Route One Does Bulgaria. Part 3

After the best nights kip I’d had all week, we awoke on Day 5 to find it had banged it down all night. I felt like crying, today was the day that we were due to visit the spot that I was looking forward to most of all – an abandoned duck pond with transitions of all sizes and surely many photo opportunities for all on the trip.
As we sat and I avoided another peculiar Euro breakfast, the rain subsided and the decision was made to drive into the centre of Haskovo to see if a tree surrounded marble monument was water free and to kill some time, hoping the pond’s surface would dry out. Most of the guys weren’t feeling the spot, but Lynskey stepped up and quickly knocked out a nollie nose manual and flipped into one as well on either side of the monument, carefully riding out into a bank that left no room for error of judgement.
By this time we figured it was time to give the Duck pond a try. Situated in Dimtirovgrad, this spot was amazing and our timing was just right. We arrived to find the concrete just about dry and had ten minutes skating before the heavens opened. Luckily in this time Manhead managed to get a trick on a wall that only Jerry Hsu had managed to get to the top of before, and I managed to sketchily ride away from an iceplant fakie on a much smaller wall. I was happy to get my trick but gutted to be rained out. The place was ridiculous and we could have easily spent four or five hours there had the weather permitted.


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We hastily jumped in the van and Alex, our guide, suggested we visit the town of Plovdiv as it was on the way back to Sofia and he had some friends there that might know a few spots that could be dry and he knew of a great restaurant where we could sit out the rain, should it come to that.
Bulgarian cuisine is interesting to say the least. They seem to love their veal and odd cheese and it owes a lot to French gastronomy from the pre-communist colonial times. This led to me betting 10 Leva (local currency – about £4.00) that Avid couldn’t eat a whole plate of egg-coated frog’s legs or boiled chicken hearts and lungs. He opted for the former and polished them off quickly and so won the cash – even if he didn’t stop complaining of feeling ill for the next two days. We sat and debated the virtues of British processed food whilst Avid started to go a shade of green and went hoping mad (I thank you!) over all the frog references we made.


As the afternoon progressed, the weather took a turn for the better and we decided to see if we could salvage what was left of the day by having a look at some of the spots on offer. A set of 13 stairs was found and Makepeace stepped up to try and skate the beast. To find out what happened, guess what – yeah, it’s gonna be in Sidewalk! Lets just say that after 2 heel bruises, a badly cut big toe and a badly grazed back, he was victorious, even if he spent the rest of the trip urinating blood. Think on kids, getting gnarly looks cool but your body won’t thank you for it…


With only an hour or so before dark and having been inspired by Makepeace’s determination, Amir decided it was his time to get some. Alex led us to a perfect but huge 15 stair outside a small yet exclusive looking shopping centre. Just as all the flashes and lighting were set up, it looked as though our luck was out as a security guard showed up, only for him to happily stand and watch as the Amir Williams carcass toss began… Amir has my utmost respect. Not only is he a thoroughly nice and self-depreciating guy, he also has a hell of a lot of bottle. Over 30 times he threw himself down those stairs, dislocating his finger, severely bruising his right arm, as well as the right side of his hip and banging his head on more than one occasion (including kneeing himself in the teeth), yet he kept on getting back up and running to the top, desperate for another go to tame those stairs. He would surely have been successful too had it not been for a change of security, with the new guard kicking us out, trying to get physical with Amir and then having the audacity to call the police as we walked away.
We legged it to a nearby café and hid whilst Alex grabbed the van. He pulled up out front, we jumped in with no time to finish our drinks (bought not to look suspicious) and sped to the motorway to get back to Sofia. Plovdiv – great spots but watch out for the security!



We got back to Sofia and I went straight to bed, the thought of coming too close to getting beaten up by some huge, skin headed Bulgarian police had taken it out of me.
I awoke to find all the guys in quite a state. Not good, as we had to be out of the hostel within the hour. I slowly got different stories from each of the guys as to what had happened on our return to Sofia. Lets just say it involved Sam Bruce lying on a bar, having Vodka poured down her throat by an overly amorous bartender and Sidewalks Ryan Gray giving the hostel’s toilet a traditional Heckmondwike pebble dashing!


As everyone gathered their things together, Alex arrived and we loaded our luggage into his van. We had a good seven hours to kill before we needed to be at the airport so he kept our gear safe whilst we went to NDK one last time to film and photograph any last tricks that people wanted. A good deal went down but as the photos are due to be used in the Sidewalk article, you’ll have to wait and see what the guys got. Some of it wa’ daft I tell thi!
As five o’clock approached, tricks were rushed out. Some were landed, some not. Then all that was left to do was get a quick team photo in front of NDK’s impressive fountains, jump in the mini bus and get to the airport. We checked in, got a coffee and a hotdog and sat there, waiting to get into that big metal bird.


And that is where this story ends. It’s now 8.43pm British time; the Route One skate team are all fast asleep around me and by my calculations we are probably somewhere over the Netherlands.
Take my advice: Visit Bulgaria, it’s a wonderful country and has shed loads of amazing stuff to skate, you certainly won’t regret it. And if you do go, get to that duck pond – it’s bloody ace!


In a bit…

Alex Winstanley (R1 team manager – of sorts).

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Route One Does Bulgaria. Part 2

Day 2, and we awoke to glorious sunshine. 2008 and the weather men still can’t get it right as, according to Google, it should have been pissing it down. Still, not gonna complain eh?
After finally getting everyone up and about we made our way over to NDK once again and spent the entire day there. Lines were filmed and photos were shot. The highlight of this fine afternoon must go to Andrew Makepeace who, after battling for over an hour, rode away from a banger of a trick on the big bank with a style reminiscent of Gino Ianucci. I’d like to tell you more but the trick hounds amongst you will have to wait until the sequence appears in Sidewalk magazine. Trust me, it’s worth the wait!
The rest of the day was spent either skating, filming or purchasing endless drinks due to the sweltering sun, leaving me with pockets full of Bulgarian receipts – well, you’ve gotta keep the finance folks happy!
As night fell Alex took us to his city centre flat/office/warehouse and we sat conversing into the early hours whilst watching various videos that Virus had released, along with showing the Bulgarian guys some of our lads most recent stuff. After a quick post midnight call at the very traditionally Bulgarian KFC (that was sarcasm by the way) we retired to our beds and quickly all dropped off to sleep.


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Yep, you’ve guessed it – Day 3 and we’re back at NDK. The place is like a magnet, drawing us in coz it is just that good. This time however we actually managed to venture away from it’s perfect spots to visit what remains of Sofia’s skate park. You may well recognise the monument that sits guard over the 10 year old metal vert ramp from our tour T-Shirts (available to buy from Routeone.co.uk if you would like one!).


On first inspection this place appeared to have little to offer, but two hours later we walked away with three banging tricks, one from Avid and two from Manhead. Sadly, once again to find out what these tricks were you will have to wait until the photos appear in Sidewalk! Needless to say, these tricks will surely leave you impresses viewed in a photographic format but seeing them live was special. Manhead landed his vert hammer 3 times in a row on a ramp that had a three inch gap between the coping and the platform, (major hang-up potential) and Avid fought through some truly awful slams to ride away from perhaps the gnarliest trick he has landed to date. If you’ve seen the guy skate then you know that’s saying something!

Day 4 and after a quiet night we were up early to jump into the Virus Mini bus to venture out of Sofia onto the motorways for a three hour drive to visit the first concrete skate park in Bulgaria in a small town by the name of Haskovo. This day was by far the hottest yet and the three hour drive soon turned into five due to the very regular stops for drinks and ice creams. Yep, you read it correctly – Seven gnarly buggers they might be but you just can’t beat an ice-lolly or a 99 on such a boiling hot day.
We arrived at the park to find our hotel situated, and I kid you not, less than 30 meters away. Spot on! No worries about skating with all your valuables in your pocket as you could leave all your cash in your room with the nearest place to get a drink being the hotel bar anyway.
The local kids seemed amazed to have outsiders visit there little town and were super stoked, cheering every trick landed with Amir Williams being particularly popular. He and Avid must have signed over a hundred autographs on the posters we handed out and every kid went home with a smile.


After a quick meal in the hotel’s quaint little restaurant and voyeuristically taking a peak at a traditional Bulgarian wedding service that was taking place we made the very short walk back to the park that was now perfectly floodlit for a few beers and a lot of skating. Now that the park was free of kids we could really get going and I captured a number of sick tricks on film including an impossibly tweaked F/s Melon over the hip from the hands and feet of Ben Leyden. Even I managed to get in on the action as Avid, Manhead and myself put a kicker against a wall and tried our best to get lip tricks on the thing. Manhead being the swine that he is quickly rode away from a pivot popped to fakie whilst I battled my fears to eventually get a fairly stinkin’ front rock. Even got a photo, stoked!


Come back tomorrow for the final installment!

Route One Does Bulgaria. Part 1

As I sit writing this, I am sat aboard the 20:15 Bulgaria Air flight from Sofia to London Heathrow and with any luck, will get home for some time around 12pm tomorrow. The reason for me sitting here is that I, along with the entire Route One skate team and a couple of Sidewalk mag guys, have spent the past few days sampling the sights skate spots that Sofia, Haskovo and Plovdiv have to offer.
The story starts just under a week ago when Avid, Manhead, Lynskey, Sidewalk’s Ryan Gray and myself all met at Route One’s Leeds store to pick up a few last minute essentials (read – decks!) before embarking on a 5 hour train journey via London’s Kings Cross to Gatwick Airport.
Shortly after arriving we were met by Livingston legend Ben Leyden who immediately joined us in a stretch of the legs with a wander around, trying to find if anywhere was open at one in the morning to stave off our boredom.
Over the next seven hours we were joined by Brighton’s answer to Andrew Reynolds – Amir Williams, Bristol’s Andy Makepeace and the now London based Samantha Bruce, who has bigger balls than I do and a fair old trick selection to boot…
Our flight was scheduled for 10.30am and, after a thoroughly dull nine and a half hours meandering around Gatwick looking for ways to kill time, we were up in the air for a 3 hour flight to Bulgaria’s capital Sofia. As a regular user of budget airlines I was pleasantly surprised to be handed a free in-flight meal. This joy soon turned to disappointment as I opened the box to find cheese products galore. A traditional Bulgarian breakfast? Yes. Sadly your author is allergic to dairy products. Gutted…



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We arrived in Sofia at around 3.30pm local time after a thankfully incident free flight and were met by Virus Skateboard’s owner and Bulgarian skate legend Alex Kyourkiev and one of his team riders, known to us only as Yavor. This kid had some amazing skills as we would later find out and has had a number of Euro magazine covers to his name.
A short drive later, and after stumbling along, weighed down with far too many changes of clothes, we had found our accommodation. For anyone that has seen the film ‘Hostel’ think of that but sketchier! Well, not really but the stairwell leading up to the main entrance gave a foreboding impression to say the least. But we need not have worried as the welcome was one of the friendliest I have encountered throughout my travels, they even had a kitten by the name of Lucky to hang out with when the stress if dealing with 10 skaters got too much to bear!
Luggage was dumped; boards were grabbed and within one hour of landing we were making our way through the equally beautiful and ghetto streets to the main hook up point – NDK (pronounced N-D-Ka). NDK is the Bulgarian National Palace of Culture and the architects that built this huge imposing building also accidentally created a skateboarding heaven. You may well have seen footage of the place in recent Death and Blueprint videos - banks down stairs, knee high hubbas and some a lot bigger and all manner of ledges, kickers and acres of perfect flat ground. Combine this with the low cost of living and we were in heaven!


Most of us just had a gentle roll around but Lynskey was straight on to it – skating just as though he were at his local park. Within the first thirty minutes he had knocked out a number of film worthy tricks, finishing with a beautifully caught backside flip out of a mellow kicker and over a bin that had been raised well above it’s normal height.


As darkness descended the decision was made to go and get some food. So, going on the recommendation of our guides we headed over to “Bar Happy Grill”. Wonderfully cheap good food and stunningly attractive waitresses. This was sure to be an omen of the good times that were ahead…


After eating we split up. Some of us going to bed (me included – spending the last 36 hours awake had started to get to me) whilst others soldiered on through and went to witness a live set from old skool Hip Hop legends “Funk Doobiest”, in town playing their first ever Bulgarian show. The hip hop fans amongst us sure dropped lucky on that one and regailed tales of an apparent fantastic night the next morning. Well, apart from two of our guys accidentally ending up in a gangster’s house but that’s another story!

Alex Winstanley (R1 team manager – of sorts)

Continued very soon...