Today I made the trip from Southsea to Kortrijk in Belgium via the Eurostar out of St.Pancras, London. I arranged with contest organiser, Barre Neirynck to be picked up in Lille, France which was just hour and half from London. Dez Maarsen kindly picked me up and drove me direct to the event.

Barre Neirynck is one of the riders that always gives me feedback on the contest repos, so I thought hey why not fire out a repo today when I get back to the hotel, even though I was only at the contest for a maximum of three hours I felt like you the reader at home might be curious about this event.

Kortrijk is a Belgian city and municipality in the Flemish province of West Flanders. It is the capital and largest city of the judicial and administrative arrondissement of Kortrijk. It’s just a thirty minute drive from Lille, France and only one and half hours from London. So the travel time was pretty quick, stoked!

The first thing I notice after we arrive is of course the floor, what does every flatlander check right? Stone floor, I love this kind of floor, fast and with a decent mop this is perfectly smooth and ready to shred without any bouncing around. The floor is big enough for four riders to rid eat same time, so practise time was not a problem and there are already a lot of riders here. Today I saw the likes of Matthias Dandois, Benjamin Hudson, Masato Ito, Yohei Uchino, The Katagiri brothers, Barre of course, Dub, Gino Stuart, Terry Adams, Varo Hernandez and many more. There are easily already 20 pros here and tomorrow there are more scheduled to arrive.

I was seriously impressed with the feel of the event, big projector showcasing the action above the flatland area, there is also a balcony area around the arena to watch the event for the spectators. There will be a livestream also with Dez Maarsen hosting. I will post the video link to that tomorrow morning with the scheduled times for all to tune in. It’s going to be a heavy contest! I took a few shots around the arena to give a feel of the event.

All the riders were getting used to the floor, mostly a one in one out kind of deal. Yohei Uchino was killing tonight, and when I spot this photo of the forwards backyard, I was thinking I knew the hideout. I was wrong… pulling out opposite side with a 360 bar spin for good measure. So good!

I had a quick chat with Dub, didn’t really get much chance in Cologne. Dub was blasting out the tunes for the riders and providing the good vibes, he was saying about how much he loved Belgium and was having a blast hanging out with Barre. You could feel the relaxed vibe as you arrive in the arena, really nice to see Barre’s work come to life here. I had the spur of the moment idea to bust out a quick podcast, something I will now call the mini podcast where he can tell you about the event and all the details. Hope you enjoyed the repo, I need to go and grab some food and get this mini podcast up.

I’m out….