Eastpak Carhartt tour part 1: Zumiez, Belgium

May 22, 2006

Written by Bart de Jong

Read 9362 times

FATBMX met up with the Eastpak/Carhartt tour in St. Niklaas, Belgium. The crew had done two stops that day, one in Kortrijk (outdoor concrete park) and the park in Sint-Niklaas. The barbeque that was planned for the night turned into an indoor grill party at the Cools brother's place in Reet (I'm not kidding, that's the name of the town they live in. It means ass in Dutch). The crew consisted of Markus Braumann, Ben Manuel, Benny Paulsen, Bruno Hoffman, Hannu and Sig Cools, Stefan Lantschner and TM's Andy Zeiss (Eastpak), Mike Emde (Carhartt), Kay Clauberg (FreedomBMX) and myself. The plan was to ride spots in both Belgium and The Netherlands for the weekend and make the best out of it. With rain showers forecasted, there was a plan A (outdoor spots) and a plan B (indoor spots). With all the good riders present and all the spots that were shredded, we're going to give you a couple of little reports this week on the riding spots we stopped at. Instead of one article with 10 photos, we'll give you a bunch more.

Zumiez. Indoor park. Belgium.

Most riding time was spent at this park. It had a good variety of ramps, was fairly empty and most and for all, it was dry inside. Being a sponsored rider has its advantages. You get to ride new parts that no one has (prototype stuff).

Ben Manuel had a pair of cranks that needed testing and it didn't take long for him to snap a piece off. That's back to the drawing board and the end of the session for Ben. Before this happened Ben made sure he did some wall taps out of a 9 feet high quarterpipe and a fufanu on an endless wall. Benny Paulsen was enjoying the square pool and worked on his pocket airs, lookbacks and 270 X-ups (or even further). Rubber arms indeed. Stefan Lantschner impressed with sweet inverts, tire slides and whips to his willing all over the park. 13 years old Bruno was messing around in the mini ramp doing turndowns over the hip and to fakie. Not too many 13 year old kids can say they can do that with the same style as Bruno can.

Braumann has skills to pay the bills and adapted it all over the park. The Cools brothers are non-stop. They see different lines, turn to the left or to the right, and are a pleasure to watch ride. Hannu had a big line in mind but after multiple attempts to pull the quarter-wallride-manuel-quarter transfer he had to give up as the park got too crowded and he needed to pedal across the entire park to get the speed he needed. Even the TM's got to ride at Zumiez and enjoyed a healthy session.

Some cranks were arranged for Ben Manuel so he could get his bike back in shape. Thanks to everyone involved for fixing that. Nice one. We packed up the Eastpak pick-up truck, the Carhartt van and the Cools brothers' giant Renault White Van and continued on to the next spot. With cloudy and rainy weather we opted for the Mekert indoor spot in Middelburg, The Netherlands. The Cools brothers picked up some French hitchhikers but more on that tomorrow..........

B