Day 2: Murg.

So day 2. Well... What can I say? Pictures of Murg are awesome and everything, but you really have to be there. I have never skated such a gnarly, narrow road before. Oh and 16 hairpins? It felt like the Ironman of downhill runs. I pretty much got a roastie on every piece of exposed area of skin. Not to mention roasties on top of roasties.... And if anyone ever asks you if it is possible to get a blister from sliding... Just smile and wave. I'm going to keep the writing to a minimun on this one. Just have a look at the pictures. 

PFR: poesfastracing.

The "bottom" of Murg.

The top of Murg.

Tons of riders.

One of the many clutch-burning journeys up the hill.

"Sorry what? 16 hairpins you said?"

Ah... so beautiful.... oh and the mountains!

Anton's stickers are everywhere.

Chilling back at Fibretec with a beer in hand.

Day 1: Arriving in Switzerland

My journey to Zurich started at 7.00 p.m. on 14 July when I left for Rome, Fiumicino Airport. My flight was at 6.55 a.m. the following morning and the only way that I would be able to get there on time was if I was to sleep at the airport. The experience of sleeping in an airport is something I had never experienced before. There is surprisingly little to do other than keep yourself occupied with whatever means necessary. I managed to buy a book just before a bookstore closed and read this for most of the evening.

Once I had found a place to camp, two girls approached me to ask if they could sleep nearby as they were afraid their belongings would get stolen. I agreed and watched them whip out their roll-up mattresses and sleeping bags. I tried getting some sleep between 1 and 4 a.m.

When I finally checked in I tried to take my deck through the x-ray scanner and the guys there weren't at all happy with what I was trying to do. I had to go back to check-in and check my deck in as over-sized luggage. The rest of the journey was pretty uneventful.

When I arrived at Zurich airport I was met by Benjamin Malherbe with whom I was to be staying. I discovered that if I was to get anywhere within the canton of Zurich I would be taking a train, which proved to be pretty pricey. I will advise anyone who is planing to stay in Zurich for 5 days or more to find out about travel discounts before you get there, as the machines are rather unhelpful. A 24 hour train pass between 3 zones was 23chf, and 2 hours was 11chf. It all adds up...

After dropping my stuff off at Ben's house and having had bacon and egg for breakfast courtesy of Yoshi and Lasse, we headed off to Fibretec skateboard shop. This place is absolutely amazing with boards, in various stages of completion, and wheels everywhere.

From Fibretec we headed off to a road (Kurhausstrasse) that runs past the Dolder Grand Hotel. The hill is pretty cool. Steep and fast, with a sweeping right hander at the top. At the bottom you have to skate some really narrow one way streets, dodging parked cars, big black sedans, and grumpy rich bastards. What was awesome about this hill was that there is a funicular that ferried us from the bottom to the top each time. We managed to get about 5 runs in.

After our session at the Dolder we headed to the river-side where we ate pizza, drank beer, and played hacky sack. Not a bad first time in Zurich if you ask me!

The river-side.

Night time skateboard touring. 

Skating through the train station.

"Bombing" Gran Sasso.

Today we decided to go and skate Gran Sasso. Translated it means Great Stone. Well on this fine sunny Summer Saturday afternoon there was none of the snow that usually covers these rocks during the Winter months. All that was to be found were literally a great load of stones. Even the road was stoned. 

After not adventuring to faraway places to skate in some time we headed to this "unknown" location. The only thing we had to go on were some images from Google Earth, showing some amazing turns, but as we know all to well the old Google can be a bit deceiving. 

The hill itself is situated about 160 km outside of Rome. Without access to a car, journeys like this would never be possible, but luckily fellow Roman skater, Andrea, allowed us a lift in his car so all was good.

Top and Bottom: Images on Google of the mountain with the road pictured below. 

One of the many tunnels you have to take to get there.

Rolling hills everywhere.

Head up and behind that "hill".

Above and Below: The unfortunate quality of the road.

It is rather unlucky that we keep finding awesome places to skate, yet the road is generally rather shocking. The patchiness of this road makes sliding and footbraking (which there was a bit of on my part) lank gnarly. If only the Italians kept their roads in as good a condition as the Swiss do. 

The first hill we skated.

A quick warm up!

And off we head. Left to Right: Antonio, Me, and Andrea.

Antonio and I at the bottom. My feet were itching my board was vibrating so much.

The second hill had this sexy sign at the top.

Antonio's new "Oneal" helmet with modded visor.

As you can see the road has some serious potential.

And my already Holy shoe became even Holier.

Taking in a cold one at the bottom. Note the ice-pack on Antonio's shoulder...

So what can I say? If you are in Italy. Don't go and skate this hill. It sucks. Unless patchy, sketchy roads rock you boat. Oh and if you have a ton of wheels to burn whilst sliding, this is the place to be. 

Special thanks to Tam and Mat for taking the photos. 

Sliding With Tam.

Top: This was funny. I went into Decathalon (a relatively cheap, warehouse-like sports shop) and the security guard, being the good guy he is, put this tag on my board. Presumably so that it wouldn't look like I bought the board there. I laughed!

The tent I bought for Kozakov.

And for sleeping on :)


Some pics that my girlfriend took:

Piroette.

So. Today's Ikea session got off to a frustrating start. Was forced onto the sidewalk whilst skating down the hill and did a pendulum and ended up shredding a chunk out of my wheel. Luckily it wasn't too big, but still frustrating. When I arrived at the spot Antonio wasn't there yet. I changed my wheels around so as not to disturb the missing chunk. I then began to practice my stand-up (heel-side) checks. Got them going nicely now. 

Then began pushing my longer standies. Definitely got them solidly in the 30 foot range (9 meters) so pretty chuffed on that too. Once Antonio arrived the rain clouds were looking ominous, but I decided that I would practice toe-side 180s for the first time anyway. Landed them a couple of times, but obviously I'm still going switch once I land them and I had yet to brave the switch standies. I decided to go a little faster with the toe-side and ended up doing some crazy break-dancing on the tar, rolling over my neck (which is now stiff, much to Tam's disgust). It was at this point I figured I'd try switch standies after landing my stand-up 180s. 

Basically the point of this post is to chronicle the fact that I officially landed a switch stand-up slide. Was lank weird, but I did. Pretty stoked. It then rained and cancelled the rest of the session. The end.

The bar we stopped off at cos we were getting soaked.

Shopping at IKEA: Stand-ups