RollTogether 7

RollTogether: a new form of connecting rollerbladers

The concept is very simple: We define a date and give all fruitbooters a chance to join us for a “more or less” free session. There is no contest pressure - just skating, falling, spinning, landing hammers, creative stuff – whatever you feel like and whatever you are willing to do. And the best thing - you can still win a lot of stuff whether you land a hard trick or just try it!



For the 7th rollTogether-Session we worked hard to give you a special rollerblading day! We not only rented the park exclusively for Rollerbladers, we also built an additional obstacle in the park – thanks to the financial help of Grindhouse and the consistent commitment of some special people like Levi (who is one of the leads of the skatepark "The Promise" in Heerlen), as well as some local riders and all the rollTogether-staff and special friends. Above all, our unique rollTogether-Filmer "Rene Pressing" worked very hard in the past weeks to build a unique camera-dolly that brings our media coverage to another level.

The session was scheduled for the 22nd of November. In the planning stage this date seemed to be perfect because no other event fell on the same date. However, another skate-shop from Belgium scheduled a box session on the same day. In the beginning we were a bit irritated but after reconsidering it, we realized that two events on the same day are not that bad! We all need to see this from a different - let's say global - perspective: It proves that there is an increasing demand for rollerblading-events within the scene. And in the end it just makes Rollerblading bigger and gives people more chances to roll. By the way, their idea of bringing a box-session (as a pre-event) into a train-station is dope and helps rollerblading! We truly hope that it turned out well for you guys.


DVD premiere

So, lets talk about our event again. Due to the fact that there was a big snow-fall on the day of our event we were amazed at the outcome and the high number of visitors. People from the snow-covered south of Germany came late though – BUT THEY CAME! People from all over the Netherlands (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Den Haag, Utrecht, Eindhoven etc.) came to the event and ripped it so hard! Some Belgian guys were in the house as well – but most of them obviously supported their own national event. All in all we were around 220 Rollerbladers at the event, which is amazing. It is good to see that Rollerbladers hit the road for 600 kilometres (or even more) - in spite of bad weather conditions – just to have a good session or to meet new Rollerbladers.

Even though I was not skating in the session (I took care of the Be-Mag booth), it wasn’t hard to see that the atmosphere in the park was great. Each landed trick was honoured with thundering applause. Amsterdam’s finest Adil Farhouni, Daan Hegt and Tyron Ballantine flowed through the park and killed every obstacle. One of the guys who stood out most was definitely TYRON BALLANTINE. I don’t know what happened to him in the last few years. After he won the Winterclash 2006 Street Amateur he slightly disappeared from the big rollerblading-contests. I can only guess that he doesn’t feel comfortable with competitions. But what I do know and what I can assure you is that he feels comfortable with free sessions. It seems like that TYRON IS BACK in the game: 540 truespin top soyale on the new rainbow-rail was one of the tricks that sent all the rollerbladers into raptures. Later on, when we called up to the Chimera Stunt Reward he was the final straw for the session: After several attempts and really hard falls he finally succeeded in landing a top soul to 360 topsoul on the long kink-rail!


Tyron Ballantine - Topsoul 360 Topsoul

A lot of other people skated really hard during the Chimera Stunt Reward: There was Bart Haan (local rider from Heerlen) who stalled the highest wall in the park and jumped back into it and there was this 14 year young kid from the Netherlands "Geatan Fernald" who not only skated well during the Chimera Stunt Reward, but skated so damn good over the whole day. I think it was the easiness of his skating, especially his massive and stylish 900 over the big flybox, that amazed everyone in the park, especially the rollTogether-staff. That’s why we decided to give him the rollTogether “newcomer-award”. It's not a surprise that this kid won the DutchOpen in Rotterdam one week later.


Gaetan Fernald best newcomer

A lot of people skated really hard during the "Chimera Stunt". It was really difficult to judge, that's why we decided to share the prizes between some special riders: In the end Adil Farhouni, Daan Hegt, Tyron Ballantine, Bart Haan and Johannes Zenk (who did a last minute 360 Kindgrind transfer over the channel) got different prizes provided by our generous sponsors (Chimera, Grindhouse, Be-Mag, Razors and Ucon).


Wildcard winner Tyron Ballantine

One of the two Wildcards went to Tyron Ballantine. The other Wildcard was handed out to Olga Bouwhuis, a girl from Den Haag, who made some boys look small and impressed us with her unique style. We are sure that Olga will kick ass at the next Winterclash and that’s why we all agreed to give her the coveted second Winterclash-Wildcard.


Wildcard winner Olga Bouwhuis

There were two guys that attracted our attention during the session because of their remarkable style: Eugen Enin from Borken and Hans Herdonk from Amsterdam. Both of them landed various switch-ups and showed Rollerblading from an aesthetic point of view. Thanks for that.

But there were so many other Rollerbladers that are worth mentioning here in this report. We can’t name them all. They were just too many and this is the best part about rollTogether.

What made this session special is the fact that our ideas and goals seem to get adopted: We want to bring Rollerbladers together to form a tight community of people that have a passion for Rollerblading. Rollerbladers from different nations – young and old – rolled together and boosted themselves through mutual tribute.

At this point we need to say a big THANK YOU to all our sponsors: Grindhouse, Razors, Be-Mag, Chimera and Ucon. They make us feel strong enough to continue with rollTogether and help us to bring Rollerblading on a higher level.

Thanks Jojo Jakobi for providing the Winterclash Wildcards and the Winterclash/ Summerclash DVD 08 for the Premiere.

Thanks Levi for all your efforts (building the new obstacle, discount of the entry prizes, help us to host the event etc.). You are the man!

And of course: Thanks to Lars, Maik and Rene from the rollTogether-Team and all our friends from the far east (Roland Wander, Georgie etc.) for supporting us and for this nice Danish lager beer!





Eugen





Roland Wander - Negative Acid


Olga


Bastian - BS Torque

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