Better Late Than Never: Our Full Barcelona Recap

Posted on Wednesday, July 19, 2017 by Chris

It took a while to get everyone's photos and clips together from our trip to Barcelona back in May. Schaefer's a busy guy (and so is everyone else for that matter), but we finally have it all, so here we go: a full recap of the 2017 SLS Nike SB Pro Open...and happy belated birthday, Paul.

Total BS: Zitzer vs. Barcelona “45 and Life to Go”

Words and Video: Brian Schaefer

It’s been years since I have written anything for the site, but had to do it in honor of Paul’s Birthday. I call it “45 and Life to go”, which is a rip off of “18 and Life” by the Canadian Glam Rock band, Skid Row. If you know this band, you’re over 35 and if you don’t know this band, don’t bother.

Courtesy of SLS, we are (were) magically in Barcelona, Spain with extra time to go skate. As you can see or not see, there aren’t any skate photos for our skate mission from me, but this is why you get my crappy cell phone edit instead.. Yep, it’s cell phone edit of mostly Paul ripping, slamming, being aggravated, and occasionally spazzing out.

So the SLS Contest first: This should have been done and posted in May, but better late than never. The course is next to the beach, the water is the Mediterranean Sea, the weather was perfect, skating was epic and it was an international meetup of the world’s best skateboarding. Nyjah won (no surprise here) and two new ripping Ams were in the finals. Which now means the two new bloods are now on the SLS World Tour for being the two highest non-SLS Pros in the Barcelona Open. Shouts out to Yuto Horigome and Tampa Am 2016 winner Dashawn Jordan. Yep, the true path to Pro which is super sick for everything we do at SPoT. Here’s the breakdown: Damn Am gets you to Tampa Am, Tampa Am 1st place gets you in the Barcelona Pro Open, Barcelona Pro Open gets you on the SLS World Tour. Congrats Yuto and especially Dashawn since he has been destroying Damn Ams for the last few years and finally took the win at Tampa Am. Well deserved and Pros beware!

It’s your Birthday, go Zitzer, it’s your Birthday! So I skated longer and further than I have in like five years. Even longer than our five-mile round trip on GSD in Tampa. It was rad and I got to film and watch Paul and a few others we ran into along the way just kill it. Hell, we clocked in like 15 miles. We ran into the entire Santa Cruz team and our fearless host of SLS, Damn Am and SPoT, Mr. Andrew Cannon - He’s “kind of a big deal” at NHS. As you will witness in my edit, Andrew Cannon kills it too. Maybe he’s working on his comeback pro model? The rad thing about SC is they hired all Floridians and local homies Joe Perrin (filmer) and Nick Matlin (TM). Good work NHS. Barcelona has a skate spot on every corner so you can’t possibly have a bad day, and the people of Barcelona are the happiest on earth, which made for a perfect day.

Paul Zitzer is a legend in my book and he was born to skate. It’s pleasure to work with him and see him skate now for over 25 years. Let’s just hope you are lucky enough to meet him in your travels.

Thanks for being a champ every time I stick that camera in your face just to annoy you. Happy Birthday (now way belated), Paul!

- Late Birthday wishes, strange photos, and comments of any kind can be sent to @paulzitzer - give him a follow at the least.