Biography / Interview

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Trip review

*Solo Spring Tour 2006*

I've been riding ramps for 17 years now and I started competing as a professional in 1994. In all those years, I've been extremely lucky and only suffered a few minor injuries. Eventually everyone's luck runs out, though, and my number was up last September, when I went to a contest in Portugal and blew out my left knee.

This was my first serious injury and it took me out for almost six months. Until then, the longest I was off my bike must have been under a month, so it was extremely difficult for me to deal with this unfamiliar situation. The complete lack of physical exercise drove me nuts at times and my girlfriend actually feared that I might be loosing my mind.

When I finally got back on my bike again in March, I decided to celebrate the occasion with a little train trip through Germany in order to give my prototype frame "Impact" a good test run and to catch up with some friends that I haven't seen in a while.

My first stop was the "Skater's Palace" in Muenster. The park is pretty decent and features a fun hip into a bowl corner. They also have a bike night in Mondays, which is cool. This is where I met up with Alex Reinke and Miki Krsteski. Alex has been a good friend since I first started riding and we used to compete against each other in the early 90s. I remember learning peg grinds on flat rails with him in the summer of 1992. Miki hasn't been around as long as Axel, but he's definitely a cool cat, too, plus he let me crash on his floor that night. Thanks!

Hamburg's "I-Punkt Skateland" was next on the agenda. I was an I-Punkt local for more than ten years, so it was good to come back for a session. My long-time friend Christoph Huber was in da house and shredded as usual. The first time I met Christoph must have been at a flatland session in 1991. Since then I've seen him compete at flatland contests, win Amateur Street at the Worlds in Cologne in 1994, establish Mutation Clothing and suffer two torn ACLs back-to-back. Most recently he has started his own distribution and bike company, all while remaining an important backbone to the scene in Hamburg.

Sas Kaykha was also there that night and he's always good to have around for a session, as he's a ball of energy and a source for pure entertainment. I've only known Sas for a couple of months, but since then he has done nothing but amaze me. He's an awesome all-out bike rider and a super cool guy, which is why we decided to add him to the KHE flow team. You'll most definitely hear a lot more from him in the near future!

As I grew up only 45 minutes outside of Hamburg, I visited my parents for two days, before Christoph and Sas picked me up for the AprilApril comp in Halle. I had a smashed thumb and didn't feel quite ready to compete yet, so I just watched the contest from the sidelines and drank some beers with Pierre Hinze from Kassel, another new addition to the KHE flow team. Pierre is a brakeless young shredder and has a seemingly bottomless bag of tricks. I must have filmed 15 solid clips of him that day. Hopefully a clip of him will be up on this website in a couple of days, so you guys can get an idea of how good he really is.

Next stop on my itinerary was the Mellowpark in Berlin, where I hung out with Robert Kroening for a few days. As it was raining pretty much the whole time all I was there, we mostly rode this place called the "Ghetto Hall", which is basically a bunch of ramps made out of scrap wood that Robert and his friend put up in some abandoned building. We also rode the new indoor park at "Warschauer Strasse", which I think is awesome and when you're in Berlin you should definitely check it out (I believe they only allow bikes on Tuesday nights, though). It has a huge street course with some unique obstacles and a fun bowl in another room, which I fell in love with. Thanks to the Mellowpark for hooking me up with a bed. Berlin is always worth a trip!

After Berlin I went home to Cologne for a day or two, because I had to take care of some things, but soon enough I was back on the road to Hannover for the Team Planlos Jam, and this time Basti Gross was travelling with me. Basti has been on KHE for a couple of years now and he absolutely kills it! I hadn't met him before, but he blew me away immediately with his big tricks. When we first got to the Yard Skatepark he fired out a huge Fufanu second try. Unfortunately he knocked out his front teeth about 30 minutes after we set foot into the park and had to go to the hospital to get stitches and stuff. Bummer!

Well, and there you have it: the Solo Spring Tour 2006. Even though the weather could have better (it rained pretty much every day), I got to ride a bunch, met a lot of old friends and even made some new ones. Everyone seemed to be into my new prototype, which made me happy. The German scene seems to be alive and kicking, which was also good to see. Everywhere I went had a good amount of riders and it seems like pretty much every indoor park has a bike-night now.

Anyhow, I'm signing off now. Take it e-z and see you soon at a spot near you!

Markus Wilke