K2 Skates@Ku’damm

City-Night in Berlin: K2-Damen mit Top Platzierungen
Ein Samstag Abend in Berlin: Der City-Night 10km-Lauf auf dem Ku´damm

Bei traumhaftem Wetter und besten Bedingungen gingen für das K2-Team Silke Heiss, Annika Gentz und Simone Kohls an den Start. Die 10km Strecke versprach wieder ein schnelles Rennen und Top Zeiten. Mit über knappen 1000 Freizeitskatern (davon über 250 Frauen!) gingen dieses Jahr über 20% mehr Fahrer an den Start. Die Skater durften vor rund 50.000 Zuschauern begeisterten Zuschauern ihre Schnelligkeit unter Beweis stellen.  Einen kurzen Einblick in das Rennen und alles was am Ku’damm geschah, findet ihr hier:

K2 Skates @ Ku’damm

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The chase is on … at least in Barcelona

Die aufgehende Sonne wirft ihre ersten Strahlen des Tages über die Zinnen der Sagrada Familia. Zwei lange Schatten nähern sich einem kleinen Straßencafe in der Nähe des Kunstwerkes. Hier haben sich zwei außerordentliche Skater zum Frühstück verabredet. Jochen Smuda und Marc Moreno besprechen den Tag. Für heute werden die Straßenschluchten der katalanischen Hauptstadt zu ihrer persönlichen Spielwiese erklärt. Ride the urban canyon! Unter der Kameraführung von Lukas v. Monkiewitsch beginnt für die beiden ein aufregender, schneller und abenteuerlicher Tag in der Metropole Spaniens. Als die Weltstadt gerade beginnt sich ihrem nächtlichen Treiben zu entledigen und sich die Straßen langsam wieder füllen sind Jochen und Marc kaum noch zu halten. Das ist die perfekte Zeit zum skaten, schwärmen sie. Ihr heißer Ritt führt sie quer durch die Stadt. Kleine Nebenstrassen und Gassen sind ihr liebstes Terrain. Für Skater wie Jochen und Marc sind die Nebenstrassen mit ihren zahlreichen Stuntmöglichkeiten die eigentlichen Hauptverkehrswege. Egal ob parkende Autos, Straßenlaternen oder Parkbänke. Die beiden bauen alles in ihr Spiel auf acht Rollen ein. Lukas tut schwer daran, den beiden zu folgen. Der Tag könnte kaum besser sein.

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Julie Tersigni is Playing In Traffic

I’m either crazy or brave, people say. I skate in New York City traffic. Street skating here’s an adrenaline  rush requiring split-second timing, razor-sharp reflexes, and mind-reading skills. Obstacles abound: cars, pedestrians, sewer grates, cyclists, Pedi-cabs, oil slicks, traffic lights, rough surfaces, and on and on. You’ve gotta be aware at every moment–or else.

In a city packed with people, skating gives me a sense of autonomy. You can get to your destination, save money, and do your part for the environment. Not to mention it’s great for your butt. ; )

But here’s the thing about street skating: Something always happens! Like that standoff I had with a city bus. (He won.) Or the guy that was honking at me cuz I had on my short shorts that day. This is serious business, people! I can’t be waving and smiling at ya, I gotta keep focused!

Which reminds me. The things people yell at me, sometimes they crack me up. But the best thing anyone ever said to me, I was bombing down Central Park South, weaving a bit because there wasn’t much action behind me, when a man shook his head and said, “Don’t die too young!” Put a big smile on my face.

And I gotta say, the hotter or colder it gets, the better. I love to skate in next to nothing, sweat pouring down my face when I stop. I love the sting of bitter cold air in my nostrils, the slight ache of it in my lungs. I love it when coworkers ask, incredulously: “You’re not skating in this heat (cold) are you?!” “Umm, yeah…” (I call it rekindling my warrior spirit. But I don’t tell them that. I don’t want them to feel bad about their pedestrian lives.)

What else? Well, there’s skitching. I’m not gonna lie. Grabbing a free ride on a truck handle is almost irresistible at times. Except that once they sped up so much I had to let go, and found myself zipping along in lanes of fast-moving traffic on 8th Avenue! And one time I grabbed hold of an idling taxi’s wheel well and it took off fast, its rough metal ripping skin along the inside knuckles of four fingers. Ewwww…

And then there’s road rash. Oh, the ignominy of falling in the street! Oh, the kindness of strangers! Oh, the weeks that bleed into months of bandages and Neosporin and itchiness! But a little road rash now and then is the price you pay for the thrill. Just hope the payment ends there, cuz some serious shit can happen. Like dooring. Once I came up alongside a cop car that was, I learned later, responding to an emergency. The officer didn’t look before opening his door really really fast and BAM! that door whacked me on the thigh so hard–I got “the bruise that ate New York” as the ER doc put it. And it was summer! I remember going to the pool in the park and getting stares, I mean–it looked like someone had whaled on me with a baseball bat!

And, of course, you can break bones. But I had to do a road race in rural Georgia for that! Some lady late for church ran into my speedskating ass and I popped up into the air like a cartoon character! Landed in a grassy ditch with a fractured tibia and fibula at the ankle bone. Learning anatomy the hard way. I don’t recommend it.

But back to New York. Please. Now we have a super-terrific bike path that goes for miles and miles. OK, I admit, I’ve been enjoying the relative safety of the path, bopping along to some tunes, checking out the river and laughing at the bumper-to-bumper action on the West Side Highway. The adrenaline  junkie of my youth wonders if I’m going soft. Yeah, maybe a little. But at least I’ll live to tell the tale.