What made you decide to try off-road blading with the Kizer Trimax frames?
Christophe Matuszak: I was already off-road blading with my different skate setups throughout the years. When I saw that Kizer was releasing a 3×110 UFS frame, I instantly knew this would open up so many more possibilities to take my off-road skating to another level.
What do you enjoy the most about off-road skating?
Christophe: I love the feeling you get when skating in nature. I never thought I would be able to skate some of these steep grass hills or rock covered trails, but being able to drop in and roll full speed down terrain you should not be able to roll on is so much fun.
What is the most difficult thing about skating off-road?
Christophe: Watch out for rocks and roots! Keep in mind that falling is never option and is forbidden when off-road skating. Also when skating dirt, it is easy to ruin a spot after the first try. I had some difficulty with my ACL / Meniscus pain in my right knee. When skating off-road you really almost need to relearn how to skate again. Also if you’ve never skated on the streets before it would be very complicated to learn how to skate on off-road terrain.
How did you injure yourself? How long did it take to recover?
Christophe: I injured myself on the fakie 540. I was not feeling the trick and I was scared to hit the jump. I nearly made it perfectly but I was a bit too high on the landing and one of my feet sank into the ground and just stopped and then launched me to the ground blowing out my wrist. It was in a cast for two weeks and I had to stop skating for two months.
How difficult was it to film some of these shots, especially the follow shots?
Tony Martins: Mathieu Allart also helped film some of the follow shots. The most difficult part was after the shot, we would have to side step back up these hills over and over and some of them were pretty far.
How different was filming this compared to filming street or skatepark?
Tony: The terrain we filmed at for this edit was more of a hostile playground then a traditional skate spot. We had to deal with so much dust everywhere and with ground that would move while you were skating on it. Anytime I would be standing stationary to film I would get covered in bugs.
What was the most difficult thing about this project?
Tony: Waking up early on a Sunday morning is never an easy task. Most of these trails are for motocross bikes, so we would have to stop to let them by and the noise those bikes make is extremely annoying when trying to film.
Did you ever try skating in a forest and off-road on smaller wheels before?
Christophe: Yes, I have done some off-road blading on 80mm powerblade frames but I lost a lot of speed with them.
Have you tried actually off-road skates with tires?
Christophe: No, I have never tried them. Ten years ago I really wanted to buy a pair of the Rollerblade Coyotes at an old skate shop but they only had them in a size 42, which was too small, and I was very unhappy.
Tony, did you try to some off-road skating too during this shoot?
Tony: I tried rolling in one of the big downhill’s and I made it about 3/4 of the way. I really thought I was going to die.
How long did it take to film this edit?
Tony: We filmed this on four different Sundays over a four-month period. It took so long because Christophe broke his wrist when we first began filming.
What skaters inspire you to skate off-road?
Christophe: Antony Pottier, Dustin Werbeski, Ricardo Lino & Mathieu Allart.
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