12th June 2002 - FNS meets Pari-Roller

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It is a trip we will never forget. Around 200 skaters from the FNS caught a Paris-bound Eurostar and headed to France for FREE. We always follow the maxim "When in Rome, do as the Londoners do" so we made sure a brand spanking new sound system was waiting for us at Gare Du Nord train station, pumping out an impressive 1000 watts of Rose Royce's "Wishing on a star", even though it did look like a wooden giraffe.

The theme of the skate was blue. We skated together sometimes as a sea of blue and other times in orange however the usual "writing the right way up" trick still fooled some. For entertainment, laughing at passport pictures was one thing but fake Slovakian passports were another; everyone knows Slovakia is not a real country.

As the rain came down members of the RSI carefully guided us through the slippery streets on our way to Montparnasse. Crowd reaction ranged from the indifferent to the encouraging. Although the streets began to dry organisers of Pari-Roller decided to play it safe, the skate was officially cancelled and so Boris became more of a Karloff than Becker figure. An unoffical skate it was and, it was, well, bloody fast, haven't these guys heard of half time?

A number of firsts were made that night. It was the first time so many skaters had come from one destination to the Pari-Roller, the first time a lot of us saw RollerCops (that could skate) and the first time the Parisians had a serious sound system that would simply shake your insides whenever you came near it; (and no, those red things are not for keeping your ears warm). Once they fix the city we will be back, and thanks for the organisation goes to the UKISA (that's the newly formed United Kingdom Inline Skating Association, not a question as to whether you snogged some woman).. ukisa kicks Berti's old butt!

Third party report on the trip: BBC Online




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