The Globe Eu Trippin’ skateboard Tour Brussels and Rampaffairz skatepark
Stella hubba Africa 2
Being one of two designated drivers on the Belgian part of the Globe EU Trippin’ skateboard tour gets you right at the front of what a tour is, how a demo works, what being a professional skater is like. Globe made two stops in Belgium on this Euro-tour, a signing and street-session in Brussels on Thursday 9th of July and Friday 10th and a demo in Rampaffairz skatepark, Wevelgem on Friday. Bolts went along for the ride, chit the chat, shot tricks and vibes, we had a good time!
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Getting the team to their Brussels hotel was a doozy. Chris Haslam came out of the arrival gates right when we got there, the rest of the team soon followed; Rodney Mullen, Paul Hart, Mark Appleyard, Louie Barletta, Anton Myrvold, Fries Taillieu, Charles Collet, Philipp Schuster, photographer Mike O’Meally, filmer Aaron Brown and team managers Steve Black and Josh Barrows. We snaked a conveniently close parking spot, headed for the city and some leisurely sunterrace Stellas. Salty nuts joined the beerseats, some around the corner foodstuffs, coffees, hanging around and waiting to go over to the Mont Des arts signing, Brussels skate spots don’t get any more classic that the Mont! Rodney showed up to the Mont and was lost to the crowd for the rest of our time, old skaterats with Mutt-tattoos on their legs, countless Mullen boards to be signed, kids happy and smiling to get a
picture with a true legend. The rest of the team joined the signing and smiles all around-duty and everybody seemed pretty stoked, relaxed, at ease with the weather and laidback soundbox-tunes, procured courtesy of mostly Paul Harts playlist. Chilled water, iced beers, fat markers, cheers, hugs, glints in the happy kids eyes, a good signing session. Anton Myrvold wrapped it up with a quick session at the notorious MDA-hubba, but you’ll find out in a video what he did over there! The evening was spent sampling some more of our great Belgian food and beers, no craziness but rest, icing bruises, deciding if Belgian fries would be a good meal or mussels, or a sandwich, or a Belgian waffle, or just one more Stella maybe?
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Bolts, that is Sybren and me, arrived early on Friday morning and waited around for all to get up and about, deciding on breakfasts and coffees, an early Stella maybe ? A skatetour is always a lot of waiting but we spent our time well taking little interviews from the team, Philipp is very specific about his setup, Louie very candid about how old he is, Paul very sure to learn switch treflips quite soon, more on this on Bolts-facebook and site soon. Chris Haslam was trying very Haslamlike variations on a classic treflip, Mike O’Meally exchanging shooting tactics with Sybren, everybody getting ready to check out and get the luggage down in the vans before checking out the streets. The streets were good old Mont Des Arts with a warmup and later heated session on the marble manny pad with a pretty sweet followup-session on the MDA-hubba right after. Mark threw down, Philipp did and Fries really went for it.
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We were lucky to get a good way out of the city since rush hour is total drama around the Belgian capital, snaked it through our frenchspeaking country part and arrived in a timely fashion at Rampaffairz. It was great to see all the riders really getting down to business and skating a good old fashioned no-hype, no-stardom demo. Everybody skated for a long time, went for it hard and soon they had the crowd cheering, at the mini, at the streetcourse, all around. Dj Weyne took care of music-duty and freshened the session up with festive and dynamic tunes. Apples, Paul and Fries hit up the barrier, Louie and Chris attacked the mini and one lucky soul got very lucky seeing Mr Rodney Mullen skate in front of the Kortrijk train station in town before heading back to the park for the signing, no thanks for the tip Bruno!
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We did a little but very epic (to us) interview with Rodney, headed back to the skatepark where the team was still rolling and signing, part of the team ended up rolling when most of you had already gone home (go Chris!), while the rest of the team was chanting their lungs out on Toto’s ‘Africa’ in the lounge, Jäger, Havana and Orval helping out with the overall partymood and festivities! Thank you Globe-riders, you were good to Belgium, we hope you guys had an OG good time too!
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