Has Anyone Told Him About the Hills?

A 20-year old hailing from the UK is about to leave his homeland for the first time. He's planning a ten-week tour of five European countries. He's presumably very excited about his upcoming travels, mostly because of the mode of transit he selected. He'll be travelling almost entirely on his skateboard.

He is aiming to set off on Sunday and travel through France and Switzerland, cross the Alps into Italy, then skate via Marseille to Spain. He was inspired by Dave Cornthwaite who skateboarded across Australia. Mr Benson will cross the Pyrenees during his trip, which he aims to finish in the Spanish port of Santander in mid-September.

It's been a long time since I hopped onto a skateboard not virtually tethered to me via my PlayStation 2, but I used to be pretty decent when I was a kid. Kickflips, 8-sets, mini-pipes. All that stuff. And one of the things I remember from those days is that going up hills sucks on a skateboard. And the only thing worse than going up hills was going up hills on a road that wasn't very smooth.

I don't know about you, but I've watched enough Tour de France coverage to know that many of those roads in the Alps and Pyrenees are, shall we say, not the smoothest pieces of asphalt around. Best of luck to the crazy Mr. Benson (and the somewhat less crazier American, Adam Colton, who will be joining him for the latter 3,000 kilometers of this 4,000 kilometer journey).

Full story on BBC here.