Ultimate Paris Experience (UPE) 19-21
april 2002, by Peter Nikkel.
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| Finally, rolling
in Paris! |
This trip to Paris was organized by Skate-A-Round
for the professional skate scene. Inline skate instructors, skate shop owners, night skate
organizers, skate magazines and other inline skate freaks from both Holland and Belgium
were present. A unique opportunity to exchange experiences and knowledge!
The program was loaded with special clinics of all disciplines on inline skates:
night skating, agressive, inline downhill, slalom, roller-basketball, roller-soccer and
roller-dance. |
Full report: (click on thumbnail images for
enlargements)
Note about the video's: If
you're not able to playback the AVI-files (error downloading codec), try the links to the MPEG version's. These files can be bigger,
however :-(
Inline shopping
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| First tour in
Paris. |
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| Skate shop Ilios
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After checking in at the hotels near Place de le Bastille we started off with a
short skate to Roller Shop Ilios (4, alleé Vivaldi). UPE-members got a 10% discount! So
credit cards were heavily used.
I bought a long frame (five wheel) for my K2 MOD 10 which was 100 Euros cheaper
than in Holland! So it's worth a visit. |
Rollerparc Avenue
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| The entrance of
Rollerparc Avenue |
Saturday we went to Rollerparc Avenue, a
big indoor skate hall. An excellent oportunity to practice your skills on ramps and half
pipes. (see also my report from 1999).
Skate-a-Round had found some French skaters who wanted to compete against the UPE-team in
a rollerbasketball match. This was very new in Paris :-) Erik Tange and Joost Hartman
explained the rules. (see also www.dribbl.nl). Later
that day Ginio Elstak led a match of Roller-soccer and for those wanting to learn how to
dance on skates, Ayke van Os gave instructions in his dance clinic. |
Roller-dance and Roller-soccer.
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| Erik making a
sliding. |
Ball fight. |
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| Talk with the enthousiastic
boss of Rollerparc. |
Marleen and Jos. |
Remon with his skate-cam. |
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| A small terace next to the
ramps. |
Cathelijne. |
Peter and Anneke.. |
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Night skating and party.
| Back downdown we had dinner at El ChiHuaHua a Mexcan restaurant en
party place where one doesn't mind if you enter on skates. After dinner there were three
special UPE skates: light, intermediate and extreme. The extreme tour was led by three
French skaters. A very nice ride, with fast stages across the side walks and streets, some
downhills and beautifull scenery. I gues it was a 25 to 30km skate). The three groups
rejoined at El ChiHuaHua for a party night :-) |
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| Dinner at El ChiHuaHua |
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| Having fun :-), :-) |
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| preparing for the skate. |
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| Extreme group. |
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| Parc de la Vilette. |
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| Ready for downhill. |
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| Ramp |
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| Passing the Louvre. |
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| Party-time at El ChiHuaHua |
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| Erik after 9 Corona's :-) |
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| Russian invasion? |
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| Hans, Kirsten and me. |
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Downhill practice and other techniques.
We ended this UPE with slalom, doublepush and downhill clinics by
Erik Tange and Bob Maas at Trocadero with a view at the Eifel tower. |
This was a great weekend on wheels! Thanks to everyone for the fun we had! :-)
To finish this report a funny blooper:
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