Luxemburg – Full pipe and Ditch session

When I got my first glimpse of the full pipe back in early 1990, I was breathless. It seemed huge to me – even though you can only ride a small part of the whole height. It looked like the stuff I had only seen in 80’s videos from the USA: vertical, concrete and gnarly. Best part of it – it was located about a mile from my home, and it had taken me a year to figure out that there was such a thing.

Fast forward to 2011. Even though I have spent a couple of amazing sessions there in the mean time, the full pipe has never been my main spot. It’s something for the special days, you know? Well, early May asked for a special day.

It was time to disclose the spot to one of the new kids on the block. Mike Kieffer, a young vert junkie, who went from a novice to a respected vert am within a year (gay twists & overhead judo airs, anyone?) Mike had let me know his interest in having a session at the “Rouer“, as we call it (‘pipe’ in Luxembourgish).

So there we were – Mike, my longtime buddy Nicolas and myself. Nicolas had already done some heavy sweeping – no, not the trick, but real-life dirt sweeping, since the pipe is always covered in a mix of mud and dust. Mike had brought a few beers to get in the right mood and off went the pipe session… I think the photos can do the talking at this point.

The fun thing about the pipe is that it offers quite some possibilities for something that has never been built for skating – tricks on the tiny lip, tricks on the over vert lip or just plain full-speed carving all the way through. Mike opted for the latter and thrusted some arcs well over 9 o’clock. And as the saying goes, ‘concrete holds the promise of pleasure – but dues have to be paid’. Well, there’s one thing I can tell – we had our share of ‘pleasure’ and we paid our dues… – Dan Luciani

Photos: Bouvy Nicolas