A Postcard from Barcelona
Steve Laurie

Greetings from Barcelona, and a prosperous 2005 to one-and-all, not least the tireless team at Skateboard Scotland who are doing a fantastic job on all our behalves.

I moved out here in September for a change of scene and to earn my crust I am working as an English teacher to business and private clients – not quite as easy as it sounds, but certainly beats being stuck in Edinburgh for the winter. As Barcelona is universally acknowledged as the street-skating capital of Europe, I thought it might be good to do a series of articles for the web-site, and Shiel was up for it, so here is my first installment, a short-guide to the three best-known sites in the city.

As a formerly daily skater in my youth, when the Edinburgh weather permitted or, when desperate, if I could be bothered making the trip to the Castle Terrace multi-storey, I felt it would be remiss of me not to take to the streets again once I arrived here. So, I dusted down my old board (well, a brand new Vallely on GrindKings set-up I bought on my last tour of the US in 2002 – I never really gave up, just became seriously part-time for the last decade!), stretched my old limbs – lets just say, the wrong side of 30 – and hit the streets.

I am sure you have heard a lot about how great Barcelona is – it must have featured in just about every European skate video over the last ten years, and most of the rest too. I am happy to report first-hand that Barcelona is every bit as good a city for skating, and life in general for that matter, as you have heard. It is full of smooth, wide boulevards, pedestrianised areas, open squares (“placa’s”), marble steps, and a variety of quality spots each of which you could skate all day long, and the police never (in my experience) trouble you – the most harrassment you get is a couple of profanities in Catalan from a disgruntled security guard as you 50-50 his bank’s steps again! In addition, whilst not cheap, your pound will go a long way here, the public transport system is excellent and very cheap (50p a trip, regardless of distance) and the young multinational community means that everybody is friendly and up for partying – most of the clubs here don’t even open until after midnight.

There are three iconic skate sites in the city. Of these, two are located within a two-minute skate of each other, and from the geographical and cultural heart of the city that is Placa de Catalunya. These are “MACBA” (Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona) @ Placa dels Angels, and “Universitat” @ Placa de la Universitat, both shown on this Map – the former at the bottom left, the latter at the top left. The third must-skate site is “Sants” @ Metro Sants Estacio (note, NOT Metro Placa de Sants!), a 10min Metro ride from the others. I spend most of my time at the first two since they are a nice 10-min skate downhill from my place, but having checked out Sants properly for the first time in a decade this week, it is still worth a visit, though it has been surpassed as the Bristo Square of Barcelona by MACBA, completed in ’95.

Universitat

Starting with the smallest of the three, Universitat basically consists of a smooth, open square, (surrounded by traffic) with three beautiful long, level, 16-inch high marble benches (Pic1) perfect for all manner of slides and grinds. I remember seeing these in videos from the late 80s so you will probably recognise them.

This is where I go to warm up. During each of the first four Saturdays I skated here during November there were pros filming lines – which can get a bit frustrating for an amateur like myself just trying to pull a b/side grind to 180 out without paralysing myself. One of these guys was Stevie Williams, in from LA for four weeks filming with DGK, who must have attempted a pop shove-it to manual, k/flip out, along the longest bench at least 50 times in the hour and a half I was there.

He only made it as far as the end of the bench about 10% of the time, and didn’t complete the flip whilst I was observing – I can only assume he was skating switch (I hear he’s quite good!), but as this was virtually the only thing he attempted throughout the whole period I was there I can’t confirm one way or the other. Meantimes I was thinking to myself, “I bet Brian Jones woulda nailed it within five attempts!”. . . so watch out for that one in their video, and remember they are only human after all!

The benches can be quite slippy, particularly if there is any trace water on top, or if like me, you miss your pop-shove-it to 50-50 and land smooth on top at high speed – cue I fall one way, and my Vallely shoots the other across six-lanes of moving traffic and miraculously (especially as two cars actually swerved to avoid it!) survives what seems like an eternity – probably 20 secs – in the middle of one lane on the far side which I can’t get near because of cars and Vespas speeding in the other direction!

The square (and benches) do get a little busy with people at the weekend as it is a popular place to have a break from the shopping, but of course we all like an audience really so no problem there, and people here, like the police, don’t care as long as you don’t actually “shin” them!

MACBA

After warming-up at Universitat it’s on to MACBA, the Mecca of European street-skating. It basically consists of a wide open placa on a gentle slope in front of the new Modern Art gallery for flatland tricks, a well-wide wheel-chair access ramp providing a slick shallow-gradient kerb up to 24” high on one side, and a free standing ledge about 16” high at the top of the ramp for all manner of grinds. There is another flat space right in front of the museum for sitting and admiring, and a beautiful longish five-set for the brave on the opposite side of the placa which the locals were nollie-varial h/flipping and fakie b/side 180 flipping when I went last to take a couple of pics.

This is where you will find all the best skaters, the resident pros & those visiting for fun or filming. The standard is REALLY high here – the best I have seen anywhere, though I haven’t skated all over the world – only on three continents. F/side 180 flip to fakie nose-grind, big-spin out off the end of the ledge being the order of an average day! It took me a few weeks of practice getting back up to scratch before I had the courage to even be seen standing on my board here and of course I am still s!*t in comparison. However, contrary to the experience of one of the other columnists on this site, I find the skaters here to be just as friendly as back at Bristo – the only problem is you never know what language they are going to speak – and my Castillian is still terrible, having only had 10 lessons in my life before I arrived! There are Germans, French, Dutch and Americans aplenty, but the stars are invariably the locals with their pet lines.

Sants

Finally we come to the old man of the Barcelona skate-scene, but still a spot not to be missed on any visit of more than a couple of days. Sants is a huge placa in front of the city’s main rail station (Estacio de Sants), so no chance of losing your board to the cars a lá Universitat. It has a series of grindable marble picnic benches/seats that are about 26” high – just manageable for the monster olliers out there, and a small three-set that the locals lay wooden benches down to provide a rail. There is also a 12-foot free-standing rail on the flat that I can only assume was put there for the skaters since it can’t serve any other purpose, and a variety of other obstacles for improvisation. I haven’t given it a session yet, but I will report back in the future when I have.

So, I hope this whets your appetite. For those of you who know me of old, and even those who don’t, if you are planning a visit then do drop me an e-mail – Shiel has my address, and we can hook up for a skate and a guide to the other sites and sounds of the city not to be missed. In the meantime, Feliz año nuevo!