S E E N O E V I L B M X

July 6th. Our tour began with more of a holiday. For the first 3 weeks we were in Hourtin, a small surfing town on the Atlantic coast of France, 70k+ west of Bordeaux. The house we were staying in was absolute luxury and belonged to Aiden and his family, friends from Oxford. The town was split into two, the Village and the beach. The village was typicaly french with a very homely feel to it. The beach or, Plage, was perfect. 100s of kilometres of pristene sands and an oversea sunset every night made for happy drinking in the Austrailan Cafe (more of a bar). Surfers from all over Europe gather there every year, definitely a place to visit. The skatpark in the photos was in the Village, 16k from the beach. It was a modest setup and quite fun! Mike and i worked out that we cycled on average, 30k a day while we were in france, no joke on a bmx.

July 27th-28th. The next stop on our trip was an overnight visit to Bordeaux. This city is amazing! It has everything, what started out a relaxing ride around, turned into one of the most fun days riding yet! There were some excellent street spots and we only really explored a tiny part of the city! We did chance upon the skatepark which was very lucky! An excellent place all round! The following morning we were off to Bilbao, Spain.

Once we arrived in Bilbao we were ready to ride. Within ten minutes of getting there we spotted a concrete park and a metal vert ramp, Edwardo Terredos's (spelling?) local spot. Bilbao's first impression was 10/10.

Bilbao has ace sreet, many ace parks and some really ace locals. One chap named Joachim, drove us all around the suburbs showing us park after park. he also took us to a spot that was on the T1 dvd. Awesome!!!

I'd definitely recommend Bilbao, the hostal was cheap too!

After a 10 hour sleeper train from Bilbao, we were in Barcelona. The place we had wanted to be for the last two years! This place is amazing. If you havent been, save and go. You wont regret it. No words of mine can give it justice, so i'll keep sticking pictures up!

Between Elche/Alicante and Madrid, is a place called Albercete. It's in the middle of nowhere but it has an ace metal ramp set up. The park resembles a 1999-2000 X-Games course with a spined mini (hip to street course, volcano, wallride and sub), 4 or 5 different funboxes and a vert ramp! We arrived late in the day but with enough time for Mike to throw down some skills! If you ever find yourself driving between madrid and Alicante, go check it out!

The Above and below pictures were taken at a brand new concrete facility 10 k south of Madrid. The park itself was ace but there were too many shady little kids we couldnt understand... Plus it took all bloody day to find it.

Alcobendas park is the famous red bowl park you may have seen on the WTP videos. The bowls are soooo good. Bloody deep and scary though! Theres a 12+ foot deep circle bowl - getting to the coping is tough enough, and a 9-10 foot capsule bowl. Next to these bowls via a roll-in, is a giant square bowl about 4.5 feet deep. Tight trannies are the order of the day here but it's a really fun place and you wont ride anything else like it anywhere!

After Alex left for home, I stayed on for a while in Bacra, enjoying the beach, bars and streets, before flying to Germany via Amsterdam. Well you got to really! and if you can stay sober enough there is some good riding to be had, Huge red vert under a bridge and a steep mini aswell as the bowl. If you take a bike be carfull when you lock it, i had to deploy a punch to one would be bike thief cunt! Germany is cool, the trains are expensive and people stare, but its still cool and well worth a visit. First stop was Dusseldorf, very chilled out city, with the Rhine river running through the heart. lots of nice parks, sweet sweet midi ramp and of course the famous uni banks, which are amazing, so many trannys, gaps and lines. Koln (cologne) is much bigger and far more metropolitan, crazy people ( it was election week) and unique architecture ( central cathedral near the station is awe inspiring). Had a few bike problems here, but the bmx shop ( see links) was well sorted and I met a lot of  good locals from there. Big scene in Koln with over 250 riders! Also some shit hot street.  A 13 hour sleeper train to Berlin came next, but it was all good. Only had a few days to explore and to be honest Berlin feels like a lot of other big cities.

 

If you’d like a list of the hostels we stayed at or a riding contact for one of the places we visited, then please e-mail.

 

Also sleeping bags are a good cheap way to keep your bike nice and protected on the plane and mean you don’t have to lug a big old box around with you.

 

Go on do it                                                                                                                   Mike