’ side of the Rhein, underneath the Zoobrücke.
It is not DIY. Otherwise, it would be much better. But I won’t waste this space complaining about how rad it would have been if there was some kind of a bowl, instead of these little concrete obstacles strewn here and there.
In progress: In the small town of Eitorf, outside of Siegburg, which is about 20 minutes from Köln, Germany is a fairly decent sized skatepark being built by Minus Pools.
“For more Concrete”, that was the slogan for the party last year. The plan was to build a mini with Pudi’s pool coping and have a party for more concrete.
After the party we kept the door open and had the ramp in the bunker and had a place to skate for the winter and we organized some parties and concerts. A skateboard cafe was open one day in the week. Over the winter, after some sessions, we switched some things at the mini for more really high speed lines and more fun!
A new mini-bowl has just been completed in Rattingen, Germany, about 15 minutes north of Düsseldorf. According to Baum who built this in cooperation with Camp Ramps, the city wanted a “u-miniramp”, but luckily they were talked into something a little more creative that will stand the test of time…
The first phase of the project begins with the construction of the focal piece: a triangular skateboard ramp, which will be extracted from its ‘natural’ environment and modified to serve a different purpose than originally intended. It will be a symbol of harmony within the collective, and at the same time a symbol of disharmony within today’s society. It is representative of the main topic of the exhibition and will therefore be the central point of the happenings.Around this piece of carpentry, the collective will create an atmosphere that opposes a dystopian, exaggerated reality with a surreal dreamlike utopia. Various forms of contemporary art, such as painting, videography, photography, sculpture, installation, etc., will be used to reach this goal.
Crazy ballroom skate action down in southern germany at the Moos Barn.
Kevin Wenzke is one of the best all around transition rippers in Germany. At 22 years old, destroying any new bowl or ramp built on European soil, as well as the older concrete relics from the past, Kevin has a bright future in skateboarding. We were close to interviewing Kevin for issue #3 of Confusion Magazine but he had a bad knee injury which took him out for about eight months last May, so we couldn’t complete the feature. Here we have a short interview with some photos taken right before his injury, and a few older photos and sequences. Be on the look out for a full feature with Kevin in 2012 with all new photos as he completes his recovery and returns to slay the concrete bowls across the lands!
Sergej Vutuc, the photographer behind the book, “Something in Between” is putting up work in an empty space and doing abstract drawings out of skateboarding. If you live in Germany, check it out this Sunday, the 4th. If not, we’ll update this space after the show so you can see what went down.