Holidays in the U.K.

I haven't been very talkative lately because I was on holiday in London. Ten days to chill out, go shopping at Oxford Street, clean out second-hand CD shops, smoke chicha, ride motorbikes, but above all to SKATE!

I usually go to England every summer -- Don't ask me why I don't go spending my holidays in the Spanish sun just like every normal French people... My rebel side tells me to go North when everybody goes South. The weather is not worse than in Paris... after all England in the rain is just a myth (okay, I convey that sometimes it's not).

For three years there's been this annual freestyle skating event called SkateLondon in which I used to take part. This year SkateLondon hosted the European Championships and I decided to go as a visitor (yet, I ended up as a judge to give a hand for the Classic, but this is another story...)

And the weekend before there was this unmissable Derby Bout: The Rocky Mountain Vs. The London Brawling. 

The video is unfortunately not available on DNN but you can have a look at the French Textcast by Francey Pants. The level difference between the two teams could be felt but still the game was powerful, fast and dynamic: The final score was 228-49.

Let's note the great feat of Kami (London) who, during the second to last jam -- at the beginning of which the Rocky were leading 194 to 24 -- gets the lead and scores 25 points, i.e. half of the points in the whole game, while the Rocky jammer, DeRanged, is in the box. This was the emotional moment of the evening: the whole crowd standing up and cheering the London jammer!

We had the opportunity to skate at the London Rollergirls Sunday practice two days after. Three hours in a gym in the suburb of London. We mixed the teams twice, first period was the short-haired Vs. Long-haired, and second period was born-before-july Vs. born-from-july-on. In-between we had a 30min-free practice break, which I think is a great thing to work on what you want and give you new ideas.



BaySixty6 - K.Zhargham

Now don't think we only played Derby in London!

We went for a Freestyle Slalom Session in Hyde Park with Millefeuille and Joan Jet27 who actually tried slalom-skating with inline-skates. Beware!

And we also took part in a session at Bay Sixty6, a complete skatepark under a bridge, with ramps, bowl, tables, etc. Awesome!

Check out KEANOUSH ZARGHAM's PHOTOSHOOT of that day.

The only thing missing was a rollerdancing night at the Vauxhall Roller Disco... Next time!