DAY 1: Planning a roadtrip is not that hard anymore, take a navigation system (our favourite is TOMTOM) and type the address of the spot you want to go to and everything is ready...I wish it was that simple but after eating at Frietzaak Le Patat it was time to go to The Promise in Heerlen, NL. 
It's only 70 Mls so after an hour we were riding the park with some locals and hung out with two old friends Danny and Ron. The Promise had some hard times to survive but right now it seems okay and they are even rebuilding one side of the park. It was a good warm up for Dennis cause he was out for a long time with 2 knee and 1 shoulder surgery. Vladdie did some sick gap to manuals, Pim some 360 tailwhips and Riccardo showed his frontbrake skills. Michael managed to find a nice line to manual down the small side of some steps and after some hours it was time to hit the road to our hotel. 
That was a major setback, we tried to book a room in a Formula 1 hotel but the guy said it was fully booked! We all thought it was a good joke but he was serious and he gave us some phone numbers of other hotels. They were all booked or too expensive so we drove back home! Yes, good beginning of a roadtrip, being home after 5 hours. We dropped our stuff at Casa Keunen and walked to the bar, we had a good time even when we were only 5 minutes from home. 
DAY 2: Waking up from a night in Aarle-Rixtel is always hard but we were on the road again at 12 Pm heading for Cologne, Germany. We went to the WeThePeople headquaters to meet Rob Harrison to ask for the key from the small park they built with some people. This is a nice setup, small but interesting to ride and we were shredding all day with locals Jan Heinen and Rob himself. Lots of local people were calling but no one showed up, was our "Gangmember" status scaring them or was it the M16 hahaha. 
After our session we went to the new People's Store only 10 minutes away and met with Janosh Ritter the guy who runs the shop. This shop is supernice and well worth to visit, lots of parts/bikes/clothes and really big. If you are hungry go to the Pizza place on the other side of the road, good and cheap pizza, thanks for the tip Janosh and for the People's t-shirts! 
It was cold outside so we were heading to the warm "Abentuhrhalle", "Kalk", "SUZUKI park" or whatever they call it but being open till midnight it was nice to have an aftersession in a warm park. A lot of skatekids with helmets, some inline walkers and BMX locals were hitting the ramps followed by the Paul's Boutique Gangmembers. Vladdie did some manual to reverts to fakies, Pim hit the wall real high and threw in some 360 whips etc. Michael loved the curved wallride and Riccardo still loved his frontbrake tricks. 
Sleeping at Rob's park was planned that night but first it was time to drink ourselves warm. I brought my shaver and told the Gangmembers to do whatever they wanted to do with my hair. Of course they don't want to shave their coach's head with one beer in the hand and one M16 in the other but Pim gave it a try and made a nice "model" out of it, I looked like a Pastor for the rest of the tour! 
We heard there was a "Hardcore/Punk" concert at the Kolbhalle so we gave it a try, telling the doorman that were the next band called 'The Fistfucking Pigs From Hell' didn't impress him but gave us a discount on the entry fee. Pim was drinking CocaCola Lite (Jim Beam/Coke) and only saw the first band and fell asleep even when the singer only was wearing a wrestling mask and underpants! Peter and Small were the only locals and later on Peter was on stage playing in the headliner band getting harressed by the coach. 
Walking back from the bar is not my hobby so Pim,Vladdie,Michael and me took a taxi to the WTP headquarters finding out the gate was closed. It took us an hour to climb the gate and we waited for Dennis and Riccardo to film how they were going to handle the closed gate. They arrived, pushed the gate and the gate was open! Yes we pushed the wrong site of the gate, it was hilarious. 
Day 3: After a cold but dry night we took our stuff to check out the next indoor spot in Grevenbroich called the Abflughalle. We hooked up with our Mistery guest BH Bruno Hoffman who was in the Abflughalle for the first time. This 14 year old kid is a real talent and was jumping the new big sets in no time. Pim was the only one of the team to do the big set and pulled a very nice frontflip on the second double, might be the first one on this new line. Dennis was back on track and very happy to ride trails again after a long injury time, he was advised by the coach to take it easy and this time he did after a nice session. 
Bruno was afraid that wearing a Paul's Boutique BMX shirt was going to be a problem with his 'boss' Janosh but I was wearing a People's shirt so he was out of troubles. This guy is not riding trails on a regular basis but hope he is going to do some more next year, he rips. Vladdie clicked some nice turndowns and Michael was mr Style all the way. 
After 350 mls we were back at Paul's Boutique again. We had a good time in those 4 Indoor places and thank everyone for their hospitallity. Next tour will be earlier in the year and we are going to have more mistery guests. PDJ
Thanks to Rob at WTP, Bruno H, Gangmembers and the sponsors of this years tour:
EASTPAK
VANS
PROTEC
SNAFU
FATBMX
Paul's Boutique BMX
After doing a BMX 'zine for ten years (1987 - 1996) FATBMX made it on the internet. The year was 1998. Here to stay.