What Really Happened at Fast Fingers 22 | Team USA Germany Vlog & Podcast | S4E173

Join Team USA as we travel to Germany for Fast Fingers 22, one of the biggest fingerboarding events in the world. In this episode of the USAFBL Fingerboard Podcast, Levine Cunningham, Mitchell Rushing, Chris Daniels, and Tanner Hench share their experiences competing internationally while exploring the places that have shaped fingerboarding culture.

We visit ASI Berlin, tour Blackriver HQ, spend time with Martin Ehrenberger, review the new G18 contest park, and recap our Fast Fingers runs with plenty of behind-the-scenes stories from an unforgettable week in Germany.

Whether you're a longtime fingerboarder or new to the hobby, this episode offers a firsthand look at the competition, community, and culture that make fingerboarding unique.

Subscribe for more USAFBL podcasts, athlete interviews, event coverage, and behind-the-scenes content.

Transcript

speaker-0 (00:05)
Welcome to USA FBL Fingerboard Podcast. I'm your host, Devine Cunningham, and today I've got Team USA with me. I've got Mitchell Rushing, Chris Daniels, Taynor Hench, and we've been on an incredible journey through all of Germany. Some might say a little bit of ⁓ all of Europe, maybe. Anyways, we're getting into it, man. We've had a blast. We're excited to share you guys our experiences traveling through Germany, going through ASI Berlin, Fastfingers 22, witnessing

The new crowning of a new champ. So we're gonna go over all that stuff today. Kind of a recap of our adventures while it's so fresh in our minds. We're actually still here, what, 15 minutes outside of Schwashingwalk? Yeah, 15 minutes. So we're still here in town. We're actually here at the Airbnb. We might give you a little Airbnb tour, how what, six, seven of us, including Gary and his brother Greg. So we got a cool little MTV Cribs edition coming for you guys as well. So stay tuned. Man, all right, so let's talk about

Day one. We fly in from the United States. We land in Berlin. All of our connecting flights, delays. I don't want to bore you with all the logistical travel stuff, but we all land at the hotel same time, freshly on European ground. Tanner, first time out of the country? ⁓ no, not my first time out of the country, but my first time in Germany. Yes, it has been a very cool experience. I'm so tired right now. I filmed a lot of clips yesterday.

But no, it has been it's been great and it's been ⁓ it's been different from a lot of my other times out of the country. I feel like this reminded me of home a little bit more, but in like a a refreshing, like a a good way, not like a boring way or anything like that. I know Mitch, this is definitely gotta be your first time out of country. Sure. No comment. You can tell by the way he couldn't sleep in his bed. ⁓

speaker-1 (01:49)
Has been.

Rough,

but like we said, we won't bore you with the details. But I did have a great night's sleep last night. Took a few days, but we got there. First time out of the country, it wasn't as shocking as I thought. Just a few differences here and there that really made it special. ⁓ but kind of like what Tanner said, it is nice, relaxing. You feel like really safe. You can like run on the streets comfortably. It's just I mean, you couldn't otherwise, but you can just feel it. It's a

It it's a feeling thing, I think you guys would understand if you were here, you know.

speaker-0 (02:26)
I agree. It's pretty safe. I even left my door unlocked once. Nothing happened. Actually Mitch broke in. I might have left my car unlocked in the parking garage back home. I don't know. We'll find out when I get back. Might be a part three. Might be a part three. I know Chris. Chris is no stranger to Germany. That's correct. It's my sixth or seventh time here. ⁓ man. No, he did not. No, he did not.

We already did it. Third time for fingerboarding. Yeah, it'd be seventh time. Man, so I felt like I was kind of the tour guide, but in reality Chris here was the tour guide. Absolutely. It's always fun coming back here, especially in Oberfranken, which is the region we're in, and seeing all the spaces and places that I've been to in the past. Seeing how much is the same is pretty crazy. It's it's a lot more similar than when I was here last. Like I don't know, it was like

twelve years ago. ⁓ but there is a little difference. The weather is a big difference. It is a lot warmer than I remembered it from last time for sure. They're in a a heat wave, but I will say it's bad, but it's not that bad. But it's still bad. Man. All right. So we did all right, so we landed in Germany. We first time for a lot of us in Europe, or at least for one of us in Europe. And we have been gallabanting through Berlin. First time in Europe.

We've been gallopanting. We've been gallopanting. Two of us. Two of us. All right. So we saw a clip, or at least I saw a clip, of an old school Black River G7 park in a hotel lobby. And I said, we have to go check that out. And this hotel, it's a Hotel Berlin Berlin, which I guess Hotel Berlin was already taken. So I guess that's why they did the two Berlins at the end. I like it.

So we ended up what? We ended up going through, try to find where the spot was in the lobby, and need to say it was empty. It was super empty. You could see where it used to be, but it's no longer there. We asked the front desk. Front desk lady was super, super nice. And I had to show her a video of like the actual like park and whatnot. And she was like, ⁓ yeah, this thing's like in the back. And so like she like trekked us around the

Whole like corridor of the front corner, like in this conference like center of a hotel. And need to say it was there with spotlights and everything. Tell me about it, Chris. Yeah, that was insane. So that hotel number one was really cool, super artistic, and they had a bunch of you know different style of artwork in different areas, but a lot of skateboard theme recently. So I think the the park was part of that project. And even though they move

The park from the lobby. Honestly, this was a way better location for it. But we were like off of the lobby so no one could get annoyed by the clicking, you know. So it was a great location. They had track lighting for art. So it's pointed right on to the ⁓ stage and it was perfect for filming. It was cool because they had a whole skateboarding theme like going on throughout the whole area. Like they had a bunch of photos hung up, they had skateboards hung up, and rest in peace, Dylan Reader. They like a whole

Little photo thing of him on the wall too. It was really cool to see all that. They also had a whole ass quarter pipe in there. That's that's facts. Which is crazy.

speaker-1 (05:53)
I was gonna talk about Dylan Reeder, Tanner. That was my only talking point now. ⁓ sorry. No, no. Impossible

speaker-0 (06:01)
Now he doesn't have anything to say.

speaker-1 (06:02)
I think there's there's Ave too, maybe in the pictures. It was really cool. It was probably the most surprising part to start with because we get to the hotel and we're like, it's gonna look great, and it's just gone. So complete deflate at first. And thankfully we were able to hunt this thing down. I don't even think I don't think it was meant to be used. It wasn't

speaker-0 (06:14)
Where's ⁓ where's the great

speaker-1 (06:29)
Properly, I guess like lacquered, I suppose. It was like signed off. Who commissioned this? But either way, I think we're probably one of the few to ever have used it. So that was a really cool feeling and it was a good way to start off the trip.

speaker-0 (06:33)
Mr.

And

the park was signed by Martin Wingler. The park looked brand stinking new, but it is old at the same time. Yeah, I asked Ernie, Martin Ehrenberger from Black River about it, and he's like, I I don't know about this. At least maybe he didn't understand what I was asking. I was like, There's this hotel Berlin, Berlin, and there's this old park that is like also old design but brand new. He's like, we haven't made those in years. That's what I thought. And then Martin Winkler's like

Is on there. So I'm like, this thing has been sitting in a vault for like almost twenty years, basically. Like it looked untouched. It's like one of those like classic cars that you find in an old barn underneath the cover and it's got like 20 miles on it. That's what it felt like. And if y'all got another one of those sitting around, feel free to feel free to send it through to the US. Like I got a little space in my basement. I can make it work. I might have to make that the prize for next year. Who knows?

Could be. It could be. Give away a black rubber park. All right. So we left there and we went to what the locals call Dog Ship Park. It's a skate park. They got a fingerboard concrete park. The fingerboard concrete park is an exact replica of the skate park. I know the boys came out with skateboards. They were skating, fingerboarding, doing the whole thing. I mean, kinda tell me what you guys thought when you guys rolled up to the park. First off

As we're rolling through, it's just like this beautiful pathway. And they have trash cans everywhere. So there's no litter. That was the one thing I noticed that was pretty interesting. Like they got them on poles. It's like every 20 feet there's a trash can. But then after you get past the trash cans, then they have the actual skate park. And then I got the little fingerboard park off to the side. so I brought both my boards, so I was doing a little bit of skating on both ends, but I started actually skating first.

But I'm like not really practiced right now. So I didn't do too much. I did like a little tray flip over the one hip. And then I tried some other stuff, but I didn't really get too much. And then I filmed a couple clips to make an edit with the fingerboard park. But the whole outdoor fingerboard park thing is so cool. But yeah, it was just cool to see like how they complemented each other. And I mean, they're two very intertwined cultures, but even just like being right next to each other is pretty cool. And I don't know, just just getting to check that out. I definitely want to go back there before we leave.

speaker-1 (09:04)
There may be a few clips of me ⁓ completely slipping out of every attempt of stepping on a board out there. So have fun finding that. But at the park, shout out to past event winner Ramon Angelo, because he makes flowing through that concrete miniature park like look effortless. ⁓ if no one knows, ⁓ and this is oddly detailed, but I think some of our viewers would be interested in this spot.

If you guys start to try to film there, you've got to be on your tippy toes on the smallest crust of concrete just to be able to land a single trick. you've got a sidestep, like this little figure eight action. So that was probably one of the most difficult. I felt like a real skateboard going to a street spot, which is kind of unfortunate because that's the probably the closest I'm ever gonna get to that. But I'm telling you, it was difficult. So that kind of gave me a nice reality of how Ramon gets those clips.

But makes them look so effortless. I was pretty jealous. So but we got some good clips and there it was a good time.

speaker-0 (10:04)
I literally forgot all about that. So my calves were kind of burning. I was there for a while. Yeah. Being on your tippy toes and stuff. So yeah. Your first time there? Or you've been there before? No, I've been there before. Okay. Yeah. So it was it was obviously saquin back there. The locals are very friendly, like ⁓ that are around at the park, the skateboarders, and there's some other fingerboarders there. And it's kind of in a cool area. It's surrounded. There's like a pea patch in the back, like gardening, and yeah, I didn't skateboard. I really didn't fingerboard at all. I don't think I fingerboarded.

actually there that day. ⁓ but it was nice to watch all the skateboarders and people fingerboarding. It was fun. It was a good time. But after after Dog Shit Park, we we trekked up to the most craziest spots for fingerboarding, definitely internationally, especially for Americans. This has always been like the dream is to go to the original Black River store, now known as Ozzy Berlin. I've been there before, but I know these guys.

I don't think they understood it the assignment, but they knew they knew they're in a place that was super, super special.

speaker-1 (11:09)
Place was a lot cooler I thought it would be. Okay. I not to I I I it was legendary status, namesake, but ⁓ I'd never I had no expectation, I guess, when I went in there. I mean, of course you got the cool graffiti, you've got all these spots, but Levine did an amazing job touring it for me because I go in the first room and I'm like, couple spots here. There's a lot of great people and we were talking it was a great time. And like we said, we're a little halfway delirious, so we're just gonna take it all in.

And then we go to the back room. I'm like, okay, I'm starting to get it now. Like, I've there's four or five parks set up, and it looks great. We start to have a lot of fun. And then there's this this little extra room with streamers, and it's like this like a dark little tunnel almost. And what is this? You go downstairs and you have one of the coolest concrete setups with Griffith Beattie, with one of the largest rooms with ⁓ even more people. And although I'm not so much a

bowl concrete man with my fingerboard like d this was one of the first times I actually spent some time just trying to carve and trying to get some stuff done. Like it was it was beautiful. So taking that all in, seeing all the people there, ⁓ meeting everyone and then getting to see them at the event again too, ⁓ let alone just the the culture and everyone hanging out outside. It was it was probably it really I got jealous because it's like there's not much like that going on in area, let alone many places in the US.

speaker-0 (12:30)
Keep

speaker-1 (12:38)
So it it was probably one of the best ways to start off the trip other than that Hotel Berlin, Berlin.

speaker-0 (12:43)
No, that place was sick. I've never been, I don't think I've ever actually been to a fingerboard store in general. So it was really cool seeing the whole storefront and it's just normal people walking by, like everybody's just chilling out front. They got like a little half pipe out front, and I'm just yapping to these other people. I don't even know if they they do end up speaking English, the other guys at Fingerboard there. But I I think partly they were just like, Why is this guy talking to us? But no, it was cool meeting all them.

And then just seeing the parks inside, especially that basement area, that was insane. I'd never seen a room like that before because the park goes around the whole border of the room and then they got a park in the middle of it. Kudos to them on everything they've they've done in that place, because that place was super sick, and that was a great way. That was a great second way to start the trip after the skate park. Cause I'm thinking, we're about to just chill for the night.

Or something. We're about to just go hang out with some people and it's like, no, we end up at the at the store with all those parks. I'm like, yeah. Time to get clips. Let's go. And we got clips. I got clips. I don't know about that. Taylor's got a vault right now. I yeah, that's quite a few. I hope not. My hard drive doesn't have that much space right now. It's getting low, it's getting low. Chris, definitely not your first time. Well, depends. So I've been to the store when it was the Black River store six or seven times.

And then now it's Aussie Berlin, so technically it's my first time there. Okay. But it's amazing. It's it's like similar but different. Still like so epic going there. The funny thing is, like there's still like photos of me, like when Mike Schneider and I went there is still on the wall. I saw that. Yeah, that's still up there. And then on top of that, there's in the bathroom, if you're facing on the toilet facing the wall, I'm look there's like you can look at me, two of me actually finger wording. So

And I always have people tell me, like, I look at you all the time. I'm like, what? And they're like, Yeah, at Ozzy Berlin. I'm always there. I'm like, ⁓ great. People take it poops like Yeah. Well, I yeah, I guess everybody thinks I'm a legend because they see I'm the first person they think when they poop. That's crazy. What ⁓ similar or I guess what are the differences between the Black River store and the Aussie Berlin store, even though it's the same location, same place. It's like I mean slightly different layout, but like the parks in the back room are like different parks, but

Same structure, a lot of the wooden parks from the back. The downstairs is very similar, but completely different in terms of like painting on the park and graffiti. the main room has a different arrangement as well as like the branding. You know, it was black, red and white branding, Black River stuff. ⁓ like the branding all over the place and now it's definitely definitely not that anymore. ⁓ but still it's an awesome store and it was fantastic seeing people from all over.

A a lot of obviously locals were there, but there was people from Sweden, Finland. We had other Americans there, Canadians, so on. You know, it was just like people from all over were there. And there's a lot of historical pieces and stuff in there as far as like parks and stuff goes. Like you have the original like Battle of the Herrics game escape table in there and a few other like just historical parks. Like I know like there's their aged and they got some history and stuff to them. But the one that stood out to me was like the Battle of Herricks Park, and I'm just like,

That's crazy to see that. Because we always watch the old like Mike Snyder films and stuff, and like that table is sitting right there, right in front of us. So I'm like, that's crazy to see. All right. So the next day we ended up doing a travel day down here to Swashenbach, Schelb. I'm not even sure where we're actually at, to be honest with you. Yeah, we're in Zelb, which is like, I don't know, 15, 20 minutes, depending which way you go, to Schwarzenbach. And it's in the middle of Oberfranken, which is northern Bavaria, right on the Czech.

So we're like not even 10 minutes from Czechia. So yeah, we had a nice little drive down. We ⁓ saw some of the sites, saw the countryside, grabbed some supplies, as you would say, for the house. Tons of alcohol, tons of beer, tons of toilet paper, the good stuff. You know what time it is. I got wet wipes because I'm cleaner than toilet paper. You heard it first from Taynor Hinch, not sponsored by Dude Wipes. Shout out Nana. Shout out Nana. All right, Friday. Pre-fast fingers.

We walk into the we all right, so we pull up into the parking lot. I'm gonna let you guys tell the story. Okay, go ahead.

speaker-1 (17:03)
I got this

has ever walked in like a cathedral, like a basilica, where you look at the artwork.

speaker-0 (17:10)
Or a to or a Toys R Us in two thousand eleven. Fully stocked. That's what this

speaker-1 (17:16)
So you roll in and yeah, we get it. There's a bunch of parks. Woo no, it's not about that. Like this is one of the largest facilities for a fingerboard skateboard shop I've ever seen. This exceeded my expectations in terms of how large a ⁓ home base would be for this kind of place. So that already you walk in, I'm like, this is this is a real this is the real deal. all the park, I mean there's some great parks. I I could talk about each one and how

Detailed they were and how many great spots. Like ⁓ not sponsored by Denny's, but that was probably underrepresented park. I got one, good angle too. That then all of it. So like there's so many that we could go over the contest parks, everything. But the second you walk in there, you're greeted with a large paper pirate ship of sorts, paper, concrete, whatever you, whatever it was. Amazing. The sets, the stands. You knew that this was gonna be real. And

speaker-0 (17:52)
Clip at that one.

speaker-1 (18:15)
I all I can say is they they s every detail was hit. you knew this was gonna be an amazing event the next day. ⁓ we probably spent like a cumulative six plus hours there and it felt like one. ⁓ there was no way you could hit every park, there's no way you could get what you wanted done there. ⁓ but it felt like a time warp. And I'm I I keep saying this is probably the best thing yet, but it was every single stop we went to just got better.

And better, we saw more and more people that I'm like, Hey, I know that name. I see their face now. This is real. Like this is something I wouldn't have imagined I've ever would have been able to do. So it was it was just getting more and more hyped every time we ended up moving places. So

speaker-0 (18:59)
It's just as soon as you walk in, it's just like whoa. It's like almost overwhelming. It's like, what do I even want to do? Yeah. And then just seeing like the the bleachers and stuff they have set up for the actual tournament. It's like, ⁓ shoot, yeah, this is real. But yeah, that just the whole property and the whole and then seeing people like set up their tents and stuff the day before. I didn't know people actually camped out for for this event, but I mean it makes sense. I mean, some people camp out without a tent.

And with bottles laying on the ground next to them. But not not us. Not us. Not us. But yeah, no, it was ⁓ that that whole thing was just incredible. Yeah, it was good to be back, but that was the first time I've ever seen that warehouse like that. Normally it's empty, but filled up with the parks and all the the f the stands that they had, ⁓ both like for viewing the competition, but then they had like food stands and stuff. So just ⁓ it was incredible.

And then also seeing like some of the more friends that I had, you know, met in the past, it was fantastic. And I got and Martin came in and was so welcoming to all of us, let us in and was showing us around, even though they had they were like clearly working their ass off getting this thing set up, ⁓ took the time to say hi to everybody, spent time with us, make sure we were all set, which was which was awesome. The last time I was here and I got to actually see all the parks that hall.

It was already quite filled. Like it was already like two like I was already standing on line basically, like to kind of get in as like a normal person, not more or less like a VIP, but we got basically first access to all of the parks. So like when we rolled in there, there was maybe five people in that entire like ten thousand square foot building. So like for a good like two hours, I think we had free rain on all of the parks. There was no like

Elbowing people out of the way to get a spot or nothing. Like you just had the whole concert hall basically to ourselves. And that was honestly my favorite part. Just kind of being able to freely take photos, videos, like just kind of uninterrupted until everybody kind of came in and then organized chaos. But there was so many people at the pre-event and also, of course, at the Fast Fingers event. We I now consider this to be like the international rendezvous, in my opinion. Like

All your European like big finger borders, brands, all that stuff. Everybody was basically here. It was a good time. It was definitely a good time. We asked ⁓ Martin. I'm like, hey, I thought there was like like a skate park or something nearby. And he was talking about like maybe like a five minute walk. I guess there was like a like a bowl or something out there. like an outdoor one? Yeah. Yeah. So Schwarzenbach has like an outdoor concrete park. It's on the other side of town. Yeah, about five minute drive. Gotcha.

But then he's all like, no, we got like an indoor bowl too. And I'm like, what really? And I'm like, where? And so he like kind of pointed us a map and he's like gave us really descriptive like map. He's Yeah, it's like around the corner, around the other side, you'll see a trailer. Then like you'll probably see another like ordeal. And then you just like open the doors. And I'm like, okay. So Gary and you know, me are like, Yeah, just go get Tanner. Let's go get Mitch. Let's let's let's go check out this bowl. So like we're all like on an adventure trying to find this hidden indoor bowl.

And ⁓ we roll in there and it's legit, like there's a legitimate indoor bowl. Like I know for you guys, you guys were talking about like how steep like the incline and everything was. Like it was pretty hard to skate, but they also had ⁓ a playground in there that looked like it was probably about 15, 20 years old, little gems in there, all kinds of little stuff in there. But yeah, this is a fully skated, like shredded, like just huge concrete bowl. All of it's painted. We're like, Yeah, it was definitely a hidden gem. Nobody else was in there, so it's just like we're just

Hanging and shredding and skating and Tanner doing all the stuffs. ⁓ I tried. He did try. I don't.

speaker-1 (22:57)
Well we get the young gun over here. ⁓ no, he started skating the bull and ⁓ I was like, Hey, I don't care. I haven't skated in a year or two. I'll just try a bowl out for the first time in my life and it'll be fine. I drop in, that worked out. but then there's another wall. I don't know if anyone s knows this, but when you drop in, there's typically something else that you're gonna meet. And in this case, there was about a four foot vert wall.

Just straight into the vert wall. I played it off like it was no big deal. ⁓ but I was getting by on adrenaline. ⁓ and I did not learn my lesson for the future days either. Bunch of drop ins, lots of hits. ⁓ yeah, maybe one day though. We'll we'll get there.

speaker-0 (23:46)
He says the young gun. I'm only a year younger than him. You're the baby of the group. I am the baby of the group. Which is funny because I feel like now nowadays I've been like the older person back home. So it's funny being the younger one out here again. But I'm not too crazy or anything. I'm a pretty chill guy. I just like to hang out and talk to people. But sometimes they don't always want to talk. But most of the times it doesn't it's okay.

But the bowl was cool. If it makes Mitch feel better, I dropped in and messed up the one time. Like I just dropped in and I don't even know what happened. I just started running. And then I didn't I don't think I fell though. But yeah, that bowl was hard to skate. It's like that's for like I'm not really a transition skater at heart. Like I can pump around a bowl if it's a little bit bigger. But something like that, I don't really have the the dex dexterity the dexterous laboratory.

The I don't really have the dexterity to skate that kind of environment whenever it comes to like pumping in the really tight corners and stuff like that. So I would like to see somebody actually rip around that because I bet they do. But for me, it was no bueno. It was cool to it was cool to skate it, but I was not the best at it at all. Even Gary struggled and Gary loves that stuff. I think Gary did the best out of all of us. He was definitely a rock star. He was he was determined to get some clips. So I'm excited to see him go through the vault.

release some of that stuff for you guys. All right. Game day, Saturday. We pull up crazy long line to get into the building. We went and got some breakfast, take the, take the edge off, but I know you guys anxiety had to been like absolutely through the roof.

speaker-1 (25:29)
One thing that calmed the nerves was something that I'm gonna be bringing home with me. And the idea is that if I ever make a sandwich again, I'm gonna be putting cucumbers on them. And then I'm gonna be putting Miracle Whip or whatever. Maybe it was just man it it was it was butter? Yeah. my gosh. Yeah, this was great. ⁓ every to be fair, I didn't have too many options that didn't have cucumber, and I'm really glad for that. So I'm I'm gonna be buying some when I get home. But

so we ⁓ you know

speaker-0 (26:00)
Is a natural anti inflammatory.

speaker-1 (26:03)
He did tell me that. It's a good call with that hit of the vert wall. It did some good. ⁓ basically we we go get some sandwiches, we get in our line with every injured person. Got more real. Got more real. You get the idea? And ⁓ wow, yeah, we we knew that we were about to get into a a pretty big event to say nonetheless, but

Yeah, the anticipation, man, it was growing. It really was. And we were all doing our pregame rituals, trying to get in the zone. And ⁓ yeah.

speaker-0 (26:41)
Yeah, it was a little nerve wracking I guess and you know, I was hoping I was gonna be in heat one and ideally the first person or second person, so I didn't have to wait all that time for the for the best run. But unfortunately I was like the last or second last person in heat five, so there's a lot of waiting. And that can be a little you know, a little bit ⁓ distracting for sure. But you know, just watching some of the com co competitors out there, there was some fantastic runs, like it was crazy.

And you know, hundred and twenty people competing, that's a lot. ⁓ and I'm surprised, like I don't think there was any real delays. Well there was a delay to even start, but like once it got going, everyone who was competing was like on time and and ready to go, which was impressive. 'Cause I know that's not always the case. Sometimes you have to announce somebody and they're not there and you're waiting, you're waiting, you're waiting. ⁓ somehow with that many people, I guess it's just a lot of punctual punctual people.

I was in heat five and I sweat so much beforehand because I was so nervous. It was like I had this huge wave of just like sweat out all your fluids. And I did that. And then I was dry. And then it started happening again right before my run. And I'm like, my fingers are so wet right now. That sounded kind of crazy.

But my but there's so much sweat on my hands right now, I don't know how I'm gonna land a single trick. I landed I landed a decent bit of my tricks though, thankfully. But all that I thought I got the nervousness out of my system and then it came right back right before I was going up in front of everybody. But it's nerve wracking. There's so many people there. It's just like, my goodness, there are so many eyes on me. But yeah, it's okay. I dunno I should have put my notes up, but you guys had some heavy hitters

In your heats. I feel like Chris had probably the lighter of the rosters. Seemingly, but then when you look at it, the some of the top placers came from. Like ⁓ so I I realize I'm actually in heat four. Tanner was heat five, so I didn't have to wait as long as him. But yeah, there was there was a lot of competition in these heats, and so how it worked was it was like the top four from

Each heat made it to the next round guaranteed. And then they took the top ten overall scores after that point. So even if you had a tough heat, you could still make it. Like there was some heats that had some like a bunch of really high scores, and there was some heats that had quite a bit less. Not crazy like finger borders and they're just not like well known fingerboarders that like just kind of pop out at you. Like no Ramon Angelos, no like Nico Franks, like.

But there you did have some heavy hitters actually come out of your heat that actually placed really high. So there were some sleepers for sure. They just came in as underdogs and just moved away up through the rankings. Tanner had a very, very heavy hitting list of people in his heat. Supposedly. Supposedly. No, I don't know. I actually I don't really know all the people. I think the only people I knew well, Alex was in mine and he ended up winning. And then who else? I'm not sure if I even know the other ones.

Man, I should have pulled up all the stats, but yeah, I know Mitch had the absolute worst heat that he could have possibly been in. Yeah, it was right. I'm over here like trying to hype you up. You're like, what do you think I need to have? I'm like, don't worry about that. You gotta go all or nothing. Like just just focus on you. Cause I'm just like You did great though. You did great. Yeah. Like 'cause I was like, dude, you got like four like all stars basically in your in your heat.

fourth basically the guarantee to move forward. So I was like, but I'm like, I had faith. I had faith. As long as you came in with it like I like, dude, Mitch Mitch could do this. He can do this.

speaker-1 (30:37)
I only did a few tricks. ⁓ but he's right, there's some good listen, I could la I could list so many excuses, but there's no need because I ended up getting up there. Nerves were gone. It was just get the job done. ⁓ didn't quite get the job done.

speaker-0 (30:56)
But

I

speaker-1 (30:58)
I felt good doing it. So ⁓ landed some of the tricks that I wanted to. I had some pre-planned stuff and it that ended up working out pretty well. We had Nico Nico Frank, hated seeing him in my heat. So him, ⁓ a few others, maybe Francisco, I actually had him potentially winning. So ⁓ in kind of my leaderboard, you know. And it was ⁓ it was a surreal experience. ⁓ getting up there, all the people, very thrilling.

Extremely fun. Like we said, couldn't quite make the leaderboard, but learned a lot from the experience. I know what I'm gonna do next time if there's another. And I think I'm planning on it. And we're training now.

speaker-0 (31:41)
He's already calling his spot for twenty twenty s twenty twenty eight. I like it. Already calling it. So you're gonna be national champ for next season, twenty twenty seven? You're gonna get that get the prize, go to twenty twenty eight.

speaker-1 (31:53)
That's the first step. So that that's a given.

speaker-0 (31:57)
I love it. I love it. All right. So we didn't do too well in the contest, but the reality is that's that it isn't about us coming in and kicking ass and taking down doors and all that other good stuff. It's really about, at least for me, providing a platform for people to be able to move in from a local scene to a regional scene to a national scene, and then being able to take those people and bring them here at a world championship level and having a passion.

For that, because that literally doesn't exist anywhere else except for here in USAFBL. Yeah, that's awesome. No, it's no joke, though. It's like having the opportunity to come out here is incredible. And, you know, ⁓ I attended the West Regionals and then the national event, and both of them were well worth the experience. You get to meet so many different people, and obviously the contest part is so much fun, but it's not just about.

But that's a major part. So if you like competing, definitely come out. If you don't, that's okay. It's such a sick event. Those are so good events besides that. I just happen to do pretty well at both the West West Coast regionals and the nationals to be able to come here. So hopefully you guys watching, if you attend one the events and you you shred, you can have an opportunity too. We kinda yeah, we kind of drifted a little bit. He's I thought we were just gonna go in a circle and talk about our runs. Yeah, as so I was so b I had a whole run.

speaker-1 (33:14)
I wanna hear that.

speaker-0 (33:24)
Pretty much planned up until a certain point, and then I was just gonna like ad lib it. But then as soon I spent so much time being nervous before I actually went up that by the time I was standing there, I was like, ⁓ shoot, I forgot what to do after my second like my second trick. And then my first trick, I did a gnolly crook gnolly flip, but I blinked like in the middle of it, and I thought my fingers landed on the board upside down on the gnolly flip. And I'm like, this is a great way to start the run. And somehow I rolled away on it, and I was like, my goodness, thank you so much.

So then I hit like a little it was like a Smith nose grind, a lip slide, and then I wanted to do a tail slide, kick flip down the rail, but I I was just so like ⁓ in the moment that I think I just did like a like a gnarly gnarly lip slide and then going up the next set. I don't know if I I think I did a smith grind up the rail and then there was a ledge after that.

And I did a nose blunt to another lip slide. I guess I did a lot of lip slides. I didn't mean to do that. And then like a Smith to feeble on the rail, and then a little combo on the ramp. And then as I was going back, I tried to do a switch flip up the little double set. And I think I missed that the first time and got it the second time. And then did a grind up the ledge. And then I was trying to do a switch tray down the last set. And then that hung me up. And I got stuck in that.

Let me pick the board up and and just do it till I land it. And it was at the very end of the run. So I think it took me four or five tries to land the switch tray, but I landed it right before the buzzer went off. So for the most part, I got about everything landed in my line except for two tricks. So I felt like that was pretty good. And the stands had cleared out a little bit by then too. So it wasn't like quite as bad, but it was still just like, This is a lot of people around me, like this is a new feeling to experience.

But yeah, no, that was ⁓ it was just really cool. And I did not end up advancing, sadly. But ⁓ that was kind of nice to not advance just because then I got to chill and film some clips in there too. But I I would I would have still loved to get on to the next round. But there's always next time. I don't know when next time maybe, but there's always next time. All right, so talk to me about this park. For instance, they don't like to name their parks, the G seventeen, which is like the twenty twenty one park.

They didn't actually name that. I just told them that basically you guys should just name it the G17 since you know the last one was the G16 and the G15. But this new park, we're calling it the G18. I asked Ollie, I'm like, what are we naming this? And he's like, I don't know. And I'm like, all right, cool, we're naming the G18. He's like, sure. And I'm like, all right, we're rolling with it. So, but anyways, this new contest park, it is the same size as all the other parks, but for some reason this thing has so much elevation to it, it just feels massive.

Like kinda walk me through like your favorite kind of portions of the park and what you guys really like.

speaker-1 (36:26)
Okay, so if we're starting off like most people did in the contest, right hand corner, you have one of the best rails, down a kicker, ⁓ more or less, that perfectly textured, double barreled, super smooth. Like you can't hang up on this thing. and that's probably, gosh, I don't know what the best part is, but that that is a good way to start that that course. you roll into a small kicker, little step up of sorts, you've got then large set.

Nice orange rail, super smooth into another. And then round the corner, you're gonna have a nice, super nice kind of double kinked brick ledge. ⁓ I'm not one for bricks, but I understand the appeal. I'll get there one day. So we get the bricks, we've got super mellow semi-rounded squared rail down the side, ⁓

And we, of course, have the just amazing Black River, perfectly executed, proportioned ⁓ quarter pipes. and this is not even talking about like just the literal artistic value of what's in the middle. You've got barriers, you've got perfect, perfect concrete, super specific blocks. You've got the graffiti on like it was I think it's one of the most beautiful parks out of anything that they've had. They've really won up themselves.

And I'm not one that's really like followed Black River Parks to a T, but when I saw this, I was like, this is this is something that would be incredibly hard to top if they're ever to do anything again. And it's making me kind of want to save up. For a park, which I never thought I would ever be in a position to think I'd want to do that. Like when it but this is kind of worth it. You guys should really check that out.

speaker-0 (38:15)
Yeah, I think for me, I mean, Mitch nailed everything. I'm glad 'cause I was kinda like thinking, Man, I don't remember too much. But there's one thing that I thought was really cool and was my favorite part. There was this gap with like a fake pond in there. No fake fountain with resin. It had a little little koi fish in there. And so I love that little touch, that little extra detail. And I had planned on doing a trick down that, but I I don't remember if I did. I don't even remember my run, to be honest, except for like one trick or one trick attempt. That's it.

But it was a beautiful park, well executed, of course, by them and really fun to f fun to shred. Yeah, by ⁓ so out of all the G parks, I mean that is definitely the best designed park I think they've ever made. And I think Mitch's right, like if they do do another fast finger or anything like that, having to remake a new version of that park.

To replace it, I don't know if they can top that, but I keep saying that every single year and they continue to do so. So that's some German engineering for sure. Man, all right. So yesterday, I don't even know what day that is, but basically the day after Fastfingers, you guys went and visited Martin Ehrenberger's house. I know you taner is like incredible. Yeah, Disneyland apparently. Yeah, that was nuts. Well, we park up on the side, like in the grass.

So I don't even see the house yet. And then we're walking up the driveway. And then it gets to a point where the driveway is not really a driveway. It's like a mini skate park. So there's like well, but if you want to pull your car through, you can 'cause it's just like a little ⁓ like curb in the middle of the driveway, and then they got curbs on the sides, and then it's like that really smooth, like skate park style ground. And then you see the house and it's just like it's one of those one story houses with a tall roof, like open layout, bunch of windows to let the light in.

And he's just got like this big red rug with the walls just filled with skateboards and all this other stuff on there. And it that that already looked beautiful in itself. And then there's they have the fingerboard parks outside. You walk a little bit further and they got a concrete bowl to skate. And then you walk a little bit further, there's a half pipe over there. And then you look on the other side of the house, there's a half pipe over there. ⁓ they they had like a the one park over by the one half pipe that everybody cleaned off then.

And now that it had the lacquer and stuff on there. And I guess they used it. He he said at one point they were trying to have it so kids could use it at like school or something, like at recess, I guess, for and keep it outside. ⁓ so that was that was really fun. I got I phoned a little edit on that. But that whole property, and then there was a in-ground trampoline. I think those are so cool. As you're looking where the trampoline is, it's just a beautiful view of the field and the trees that they have out here, a lot of the areas, it's like the giant.

pine trees or something. So they trim like the ⁓ the they trim the whole way up. So it's like when you look off into the distance and you see the skyline, you also see not just the trees, but like you see all the trunk you see all the tree trunks. Shout out to Adventure Time. Is that what it is? Tree trunk? Is that actually what it is? Okay. Yes. I can't I'm so tired right now, guys. So yeah.

and and there's also like like a old sh foundation of a old building that's like half run down and they were like shooting pictures in there with the one ⁓ park from the contest. But yeah, that whole property is like that's just kinda like something that I would love to have someday with like the freedom to kind of just build on to where you're living with other stuff too. I thought that was so cool. That was that was just incredible. It was like

K somebody said kind of I think it was Gary. He said it reminded him of ⁓ Ben Marger's house, and I think that's a pretty pretty accurate depiction. Like a like a smaller version of that. Alright. So it's funny because I was there the day Martin and Denise moved in there way long ago. It's changed a lot. Like the home, same size home, same home, but so many different things have changed since then. Plus it was the summer. I was there in the winter. ⁓ but it's still like

Seeing everything again that when I was there was awesome. And then also all the new stuff that was added. ⁓ was able to talk to Martin quite a bit. We hung up hung out up in the treehouse and, you know, had some nice chat, catching up. We haven't seen each other in a long time. So it was good to to reminisce with him about the old days and just hang out. and also see all the people that were there. Was a ton of people camping and

that came by to skateboard and to fingerboard and just to hang out. A lot of people just sit inside chilling, you know, hanging out with their friends. So it was a great time. So

speaker-1 (43:00)
This would probably have been the third time where I shouldn't have stepped on a board, but I did. And ⁓ they had this really nice bowl to which when I dropped in, I kind of remembered like I even when I was like okay at skating, ⁓ I'd never skated a bowl. So other than the previous day. That's where I was you know, like pool coping, never felt that. And but then I started to feel it.

⁓ I don't remember this actually, but I asked them later. ⁓ I attempted to carve the most shallow end of the bowl. If you're to see ⁓ long lens of this, this is not impressive. ⁓ I basically attempted to carve and I don't remember what happened, but they claimed that I did the splits with one leg up on top and then one leg in. ⁓ but I saved that, man. I saved it. And barely. So they say.

speaker-0 (43:39)
So funny.

Foot went straight on the puddle.

What do you consider saving? You didn't fully fall, but you pretty much fell.

speaker-1 (43:59)
I am not in

We saved our body is what it comes down to.

my gosh, yeah, you're right. Thanks for reminding me. Tragic. Yeah. You know what though? We had a few of the guys from the crew though. After I did that, I still didn't learn my lesson. And I said, well, let's try out some of the pool coping. I'll do maybe an axle stall or something. And then I was that was out of my wheelhouse. But then finally I was just I I was like, let's get something done here. I can do this. ⁓ couldn't, but the guys from the crew

speaker-0 (44:14)
It's okay, he only has five other pairs.

speaker-1 (44:39)
They just looked at me, he's like, they're like, you just gotta be confident. I heard that and I was like, stop it. Stop. Clearly, no. That was exactly what I needed to hear. I was like, yeah, I used to be able to skate a little bit. I was actually stall fine getting some feeble here and there. Nothing to write home about. But it was I immediately I was like, I forgot, you actually just have to try it instead of like try it. So that was that was a nice little moment for me that made me realize, hey, we could do this again one day. But the place, let's get over that stuff.

The place was amazing. Like what Tanner said, they gave a really good description of what this place looked like. But we saw the black river riders there. Kind of fanning out about that still, by the way. It's really gonna set in when I get home, I bet. ⁓ at this point in the trip, I was pretty tired. Jet lag never quite got cured. So the second I sat down on his couch, turns out I just fell asleep back flat and I woke up to I was like, Where am I? And like the pure like

Windows with the amazing scenery. I'm like, I'm sweating. ⁓ but anyway, it was just surreal experience for a couple of reasons. And ⁓ I'm really glad we went there too. It was a nice way to kind of round out the event, get some clips, kind of reflect on the the last few days.

speaker-0 (45:57)
They abandoned me. They did I was there for like twelve hours and they were gone most of the time.

I asked you if you wanted to come and you said that you wanted to stay. So I was like, Okay, we'll be back. And I did want to stay, but that doesn't take away the fact that everybody left me. I was the only American there. I didn't know like anybody. So I I'm sure there were other people that didn't know anybody there too. But I'm just like I hope nobody points out the fact that I don't know anybody here and it's just like, Who are you? Like, I don't I don't know. I'm just here guys. They left they left me. Y'all are my babysitter.

speaker-1 (46:37)
⁓

speaker-0 (46:38)
He was safe. He was safe the entire time. Man, you went to Mitch went to Martin Winkler's house somehow. You didn't even get back to like four o'clock in the morning kind of stories. So ⁓ everybody else went ⁓ back to the Airbnb to go crash after the Fast Fingers event, but you you got some stories.

speaker-1 (47:03)
Call them stories, but I had I saw so many amazing people. I didn't know where I was gonna go. I had a friend, Austin. Thanks so much for ⁓ taking the time to come out here, watch the event, and hang out. We go to the after party for Black River, and then we met up just like the first person I talked to. We ended up talking about a lot of interesting conversations, differences in countries and culture, government, all of that. And ⁓ just right away they said, Do you want to go to insert the blank? That I had no clue. I was like, What? What where?

They said it again, and was just like, yeah, we'll go to that thing. So I just started walking a direction, and ⁓ and about 20 minutes later, we end up at this amazing house. ⁓ another Martin, by the way. I there's so many Martins out there, and they're both great. ⁓ we get to the house, there's more parks, there's all this history, all this skate memorabilia in the house. and it was ⁓ it was the man's house, man. It was the real deal. They had a little stands up like I'll.

Martini stand. You had all of the just a bunch of average Joes like myself just hanging out, playing games to skate, talking. And before you knew it, the conversations like we we just had a conversation for like five hours straight into the middle of the night and just exchanged ideas, differences, and it was underrepresented one of the best parts of the event because you could just relax, you didn't have to fingerboard, you just got a lot of just

Enjoyable time. Man, you guys should have seen it though. Like the tree kind of outlined the if for people that have been there, you understand. The tree kind of outlined the parks, it like created some shade for you. It felt like you're like in a dome of sorts. There's like these LED lights kind of shining around. It was pretty surreal. ⁓ sorry you guys weren't. I would have invited you, but I didn't even know where I was going, and I just ended up appearing at this house. and thank you to the fellas that had just walked ended up.

Walking us out there.

speaker-0 (49:01)
Fun, even if he would have invited us, I would have been asleep. All right, so man, crazy experiences. So we are basically in our last day here in Germany. We're on our way back to Berlin. We're gonna do some touristy stuff. I think Miss Vicky has an atinery for us, and we're gonna go do some touristy stuff. We're gonna gallop in, we're gonna gallop in through Berlin.

I guess I'll start. Yeah. So shout out to my sponsors, Black River, Berlin, Wood, Flat Fla Flat Flace. Flatface Wheels and Blistered. Shout out to all them. Shout out to Crete Doctor and the PBS crew and the traveling crew. Shout out to all the guys up there. All my homies. ⁓ shout out to Bull God FB and Teak Tuning. And those are my only sponsors. Chris has a lot.

speaker-1 (49:57)
Shout out to Famous Dex. Thanks for all the years so far. It's been great. ⁓ shout out to ⁓ Fingerboard Connoisseur, black velvet tape. And dirty fingerboards ill pills for the wheels. ⁓ again, just thanks for all the support of the years. You have been great. And of course, to round it out, thanks so much for Levine for taking us out here. Although that's a given, I continually we need to remind ourselves this is amazing that we had this opportunity.

He's the guy that made it happen. And ⁓ yeah.

speaker-0 (50:31)
Appreciate you guys, appreciate you guys. I feel like one of the uncool kids. I don't have any sponsors. Somebody needs to sponsor me. Sponsor me. Anyways, I rep Fingerskate, USAFBL, and Plies Mag. You can also catch me on all platforms at USAFBL. Till next time.