Klaas van der Laan was the first ever team rider for Morphium. He was the local skater in the hall in Groningen at the time, which we regularly visited as skaters ourselves. Ralf Nehe became aware of him and suggested him as a team rider. Klaas’ level was above average at the time and he was one of the best skaters in the Netherlands.

We also thought that we could open up the skateboard market in Groningen and the Netherlands through Klaas van der Laan. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out, even though he was riding for the biggest skateboard distributor in the Netherlands at the time.

So he had been selling morphine stuff among his colleagues and friends on his own for a long time.

Towards 2006 he withdrew from skating and told me honestly that as a sponsored skater he could no longer perform as well as he thought he should. They parted ways and shortly afterwards he and a few friends tried to set up a skateboard company called “Broken Skateboards”, which unfortunately no longer exists.