Night Blading with Stephane Mosselmans

Night Blading with Stephane Mosselmans

Belgium’s resident Xsjado representative dominates four skate spots in one evening and discusses his views on the current state of the sport.

Rollerblading at night is no easy task: It is harder to judge distance and trajectory without the benefit of daylight, making it much more difficult to coordinate your body and spot your landing on technical tricks involving spins. You also have to worry about the certain degree of visual impairment that nocturnal blading excursions bring, as small hazards on the run-up to an obstacle become less visible and then there are the passing pedestrians that seem to appear out on nowhere and suddenly you find yourself coming off a ledge or rail at high speed and hurtling towards a middle-aged women laden with shopping and frozen to the spot like a rabbit in the headlights. Fortunately, Belgian street skating stalwart Stephane Mosselmans is so talented that such complications may be necessary, because when he straps on a pair of rollerblades and gets in his zone, he makes it look far too easy.

If you witnessed Mosselmans’ recent online edit for boot sponsor Xsjado, you will be aware that he can link together some incredibly complicated lines, possesses the balance of a yoga teacher and performs truespin alley-oop topsides on obstacles higher than his waist with frustrating consistency. In short, the guy is a street skating wunderkind. All of the photos in this interview were taken during a single winter evening after a long day at work on a pair of skates equipped with a set of Kizer powerblading frames. That’s right, even a flat set-up of huge wheels can’t stop Mosselmans from lacing back farvs and topside pornstars on high-as-hell ledges. Imagine how good this guy would be if he didn’t have a career in education to focus on. Scary, isn’t it?

Wheel Scene: How old are you, where do you live and how long have you been rollerblading?
Stephane Mosselmans: I’m 28-years-old. I live in Anderlecht, a city near Brussels. I have been skating for about 15 years now and I think I am gonna skate until I can’t even walk!

How did you get into rollerblading?
My cousin introduced me to it. He took me to the local skate park in Anderlecht. It was a very big indoor park, which doesn’t exist anymore. There was everything you could dream of to skate in this place. On my first visit I mostly looked at the skaters there, looking to see what they were doing to see what was possible to do. I started by doing jumps and stuff. I made some friends, bought aggressive skates, some second hand destroyed Oxygens, and that is how everything started.

What is the scene like in your local city?
There are not so many rollerbladers any more, but the ones who are still skating always try to get in touch. I think we’re kinda friendly to everyone who wants to skate with us. We’re always complaining about our spots, saying that we’d like to get new ones that look like the ones in Barcelona and get the Spanish weather, too.  But, in fact, we’re happy to skate the spots of our city.

So the scene is small but tight?
There may not be so many rollerbladers but, for us, I think it’s an advantage. It’s easier to move around and skate other cities with a few cars and not many people here actually realise what we are doing. We don’t often get kicked out of the spots we skate. In fact, the scene here is mainly some old guys that have been skating for more than ten years. They are not easy to get hold of when the winter comes but there is no competition between us, just people who like to skate and party.

Are you working or studying at the moment?
I am an educator. I work with children between two and a half years and twelve years. I love my job because it’s doesn’t really feel like a job. You’ve got responsibilities, of course, but most of the time you can act the clown with the children. I often play football with them. They call me Beckham! You meet a lot of people, too. Talking with the parents makes me feel like my job is useful.

What do you think about the new powerblading craze?
Honestly, when I first tried them (the Kizer frames) I wasn’t sure it was possible to do grinds, but I rediscovered blading again – just like when I was a child. I wasn’t used to skating flat. I was mostly skating freestyle Xsjado frames and the difference is huge. You can skate really fast and you can skate on rough floors. It’s just like normal skates, but faster, and you can grind with them too. Plus, there’s no brake! It could become a new kind of blading.

What do you think about the current state of the sport?
I don’t know, I have no internet! No, I am kidding. From what I’ve seen, the internet brings too many daily edits. Every day there are new edits, lots of them are just boring and the good ones are forgotten. I miss the times of VHS when every release was an event.

What do you think about the WRS?
I think that all the WRS stuff is kinda weird. I mean, the part of the competition with the stars and the rankings and points, I don’t think it can bring people to our sport. It’s more like a video game like Sonic where you try to get all the rings. The best skaters are not always the one who are doing every single competition. Some just don’t like competitions.

What about the recent WRS Uploaded competition?
I think the WRS Uploaded thing was really cool! I don’t really care that we’re not so much in the media, like TV or stuff. I prefer it to rollerblading that looks like what Taig Khris is doing with his face on a cereal box. The bad part is that we complain that there’s no money in the game and nothing is going on, but when there’s an event everyone should go support and make people want to go the next year. I love Winterclash, but I’d prefer a great jam with big tricks and less competition.

How would you like to see the sport change?
I don’t care! I like rollerblading like it is. I just would like the kids that are getting into skating in the future to know their roots. I’d like more people to get involved without doing stuff like Taig, like washing a car on blades or jumping from the Eiffel Tower and not landing it. If it can bring people to true rollerblading then it’s fine, otherwise just stop!

Words and photos: Mathieu Hennebert