The first day started with a morning of riding on a trail right next to the river, followed by a gathering on a trick park with lots of features where everyone got to know each other and the top riders from Europe showed off their skills on everything from ramps, bonks, tubes, and plain flat ground tricks as well.
An unexpected surprise happened when Fabian from Switzerland showed up with a Onewheel GT and a few people got to try it out. Keep in mind the first GTs started to arrive on Europe less then one week before the event.
Right after lunch the first European Game of Float ever started with the best of the best competing for amazing prizes. The finals were absolutely perfect, concluding with the match that everyone wanted to see: Matty Darka from France vs. Hannes Schatzmann from Liechtenstein, and what a battle it was.
In the end Vincent (aka Bowbby One) from France got 3rd place, Hannes earned 2nd place, and Matty took home the 1st place with style doing unbelievable tricks. One that sticks out was the primo into a 180 body varial and he it did it so smoothly it was a pleasure to watch.
After a bit more of trail riding and a great dinner in “IL Vigneto” restaurant, the Onewheels took over the small streets of Gattinara by storm, which resulted in both the riders and the locals getting super stoked. You could hear people shouting from all parts of the town with onewheelers everywhere, and some of them were teaching locals how to ride as well!
The second day was gnarly. We all met at the “Tower of Gattinara” where everyone was given a choice to make: There were two trails to do, there was the easy trail and the hard trail. As Jacopo was doing a small briefing for everyone, he warned us the hard trail was really, really, really hard! He said that he himself can’t do it all so he has to carry the board sometimes. He asked us to be mindful of our skill and if anyone knew that they are not an experienced rider to please go on the easy trail. The groups were formed and a nice surprise was that the hard trail had actually a lot of riders, around 20.
To start off it nothing seemed that crazy until suddenly we got to a section where you had to drop off some tree roots into a slippery downhill and midway through there was a sharp turn followed by the steepest downhill section of the whole trail! Only one rider was able to do this whole section and a few others tried starting after the drop. This was a nice appetizer for the rest of the trail which had crazy section after crazy section with only a handful of riders even attempting them.
After the trails, both groups got together and went to the middle of a big vineyard where we tried a couple of really good local wines and voted on the best riders for four categories.
Best rookie went to the incredible Lihodiy Filipp from Ukraine who produced a fantastic game of FLOAT against Vincent. Filipp landed tricks that he had never even attempted before… and he was riding a Pint on top of that!
In the best rider open category, Jérémie Ada from France took home the prize for being an incredible rider and super friendly guest. Not to mention he brought Taco–not the food, his dog–who accompanied us on a couple of trails as well. Taco may or may not have helped Jérémie win this prize!
Top female pro was awarded to Elena Cocci of Italy, whose prize was a free ticket for the FloatLineFest in Belgium later this year. Riding a Pint, Elena took on our toughest trail like a pro, showing that girls can shred hard!
And last but not least, our top male pro and the best trail rider in Europe was none other than IOWA’s own Fábio Costa from Portugal. He not only completed all the crazy sections but he was the only one to even attempt a few of them! He also took home a free ticket for FloatLineFest.
This event was huge for the Onewheel community in Europe, bringing the best riders in the continent together in a single place for the very first time! Great friendships, amazing memories and awesome plans were made in Gattinara. The future of Onewheel in Europe is rad!!
