After heading to the U.K. to skate in the Chaz Sands Invitational, the REMZ team headed to Germany to session with the Grindhouse team. Photographer Holger Thalmann was on-hand to capture the action, so he sent us these pics and a write up about the day. Check it out!

On the first of May 2008, around 2 p.m. in Ulm, a gray non-descript van pulls into a parking lot beside a skatepark. The doors of the van open and some of the best skaters in the world step out.

Nick Wood, Chris Haffey, Franky Morales and Kato (owner of Remz) just arrived from the cold UK to the seemingly promising skies of Germany to meet up with the Grindhouse Team.

Apparently the trip had already endured some injuries after the battle at the Chaz Invitational. When they arrived, Woodster was cooling his knee and Franky, after being hurt the last three days, dropped into buddha position to stretch for a while. Now he had new energy to roll.

As they entered the park, most of the skaters stopped cruising to observe Franky and Chris warming up and spinning the first 540—900 on the fun box. Before I even had a chance to set up my gear, Franky and Chris had already started to tear the park apart. Luckily they had to stop and sign some autographs so I had time to finish setting up and was ready to capture the high transfers from Haffey and the tech grind combos from Morales.

The people enjoyed watching their previously known DVD stars in real life. And the young gun, Lucas Landthaler, with a mullet reminiscent of a Jedi, showed off some of the most outrageous and fastest trick lines on every obstacle in the park!

Then the warmed-up pros pushed the level. Franky gapped to top soul on a huge wall, while Alex Rudolph hit negative alley-oop mistrals on the rail, and Chris Haffey did bank to true miszou on the high middle box until the crowd applauded. Finally, everyone went outside to get some more autographs and catch a few more fan pictures.

Everyone enjoyed coming together and as Daniel Prell showed up later he was the last to session with the locals and ended the day with a disaster alley-oop Makio. — Holger Thalmann (Holgerthalmann.de)

Special thanks to Thorsten at Grindhouse.de, Kato form Remz, and Zahra for helping translate!