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Four days in Munich, a long weekend with Patrick, one of Europe`s biggest sport trade shows, and time well spent in the land of the best beer…
One can easily loose track in 16 different exhibition halls with all kinds of sport equipment, sport related electronics, soft and hard goods presenting the latest designs, models and new technologies. The tradeshow is subdivided in Action Sports, Ski, Outdoor, Performance and Sportstyle.
It was impressive to find so many longboarding booths in the Action Sports section.
Sector9 was there with one of the bigger booths and a labeled Bavarian beer, Arbor presented their new models and Landyachtz had some of their boards drawn on right on site. FORTrate, the Spanish brand distributor, seemed to be a meeting point for ‘lost at ISPO’ people, representing bigger longboarding companies that didn’t have their own booth such as Loaded and Orangatang, Rayne, Comet and many more.
It was great to experience the immense growth of longboarding through the generally very positive feedback from people I spoke with. The industry seems to finally notice longboarding, which seems to become somewhat a mainstream action sport… Whether that’s positive or negative is hard to tell for now. I’d say it is up to the existing community to make the best out of it…!
Some highlights I’d like to share with you!
A pleasant discovery was the new Triple8 full-face helmet. The first helmet made for downhill skateboarding is certified with CPSC 1203 bicycle helmet and ASTM F1952 downhill mountain bike racing standards. The final touch is a $300 U.S. SRP.
It takes quite an effort to see through the different helmet rating systems. Obviously distinguished by the kind of use, there are as well different rating systems from continent to continent as well as few that are uniform. So if you look into buying a new helmet make sure that you don’t trust what your buddy is telling you, but that you sit down a couple of minutes and find out yourself with what you would like to protect your precious brain!
Until I find more time to learn about how the tests for the rating systems work and if it suits the purpose of downhill longboarding, I’ll stick to my Darth Vader motorcycle helmet. But however, thumbs up for the new full-face Triple8 helmet!
Talking to Thomas Cafaro at G-Form we found out more about their pads help to absorb impacts suffered to the body. It seems there are products out there which are made to be discovered by DH skateboarders. We had a nice chat about how to add in extra padding to our racing leathers!
On Monday, ‘Women in Board Sports’ had another informal and rather improvised get together to talk about women working, or in one way or another being part of the board sports industry. It is good to actually see ladies working in really good positions in the board sports industry. But still pretty disappointing to hear that it isn’t very different from being an architect when it comes down to wage inequality. Wondering how much more time we need to be fully treated equally.
I was very happy to see Christine Waeber and her husband representing BlueSign AG.
They are working on new standards for a sustainable and successful textile industry. The independent bluesign® standard is to put a reliable and proactive tool at the disposal of the entire textile production chain, from raw material to consumers. A Journey to Sustainability. “If you know you will care”!
Another highlight was watching Mike Vallely shredding! Representing his own brand Elephant Skateboards he is a true dinosaur of skateboarding. What a personality!
I was a bit worried to go to such a big trade show, not really knowing anyone, I thought! It felt a little bit like summer constantly running into people that I knew
from last summer events! The constant visual and acoustic input was overwhelming and exhausting at the same time. There was too much to see, too much to talk
about, too much to learn, too much…
Good to see all the familiar faces at Risch’s Round Table! Thanks for letting us take over the whole Restaurant!
We’ll come back in 2013.
