The Grand Skate Tour London
Hello Hello, Stephen @whataspoon here to talk about the Grand Skate Tour London event that happened on the weekend of the 24th of June 2023. You may have seen the photo where we have around 100 skaters standing outside the shop? Let's talk a look into how that was organised.
What is the Grand Skate Tour?
The Grand Skate Tour started off essentially as a group of friends from Portsmouth who liked to organise street skates in the area. This quickly evolved into said group venturing to different cities to organise mass group skates with skaters they had met online through facebook and instagram. In 2022 the Slick's Skate Crew managed to attend the first ever "Grand Skate Tour" which commenced in Portsmouth as it is the birth city of the event. We had skaters from all over the south of England attending, who skated on a nice touristic route that was created by the Grand Skate Tour team that involved nice long pathways and downhills to enjoy. 
The group are a lovely bunch of skilled street skaters who are great at creating routes that are interesting and fun. They keep an eye on all the skaters to make sure everyone is safe and they block traffic to stop cars, bikes or buses from entering the skate. In the first year you would find them wearing a yellow jumper so they were very easy to spot. Now in 2023 they have been in talks with Rollerblade UK thanks to the likes of Slick's Skate Crew rider Si Coburn who joins them on the street skates. Rollerblade have officially sponsored the event providing prizes at events and they also donated skates to the marshalls themselves to keep them all rolling smoothly. Obviously Rollerblade has noticed how big an impact the Grand Skate Tour is making on the British Inline Skating scene.
Over the last 2 years the Grand Skate Tour has travelled from Portsmouth to Southampton, Worthing, Oxford, Cambridge, The Isle of Wight, Bristol, Bournemouth, Bognor Regis, Winchester and of course London. They usually post on their facebook and instagram pages letting everyone know where the skate will be and when.
You can find them on Instagram and Facebook.
Slick's Skate Store X The Grand Skate Tour
I have personally been to the first Grand Skate Tour in Portsmouth and then the event they had in Oxford in 2022 but this year we have just successfully completed the London one in 2023 which took place last weekend. I say we as thanks to a strong relationship between the Grand Skate Tour and our team manager Copper, the London Grand Skate Tour 2023 started from our store on Gloucester Road and involved a surprise free raffle where the skaters could collect a ticket and win some prizes donated by Slick Willie's and Rollerblade UK at the end of the skate. Prizes included wheels, bearings, t-shirts, bags, finger skates and more.
The skate itself was unreal. It's hard to describe the feelings that are felt during these events. Even though I have been attending rollerblading events for years I still find myself extremely humbled and surprised by all the love and good vibes that leak out from these activities. 
After everyone had collected a raffle ticket and had a look around the shop, we closed up and got our skates on ready to release the skaters into the wild. We took a huge photo outside the shop of everyone before skating south down Gloucester Rd and heading on our way. We passed through many of the popular skating locations in London like the Serpentine Road, Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square, South Bank and Leake Street tunnel before heading to the smooth ground at Tate Modern to finish. As we passed through some of these spots, the Slick's Skate Crew and some of the other really talented skaters started to perform some tricks on the obstacles we passed. The whole skate would stop to watch the show with phone cameras everywhere looking at the action.
Check out this video of London Skate Life founder, German, jumping over our lovely student Coralie to the steps with a huge crowd overlooking here.
As we skated past Piccadilly Circus and Leake Street we took some photos of the huge group as everyone had a quick break to catch a breath from the intense skating. The level is quite high on the Grand Skate Tour, it is definitely not a beginner friendly street skate for sure yet the numbers are still huge. There are lots of challenging roads and hills to conquer during the skate which everyone handles very well throughout.
After arriving at Tate Modern, everyone took a seat on the benches and floor to find out who had won some prizes. The prizes were given out by Copper and Si. We all said thanks to everyone involved in the form of making lots of noise. What an incredible experience the whole event was. I am so looking forward to the next one that I can attend in Oxford on the 12th of August.
Here is a list of the 2023 schedule and a huge thank you to the Marshalls and everyone else involved who makes this an extra special event. I'll be reminiscing about the memories created by this street skate for years to come.
