What i'm about to say in the following letter will probably come as a suprise. I will try to explain it the best I can so everybody will understand my decision. I'm leaving ForwardFreestyle. First of all, Forward skatepark will still be run by Geert Vanovertveld. I hope this will still be the case when i'm gone. The shop and online shop I don't think will be there for much longer.. But if it could stay.. i hope it stay's for the right reasons. So with that being said.. I first want to thank some special people that i have met trough my venture with forwardfreestyle. My forward team! Antony Pottier, Jeremy Kesler, Adil Farhouni, Olga Bouwhuis, Sven Boekhorst, Jeremy Suarez, Ward Gabriels, Vince Brauns, Edwin Wieringh, Bart Van Wulpen, Roman Abrate, Aurore Costabile and the juniors Gilles, Matthijs, Sammetje, Janna and Jan. I want to thank you guys all for representing the forward spirit for all this time. You made me proud from the first day when i started out the team with only Bart, Edwin, Jeremy and Ward. I remember that forward team took the top 3 places in the first contest we competed in.. I could not have been more proud that day. Dreams where made that day. I want to thank you for giving me one of the best moments in my life.. so many laughs, so many moments of joy and victory.. The forward team in my eyes.. THE BEST TEAM EVER. I hope you guys will do fine in the future.. i wish you all the best and i hope you will still skate with your "old" boss from time to time ;-) Then.. i would like to thank all the people and company’s that made it possible for me to live my dream.. Andy Wegener from Razors, FR distribution, Kato from Remz, Van Megen Rollerblade, Henri from Transind, Jochen Smuda from Ucon, Jon Julio from Valo, Rick and Donny from Vabelhaft, Bauer at Powerslide, Jess from England and 50/50, Micheal bayer from BE-mag, Jon Elliot and Shima from Nimh, Jojo Jacobi, Sven Boekhorst from Mind the Gap, Jean Jean for giving me my dreams and many more.. thx! Then the people who gave me the good times.. and i will still continue rolling with you guys in the future.. Now, the reason of my departure.. I started out Forward as one of my projects that I needed to do in this life.. Rolling has always been my passion and life. With Forward I was able to get new kids and old skool cats back on wheels. It’s the only thing I really wanted to do.. if I was in it for the money I would have done something else and it would be much easier. But rolling is in my heart and I wanted to spread this as much as I could. But of course there is also the business side.. at first this was not a problem, forward was doing great. It was the only skater owned inline only shop in Belgium. But in 2009 we had a lot of problems. We had the Winterclash fire and Forward lost a lot of money. But we stayed on our feet and made some plans to get the scene back on top after losing our skatepark. So the forward skatepark was the next thing! While putting a lot of work into preparing the skatepark my father died from cancer and this made things even more difficult. So to keep forward alive we made a deal with an investor. At the time it seemed to be a perfect solution. I could run forward skatepark and shop perfectly and people would have a place to skate again. But it soon turned out to be one of the biggest mistakes in my life. But this mistake will also be the best thing in my life. The connection just was not there.. people had other idea’s for the park.. it was not just about getting skaters a home.. I had the feeling it was more about the money. Working together with people that never have to work to get somewhere in life was very difficult. After my latest discussion about how the park should be run, i saw the whole picture. Forward was not forward anymore. So that’s why I’m leaving. This is not my thing anymore and I will not settle for something that is not mine and did not have my ideas. But in this all lays a better future that for the moment I cannot tell more. My passion is now stronger than ever and I will always be there for rolling. I’m taking my year off to get some rest, spend more time rolling with the people I love and working on my newest venture.. you will all hear more about that one soon. Thx for the great times.. forward team will always be in my heart! And then.. I would like to thank one more person. This person has been there for me since the beginning. Since the moment we started out skatesite.yucom.be about 9 or 10 years ago to the newest projects like braindamage.be and now Forward skateshop and the latest.. Forward skatepark. When I asked her to help me out with forward, she practicly stood there on my doorstep the next day, leaving everything behind without hesitating a second. And now with the newest venture and project.. she will be supporting and working together again with me.. thank you sis for all the good times, the hard and tough times, and thx for supporting your brother like no one other. You’re the best! See you all soon again.. Greetz, Pieter-Willem Wijnant ex forward owner, future ***** owner!