Winterclash to Poland to Austria to Germany

I have been in Europe for almost two weeks now and time has flown by so fast. The Winterclash event in Mülhausen, Germany was the best skate park event I have ever attended in my life. It was up to par with the Lausanne contest of 9 years ago and the IMYTA Paris event. There were over 1,100 people that showed up for Winterclash this year and the vibe was amazing. This is an event that everyone must attend and can happen only outside of the United States, where the lack of restrictions allow for much more fun to be had.

After Winterclash we left for Katowice, Poland with Mirek from hedonskate.com for a couple of days to visit their store and to meet with some potential manufacturers. Mirek and his friends were wonderful and treated us to a great time in both Katowice and Krakow. In fact I am thinking about buying some real estate in Poland, which is also home to some of the most beautiful girls in all of Europe.

Friday afternoon we left Katowice and headed to Vienna. Once arriving we navigated the underground and regional trains to Jon Elliott’s parents home in Stockerau. The next day Jon took us on a tour of the center of Vienna and we explored the catacombs of St. Stephen’s Cathedral seeing rooms filled with the bones of over 600,000 people who died during the black plague. Later in the day we met up with Michael Bayr from be-mag to discuss some business over dinner and then went out to some local bars.

Sunday morning I left Jon and his girlfriend in Vienna so they could spend some quality time together and made my way to Salzburg, Austria to visit our team rider Stefan Horngacher and Jojo and Leo at Ignition skate shop. Stefan picked me up from the train station and immediately took me on a tour of Salzburg where we explored the Castle that even Napoleon could not conquor. Afterwards we had some drinks and he drove me to the Ignition House in Germany to meet up with Jojo. We went out to dinner with his friend and then back to the ignition house for some quality drinking.

More to come in the few days…

Rat Tail Booth at Bittercold

Rat Tail is proud announce that we are having booth at the Bittercold Showdown. The booth will be run by our very own Jenn Kirby. Riders such as Chris Haffey, Alex Broskow, Nick Wood, Connor O’Brien and more will be in attendance and hanging out at the booth. Come by and get some cheap quality gear and pick up one of our 19 new button designs and assortment of stickers.

On the way to Winterclash with a slight delay.

So this morning myself, Jon Elliott, his girlfriend, Chris Haffey and Nick Wood left San Diego for Frankfurt, Germany to make our way to Winterclash. Unfortunetly our plane was delayed to San Francisco and we missed our flight to Frankfurt. It is now 10:17pm and we are sitting at the San Francisco airport with 46 empty tall bottles of Sapporo and Kirin beer. Pretty soon we will drink ourselves to sleep and catch a flight to Frankfurt at 6:30 am. So prepare youself Germany we are coming your way shortly…