Ravenhill is a downhill race in Gothenburg, Sweden, close to the city. So it’s quite unique because it is so easy to find good
transportation here with buses or tram.

Every year we have made improvements to the race and the registrations increase every year, last year it was 102. We have a DJ, a
small tent where riders can change their clothes and small lorries that take the riders up the last part of the course. The first
event was in 2006, so this is the sixth event in a row!

Klaes Johansson (santa), Jairo Carrasco and myself (Victor Mårtensson) are the head organizers. We started planning early in January, talking about how we could improve from last year, who should do what and so on. It is hard work dealing with the police and the owners of the park, so we need to be early so all the permissions will be ready before the event.

The track is 900 meters long with really rough tarmac, some small pot-holes and one tight corner that people always crash in, this is also where we have the speaker and DJ and where the audience will sit and wait for the crashes. Top speed is close to 60-65 km/h.

We started quite early on Saturday, so we could get everything set before the freerides started. It rained the night before so the surface was quite wet, which some of the new riders weren’t used to. So we had some action with a lot of crashes, which resulted in a few injuries, but we had secured the track well with hay bales.

130 people were registered but 92 showed up, perhaps because of the weather. First day is always for time-trials, and freerides. We value the freeride time quite high, because in the end, everyone is there to skate and have fun together.
The timetrials went smoothly, but we decided to just have one timetrial due to the number of people. And we just had the road closed till seven that evening.

For the evening: Actually our sponsor Slipstream had a little party and barbecue at their store room, it was nice and people had fun. My higlight for the first day, was that a great number of people came to just watch. It was sunny and everyone got a massive number of freerides.

The feeling was awesome. The feelings for day two was a little bit stressed, Klaes overslept and it was cold, rainy and we had around 90 riders waiting for freerides. But after a little while everything got started and everyone was happy, but once again someone was putting “spanners in the works”. The parking attendants showed up and said that we had to move some of the cars at the bottom of the track (inside the blockade) we said that we had all the permissions, but they weren’t pleased at all. After a while the police showed up,
asking ”what’s going on”, but they were really relaxed and after a few seconds they were more interested in the event, top-speed, and so on. Good cops! haha
But we were still delayed and had to push up the tempo. Everyone was working hard as hell, to keep the event going smooth. At the end of the day, we did. Almost everyone was pleased with the event. Someone said that this was the best downhill race they ever been at. Puh!

After the prize ceremony we had a little lottery with all of the sponsor stuff, boards, wheels, complete longboards, bearings, t-shirts. The kids where excited as hell haha.

Results:
1 Adam Persson
2 Mattias Borg
3 Klaes Johansson
4 Adrian Jancey

Thanks to all the sponsors and riders who showed up, without you there will be no Ravenhill!
JSMLongboards, Hollywood.se, Madrid, Slipstream, Fullbag, Sector 9, Sublimeboards, life on a board, B RD, mrboard.se, Kahalani! Thank you all.

Photos by the talented Tanya Raab