It's rare when a group of rollerbladers put a lot of time, money and effort into crafting together a video project. We're lucky to report that our friends at Arcena did all of the above and created their latest French blade-flick called "Wolfpack". The trailers peaked our interest and we wanted to delve further into the creative process and find out from both the director, Valentin Tuil and the producer, Mourad Leuchi what it took to complete this project.
Yuri Botelho grew up in Brazil and spent more than a decade in Bilbao, Spain. He recently made the move to Barcelona and couldn't be happier in his new hometown: 'There's just too many spots!'
Kevin "Kenji" Yee can divide rollerbladers' opinions faster than he could divide yo mama's legs, and that's quick. He's recently been causing controversy with his "start loving rollerblading" and "stop hating rollerblading" videos, and slowly sneaking out the mysterious Stay Fakey concept onto the social networks. We caught up with Kenji to find out what we could about what's going on inside his head.
CJ Wellsmore has been a well known name in the blading world for a hot minute now, but only a few have gotten the chance to witness his blading prowess in person. This all changed when CJ got involved with Seba Skates, whom could provide him with the means to travel across the globe, and showcase his blading capability and to promote his yet to be released Seba CJ Wellsmore Pro Skate.
In this new Be-Mag series we'll be zooming in on the sessions that some of your favorite bladers are having right in their hometowns. Brian Bruno was more than happy to provide us with the first Hometown Session, straight out of Bloomingdale, Illinois.
Iain McLeod has been around for what seems like forever. The 29-year old ninja from California is still shredding hard and recently received a new pro-skate from Razors. He doesn't plan on stopping any time soon: 'I just still love rollerblading too much to quit'.
3 years in the making, Adrien Anne's "Anonyme" showcases the best of blading from all over Europe. Adrien spoke with us about bringing the under-represented street skills of these guys into the spotlight, and the messages "Anonyme" is trying to send.
After finishing second last year Nils Jansons stepped it up another notch at the 2013 Winterclash. The 20 year old Latvian amazed everyone in Eindhoven with some serious hammers including a jawdropping 540 alley-oop top soul. We checked in with the brand new champ for a quick interview.
I've known Jan Ebbert (former Niehues) since the day I started skating. He visited my home-skatepark with his shoulder-long hair, packed full of protectors and tried do his first grinds. With his reserved and calm personality he displayed a huge contrast to our crew and somehow he filled a gap. However, the thing i mostly like about him is the fact that he gained experience and became even more mature throughout the time - especially skating-wise! "Der Deutsche" (The German) has a fluent and steady style which comes with the fact that he knows about the things he is able to do - he might won't risk as much as others would, but it means that he will always be on the safe and steady side on skates. Moreover, Jan has the ability to only skate once in a month and still be able to land all the tricks his vocabulary consists! Obijankinobi is our padawan, so look out, he just in the beginnings!
Berlin resident and Valo rider Jojo Jacobi is one of the hardest working men in blading. Our recently appointed Editor-in-Chief of Be-Mag rolling magazine also founded the premium content Blading.info, works with Hedon Skate and created the biggest blading event worldwide the Winterclash. As if he didnt have enough on his plate, plans are well underway for the upcoming Summerclash blading festival youre not gonna want to miss, this coming June. We recently caught up with Jojo for a chat about his plans for the event.
After many passed deadlines, years of testing, research and design development the Xsjado 2.0 have finally arrived in your local skate shops. What took so long? What were the major changes? Will they make you skate as well as Stockwell and Farmer? Be-mag spoke with the Xsjado Pro team directly to find out a little bit more.
J Bah has always been linked to the music world in blading, whether it be him rappin' behind the mic, producing beats in his room or shredding sections to smooth sounds in your favourite videos. We caught up with him and asked him to give us some insight into his musical mind.
Sergio Hasselbaink is one of Amsterdams few true wonder boys. He is a unique character on many levels. His swag is absolutely impeccable. Currently, he is experiencing great success with his passion in acting. That face is infamous in the nightly scene of Amsterdam. In short, he is an unstoppable, never-resting soul that does everything with complete passion, interest, and certain sensitivity.
Gijs 'Piss' Peetsold has been an influential blader since the 90s. Sure he can shred, and inspire through blading, but his real strength lies in all the things that make blading badass off the skates. Media, events, brands, developing talented young bladers, he's had his fingers in all those pies. At his ripe age you'd expect him to take it easy, and let skating take the backseat. But no. He and his colleague (Amnon Klein) recently created an epic grindbox across the street from his work, and by doing so got half of the washed up generation of Amsterdam's bladers back on four/eight wheels. All in a day's work for this bald cat owning, single-malt sipping, cigar smoking, poker playing rollerblader. This dude is invaluable, not just for the world of Blading, but especially for those who's life he enriches with kindness, generosity and the ability to criticize everything to an early death. My man Piss.
Sven Boekhorst made a bold move back in 2007 when he organized the first Mind The Gap. His new contest featured only a couple of ramps and one big gap, but it turned out to be a success. Skaters loved getting airborne and big crowds witnessed some great blading. Five years later the flying Dutchman and his friends have cruised countless miles around Europe with their ramps in tow. Sven has no intention of stopping any time soon, but he did take some time off his busy schedule to celebrate the fifth anniversary of his brainchild with us.
Seba Skates surprised everyone back in September when they announced that they were working on an aggressive skate with CJ Wellsmore. The company seemingly came out of nowhere and picked up one of the heavy hitters in rollerblading right away. Everyone's been anxiously awaiting the release of CJ's mysterious first pro model skate ever since. We checked in with Anthony Finocchiaro for an update.
From the man who brought us Skatepile and Fiziks, blade tech guru Tom Hyser has been working with Rollerblade over the past few years to create his own hardware brand called Blank.
Wondering why you haven't heard that much about CJ Wellsmore lately? Well, he's been busy. The talent from Down Under signed a contract with a new boot sponsor and he's been secretly working on a new kind of aggressive skate ever since. Now he can finally spill the beans about this exciting project and his upcoming pro model exclusively on Be-mag.
Polish powerhouse Piotrek Combrzynski has been blading since he was 10. He went from skating nothing but vert to being a parkrat and then discovered the endless possibilities of skating street. At 24 he continues to push himself, despite some nasty injuries.