EVENT REPORT | ABRISS ELEVEN

Photography & Words by Edwin Tegtmeyer, @knips.ed

This year’s Abriss felt a little different to me. In the months before the event, Abriss’ creator, Jonas, organized a few meetings with local Berlin bladers to bring together everyone’s ideas, connections, and skills, and I got to sit in on some of the planning this time. Besides helping out here and there, my main role was documenting the weekend on film. Being a little closer to the planning gave me a different perspective on what actually goes into the weekend before everyone shows up.

For the eleventh edition, Abriss also got a specific theme.

Eleven in German is elf, while Elfen means elves.

Abriss Elf(en) was born, and elves started showing up on the graphics, the shirts, and of course on some people themselves.

THURSDAY

The weekend started at Lana’s ACDNT Studio in Wedding. Sebo and I put together a black-and-white analog photo exhibition, mostly showing photos from previous Abriss events and the local Berlin scene. People started showing up around 3 pm, having some drinks in the sun, checking out our exhibition and the ThisIsSoul corner inside the studio.
At 8 PM, Jonathan led around 30 bladers out of Wedding for the Nightride. We went through the center towards Alexanderplatz, continued to Mauerpark, and made our way back to ACDNT.

People in the streets couldn’t believe their eyes when so many of us flew past, taking over the sidewalks. Seeing such a big group move through Berlin on rollerblades was already special, but my favorite moment went down on the way to Alexanderplatz: a Ford Mustang pulled up next to us at a traffic light, and a few people were skitching once it started moving. Most let go pretty quickly once it accelerated, but Ali held onto the rear wing all the way to the next light. Funny
enough, the guy on the passenger seat of the Mustang filmed Ali from within the car and sent him the clip. By the time we got back after 19 kilometres through the city, everyone was dead but happy.

FRIDAY

Friday started with an open session at Nest DIY park. Beautiful golden sunlight was coming in underneath the bridge, and people skated for a while before a best trick session kicked off on a sketchy and steep DIY spine. Local blader David took the win and received a voucher for a pair of Rollerblade skates, together with a bucket of pickles, special courtesy of our friends at Sauerkult.

Besides the best trick contest, one crazy trick quietly went down when pro scooter rider Ansgar Kröger put on some skates to stall on a beam of the bridge, probably 1.5 – 2m above the ramp.

Easily one of my favorite shots of the weekend.

As the sun went down, the skating turned into a party. Live music sets followed, from Bindy and Bley to Sean, Luciano, and Chris. Lights went up around the spot, and the mix of Berlin locals and riders from Poland, France, and other parts of Germany stuck around for drinks and music until the police eventually shut it down.

SATURDAY

Saturday was the main street competition. Because of the heat, the original plan had to change, and a new first spot was prepared in the shade of a bridge at Gleisdreieck. Just two days before the contest, Lucas (Spenle), a blader and stone cutter from Bordeaux, offered to prep some long wooden beams in epoxy resin to make them skateable.

Thanks to him, Berlin can now skate a brand new covered spot.

From there we moved to the fat rails around Bülowstraße, then the ledges at Neue
Nationalgalerie, and finally Weltkugelbrunnen.

As usual with Abriss, there was no strict format or traditional podium, but the prizes were decided more by what happened throughout the day and who stood out.

Kate Bedrata, Karol Byrski, Szymon Ziemicki, Lucas Penle, Berlin local Eddie Beller, and the rookies were among the people going the hardest, though pretty much everyone was pushing their limits. Kate landed an alley-op top acid on the big rails, while plenty of long grinds went down on the Nationalgalerie ledge.

At Weltkugelbrunnen, Till (Zimmer) put together the winning makio line along all three rails. By this point, the spot was packed, with people sitting and standing everywhere around the fountain, making it feel almost like a small arena.

Unfortunately, the mood changed very quickly when Lucas got caught in one of the rails and fell hard onto the back of his head. People rushed over to help immediately, and luckily some spectators had first-aid experience while we waited for the ambulance. Lucas was taken to a hospital and got taken care of there.

Thankfully, there were no serious injuries to his head or brain, though the wound needed 25 stitches. After that, the mood changed, and nobody really felt like continuing the contest or doing the usual award ceremony. Instead, we went to Winterfeldplatz to spend some time together.

SUNDAY

The last day was much more relaxed, at the Vogelfreiheit skatepark on Tempelhofer Feld. EDO Goods ran an embroidery workshop where people could bring their ripped skate pants and patch them up with different patches and threads, while others skated the mini ramp and enjoyed a much slower session after the previous days.

With Saturday still on everyone’s mind, Jonas and Kate went to visit Lucas at the hospital. We’d postponed the prize-giving until we knew he was okay, so the award ceremony only started once they came back with good news.

Kate Bedrata, Karol Byrski, and Szymon Ziemicki received awards for outstanding bladers of the day and got handmade elf wings to attach to their skates by local designer Harm. Other prizes went out for best trick (Till Zimmer), best rookies (Maciek Paluch & Michal Szmigiel), best setup (Michael), most supportive (Anja Beyer & Carsten), and most time on wheels (Pietro).

By Sunday evening, the awards were finally handed out; Lucas was slowly doing better, and another four days of Abriss were already over. Watching it all come together this year, one thing was obvious: none of it runs without the community.

Spots get prepared, plans change because of the heat, and people contribute with venues, music, art, prizes, and a hundred other small things throughout the weekend.

See you next year, elves.

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