This past Saturday, I made my way across the border to catch up with Robert Guerrero at the “Lapalme d’Or II” event in Sherbrooke, Quebec. “Lapalme d’Or II” is a three-day and two-night camping and skating event that Alex Lapalme and Boutique Inline Skateshop host. Robert Guerrero is currently staying north of Sherbrooke in Drummondville. We are both only about an hour from the event, so we thought it would be the perfect opportunity to re-connect again after not seeing each other for almost two decades. Rob and I had a wonderful time hanging out, and I plan to drive up to Drummondville soon to film some more content with Rob and discuss the time we spent hanging out and filming together from the mid-90s to the early 2000s. - Jan Welch.

This video features the skating of Robert Guerrero, Lauric Picard, Maxence L. Valade, Maxime Kind, Maxime Lanthier, David Carrizosa Pereira, Gregory Hernandez, Marc-Etienne Paradis, Mathieu Lapointe, Mehdi Buscaino, Simon Gemme, and Pier-luc Bernier.

Ouwe Mannen (Full Video) is Remy Cadier’s first full lenght skate flick, featuring only skaters of over 30. Ouwe Mannen means Old Men, we thought we were old back then, how cute! This is the Robert Guerrero part, who came to visit Amsterdam in 2009.

Ouwe Mannen, released in 2010. Created by Remy Cadier. Starring: Remco vd Pol, Remy Cadier, Donny Straube, Roel Verhoeven, Roel Fritz, Sergio Hasselbaink, Sven Boekhorst, Pascal Tan & Tyron Ballantine. Filmed by: Remy Cadier, Remco vd. Pol, Cavin Brinkman, Randy Abels & Beer Hendriks.

For the third episode of the Then and Now Interview Series, I chat with Chad Hornish. I first met Chad back in 1997, when we drove to Phoenix, Arizona to introduce the Nimh team at Revolutions Skateshop’s Thursday night skate. I filmed an edit of that trip that featured the Nimh Team and Phoenix locals, including Dustin Latimer and Chad. Shortly after he was added to the Team and we invited him on our California Tour with Montre Livingston, Brian Shima, Jon Elliott, Joey Chase, Adam, and Keith Brierley, and Casey MacFarland.

In recent years Chad has been a force to be reckoned with on the competition scene, has produced numerous sections, and is now pro for Iqon Skate Brand. We discuss, Iqon, his skating, his sections, his travels, and more in this episode. If you enjoy this video, make sure to hit the like button and don’t forget to subscribe to this channel to see more. This interview is also available as a podcast on all major streaming services. Just search for “Then And Now Blading”. - Jan Welch.

Chapters: 00:00 - Intro 00:44 - Backstory 04:09 - Boschi Pope Contest 07:07 - When we met, NIMH Skates 10:00 - Nimh Tour 12:53 - Montre and getting on Iqon 15:44 - Iqon Team and the Iqon Frames 18:56 - Big Wheel Blading 20:21 - Iqon skate and team get together 22:38 - Traveling during COVID for skating 25:54 - Anti-Rocker 26:56 - Pink Video Series 30:28 - Making money today as a blader 33:23 - Favorite trips 35:18 - Competition Skating 37:05 - Street Contests 40:18 - Comps you want to skate? 44:39 - Current video projects 45:47 - Iqon Wheels 48:21 - Going viral on Instagram 56:11 - New England Blade and Camp 56:42 - Until we meet again 59:52 - Outro

Visit Thenandnowblading.com.

The Vault Episode 1 - Chris Haffey, Santiago Azpurua, Jason Howard, Damien Wilson, Nick Wood & More

Welcome to the first episode of The Vault on the Then And Now Youtube Channel. Each episode of The Vault features raw footage from one tape from my collection. I have nearly 400 VHS-C, Hi-8, and MiniDV tapes that I am archiving on my computer and sharing with the world. - Jan Welch.

This episode features Chris Haffey, Santiago Azpurua, Ryan Northway, Jason Howard, Damien Wilson, Robbie Whitcomb, Nick Wood, Nick Mantz, Mike Leaf, James St Ours, Eran Miller, Jarrod McBay, Jay Geurink, and Shannon Rodgers.

The footage was filmed back in 2000 in San Diego, California, and Austin, Texas. This tape features one of Haffey’s attempts to fastslide the famous Dallas Kink rail in San Diego, as well as the photoshoot from Santiago’s Rollerblade ad in Daily Bread Magazine.

For the first episode of the Then and Now Podcast, I interviewed the legendary rolling artist, Chris Peel. Chris played a huge behind-the-scenes role during the late 90s to mid-2000s in the aggressive inline skating industry. Growing up in Wakefield, in the UK, he started designing t-shirt’s for Puberty Clothing before landing a job with DNA magazine. He then made his way stateside to San Diego, California, in 2000 to work for and design Daily Bread Magazine. In San Diego, he created the initial branding, image, and logos for Ground Control, Rat Tail Distribution, 4x4 Urethane, Vicious Bearings, and Nimh skates.

Chris is a long-time friend who also designed the Big Wheel Blading logo for me in 2017. We haven’t had much contact these last few years, so I thought it would be fun to contact him to catch up and reminisce on our years in San Diego, working at Daily Bread together and teaming up on many projects for Rat Tail, and its brands. - Jan Welch.

Back in november 2020, Jan Welch launched a fundraiser called “The Tapes Project”. Quoting Jan Welch:

I’ve spent 20-years shooting video and documenting some of the top professional and amateur inline skaters from around the world I now have hundreds of tapes of footage that I am going to digitize and archive online. I plan on posting each tape onto a new YouTube channel for people to watch, along with commentary from myself and from people featured on each tape. These are the original tapes for many classic skate videos and edits I’ve made including Last Call, Urban Decay, Steal This Video, Quatro, No One’s Children, Trash, Sleaze, Drip Drop, and Leading the Blind.

So far I’ve logged about a dozen tapes. I’ve acquired several consumer miniDV cameras so far to try and capture this footage and they have either been dead on arrival, have issues capturing audio, or eat and destroy the tapes. Consumer decks are notorious for dirty heads and have further potential for damaging these tapes. To archive this many tapes of historical skating footage for all to see, I need to purchase a professional MiniDV deck that will safely capture these tapes at the highest quality and a 4 or 5TB USB-C hard drive to store them on. This project is going to take a long time but it is important to preserve this footage. I’m asking for those of you who are interested in seeing all these tapes get captured and posted to help contribute to a GoFundMe to purchase a new MiniDV deck.

What I Need: MiniDV Deck (approx $750.00), 4/5 TB Harddrive ($169), Life Flix Software ($100), Topaz Video Enhance AI ($299.99), Total - $1,300.

September 2021: The project is now starting: Jan Welch opened a new Youtube Channel, called “Then and now, an inline skating channel”.

The first video for my new inline skating YouTube channel, Then&Now, is now live. This is a short introduction to what the channel will be about. The first episode of the Then+Now Podcast will be released tomorrow. My first guest is Chris Peel, who designed Daily Bread Magazine and did all the original branding for Rat Tail, Ground Control, Vicious, 4x4, Nimh, and Big Wheels Blading. The first episode of the Vault, which my tape archives from the past 25 years of rollerblading, will release a couple of days later. - Jan Welch.

Visit Then & Now Youtube Channel.