than 3000 km, a lot of bmx riding and a contest at the end of the week ahead of us.
It took us 12 hours and a lot of stupid jokes to arrive in a small hotel near the infamous Zenit in Montpellier where the FISE used to be held. After a shower in the morning, a session with Sebastian on Frank's bike and a nice morning welcome in form of a crazy conversation in the bakery next door with Tom of Sevisual and a funny waitress we picked up Alexis from the trainstation in Montpellier. Then off to the sea. To Palavas to be precise. The seaside and palm trees amplified everybodys endorphine boost of the time to come even more and we had a good fun session on the Palavas parking lot.
We rode quite some time but since we had a long way in front of us we decided to take off to Barcelona instead of staying another night in Montpellier with shady weather forecast. The drive was something on the trip that was not considered something boring or bad. We put wallpapers, discolights and posters on the inside of the van and bought a huge flatscreen with car-adapter-plug to watch videos of the golden eras of bmx.... ok that was a lie :)
It was the conversation and relaxing part of the trip though. We removed the middleseats of our van so we had a livingroom-couch feeling in the backseats and stories, conspiracies, jokes (Frank´s the man!) and good videos on different notebooks paved our way down to Barca. After we finally found our hotel which was really nice but hidden like a secret service office we went on for a walk through the narrow streets of the city to get some food. We got lost for a time and we passed a few good spots that we wanted to see the next day so eat, drink, talk, more talking and good sleep. I think everybody was happy to finally lay down on something else than asphalt or a car seat.
Morning brought really nice weather so we went to a breakfastplace to spend Mike Emde's money he gave us for food (thank you Mike :)) on coffee and other body stimulants like scrambled eggs, bread and fruit smoothies. Perfectly nutrated we went to the Carhartt shop to hang out and chill. When it comes to stupid, painfull but funny things it was: England: 1, Germany: 0 at that time. But that would change through the tour :) right after that we rode to the pier to ride Frank's Barcelona spot. Since the spot was too small for all of us Alexis, Sebastian, Tom and me went futher down the pier to also ride some more in the sun.
The vibe was awesome! sun, seabirds, friendly people, good surface and dope riding and filming pushed the vibe to the max. When the sun went down we rode to the the museum spot to hang out. I knew there would be no way to ride there since it is a crouded "skate" spot and it was crowded like at the european championships but the vibe there was a good motivation. Seeing people in a good mood doing good what they love made us feel good too and with sandwiches, drinks, good feeling we left Barcelona looking forward to our next station: the finca in Malaga
Michael Sommer
...to be continued next week with part 2 of video, pictures and report.
After the flow combo contest in Koblenz was over and we celebrated the whole thing with riders in Franks local Pizza place (third place team went home unfortunately). Sleeping good from a good weekend we left for Montpellier in the morning after. The weather was the kind you try to escape as a flatlander anyways. Lots of water from the sky and temperatures like in fall. so leaving this didn´t feel like we´re missing something at home even with more 
After doing a BMX 'zine for ten years (1987 - 1996) FATBMX made it on the internet. The year was 1998. Here to stay.