2018 is still young, spring is on it’s way and the rollerblading season is just kicking off – yet it has already been a special year for the scene with Winterclash being stronger than ever, Them Skates seeing the light of day, Reign Liners have resurrected from the dead and optimism can be spotted all through the scene.
RamJam was no exception showing new times ahead.
Many of you may have heard about, or even partaken in, the madness of PonyCup – the yearly get-together of the cold winter-months in Denmark, attracting some of the best from all over Europe for epic times. In 2015 it was held for the 11th and final time with a great bash.
Words and photography: David McKenzie Grant
From the ashes rose The Ram Jam – ready to take on the world. As all good things it has taken a few years to mature, this year in its third installment. It feels as if it has found its place in the newly built Urban Street Zone skatepark located in the small town of Brande, dead center in the country.
As the pictures show, this is an amazing park built for blading and run by the most enthusiastic and accommodating crew, lead by Rune Lyager, the mastermind behind the whole park.
These guys, alongside the RAD-crew – now in a new configuration run by Michael Buhl, Tobias Nielsen, Christian Tolderlund and Jonas Thomsen – put on a propper show. From the shotgun box over the foam-pit, built exclusively for the Ram Jam, to the streetfood kitchen sporting homemade sausages, delicious cakes and the finest brew – they had even acquired access to a huge gymnastics hall at the local school for everyone to crash for free! And to top of the whole thing, the local watering-hole Hosekræmmeren supported the event and invited everyone down for a well deserved afterparty…
The whole thing kicked off Friday, with a free session for everyone to meet up and get acquainted with the park. When everyone had been run tired, the RAD-crew had a short talk about the events of the last year and what is to come in the next, a screening of edit’s from all the events of the past year and finished it all off premiering Shredweisers From Beyond – a flick full of good times and hard blading – make sure to pick it up if you haven’t already!
Saturday was contest time! A few years back, there where almost no juniors blading in Denmark – events had to cancel junior heats. At the Ram Jam this year, there was not just one junior group – the kids where present in such numbers they had to split it up into Junior (up to 12 years) and Young Gunz (12-16 years).
The juniors where going at it hard, and the Young Gunz weren’t playing around and would definitely have been a match for most of the seniors present.
The girls were representing, and showing the crowd that this is not only a boys game – they even had a whole crew of local young girls cheering, sporting homemade ‘Bladies Do It Better’-banners.
The old boys (30+) were the largest group, and safe to say a skatepark like this one, designed for blading, had brought out some of the guys who had taken a step back from the scene – like Bo Hundal, coming back after a decade in hiatus, and showing everyone how skatepark skating is supposed to look.
The seniors group was hard – with the likes of the forever danish champion Jacob Juul, Felix Fälling who could have been in the Young Gunz but wanted to play with the big boys and Jaro Frijn making it all the way from Amsterdam.
I won’t even try to put into words the tricks that went down – best left to the photos, and you should definitely be looking forward to the contest-edit which is in the making.
It was really refreshing attending an event full of kids on blades and with a huge support from the local community things look promising for the future in Brande and the scene as a whole. Blading might have had a few hard years – but seeing an event like this, there’s no doubt it’s on it’s way back!
Hope to see all of you at next years Ram Jam! – and I’ll let you in on a little secret, they’re only half done with the park, next year it’s gonna be twice the size… For now – the sun’s out and it’s time to hit the streets!
