by Bart De Jong and www.fatbmx.com

European GT Tour

It doesn¹t happen every day that a bunch of American GT riders make it over to Europe to do some riding. Actually it has been since 1986 that GT riders have done a European tour. Back then Eddie Fiola and Dave Breed opened up eyes on the infamous GT World Tour. Since the riders have such a busy schedule during the summer months with all the contests and shows they do, it was decided to bring them over in the fall to do some skatepark riding. Available for the trip were: Dave Voelker, Rob Nolli, Kevin Gutierrez, Tom Haugen and Kip Williamson who was filming the tour for the new GT freestyle video. The plan was to visit 10 skateparks and do 2 shows in 5 countries in 10 days. That meant that we had to drive 4000 kilometres to pull it off.  On the program were mostly indoor parks because at this time of the year you never know what the weather does.

1) Belgium. Picked up Tom, Rob, Kip and Kevin at Zaventem airport and drove straight to the Rollerpark in Brussels. Dave Voelker couldn`t find his passport so he was going to meet us in Amsterdam the next day. The park was really nice and there was almost no one there which made it even better. Tom was tailwhipping within a couple of minutes,  Nolli was all over the spine and Kevin was all over the place hitting every ramp in sight. Next up was St.Niklaas. We arrived pretty late and the parking lot was already packed. This Rollerpark 115 is really biker friendly and has wooden trails, a foampit, massive street course, mini with spine, small vert ramp and the miniramp of the Playstation World¹s 2000  will be set up this winter. Go there. Ron, Haugen and The Gute had fun on the mini ramp and didn¹t even have enough time to hit the street course where the locals,  John Petit, some Germans and the Dutch crew were ripping it up. We left St.Niklaas at 22:30h and had to drive to Amsterdam still.

2) Holland.  After a late night in Amsterdam we got ready to ride some outdoor spots in Utrecht and Maarssen but the weather didn`t cooperate. We hooked up with Sander Nieuwenhuis (GT Europe vert rider) and decided to ride the only dry place;  the vert ramp underneath the Schellingwouderbrug.  After some sweeping and drying off the ramp a little vert session was had by Sander, Rob and The Gute. Kip liked the scenery (graffiti all over the place, really shady looking). While Eric Havelange and Kip drove to Schiphol to pick up The Lord, the  rest of us drove to Burnside skatepark for a biker evening session. Nice session here and Herm had even invited a DJ for some tunes. Cool. Dave had shown up but without a bike (got lost at the airport). Next day we drove to The Edge skatepark in Glanerbrug and were welcomed by 80 screaming kids. Dave and Kevin gave them a little show and they were stoked. It took 25 minutes before every kid had all the autographs of the American GT pros. Kevin did a rad peg stall on a crazy wall that Kip missed filming. Tom shredded the large mini, Dave did some flips and abubacas on the spare bike and once again Kevin was all over the place riding in typical GUTE style. We picked up some shoes at the European VANS warehouse and continued our trip to:

3) Germany. After a quick stop at "Busy P-bikes and more" we arrived at the Dom Skatepark run by Frank Schnütgen and friends. TV crews had shown up at this stop. Wild. The park is quite fun. There is too much stuff to ride to find all the right lines in one session. Nice vert ramp in the middle, cool jump box, mini bowl, street stuff in a different hall and just a whole bunch of other stuff to ride. Dave was still riding the "Bartbike" but pulled everything except for one where he hit his head on the bottom of the jump box. Ouch! The Lord got up, waved to the crowd and said he was alright. The TV lady was scared. Kay Clauberg (FreedomBMX magazine) joined us from here. We ate at KFC and left for Metz,.................

4) FRANCE. The Formula 1 hotel reservation worked once again. Slide in your credit card, type in your reservation number, get the codes, type them in and the door will open. Great system. The next day we left for the south of France. 1000 kilometres to go. One crew left for Marseille in the Ford Galaxy to pick up Dave¹s bike which had been sent to Marseille. The other part of the crew travelled in the slower Iveco Air Show truck in the direction of Fréjus. Two days of shows were scheduled at the 2000 Roc d`Azur, a French bicycle trade show and MTB race. Starlight had set up several ramps and we used the GT Air Show truck to make the area complete. The American crew was accompanied by GT France`s Romaric Fath. With five (ramp) riders cruising around on the ramps doing doubles here and there and pulling all kind of crazy tricks, they got the MTB crowd moving. If you want a trick list here you go: 720, no-handed flip, 10 feet transfers, abubaca on railing from Dave Voelker. Boomerang jump, 360-tailwhip, no-handed flip by Rob Nolli, Tom Haugen did 360 tailwhips, huge tailwhips on the quarterpipe,  tech liptricks and huge superman jumps. And then we have Kevin "The Gute" Guttierez, doing all the tricks in his personal style; no-hand to turndown fakie, boomerang 180 on the wedge ramp, lookback 360 on the box and clicked turndowns on the Q-pipe. Romaric pulled nice X-up transfers, no-footed cancan jumps and tried to kill himself on the bank to wall ramp more than once. Definitely high level and fun to watch over and over again. After the shows we headed for Marseille skatepark, the one on the beach. Nice session on Monday afternoon. Kevin pulled a 360 nosepick, Tom did the raddest liptrick (just check the video, it`s too hard to explain), Rob learnt tailwhip manuals and Dave went huge on the hip, pulled flips over the spine and did a crazy abubaca on the railing. We headed for Paris after the session but were not able to find a hotel there. After a quick tourist stop checking out the Eiffel Tower and the Arc of Triumph we continued to Boulogne and found a bed at 04:30am.

5) ENGLAND. The ferry had taken us to England. We drove straight to PlayStation skatepark for the Tuesday night Bike night session. Zach Shaw (GT Europe) was on fire and ripping. Tom was doing 540 tailwhip manuals in the mini, Rob was consistent as ever doing all his moves and Kevin was riding the vert ramp doing inverts, no-handers, turndowns, no-footers, no-handers to turndowns and all that good stuff. Next day; Romford skatepark. It was cloudy but dry in England. The last stop before heading to Manchester to catch the plane back to the USA for Kip, Dave, Rob, Kevin and Tom. Dave Voelker was loving it at the park. Dave is all about big stunts and there were plenty to be done at Romford.  He bunny hopped the huge snake run, 180-d out of the deep bowl onto the slope and also bunny hopped the white pool. Zach was doing huge airs in the white oververt pool and also bunny hopped it after 15 years of looking at it. Nice. We survived the tour; nothing got stolen, no one got hurt, the bikes were still in one piece and the vehicles survived as well.  Let¹s hope for this to become an annual thing and the start of a new set up for a GT World Tour.

Bart de Jong

 

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