Supertoxic Urethane in Berlin

I recently had the pleasure of joining the Supertoxic Urethane team on a week-long trip to delve into the wonders of the Berlin skate scene. As it’s been rated up there with Barcelona for skateboarding everyone was hyped to skate there and it did not disappoint. Big sets, street beers, being stot at by a crackhead with an imaginary gun and 24 hour discotecs, this was definitely one of the best trips I've been on with such a sick bunch of dudes. 

DAY 1

As everyone is located in different parts of England people flew from different airports and we met up at the hostel. Ross Zajac and I met a keen Danny Able fresh off a plane at about lunchtime and we then headed to the hostel. On arrival we were promptly told by some of the team what a shit hole the hostel was (which now seems like a Hilton hotel compared to the result of 14 pairs of sweaty feet stewing in a small dorm for a week). And which we later suspect was above an unmarked titty bar.

Before we'd even left the hostel Lloyd managed to saturate himself in Chinese food

So after dumping the bags and grabbing some food we headed in search of our first spot. I’d been to Berlin for a couple of days last summer and remembered some gnarly huge banks in the centre so we headed there to check them out. Unexpectedly, some hammers got thrown down before we got kicked off and we then moved to the plaza at the other side of the tower. We skated here for most of the day and met up with Danish who had missed his flight…

Charlie Munro - nosebonk 180

Lloyd McLeggon - Kickflip

Sandy - Bennihana 

Chad Muska finally showed up. erm I mean, Danish

DAY 2

Everyone was keen to keep their legs fresh for the rest of the trip so we went in search of the legendary Berlin bench spot for some tech madness. Things didn't quite go to plan as we found a handrail just outside of the underground stop. Once Charlie was done murdering the rail we continued our search for the bench spot. We spent most of the day filming at this spot which is time consuming when you’re rolling with a crew of 14 people! 

Charlie Munro - Fs Feeble

After chatting to some locals we found out that this spot is not just popular in Berlin for the benches. It is also highly populated with attractive females. 

"Dont do hard tricks! Just tweak out a steezy front board and then get all your homies to go mad, clapping and cheering!" 

This guy knew what was up.

Sam Pendlebury - Bs Boneless

Friendly Locals offering out fruit

#TEAMNASTY

Ross Zajac - Polejam

DAY 3

We set off on day 3 in search of some more legendary Berlin spots. The first spot was the up/down corner block which was ripe with charismatic homeless people. The spot had definitely seen better days due to its exposure and was therefore not the easiest thing to skate.

Ross Zajac - Lipslide

Charlie Munro - flip bs tailslide

The next spot on the list was the polish memorial. This spot was literally a shredder training facility! everything was ridable, grindable and jump-down-able. I didn't manage to get many photographs at the spot because I was too busy filming but everyone killed it and made it worth missing out on shooting a few photos. When the Full length Supertoxic video comes out you'll understand.

We were lucking enough to meet Mark Suciu and some of Habitat team. They were all really nice dudes and killed it!

DAY 4

We started off day 4 with a quick trip to the skate shop only to find out it had a concrete bowl in the middle of it! unfortunately we weren't allowed to skate it for long but I managed to catch this photo of dale giving it the once over.

The first spot was a huge street vert quater. Or so my map lead me to believe. When we arrived at where it was meant to be there was just a block of flats... so on to the next stop.

Radman rocking a quick one on a bridge while we were waiting for the straglers of the group to catch up

Ross Zajac - slappy 5050 the rainbow

Even though we didnt find the last spot it did bring us closer to this unbelievable spot. Almost straight away Kinney sterilised himself with a heafty ball shot. Some of us were feeling worse than others after a few of us went after some renowned German nightlife. We ended up partying at a techno all nighter and must have been the only people not pilled off our heads. the sensible ones got an early one, Dale went smooching with 2 girls at once and a cheeky 5 knuckle shuffle in the club... and Pendlebury and Headford partied until 7 am. 

Sandy - Tuck Knee

I had to wake Dale up from his midday slumber to get back up and do this fs flip again for a photo. Dont think he was too pleased.

Danish - Nollie bigspin heelflip

Lloyd - 180 sw 50 

Charlie i think you're doing it wrong - sw crook up the bump

DAY 5

To our surprise whilst we were out skating the day before someone was kind enough to build a manny pad right outside our hostel. We woke up early and skated it for a bit until the builders returned and said they had to start work.

Ant Voyle

Sandy doesn't mess about when it comes to breakfast

We set out to find the skate-able fountain on the outskirts of the city, One of the trains we needed to catch wasn't running meaning it took us over an hour to get there! And on our way there out of curiosity we watched some footage of the fountain. At that point I think everyone realised how big it was going to be, and then we got there, and it was bigger... Despite its size and essentially having a metal spike in the middle, a session still went down.

Lloyd was kind enough to go into filmer mode at this spot

The fountain was right at the entrance to a park which meant loads of lurkers. As soon as 1 old lady hobbled her way down the run up, there would be kids on bikes in the fountain, not to even mention the meat head who threw stones into the fountain in an attempt for his dog to chase after and piss in the fountain.

Kinney - Pushing a fat no comply out of the dish

After leaving the fountain we headed home to charge the camera batteries and then head out for a night skate. We headed out for the night skate (minus the charged batteries... my bad). We accidentally ended up at the museum we were planning on skating the next day so got a cheeky taster of what was to come. The place looked amazing, so many different ways to skate it and about 10 completely different obstacles.

"Danny you're so fit you should be on a chocolate wrapper"

...and the "im going to fuck myself up at absolutely every spot" award goes to..
Charlie Munro

Sam Pendlebury - Nosegrind

DAY 6

We headed to the Museum bright and early to make the most of the only day it was closed. The place was amazing and it was the hottest day of the trip. The only let down was the screech of a pebble that could be heard every 2 seconds followed by someone hitting the deck or throwing the F word about.

No photo can do this drop in justice

You win some... you lose some...

Radman saved the day multiple times with this First aid kit

We discovered that we had only been skating a small part of the museum at about 6pm when we went in search of what we'd been referring to as the "Brady" ledges. We turn up to see Brady and Jenson skating there. what are the chances. After Shredding the spot till dark I decided I hadn't taken enough photographs so blinded everyone with these night shots.

Lloyd - Bs Bluntslide

James Headford - 5050

Ross - Bs Tailslide

Radman Getting Rad

 DAY 7 (FINAL DAY)

Despite Berlin feeling like a safe city there were a couple of close calls. When Kinney was going down an escalator with a fag in his mouth a bald gripper in front with his girlfriend, turned round tried to grab it out of his mouth. He persisted to grab for the smoke, Kinney kept saying no, my cig, no, no problems, my cig. His face goes from pissed off to... Rottweiler. he started getting pissed off, his Lady friend stoped him a bit and Kinney looked away, when at the bottom of the escalator they scurried past him quickly, next thing he grabs a random passer-by and starts laying into him! harsh style. In trying to let a policeman know he didn't understand English, or even some body trying to act a fight out to say there’s a fight going on. Once aware he slowly strolled over, quietly saying halt!

The second incident was when Headford walked over to a bench, stood next to it, a guy’s bag was next to it, next thing a 6,2 gripper comes over starts pushing Headford. He was pursuing him round the bench, Headford does a funny half run skip thing and the guy keeps going you got a problem?! Meanwhile the rest of us where like wow wow wow wow chill He eventually he fucked off. And we were told by a local that people get stabbed on our underground line all the time…

Ant was this close to getting a tattoo for loosing a bet. If it wasn't for the expensive price he would be branded with "gammon" right now

"Gammon" - Southern slang, meaning hot chick

Kinney - stalefish tweak

Summary of this spot

• Danish punched himself in the head and broke his finger
• Danish has 14 work out DVDs and is the only member of the team who can handle the workout
• Danny's a chocolate bar kid
• Charlie slays everything
• We found a bullet shell
• Longboarders are cool...
• Dale should never fall asleep on the street

 

Dale made the mistake of falling asleep at this spot. We all hid behind some cars and politely asked a German passer by if he would go and wake him up. He kindly did so and was greeted by a dozy Dale telling him to "F**k off you German tw*t". 

After waking Dale up we headed to a DIY quaterpipe we spotted from the train. As the first bit of tranny of the trip the moshers of the group were feeling happy.

Dale - Fs flip Disaster

 Ross getting rad on lil red

Some of us headed back to the Polish memorial for some last minute hammers

At the end of the trip I don't think people could have skated another day if they wanted too. Everyone was battered and I fear that if we had stayed in the 14 person trenchfoot smoke dorm any longer we may not have made it back home. It was a pleasure to document this trip and all the rad dudes that were a part of it.

Thanks to everyone involved! Mike Crisp, Ross Zajac, Charlie Munro, James Headford, Sandy, Lloyd Mcleggon, Mark Radman, Danny Abel, Ant Voyle, Sam Pendlebury, Danish, Dale Starkie and Kinney! 

Photography and words by Adam Todhunter