Mikel Vidal, 3:05 for Hélas: why does a French brand recruit in Barcelona?

On June 24, 2026, Free Skate Mag drops a video that runs 3 minutes and 5 seconds. Title: "Mikel Vidal – Hélas." No teaser, no countdown. Just a name, a brand, and a full stop.

Hélas is the cap brand started by Lucas Puig, who grew up in Toulouse. Mikel Vidal is a Barcelona skater, a MACBA regular. A French brand, a rider from the Barcelona plaza. And you'll see it's not the first time Hélas has done this. So why does this brand keep finding its riders on the other side of the Pyrenees?

3:05, from Barcelona to California: what the part shows

Free Skate Mag sums the part up in three ideas: switch 360 flips, skating that "floats" naturally, and a trip "from Barci to Cali". That's it. No spot list, no credits in the text. The video speaks for itself.

You know this kind of part. You play it on the subway with the sound off. Twenty seconds in, you turn the sound on. The board spins under him, lands right under his feet, and the line keeps going like nothing happened. No yelling, no slam. Just the clack of the wheels on the tiles. And you scrolling back to watch the flip again.

Now the number that cools things down. As of September 24, 2026, the video sits around 14,000 views on Free Skate Mag's channel, with 732 likes. Brayan Albarenga's Hélas part, released through Quartersnacks in November 2025, is close to 35,000. So no, Vidal's part didn't set the internet on fire. It did something else: it reminded everyone where Hélas finds its riders.

A 3-minute part isn't measured in views. It's measured in how many times you hit replay. — What Hélas figured out

King of Macba 2017: Vidal vs Zaprazny, two future Hélas riders face to face

Back to 2017. Macba Life, the outlet that lives on the plaza, runs its King of Macba. Round 1, battle 7: Marek Zaprazny vs Mikel Vidal. A 2:24 video, filmed and edited by Javier Menéndez. Two skaters, one plaza, and everybody sitting on the steps watching.

The detail that matters shows up four years later. In 2021, Hélas releases Fellas, its first full-length video. 25 names in the credits. Mikel Vidal is there. So is Marek Zaprazny. The two guys going head to head at MACBA end up on the same brand.

If you've never been there, we told you why this marble became street skating's world HQ. Just remember this: it's a plaza where skaters from all over the world cross paths every day. And where brands come shopping.

Fellas - 2021: an hour of video, and 3 minutes for Vidal

Fellas is Hélas's first full-length, posted on its channel on March 4, 2021. A little over an hour, filmed and edited by Vincent Jugnet and Stephen Khou. Flo Mirtain opens it, Lucas Puig has his part near the end. And at 24:38, it's Vidal. Exactly three minutes, until 27:38.

Five years later, the new part runs 3:05. Same format, almost to the second. You could call it chance. Or you could see a brand that knows what it wants: a short, dense part you replay. It's the debate we raised about the future of long skate videos.

Fellas has passed 389,000 views on Hélas's channel. A year earlier, in 2020, Thrasher was already running the "Fellas: A Cappella" series, including an episode shot in Paris. So the French brand had the Americans' attention. But its casting was already looking south.

Rumba, Macba Life, Mosaic: the résumé of a plaza skater

Vidal didn't come out of nowhere. In 2016 he already has his "Rumba classes #3" video with Rumba skateboarding. In 2017, the MACBA battle. In May 2024, Mosaic Bearings welcomes him to the team with Pedro Attenborough, introducing them as "two renowned skaters from BCN". BCN is Barcelona. And Pedro Attenborough? He's in Fellas too.

Today, when you see a skater stringing flips on flat ground without looking like he's trying, odds are he learned on a plaza like that one. MACBA built a style: clean, fast, the flip in the middle of the line. Vidal is a pure product of it. Hélas turned it into an identity.

Hélas doesn't sign passports. It signs a way of setting your foot on the plaza. — The thread that leads to Barcelona

So why does a French brand recruit in Barcelona?

The answer comes in three pieces, and you can check every one of them.

The first is the founder. Lucas Puig grew up in Toulouse, but his family comes from Catalonia, according to his Wikipedia page. For him, Barcelona isn't abroad. It's a few hours' drive, and it's where his roots are. By the way, we explained why nobody talks about the Toulouse scene.

The second is the talent pool. At MACBA, Europe's best skaters roll every day, in front of everyone. For a brand, that's a free showcase. Vidal, Zaprazny, Attenborough: three plaza names, three Fellas names.

The third is style. Hélas sells caps, not boards. It doesn't need a champion who wins contests. It needs skating that makes you want to wear the logo. And skating that "floats" on switch 360 flips is exactly that.

So here's the answer, straight: Hélas recruits in Barcelona because its founder has Catalan roots, because MACBA is the best casting call in Europe, and because plaza style fits the brand. Nobody looks at Vidal's passport. What people watch is his board spinning.

And if you're wondering why these parts still have that slightly dirty grain we love, we dug into why the VX1000 still beats 4K.

Do you prefer the Vidal of Fellas - 2021 or the one from the 2026 part? Tell us the moment you hit rewind. Tell us in the comments ↓