Once upon a time back in 2010, Dustin Werbeski, Richie Eisler, Oli Benet, and a rotating cast of the best USD skaters lived and “worked” out of a house in Barcelona that became known as the Powerhouse. Ever wondered why everyone started calling big wheel skating “powerblading”? There’s your answer. But more importantly for this story is that this period serves as a sort of official start of the Barcelona Era, when the coastal Spanish city became a central hub for international blading travel. Flash forward to now and BCN as it’s commonly known has become one of the most over-exposed locations for blade videography and photography. Getting a clip on one of the city’s famous spots for your social media feed is a rite of passage. Which is why the MN x BCN project by Michael Garlinghouse, Blake Cohen, Jeph Howard, Kenji Yee, and Chris Farmer is such an unexpected breath of fresh air. More travel documentary of five influential blade friends that have known each other for decades than full-bore blade flick, MN x BCN is another reminder that there’s no limit to creativity and how it can surpass expectations.

Read on as the group talks about how the trip came together and whether they’re going to do it again.

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Hey guys, great project! Lots of heart and a look at skating in Barcelona unlike any I can think of. Very cool. So when did this idea take shape?

Michael: We very casually talked about how fun it would be to do a trip to Barcelona to film together for a couple years, but it didn’t become a real conversation until the end of summer 2024.

Each of you guys has their own life and family, and is plenty busy. How long did it take to actually organize it?

Michael: It wasn’t too challenging to organize. Because everybody is pretty busy with work and family life, there was only one window of a few weeks where it was possible for everybody to make it happen. The most time consuming part was picking out skate spots and organizing all the location pins with the help of Tony and Marc.

What are some of your favorite standout memories from the trip?

Jeph: I loved going out skating and getting footy! But for myself, I loved enjoying food with everyone, different meals and different snacks at different times and places. That’s what really stands out for me.

Kenji: I haven’t skated and hung with Chris too much over the years, so getting to connect with him and to witness his masterful skating was a wonderful experience.

Michael: Being at the grand opening of PANICO (a pizza restaurant opened by BCN skaters) with a big group of skaters was a cool experience. Definitely check it out if you go visit!

Any unexpected challenges or frustrations pop up while filming?

Jeph: There really wasn’t anything unexpected or frustrating about the filming and skating itself, other than the classic kick out, cop, business owner, or old dickhead waving his umbrella around trying to wack ya. I think the only thing that was challenging or frustrating was getting everybody to sync up. We all have our quirks, and we all have our things that we need to do, rituals or whatever it may be — those things that can get tricky. Don’t get me wrong. I fucking love these guys, but I like to think of it like it was a season of MTV’s The Real World ”What do you get when you put five best friends from Minnesota, in an Airbnb in the heart of Barcelona, and have them skate and film for 10 days straight?!”

Did Kenji cook every night and how good was that?

Blake: We just knew we wanted to try and keep this trip as affordable as possible and not go out to eat a ton, but Kenji was up early every morning cooking up something for us. Thanks Kenji!

(Editor’s Note: Nom nom nom.)

I want to get into the friendships a bit. How long have you guys all known each other? Which pairs are the oldest friends, going back the longest?

Kenji: I’ve known Chris the longest, since middle school. Then probably Jeph. Michael goes back a ways too, because we are from the same town and our families are friends. Blake I met later on.

Michael: Since I’m the youngest, I grew up admiring Chris, Jeph, and Kenji. I would buy every magazine and video they were featured in. They were my heroes. I’m so grateful to be able to call them some of my closest friends.

I first met Chris at a skate shop in MN called Cal Surf the day before one of the i4i Battles in like 2002 probably, but we didn’t become friends until we went on a tour in the south filming for On Top. Like Kenji said, our families are friends but we didn’t actually meet and spend time together until like 2004 when I was in high school. Our parents connected us, I think they were hoping he could be a mentor for me kinda. The first time we hung out we didn’t skate, we played tennis together because Kenji had a hurt back at the time and was taking a break from skating. Jeph and I slowly started skating together more and more from like 2005-2007, filming with Dan Knapmiller. Blake and I ran into each other in like 2005 outside a restaurant in high school, recognized each other, and started filming together soon after that. We quickly became close friends, started a video production company together in 2013, and have been business partners since then.

Something else occurred to me while watching Kenji’s section: I was watching four sections from four friends who have each been pro skaters and are actual friends in real life that have skated together for a long time. Is there another group of people like that in skating with that much time under their belts? I’m having a hard time thinking of any comparisons so please correct me if I’m wrong.

Kenji: What we have is special but I think there are plenty of scenes that go back a long way. The example that comes to mind is the Jumbo crew. I don’t know a lot about the other scenes but I’m betting most big skate cities have long friendships as well.

(Editor’s Note: Big love to Jumbo but nah it’s not the same… yet.)

Adding to that thought: Jeph, Kenji and Chris all had VG profiles. I’m sure Michael had tricks in at least a few of those. Wow! And here you guys are taking a trip together years later and still doing the thing. I think everyone should find that inspiring and aspirational.

Jeph: I’ll tell you what, I don’t know if I could’ve done it any other way. Sure, it would be cool to go on tour and skate with the team, but I’m 40. I have a wife, two kids, a house, a job. So being able to come together with my best friends was a little surreal.

Michael: I never had a trick in VG. I wish! I’m very grateful for our blading community in MN, it’s a special group.

Kenji: Thanks, Justin.

Okay, gushing aside, what was the routine like on the trip? Got pretty heavy session vibes in the video, so was that how filming worked?

Blake: We literally skated for 10+ hours every single day. We’d leave by 11am to go skate and wouldn’t make it back to the Airbnb until 10pm. We never stopped to sit down and eat. We just grabbed snacks along the way, but thankfully Kenji had dinner ready to go when we got back.

Barcelona is not an underexposed place for skating, but you guys gave it a fresh look. How much planning went into that, and did you have any guidelines in place to steer the direction?

Blake: That was all Michael! Weeks in advance, Michael sent a ton of photos to Tony Cheetah and Marc Moreno to get pin locations. Then each morning we’d look at the Google maps with all the pins and pick out which pocket we wanted to go to.

Michael: Yeah, it was a lot of work to find and organize the spot locations, but it wouldn’t have been possible without Tony and Marc! I had a lot of fun with it — trying to curate spots that might interest each skater, starting a day at a spot where people can warm up, and then build to bigger or more challenging spots later in the day. I enjoyed the puzzle of organizing the map into clusters of spots so we could get off at one metro stop, skate from spot to spot all day in a neighborhood or two, and end near another metro stop to head home.

(Editor’s Note: This is more organized than any skate trip we’ve ever heard of!)

When you travel with friends you learn all sorts of weird stuff, like:

Blake: We’ve all known each other for so long at this point, there wasn’t anything new or weird. Maybe just learning how little Kenji truly slept. Kenji would be up at 4am every morning just drinking coffee and cooking food for us to eat that night.

Kenji: To be fair, I usually sleep more normal hours but for whatever reason I wasn’t sleeping much on the trip.

Who snores the worst?

Chris: Grateful we had a spacious flat the duration of our trip, so pretty much everyone had their own sleeping quarters. If anyone was snoring, it didn’t affect my attempt at catching some shuteye to shake the jet lag, haha.

Most time on phone with significant other?

Chris: I’ll nominate myself.

Pickiest eater?

Jeph: Nobody. Michael, Chris and I are all pescatarian, and Blake and Kenji enjoy all that food anyways. We had family meal most nights at the Airbnb, so it was really easy to cook food for the crew.

Heaviest or lightest packer?

Chris: Other than the camera gear, I would say we were all fairly evenly packed.

All that said, you guys doing to do it again? Any ideas where?

Kenji: I’m not sure how the others feel, but I would like to do something like this again. If it was up to me I’d like to skate in Tokyo.

Michael: Not sure when the next trip will happen, but we have been filming this summer and fall with the broader MN scene and hope to release another little video later this winter/spring.

Well we can’t wait to see what you come up with. Thanks for sharing more about the project and keep up the great work!

[The END]

Photos by Michael Garlinghouse and Kenji Yee