In 2000, skateboarding was banned in 25 of Bordeaux’s public spaces. Today, not only is street skating accepted, it’s also responsible for regenerating derelict urban spaces. Rachel Ifans visits the French city more famous for its wine, with her skater-mad son, and meets Leo Valls, the pro-skater behind Bordeaux’s huge change of heart.
My son Twm got a skateboard for his 15th birthday. Where we live, there are a couple of measly skateparks, a network of cobbled streets, and one haven of smooth pavements, patrolled by security guards ready to hoick skaters off at the first sound of trundling wheels.
It became clear that the noise and use of public spaces for skateboarding are not always welcome and, feeling miffed on his behalf, I started researching skate-friendly cities. Many are not only “dealing with” skateboarding, but actually embracing it as a social and cultural activity, a method of green transport, and a lucrative stream of tourist buck.
Bordeaux is at the forefront of this kind of urban transformation; a historical city that, although famous for wine and food, is also a renowned skate center with about 30,000 skater citizens and skate-tourists from all over the world. The powers-that-be now recognize that skating is way more than a sport—it’s about urban exploration, a way to meet people, keep fit, express yourself creatively, push yourself, practice mindfulness, and learn about success and failure. But it wasn’t always that way.
It doesn’t take long to get familiar with the skate spots in Bordeaux. Within a day of arriving, I’m pointing out a ramp here and a ledge there to my skater son. “That would be good to grind along,” I find myself saying, negotiating streets that are shared between walkers, skaters, cyclists, e-scooters and trams without a second thought.
We visit Skatepark Hangar Darwin, a former military hangar fitted out with a huge bowl and a mix of rails and blocks, and wile away hours watching helmeted and padded kids on scooters alongside bare-chested men on boards. “Mum, look at her on the mega ramp,” says my son, wide-eyed, as a young woman descends one side of the halfpipe before flying off the other side mid-trick. Turns out it’s Shani Bru, a local hopeful for the next Olympics.
Darwin is a sustainable cooperative, starting off as a skatepark before evolving into a co-working space, restaurant, café, shops, workshops, a brewery, and even a school. Everyone from teens to families muck in together, on boards, scooters or skates, or ‘skatewatching.’
In fact, everywhere we go in Bordeaux, whether an al-fresco lunch in Place Fernand Lafargue, a café in front of the Hotel de Ville, admiring the Miroir d’Eau on the riverside, or waiting for the water bus at Quai de Queyries, you can almost always skatewatch. We admire the ollies, kickflips, nosegrinds and shuv-its practiced by a couple of lads outside the town hall and it only takes one beer, one lemonade and a crèpe of watching time to grasp the skill, dedication and art of these young men and women.
Bordeaux is home to pro-skater Leo Valls. He started skateboarding in Bordeaux in 2000—when it was prohibited in 25 public spaces. The police would ticket skaters and the city started setting up skate-stoppers on public structures to discourage them. “When you’re 15 and you’re in a process of finding your own identity and searching for what you love… when your passion is forbidden, it makes you act in a rebellious way,” he says.
“They thought skateboarding could be banned, but it cannot. Then they wanted to separate us, give us a skatepark, but I said no. We love our city!”
- Leo Valls
But skateboarding was about way more than rebellion. It also taught him success and failure and determination. “When you learn a trick, you fall and go back on your board and you fall and you go back, and it teaches you that when something is hard, you have to go for it again and again,” he says. “As kids, it put us in the present moment, not stressing about the future, not melancholic about the past—we were focused on the present.”
I see this in real life when my son takes a lesson at Zoom Skateboard and Co., the cultural center for skateboarding in Bordeaux which hosts skate school BoardO. Twm’s teacher marks out the bends on the floor in chalk for him to follow and I sit proudly, transported back to the sidelines of gymtots, as he progresses from curves to ramps to rails and steps until he can put together a line of tricks and is Darwin-ready.
When Leo got back from traveling in 2016, he saw two skateboarders almost get run over by a tram in Bordeaux because they were being chased by the police. Things needed to change. So when he was invited onto live news to talk about the positives of the skate economy in Bordeaux, he decided instead to let rip about the city and the police.
Leo’s outburst prompted a call from the town hall and a request to ‘talk’. He recalls how hard those fledgling meetings were. “My papa always told me to listen to people and try to put myself in their shoes, so I did that but they had no solutions whatsoever,” he says. “They thought skateboarding could be banned, but it cannot. Then they wanted to separate us, give us a skatepark, but I said no. We love our city!”
Skateboarding was born in the streets and, while skateparks are important for learners, 99 percent of skaters will return to the streets—for variety, because there are no rules and regulations, and because it’s free. “It’s about being creative, finding the right spot and doing the right movement—and it’s infinite,” says Leo.
Back in 2016, with all the good skate spots in the city prohibited and skateparks not the solution, making change was tough. But Leo pushed through a three-month trial of the Skate(z)Zen initiative, essentially a timeframe system where skaters could skate at certain times of the week in certain public places.
The launch was accompanied by a mission to change hearts and minds, with an exhibition showcasing Bordelais skateboarding heritage and culture, the installation of skateable sculptures in the city, and a promo video showing Leo skating inside the Opera House.
“It’s very cool for us to have politicians who understand a subject like skateboarding. It’s not only sport—it’s cultural, it’s sport, it’s mobility, it’s security, it’s social cohesion, it touches a bunch of different topics that all make city life today.”
- Leo Valls
The timeframe system worked, but in 2020, the Green Party took over in Bordeaux with Amine Smihi as deputy mayor in charge of security and public spaces. It was another crux time, explains Leo. “When Amine and his crew took over, we hoped it would keep going in the right direction because we had some dark days where it was difficult for us; to be such city lovers and at the same time, get chased by the police and feel rejected by the city. It was insane.”
In fact, things have improved further, thanks to having a progressive party in charge which wants to modernize the city for every Bordelais—and not just the bourgeoisie who see the city as a museum of the past.
One square that had been abandoned, where skateboarding had stopped and the space left to drug dealers, has been remodeled. It’s now alive with skaters, kids, picnickers, rollerbladers, scooters and parkour fans.
New skateable structures are installed yearly to reinforce skateboarding in a cultural, artistic context—the outdoor skatepark at Hangar 14 in the Chartrons district is having a makeover and is due to re-open in late 2022. The timezone system is about to be dropped too, in favor of a softer, more integrated, approach, with no time zones and just a color-coded leaflet that explains when and where skaters need to be mindful of residents.
This level of skate integration is rare. Barcelona is probably the granddaddy of European skate cities; its climate, architecture and marble pavements make it perfect for all-year-round skating and skate-tourism, but it’s places like Malmö in Sweden and its commitment to creating healthy and playable cities with multi-use spaces and no regulations on which Bordeaux role-models itself.
“It’s very cool for us to have politicians who understand a subject like skateboarding,” says Leo. “It’s not only sport—it’s cultural, it’s sport, it’s mobility, it’s security, it’s social cohesion, it touches a bunch of different topics that all make city life today.”
They are even planning a skate festival to launch in 2023. Mathieu Hazouard, the deputy mayor in charge of sport, is on board too. “Skateboarding is fantastic because it makes it possible to cross cultural boundaries within the sphere of urban planning,” he says. “It’s something that takes place in a public setting, so we need to be mindful of supporting both skateboarders and the non-skateboarding public, but it’s all about finding balance between practice and peace.”
Visiting Bordeaux is also all the things travel should be; surprising, exciting, fun. Skatewatching aside, there’s the immersive wine experience, La Cité de Vin museum, and Bassins des Lumières, a digital art center set in a gargantuan ex-submarine base. But skatewatching and skateboarding added a new dimension. My son came back with new skills and role models and I returned enlightened about skateboarding culture and its intimate relationship with a city.
As Leo says, to be a skateboarder is to love the city: “The whole game is about exploring the city. I’m always looking for a spot that no-one’s skated and trying to find the right trick to do on the right spot.”
“I love the freedom skateboarding gives you,” he adds. “It’s just a plank of wood with four wheels, but it allows you to find interest in many other things like architecture, photographs, video making, design and so much more.”
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Rachel Ifans is a travel writer and fervent Francophile, spending as much time as she can in France, writing about it and studying the language. Bylines include The Independent, National Geographic, Metro, The Simple Things, France Magazine and Eurotunnel.com.
