I decided to shoot some evidence for the smallest/biggest bags of the trip. This was the smallest, which might not seem too small but I tell you he didn’t even use ¾ of its space.

Ricky, on the other hand, got the biggest one – but still not as big as Antiz rider Julian Dykmans’ one though.

I think we waited there for 3 and half hours.

After finally leaving the motel, we stopped half an hour later to eat in a gas station. After eating, the TM decided it was the perfect time to start a fire the old school way. Obviously, the strong wind blocked his intentions. But hey, on those 3 hour gas station stop we saw some Ferraris coming from a race or event, or whatever. How nice.

Jan, in a random stop to wait the van to catch up.

And we made it to Cologne. Die Fantastisch Dom.

Rain was present again, so it was time to call it the end of trip. One last photo before the end.

We went to an industrial area looking for some trash to build a spot and get some more points.

A door I liked in an industrial area.

Some wooden pieces from a container, and over a little corner grass gap.

Mathieu did this nice fs 180 lateshuv, more than the spot and the area certainly deserved.

And then someone else wanted to try the Big Mac challenge again so we headed to another McDonalds. I think it was Jean Marie. He never got further than the 3rd burger.

I don’t know why people claim so much they hate fast-food, because wherever I see one of these places they are always full of people of all ages and all types. Like this one in Bordeaux. Bunch of hypocrites. In any case, a hypocrite’s nice ass is a a nice ass after all. Sergio knows the drill.

We found the only fun spot of the day when we left McDonalds, and thanks to eagle eye Nick. This set of mellow and small stairs got everyone hyped to do the skiing-down-stairs challenge. Nick even did it backwards.

Mathieu opted for a more classic style.

Travellers crossing paths with more travellers. Highways don’t care about class or colour, it’s a great equaliser.

Apples are good. No, trendy weirdo, I don’t mean “that” expensive Apple you’re mental-jerking-off to. They can be found anywhere if you have open eyes.

Mathieu is the king of survival. He ate naturally hunted apple & cherry salads, washed in the river and only used 1 single t-shirt in the whole trip – without complaining once.

Ricky looked a bit confused, and was having trouble reaching the scooter just 2 metres away.

After several tries, he landed it. I’d like to say it was amazing, but it wasn’t. It was quite a good piece of reputation destruction. Ricky will never be the same after that.

Later on we stopped in a supermarket to get some food. I found a strange old lady feeding pigeons but she left as soon as she saw my camera.

It was a very long stop. This was probably one hour later the previous photo, still in the parking lot.

We headed to Filarmonic (I think that’s the name) where there was this rail. Nick and Rick wanted to do the 10 tricks on a rail challenge. Rain was threatening again, so they both went for it straight away. We also got kicked out, but Nick was able to land his 10^th trick, even with two women trying to block the run up.

Then we went to this famous spot of the city, where nobody felt like skating.

The place is quite nice though, there are always all kinds of people looking at things, and I always wonder what they are looking at.

We also met Benjamin Garcia, the local talent and really mellow guy.  I tried to share my (literally) 3 words of French with him, but from then on he spoke to me in French, really fast. I had no idea what he was talking about, and even if I tried to tell him to speak in English, he kept answering me in French, but it was actually fun figuring out what he was trying to say. We shot a photo of him switch hardflipping a set of stairs for his Check.

The night brought Monsieur Sebastien Daurel aussi, and I enjoyed beers and dinner with him. After that he came along with us to a McDonalds, Ricky felt like trying to eat 10 Big Macs.

We told him he didn’t have to eat them in a row, he had a whole day to do it. But he insisted he could do it. He didn’t break the 4^th Big Mac barrier, but was funny to see his face.

The team decided to make it more obvious to girls that we needed to see their tits. Actually it didn’t work at all.

This was the closest we got.

One of the many stops in gas stations through France. This one saw many lines from everyone, despite how much it stank.

A crew of little rippers joined the session. This kid was skating really fast and doing nice 180 boneless out of the curb. Est ce que tu aimes skateboarding?

We headed to Jean Marie’s house in Biarritz to set up another BBQ, and everyone instantly got connected to his wifi. Some stood outside playing guitar and smoking though, like Mathieu and Sergio.

That was Jean Marie’s garden. At night I managed to put my foot inside that stupid, rusty, metal chair and had trouble getting it out. Leg’s gonna be itching for a few days.

This bank spot is right in front of Jean Marie’s house so we headed there and skated until it was too dark to see. Nick Fiorinni, switch bluntslide switch flip out.

Never a bad time to work if you’re a filmer. I think that was 2 hours after we were supposed to hit the road to Bordeaux.

Some random highway stops. That’s Ricky and a spinning head after taking a piss.

One more stop on the way to Bordeaux. Jan, late at night, drinking while truck drivers go back to their routes.

A proper van’s trunk.

Nick got addicted to Spanish olives. Not the ideal breakfast some would say, but after hearing him say how good they were all the people in the car ended up eating them.  They were gone 2 minutes after we left the supermarket.

That’s Jean Marie, I think he forgot something at the supermarket.

We were looking for some supplies, I think to get the DIY spot done. Nick found a tool to play with.

Ricky got used to Spanish culture really fast. Chain-drinking coffee is one of them.

There was a dog beside our coffee table who was scratching his back like crazy.

And good kid Sergio Muñoz doing doing the same, but for different reasons.

Jan doesn’t like to waste time and he doesn’t mind to get his hands dirty. He alone built his own DIY spot. And he alone skated it. This was actually against one of the walls of a basketball court, and one of the locals showed up after a while all pissed off because we fucked his court up. Have you seen the arms on these guys!? Well, you’d better not mess with them. We apologised, promising to clean it all before we left.

And Jan alone ripped it. Frontside wallride.

Time to clean our shit from the court. Let’s just have a BBQ first.

We headed to Rentería, a small town which, a long time ago, was only famous for the amount of junkies living there. Now it’s all changed, it’s full of skate junkies instead. And guess what? Locals have built an amazing DIY concrete pool in a squat. Iván Rivado ripped the place. Taildrop from the chicken’s house.

A quick look to the trashcan describes the evening pretty well.

Before leaving the place.

After a wet morning, the sun came out. Juli, our filmer, was really glad to feel the sun again.

Mathieu Dupuy sitting at a spot we found right as we reached civilisation again. It’s a children’s park with a fun little flatbar to bank.

Some tricks and lines got nailed. Here’s Nick Fiorinni, front feeble transfer avoiding the legs of the swinging kids.

We found this spider somewhere I don’t remember. You can’t really tell on the photo but it was quite a fatty.

Rain was on and off, so we decided to fix a local spot under a bridge, which would look really nice on a photo.

It worked. Time to skate it.

Some tricks were done, kickflip fakie if I’m not mistaken. But before I could settle up cops came for the third time and we were kick out for good. Shame. You can see a little piece of the cop car on the left.

So time for BBQing. We went to a local skatepark, where some challenges were tackled, benihana finger flips – shit like that. There was a football match at the stadium right beside the park and the streets were full of cops. That’s Jan setting up and Mathieu checking for cops. We finally got busted for the BBQ, but the food was almost over anyway.

Nonetheless, Mathieu Dupuy and Jean Marie decided to get some points for the team exchanging his morning warm shower for an icy bath in the river.

Our asses were itching to move along and try to find something to skate, so we ended up here whilst Nick Fiorinni tried a line in the rain.

And that’s the line. Nick Fiorinni, wet manny to manny to some extra stairs on a church. In fact it looked like a random building, but the big cross on top of the roof gave us some clues.

Yeh dawg.

Tapas. These are different from the southern Spanish ones. They are more expensive and they don’t come free when you ask for a beer. But they are delicious in my opinion, and worth a few euros.

After a few calls we were able to get to this indoor park, “La Plaza”. It’s in between San Sebastian and Hondarribia, and Álvaro (the owner) made our day by leaving everything he was doing that day behind and open the place for us. Thanks Álvaro.

Nick Fiorinni, backside nosebluntslide.

Nick again, this time nollie heelflipping to noseslide. Mathieu, Rick and Nick pretty much landed every possible trick there.

Ricky Webb, fakie ollie fakie five-0.

Ricky again, switch flip front board.

And that’s Ricky too, underneath all that crap we put on him when his jet lag payed the bill.

One last trick from Sergio Muñoz, before leaving the place. Backside nosegrind backside nollie flip out. Thanks for the hooking us up, Álvaro!

While waiting for everyone to wake up, met this hunter seeking shelter from the pissing rain. Whilst never letting go of his cigar, he said it was going to rain for a long time, probably days.

Just a nice old picture in the wall.

When everyone was kind of awake, drinking coffee at the bar, Jean Marie (TM) started to organize the challenges and a peculiar shopping list.

Plenty of time to waste, so I went for another little walk around the house. Downstairs there was a room with huge machinery, old but still fully working, which used the energy of the river to turn the gears and crush tonnes of apples to produce ‘Sidra’.

A window in the ground and the river running underneath. Water level was rising every minute from the amount of  rain falling.

Here’s the crew eating behind Jart’s factory, where there was a little corridor under a roof, where we gathered to skate a bit.

Since we had no ball with us, Sergio Muñoz and Iván Rivado created one from cardboard and tape. Sergio told me he used to do it in school whenever the teacher confiscated their ball. Clever.

In the meantime, Mathieu was tailoring two pairs of pants to get the two tone ones needed for the Garret Hill challenge. Good job Mathieu!

Jan Kliewer filming his lines without wheels. I actually thought this challenge would be harder, or maybe it’s just that they guys are too skilled. In any case, mental note: lines with only 1 truck next year – these fuckers did it too easy.

Iván Rivado took the challenge of riding a board with trucks set up the wrong way round. This one was a bitch actually, after he landed it he was fully soaked in sweat.

After the team ended the skating it was time for footballey, using the manny pad as an improvised net.

Oh, and Sergio got the Maradonna challenge easily as well, left foot, right foot, left knee, right knee, left shoulder, right shoulder, head.