Eventually, we ended up at one of the
After Antwerp we grabbed some beers
worlds most impressive DIY parks
from a petrol station - all of us bar one
in Mechelen, Belgium. After being
grabbing the bigger pack with a free foot-
thoroughly lost, and accidentally taking
ball glass for an extra 20c, except Egon,
routes down bike paths and across riv-
whom proceeded to grumpily drink his
ers, we managed to access google maps
small stubby’s whilst muttering to himself about the injustice of it all. So we
headed for the hostel in Rotterdam and
after a quick excursion to get Shwarma’s
and Doobies, we bedded down for a
night of mostly peaceful sleep - except
for the snoring that sounded like a party
whizzer!
Tom Picard who is the main organiser
of these trips, and known as ‘daddy
Picard’ due to his strict itinerary’s and
meticulous planning of all things shred.
He’ll happily spend hours on Google
Earth looking for a crusty spot that - to
which led us straight there. The sun
quote Joe Hastings - “Danny Brady may
was blazing, and the heat was intense,
have once driven past in a car”. The only
but everyone enjoyed an hours shred
problem with this tactic is the rest of
before heading north to Antwerpe. Here
we checked out the wedges that were
made famous by Mark Suciu feeling a
rail between them in the recent Habitat
video - so we checked them out, did the
usual “how the hell did he do that?!”
exclamations that tend to flow from
us weaker unknowns, and proceeded
to skate them in a way that will keep
us unknowns. Saying that, a few good
things went down, and after a quick bite,
we checked out an old war memorial
which was fabled to have a quarter-pipe
built into it. The rumours were true, and
most of us managed to get something
on this awkward, but very photogenic
the crew - which was mainly made up of
obstacle - whilst the others took pleasure
skaters who thought they had retired,
in the watching the running girls doing
and all they wanted to do was smoke
laps of Stadstpark.
some weed, and maybe skate some