Sch3lp’s Blog

Alright, this is going to be like a HUGE update.
It’s going to be SO huge, it’s going to make my other “HUGE” update seem like the understatement of the year.
I’ve been skating a LOT recently. Whatever this post is going to contain in the end, I bet like, 9/10 things are skate-related.

Anyway here we go:
[b]Snowboarding[/b]
I went snowboarding in Italy from the 28th of march ’til the 6th of April. After last year’s super-trip, it was going to be really hard to make it even better, let alone just have the same fun we had back then. It was a lot less fun, but still lots of fun nonetheless. When we arrived I felt like coming home after a long absence, after all it had been 3 or 4 years since we last went to Folgarida. The snow was good (but could’ve been better), weather was good (but could’ve been better). I did learn a couple of new tricks on our last day on the slopes (like 360, and a little bit of tail-riding), but others (Michael) were better at it, and he just keeps on rubbing it in.
Pictures

Videos (playlist on YouTube)

[b]Next item: ConeCrazy[/b]
ConeCrazy is doing great.
We’ve had our couple of random sessions:
For example Skating in Kapermolen Park in Hasselt

Or Skating at “Trone” in Brussels

Or Skating at “Fitopia” in Antwerp (hosted by lovely Vicky)

We’ve also done a couple of demonstrations:
Skate-day in Bommershoven

At the 6hrs Marathon of Diepenbeek

And recently at the Tofsportdag in Leuven

We also finalized our course of 10 lessons (each lasting 2 hours) for the Lommel-Inline skate-club (and we’re likely to start another course in September):

We went to a workshop by Naomi Grigg in Ghent, organized by Rollerman:

Lots of people were cheering when I competed in the IFSA World Championship 2008 Brussels, as the only belgian that was competing in Freestyle Slalom (I ended up being 18th of 23 slalom-skaters, which is good considering their technical level) :

On 8 december there’s the yearly skate happening in Bommershoven, organised by BSA (Lou Cuppens).
Aside from competing in the amateur inlinehockey tournament, we are doing a skate demo on this skate happening as well. Spectacular shows are guaranteed for the visitors and everyone is welcome.
Here’s the schedule (in dutch).
And here’s the route description.

The day after, the 9th, we’re planning a trip to Snowworld (Landgraaf) with a bunch of inline skaters, to go snowboarding or skiing (whatever you prefer). Contact me if you wanna join us.

Yesterday I got back from my third and final snowboarding trip of this year.
My work organizes a shortski trip each year to Wörgl, Austria, and this year wasn’t an exception.

As usual it was great fun, snow conditions weren’t any different from my other vacation in Austria. And the weather was excellent, except for the first day, on which we had some annoying fog.

I took some photo’s, which have been made publically available for your viewing pleasure at my picasa web albums.
Click here for direct link.

Now that the snowboarding season’s over for me, I can focus more on Kendo and inline skating.
Closest events for those activities are the freestyle slalom session in Zolder this Sunday (expect pics), and my 1st Kyu exam somewhere in June.

Last saturday night we got back from snowboarding for one week in Zell Am Ziller, Austria.
We had a very good time, mostly in Luigi’s Turbo Bar where the après-ski would happen.
Sadly, once again, the snow was _far_ from ideal.
There were some tricky parts where you had a mixture of bumps of snow and ice spots, which made for some skilled boarding.

The pictures of our trip can be found on my Picasa Web Albums, which I upgraded so I have 6 gigabytes of space now \o/

Some movies will be uploaded to YouTube, but I still have to encode/resize some of them, and once I get my hands on Geoffrey’s camera, I can upload those as well.

Friday next week, I’ll be leaving on my final snowboarding trip of this year, 3 days to Wörgl, Austria (not far from Zell am Ziller).

Tomorrow I’ll be leaving on my first (of three) snowboard-trips of 2007.
I’ll be tagging along with a friend of mine and his sister and her family.
We’re staying in a chalet in Pra-Loup, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, France.
Duration: a week, we get back on the 13th of January.
As usual, you can expect an update + photo’s when I get back.

Only thing left now is NOT break anything

Oh, and you can check the webcams of the ski-resort right here.

Update: Photo’s here. We had a good time, eventhough the snow was not ideal. (but probably still better than in some other ski-resorts) On to the next! (19-25 februari)

So I’ve been back for a week now from our snowboarding trip to Folgarida, Italy.
We had good weather, first 3 days sun was shining a lot and almost no clouds. Then we had 2 days of snow and fog, but that went away and the sun came through once again.
The snow was good as well. Most of the days, we waited on the highest point in a bar until the snowcats came up the hill and had just plowed the slopes. Needless to say, this caused for an exhiliarating experience. The speed, the effortless turns, the sound of the snow as you board over it, all those feelings and memories will forever be mine.
On one of the days when it was snowing and there was a little fog, we managed to go down the hill on the moment when the snowcats were coming up the hill. The group of 7 people, together with the red snowcats with their orange blinking lights in the dark snowy mountains, surrounded by trees was a great photo opportunity…I came to realize afterwards… I hate myself for not thinking about getting out my camera at the right time. And it sucks I can’t share it with you guys.

As for after-snowboarding activities, we had 2 (two) “borrel-parties” (borrel = schnapps) this year. The schnapps flowed wealthily among our group of boarders. It was consumed with a ritual in which the consumer held the schnapps cup between it’s thumb and pinky finger, put the other thumb against its forehead, lifted only but the pinky finger on that hand, then there’s only two things left: yell as loud as you can “TALIBANAAAAAAAAAAN!” and drink the schnapps in one gulp. This ritual that I speak of is demonstrated here.

Overall it’s been really great, I really didn’t want to leave that place, but as they say here in Belgium: “Beautiful songs never last long”. Sadly enough, this time wasn’t an exception.

While I was there I made some pictures. You can find them along with the pictures of Tim and Kristof in the pictures (duh).
There were also a “couple” *ahem* movies made, and if I find some space to put them on I’ll post links here.

Folgarida, I miss you already.
Also, a big shout-out to our friends from Free-Out Travel, who were also present this year in Folgarida. Thanks for the party!

Hurray hurray, I’m going on a frickin’ holiday!
Lemme just say this: \o/ WOO! \o/
And it’s about time. Let’s hope I don’t sprain my ligaments on the first day, like I did last time when I went on a snowboard vacation.
Some info…
Location: Folgarida, Italy.
Company: just friends (about 17 of them).
Duration: 31/03/2006 (that’s today) until 09/04/2006.
You may expect pictures of the trip to find themselves on the internets when I get back.