Europe: The Team

Alright, this will be my last Europe post of the year.  If you missed Part 1 or Part 2 you can check them out there if you want.

One of the things people always beg for is a company to "give back to the sport".  Of course everyone has their opinion of the right and the wrong way to do that, but one of the main ways to give back is often not mentioned. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  I do think the best reward you can get for your hard work in this sport is winning, but it does help to know that winning can get you somewhere.  That if you work your butt off and are successful, there are people out there that are willing to give back to you. There are lots of companies that give back to the top of our sport, but I think Powerslide is the only company willing to fund 25 skaters from 10 countries for a month long racing tour of Europe.  Which included a week training on the worlds track.  I'm not foolish, I do realize that Powerslide receives great advertisement for this.  But seriously 25 skaters is a huge number, and while they get a lot of slack for having such a big team, it truly is great for the sport.  For every one person who says "the Powerslide team is too big" there is 10 kids saying "I'm going to work hard every day so I can be on that team ."  I'm not saying this is the only way to give back to the sport, I'm just saying it is a great thing that is often over looked.(for the record, my sponsor didn't ask me to nor even know I was writing this.  I just understand how much it takes just for the 4 weeks I was there.  Plus they still have 48 other weeks to worry about)

  Now that I got all that serious stuff out of the way, lemme talk about my team for a minute.  I wrote a blog last year saying how much we sat around and talked about skating, that didn't change.  It's just what happens when you put a bunch of addicts together, and that's really what we are.  Addicted to the most amazing sport in the world.  And I think the best thing about our team is that everyone on it is legitimately nice.  When you spend 4 weeks with a group of people who are high stressed from racing, tired from lack of sleep and travel, homesick, and sometimes beat up from falling you can't fake nice.  If you're not a nice person you can only hide it for so long.  While I do admit some of us may fall slightly into the sarcastic (insert whatever word you choose here) category, everyone would still do anything for anyone on the team.  In a month together you can either start to hate each other, or bond into a family.  We went the family route.  Still to this day it amazes me that a group with so many different ages and nationalities can be so similar.  The day I left it was sad to leave everyone, but it was experience I'll remember for the rest of my life

   Ok that ended up being serious too.  And it seems like anytime I go on trips like this people wanna know the other stories.  What happens in your down time?  Did you guys do anything fun?  Is Ferre always that loud??(YES)  So here is the super short version of some of the stuff that happened, abbreviated and probably makes no sense to anyone that wasn't there(feel free to stop reading now):  There was a night at Rocco's to the Silver , where me and Ew had an amazing conversation.  An earring search(that wasn't a happy time).  Several grueling car rides in packs of cars.  A most miserable day in the cold and rain in GG.  A failed attempt at karaoke that ended up not too bad. Con cen tra tion.  The big race(teamswings80mm).  A struggle for power.  One might have even fallen in love.  And one of the greatest victory celebrations ever.  Guess you had to be there, but trust me it was a good time.

Europe was an amazing trip, with amazing people.  I hope everyone I met along the way had as good as time as me, and I hope to see you all again soon.  

Back to Europe... The events.

If you missed part one, I'll give you a quick catch up.  I went to Europe to race, train, and spend some time at Powerslide HQ.  You're officially caught up(never said you missed very much).  Currently in the US there is about 3 big outdoor track style races a year(odn, west palm, and lets say Tampa despite it not being a track race).  What makes this odd, is that is the same number of track races I went to in 3 weeks in Europe. Maybe odd is the wrong word, lets go with sad... hmm no depressing.  There was a time when we could race in the US almost every week, and now the few meets left struggle to get a few hundred entries.  Europe, not so much, this is a run down of the events I went to.

The first race we went to was at the Arena Geisingen in Germany, the fastest track in the world(it also happens to be indoors).  People, if you love skating you have to go here at least once in your life.  You race with computer chips that are linked to a huge score board.  During races every one's lap times show up on the board, including the highlighted fastest lap of the race.  In a points race the score is constantly updated on to the score board, so all of the spectators know who's winning and who's not.  14 second laps are good here, but if you really want to turn some heads you have to break into the 13's(I believe it's happened twice).  Along with the the track, the Arena has a weight lifting gym, restaurant, and there's an outdoor road course.  I heard the final numbers of entries was 550, but only because they only allowed that many to enter.  I've said this once in this paragraph already, but seriously you need to go once.  Really... You'll thank me later.

Next we were off to Gross Gerau, Germany for the cleverly named Gross Gerau Kriterium.  A 300 meter road course that's super fast and super hard.  Last year I absolutely loved this event and was really looking forward to it this year.  Unfortunately for me, Mother Nature picked that weekend to show us who was boss.  After looking at the weather forecast I was worried, but I was assured they could only remember one time it rained in Gross Gerau.  Well we made it two.  However despite my rain, there was still a thousand people there(no seriously, 1000 people, and only 1000 because they won't let anyone else enter).  There's a huge field beside the track and tons of people just bring tents and just camp in the field.  Along with skate vendors there is also food places set up as well(I strongly suggest you grab one of the waffles with strawberries).  I hate being in the cold/rain and I skate god awfully in it, but despite the weather you cant help but enjoy the environment.  It's just tons and tons of people that are brought together by skating.

The 3rd race I went to was in Heerde, Holland for a track race on a super dished parabolic.  In the US we have a track in Colorado that we call parabolic.  IT'S NOT THE SAME!  I've been to Heerde for 2 years now and have no clue how people skate on the top of the bank like they do.  It's pretty awesome to watch, and looks so easy to do.  IT'S NOT EASY TO DO.  I don't really know the number of entries, but I'm guessing somewhere around  500-600.  The people in Holland always seem to have such a positive energy, and really love skating(maybe not quite as much as they love long track, but they still love us).  Just like the previous 2 events the level here was top notch, and if you get a chance to go take it.  I do suggest you come in a little bit early so you can learn how to stay at the top of the bank though.  Or maybe in my case I should have just stayed there, and hopefully I could figure it out before next year.  

So those were the 3 events I went to in 3 weekends.  There was over 2,000 skaters combined at the 3 events(yes I do realize some people went to all 3 events, but they get counted 3 times.  My blog, my rules).  I'm going to try and name all of the countries that had skaters representing them, but I'm sure to leave some out.  Sorry in advance for that... here we go..... USA,Germany, Holland, France, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela, Denmark, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Taiwan, New Zealand, Australia, and that's probably not it, but I can't think of more right now.  I know my words did these events no justice, so you all should probably just figure out a way to get to Europe next year and see for yourself.  Stay tuned I still have one or 2 more blogs about my trip.  

Back to Europe

My blog fell off the planet for a few months. Was bound to happen once I got into the busy part of the season.  Training and travelling quickly turns my thoughts to mush.  I'm sure better people than me would continue to keep writing, but writer's block kicks my butt when I'm tired.  All apologies to those of you who missed me.


Ahhh, just returned from my trip to Europe.  Any one who is my friend on Facebook or follows me on twitter @cheex32 (shameless plug) knows I was enjoying myself quite a lot.  I got to jump around from Germany to Switzerland to Belgium to Holland and then spent one last night in Germany.  When you go on long trips and get to see a lot of different things, usually the beginning of the trip gets lost in the back of your mind some place.  Not so much this trip, as I had a chance to go the the new Powerslide HQ.

Yeah, the picture pretty much says enough.  HUGE warehouse, meeting rooms, show room, gym, a room for molding skate, enough skating memorabilia to keep you buys for days, and a bunch of people just thinking stuff up.  It's just a huge building full of people who love to skate, and not just speed, all kinds of skating.  I tried to take some pictures of the inside, but as soon as I snapped a picture of the hover skates, my camera was confiscated and destroyed.

One of the craziest things that happened to me the entire trip happened on day 1 of my arrival.  I got off the plane, headed straight to Powerslide after traveling all night.  After a few hours at the HQ, it was time to go skating.  So I set off with Scott Arlidge and Matthias Knoll for what I thought would be just a normal skate.  I quickly knew this was going to be different as we started skating down the main roads, and Scott was using his hands to tell the cars to stop as we went through intersections(I was assured that this was safe, I didn't believe it).  For the next hour and a half we went up and down huge hills.  At one point we were flying down this super steep hill, being led by Powerslide owner Matthias Knoll.  As Matthias took a blind turn, a car was coming straight for him.  He jumped out of the way, Scott and I followed.  As soon as my heart stopped beating 1000 beats a minute I had several thoughts.  First I thought Matthias really really loves this sport.  Then I thought, "I've been in Europe for less than 10 hours and almost watched the owner of Powerslide get hit by a car while going 50mph down a hill.  This is going to be an interesting trip."

You know what this has gotten pretty long already and I've got a lot more to tell soooo......  I think I'm going to split this up and call this part 1.  I'll jump around to all sorts of things that happened along the way, so stay tuned.