Praha Gizmania Street Jam 2015
Balth’s birthday was on the June 20th which was also the day of the Praha street jam organized by Gizmania. This was Jules’ first time in Czech Republic. Gizmania is the most famous scooter shop out there and it’s held by Pavel and Jakub, a long time friend of Balthazar. So we were down to go there for a discovery of the streets!
Highlights of the trip
- typical Czech Dish called Gulash
- Stalingrad plaza rented by Gizmania
- Gizmania skatepark and meeting Jakub and Pavel again
We came quite late in Praha and hopefully our homie Jakub had rang the classic Troja Youth Hostel where French ID team spent its summer back in 2008. Back in the days, the bridge to Troja was a wood bridge that you could cross with the risk of being ran over by a train and the highway was under construction so the roof looked like a bank spot. Now everything is damn modern. Petr Machaszek wins the bunny hop contest with ease and poor Ruben Rodriguez gets the victory he wanted so much stolen again. Then a best trick occurs again on the small rail on the 8 stairs which gets slayed by Richard Zelinka with some classic backlip combos. Jules attempts overicepick on the rail, Ruben goes uprail to barspin but it is not enough to bear Czech rider Mischa wins the contest with many landed tricks but most of all a gnarly 270 backlip. Rain was about to ruin all the fun but we got lucky and the jam stops pretty early. Pavel drives us back to Gizmania and we head to a spot we discovered the day before while going out to get dinner. There’s a small rusty rail with a sketchy and narrow run up… This spot is so sketchy and painful to ride that Jules’s like “ok Balth, you get the clip”. Happy birthday BigBalth because while going full speed to go up the rail with a crook grind, Balth eats the dirt once… “not going to abandon this”… tries again to land a crook to decade and falls on the rail once more. This is too much blood for a birthday cake so we get back to Stalingrad Plaza for a golden hour session where we get Jules’ a gnarly powerslide photo and a full speed line ending with a nice rail.
Saturday night is not a big party… exhausted is the true word. On Sunday, we get back to Stalingrad to film some nice grind hammers from Balth. Jules is keen on visiting City Center so we head out there and witness a Czech pop concert at Matoni Coktej Festival… on the main place. This is basically a non alcoholic cocktail party and it was quite fun. Monday session is a rainy one but Balth’s old time friend Jakub Wolf is back from a marriage he attended during the week end with his wife Lutfia. And he brought us some food remains which is the best way to start a session at Gizmania’s skatepark which is such a lovely place to ride. Jules sends it on the wallride after drinking his cup of coffee – black as we love it. Then we head out to the Praha stadium where there’s a little wallride next to Mc Donalds. But it starts raining and we get to the cover ledge right next to the parking lot. That ledge is high and has rails on top of both edges which makes it a hard one to grind. Jakub hits a 50-50 and ends up with some really funny bails. Balth struggles to stay on the ledge with a Fs feeble. We get a funny clip where Hakub pushes Balth on the outer side to help him land the grind… a bit more fight and the FS feeble Fs board 360 gets on tape. We end the session at gizmania to get some funbox clips and before going back to the airport. Another good weekend spent in the capital of Czech Republic with a warm welcome from the Gizmania crew.