Categories
Skateboarding News

éS Serves It Up ‘à la Carte’

éS is set to tear up Europe in July 2007 as Rick McCrank, Justin Eldridge, Silas Baxter-Neal, Bobby Worrest and Danny Garcia come over for a much anticipated visit.

Currently hitting up locations all over Europe, the éS team will arrive in the UK for 2 days on July 25th and 26th for a couple of shop signings and a demo at the concrete jungle paradise of the Milton Keynes Buszy plaza.

You can get your tits signed by the éS team at Slam City on the 25th, then on the 26th they’ll be ripping the plaza a new arse before hacking over to Conspiracy in St Albans for another signing in the evening.

Apparently all this will be filmed for a DVD due out in early autumn, so get your ugly faces down there and get hyped on what will be some ludicrously good skating.

Categories
Skateboarding Product Reviews

Almost Rodney Mullen Uberlight

Almost UberlightThe board arrived in a futuristic plastic wrap with the words “Experimental” in bold stamped on top. A Rodney Mullen signature model of yet another ground-breaking design- the Uberlight- had arrived, and I was to be its test pilot.

Almost skateboards have a pretty rad team that push the envelope so to speak, so the materials they use need to be up to scratch. You know you’ll always get the latest in skateboard utlity design when a young chap who single handedly created virtually every technical trick is your team captain. Rodney Mullen once had a video part that mixed advanced maths, mini pink shorts and more flip variations than a handful of Blitz catalogues at Christmas, and nobody laughed. Instead jaws hit the floor. That said, I was pretty stoked to test an Almost Uberlight prototype -1 of 500 made.

The Uberlight gets it’s name from the advanced board construction that incorporates thin layers of ply sealed with epoxy glue and a back bone of carbonite that runs through the heart of the deck from nose to tail. What this stretch of carbon does if keep the weight down and the response up. Strength, pop and rigidity are key words involved in this futuristic design. And it works.

Well, that’s not exactly true. You see, after 6 weeks of skating this board still has impressive pop and strength, but the wood has begun to wear down a bit and the shape isn’t keeping up appearances either. I don’t know exactly what strain of wood Almost have used to ply the Uberlight, but after a month, the tail was almost shaved down to a razor and the tail felt like it had sunk slightly. The most annoying thing about this design though was it’s shape: A strange sort of double nose- or should I say double tail because the nose was pretty tiny in actual fact. Popping nollies of this length of wood and carbon was a lot harder than you’d expect. I’d like to think I was getting weaker with old age, but since I swapped boards, I know that that is not the case.

I’ve kept this board for a rainy day because I know the pop will persist, but I won’t try and nollie any puddles. Keep the shape in mind when you look out for Rodney’s Uberlight, but don’t doubt general design. The Almost camp are still pushing skateboarding on each and every level.

7/10
RL-D

16.07.07

Categories
Skateboarding News

Big Pushers return

Document’s Big Push 2007 is over and everyone is slowly returning to the real world and remembering what pillows and showers are. The Doco site is spreading the hype aready:

“Rumors are circling, Neil Smith’s giant phone photo ollie, someone on Death got some ink on somewhere that it shouldn’t be, Olly Todd being brought home by the boys in blue after a solo mission, Ben Reamers at Saffron Walden, Howard Cooke actually staying on the whole trip and Antiz’s special guest threatening to walk after some rowdy in-van entertainment”

The photos and DVD should be out in issue 72, so make sure you get it or I’ll break yer legs. If you can’t wait that long, Heroin have made a little photo slideshow of the trip. I laughed all the way through until the biro ink tattoo, wait for it…

Blueprint have thrown up a few clips on their site as well. Push your way over to www.blueprintskateboards.com

Categories
Skateboarding News

Xynthetic hit the UV

Our mates at Xynthetic have a new video up.

Check the steez on this UV graphic as a skateboard gets the Xyn treatment:

UV Seen The Future from Xynthetic and Vimeo.

www.xynthetic.co.uk

Categories
Skateboarding News

UKSA take stance on NASS

We received an email direct from the UKSA below regarding their involvement in the ‘extreme’ sports festival NASS:

As of 12th July 2007, the UKSA will no longer endorsing the National Adventure Sports Show (NASS) with regards to their judging and competition organisation. Differences in direction have been an issue for several years and have now come to a point where we can no longer offer support. The UKSA will still be working in conjunction with events we feel right to promote skateboarding here in the UK.

This comes as no surprise to us. The image of skateboarding is ruined by events like these. Just look at the amount of chavs involved in this years event. Many skaters believe that NASS has never represented UK Skateboarding properly but let’s get real, who needs core skateboarding when you already have the next big thing…

Categories
Moves

Tanner’s Moves

Tanner Nollie frontside 360 kickflip
John Tanner- Full cab kickflip. Photo by Leo Sharp. Sidewalk Magazine Issue 130 – Footage here.

Willow – Nollie 360 flip, and then some!

Jani Laitiala – Switch heelflip

Sean McNulty – Heelflip fs boardslide

David Gravette – Kickflip fs 5050

John Rattray – Pivot fakie

Top 5 Crossfire aches and pains

1) Left knee
2) Left ankle
3) Back
4) Right elbow
5) Moving house

Top 5 hangover cures

1) Tea
2) Wallrides
3) Hollyoaks omnibus (easy on the eye, easy on the brain)
4) Sloppy sex
5) Crossfire Hangover Sessions

Pic of the week

Peering out from behind a rock, Matt Thomas can see Alan Robinson crooked grinding a piece of marble cake at East India. Good job he had his camera on him to capture the moment for Alan to put in his photo album ready to show the grandchildren.

Alan Robinson crook grind

Categories
Skateboarding News

Meat is murder, skateboarding is sexy

Jereme RogersAccording to animal rights activists PETA, a fair few skateboarders are considered some of the world’s sexiest vegetarians.

Their 2007 nominations list of the Sexiest Vegetarians includes Andrew Reynolds, Mike Manzoori, Ed Templeton, Danny Garcia, Forrest Kirby, Brian Anderson, Bob Burnquist, Matt Field, Geoff Rowley, Moses Itkonen, Paul Rimmer, Scott Bourne, Steve Berra, and Jereme Rogers.

When was skateboarding or salad ever sexy? Is this what I’ve been doing wrong all this time? Wait, Morrissey is a celibate, right? Oh, he doesn’t skateboard, sorry.

Categories
Skateboarding News

Wörgl gets another concrete bowl

Wörgl in Austria has nabbed itself a second concrete bowl after some initial building work problems.

Due to a mains gas pipe running underneath the park and a ‘no build’ law, the original plans for the skate plaza section had to be ditched. But after a bit of jigging about, building a second bowl instead, and moving the whole thing just 4 meters over to one side, construction has started!

The place looks sick so far, but check the amazingly named www.muckefuckskateboards.com for more pics and continuous updates. A huge thanks goes to the PTR Crew and locals for getting this thing going. Flights to Austria are pretty cheap right now and the women definitely aren’t, so get yourselves over there as soon as it’s finished.

Categories
Skateboarding News

Coping Threads promo unleashed

The Coping Promo “A Brief Encounter” is ready for you to view and is a short sharp taster of what’s to come from the Coping Threads peeps. It features half the team and is a perfect start.

Coping, started out as a grassroots skater run clothing label in 2000 and has sprung into life since. “A Brief Encounter” was filmed by Corbin Kitchener, Jake Stevenson, Henry (Concrete Poets ), T.J and er Brian the Lion and features parts from Sam Green (Oz), Donny Fraser (Oz), Mikky Josephson (Oz), Damien Wilson (Oz), Sean Witherup (UK/SA) and Ivan Vargas (Oz).

Find them at www.myspace.com/copingthreads whilst their actual site is under construction. Click the image on this page to watch the promo which is dedicated to the late Ben Roberts….this one’s for you mate.

Categories
Skateboarding Product Reviews

Girl ‘Rick Howard Loves Shoes’ Deck – 7.875“

Girl Howard deckTo be perfectly honest, I still can’t figure out how having a comic strip painted across the bottom of a skateboard resembles Rick’s love of shoes, but in all honesty, who gives a flying fuck; It’s a skateboard at the end of the day and the graphic is the first thing to go!

This particular model, like many other Girl pressings, comes to you flat footed and has hardly any concave to it at all. To most skaters who like to diversify their skills across street as well as transition, this board would seem the impossible choice, but I happen to think its all a pile of shit and you should try something new from time to time, you might even like it! This isn’t the first time I’ve unwrapped a girl and probably wont be the last either, I liked the one I rode a few years back and this one was no exception.

Howard’s design on this piece is border-line to flawless; it’s got a subtle tail lift with slightly steeper nose and fits the criteria of the classic 90’s skateboard, crafted with passion. Nowadays people are ingesting all kinds of useless shit into finding the perfect ride, but I’m too old fashioned that way and stick to classics made from organic materials…WOOD! It’s a really poppy bastard too and has lasted me whopping 3 months, that’s beaten the last board I killed by almost a month and is still fine for a few sessions. It’s a good size too as it comes in just under and 8″, but is slightly bigger than your average tech deck.

I don’t know what Girl boards retail for these days, but if you can get your hands on a nice one, then I suggest rolling with it! They are excellent skateboards, produced by this industries more knowledgeable heads, thus giving them the upper hand as wisdom clearly prevails throughout their product range.

8/10

Live FAST, Ride FAST
2P