Wicked Woods Skate Park, Germany held it’s first female all-dayer last weekend. Ladies travelled from across Germany, the UK and the Netherlands to get together. Both skaters and BMX riders were invited to attend and ride at the event – it’s amazing who will join forces after the explosion of the scooter kid movement!
Words by Jenna Selby
The idea behind the girls jam was to hold something that would inspire not only established riders but to encourage those new to the sport as well. Various workshops were organised throughout the day where beginners could learn trick tips from professionals. Dutch BMX rider Shanice Silva Cruz was on hand to lead the way with the bikers and Natasha “Nash Nashi” with the skateboarding. Many of the girls learning were fairly new to the scene and said most of the time they rode alone at their local parks – so this event really gave them the chance to be part of a group, learn together and hopefuly give them the confidence they needed. One girl who really stood out was 11 year old Luzie Ronkholz. She clearly had a natural ability on her BMX and was riding the whole of the park quite confidently airing the jump box and also attempting 360’s as she went.
As the day progressed though, curiosity ensued and before long skaters were on bikes learning to bunnyhop and bmxers were on boards grasping the basis of an ollie. Luzie developed a mongo style of pushing (back foot on the board whilst front foot pushes) which she was quickly encouraged to get away from (sorry all you mongo pushers out there!).
By mid afternoon it was time for refreshments and the riders sat down outside to a BBQ buffet in slightly chilly temperatures. However as the mood was good the cold didn’t get in the way.
Early evening and it was time for the first of the competitions. Skate limbo is always a good idea for a warm up; basically you have a tape tied to two poles, each rider has to go underneath it without touching the tape or the floor – lying on your board is usually a good bet! However women with the slightly bigger bust are at an obvious disadvantage in this comp once the bar starts getting lower, so special dispensations were made. The BMX girls also joined in but some found they were stopping by the time they’d got to the tape (they’d only learned to push earlier in the day). As they were not allowed to touch the floor they had to come up with more inventive ways of getting under the marker, namely using other riders to push off and give them the momentum.
Next up was “Last Girl Standing” wich is quite possibly one of the funnest games in a skate park. All the riders are confined to peddling only with in a certain area The idea is to push the other riders and force them to put a foot on the ground which then means that they are ‘out.’ Definitely not a gentile game! This time skaters got involved including Rogue rider Dora Horvath and Camilla Mullins who’d travelled across for the weekend from the UK. As the BMX girls all knew each other they were intent of causing as much rucus as they could amongst each other not noticing the skater girls were escaping scott free. The last girl standing actually turned out to be Camilla Mullins!
It was then time for the comp that many had come for – the Best Trick event. BMXers were up first and opted for the jump box as their obstacle of choice. Shanice Silva Cruz is an incredibly good rider and was nonchalantly pulling off tailwhips and 360’s over the box as if they were her warm up tricks. The rider from Rotterdam then decided to slip in her signature move, a flair on the 6 foot quatre. There wasn’t really any competition after that!
Luzie gave it a go though and got so close to landing her 360’s – when she gets that last quatre turn she’ll have them nailed every time. Another rider Julia Köpke tried her luck with a Ninja drop from the jump box (which can best be described as: hold the handle bars of the bike as you drop it over the edge of the ramp. You jump with the bike as it goes and aim to land on it by the time it hits the floor). She tried it a couple of times and was close to landing it but on the 3rd attempt something went wrong and she didn’t quite grab the bar with her right hand – bike went first, bars twisted on landing and as she went down the handlebar went into her ribs. Although an ambulance was called and she was whisked off to hospital miraculously she didn’t break anything.
After that things quietened down and although there was supposed to be a best trick for the skating, by then it was 10pm and most riders had been skating on and off for 12 hours. Earlier in the day Dora had been landing kickflips, 180’s and big spins out of the kicker but by the evening she was too tired to skate. London based rider Camilla still had a bit of oomph left and landed a nice long front board on the flatbar rail for which she was awarded first place. A slight anti-climax to a great day but all in all everyone had a great time and were awarded prizes from Vans, Nikita, Concrete Wave and Rogue Skateboards.
