Our last session which took place in Sweden was pretty international. We had people from 11 different countries joining the rollTogether Sweden journey.

This time we will come up with a review which is not written by one of the organizers, but instead by two of the attendees. Maxence Valade from Montreal (Canada) and Ewan Cohen from Bristol (England) has sent us their thoughts and impressions about their trip to Sweden and the rollTogether itself. This might make the article even more authentic. Keep on reading.

Maxence Valade's view on the rollTogether #14:
In the middle of my trip to France, I managed to attend rollTogether #14, held on June 5th in Eskilstuna, Sweden. I had the opportunity of staying there for 6 days with the rollTogether crew. I was excited to go to Sweden because I heard that Stockholm has been voted the greenest city of Europe in 2009.
While I was in Stockholm, I observed that people were trying to fit the cookie-cutter perfection mold, for instance.

I only saw one bum. This fictive excellence can be disturbing when you do not fit in, when you are different. From what I understood, physical appearances are something they value. The publicity made for the Royal Wedding also demonstrates this. Royalty seems important for the society in Sweden. Hopefully Princess Victoria will enjoy her married life with fitness trainer Daniel Westling.

The skaters were really kind with me and skating with them was a pure pleasure. Kenth Ulvedal was nice enough to let 10 people sleep in his 1 room appartment and to guide us around the city. One night, he brought us to a small mountain where we could see Stockholm, the scenery was wonderful. The fact that the sun goes down at 10:30 P.M. and rises around 3:00 A.M. made it unique.

The session took place at the ZeroOneSix skate park that has everything a rollerblader needs to play on. The owners were awesome with everyone even letting some of the skaters sleep in the skatepark. I was lucky enough to meet the international champion of the world of Sweden, Fredrik Andersson, a really nice and relaxed guy who seems influential for all local kids. At the session, young gun Nils Jansons was skating like a maniac, landing tons of tricks, Maik Lojewski and Roland Wander were using their German abilities to flow around the park. Joachim Wall skated well the whole session and totally deserved his rookie of the day title. Even though, the heat made the skate park very slippery this did not stop anyone from having fun. Everything was perfect and we ended the night chilling in the parking lot and playing ping-pong.

The peak of my trip was on my last night in Sweden when Germans met Polish people. It was really funny to see two totally different ways of thinking. After grabbing some “keep rolling Hedon skate” rolling papers we headed back to our cabin and we lost Roland who came back an hour later with a stolen bike laughing like only he can, I took the train and my trip was over.

I probably did not stay long enough and did not visit enough things outside of skate parks to really get to understand the people from this country. Talking with Fredrik made me believe that maybe only the people from Stockholm that are continuously stressed and living this stereotypical life I would never want to live. Sweden really looks like Canada with all the forests, nature and beautiful women.

Finally, Olli told me a rollTogether session was going to take place in Montreal in the future, I am writing this here to make sure he does not forget about this! I would like to thank Khent and the ZeroOneSix owners for lodging us as well as Olli and the rollTogether crew for organizing this. Looking forward of seeing the rollTogether crew in Montreal soon!

Negative Note: A Be-Mag bag that contained about a thousand Euros was stolen. rollTogether is organized for the love of rollerblading and this destroys part of the confidence and respect the rollTogether crew has for the rollerblading community. rollTogethers will certainly happen again but the guy who stole this money should be ashamed of stealing from his own family.

Click here for the photo gallery.

 

Ewan Cohen's view on the rollTogether #14:
Like many, the first address typed into my web browser, like a religion is be-mag.com and rollernews.com every time. It was probably one random late night session as it always is that I came across the first promo edit for rollTogether #14. The skatepark had so much to offer, and even though I didn't know how I was gonna even gonna do it, I was hooked on being there. The flight wasn't the most amazing, and we spent our first night trying to get to sleep in a corner of a MCDonalds in Stockholm, but i wouldn't change having made the decision to go for anything. The skatepark was alot more impressive actually being there, and although suffering from severe sleep deprivation we were juiced to have finally made it.

I'd heard the local scene was quite strong but it was nothing like what i'd expected. Fredrik Andersson absolutely blew me away. I didn't think a 540 true alley-oop fish could ever have been made to look so easy. The event as a whole has been the highlight of my year so far. Not only did it do exactly what it said on the tin, but far surpassed what i had originally been expecting. Just an overall Great atmosphere, great mix of people and amazing level of skating.

One thing that really made an impression on me though was the generosity of the owner. As soon as we got there we were made to feel so at home, i feel so indebted to him for providing us with breakfast every day and obviously a place to stay at the skatepark, it perfected my whole experience. I will definitely be paying ZeroOneSix a visit again. As for rollTogether and all the guys who made it happen and hopefully continue to do so, get used to my face, cause you'll be seeing alot more of me.

Klick here for the photo gallery.