Category: Skateboarding Product Reviews

Tony Trujillo is one of the better skateboarders of modern times and his vision in this era of progression and outdoing others, is focused on pure aesthetics and straight up functionality. This is very well portrayed in the design of his 4th pro model on Paul Van Dorren’s shoe company of 1966, Vans.

The shoe has no exciting features, it can’t make you a cup of tea and won’t fetch the newspaper for you on a Saturday morning, but it will hold you hella tight when you’re hitting up a frontside standup around a bowled corner with waxed to fuck pool coping!

They’re simple shoes with a big heart, not bulky at all, but sturdy enough to get really street on it’s sole. The uppers consists of suede and canvas, while the waffle treads are wrapped in vulc, what more can a man ask for in a shoe?! They have got triple stitching on the toe cap, which obviously good, because this means you’ll be kicking in these for months and months to come.

I really like these and think of them to be of similar nature to the TNT 2’s, which I think was one of the best shoes I’ve ever skated. It’s not a fat shoe, but it’s not quite as slim as the Old Skools either, they’re great for everyday use and genuinely work well for the skateboarding thing you’re all obsessed about. Good board feel, but strong enough for flips and lips.

I will honestly say this, if I had these when trying to get a better shot of a back smith on bowl with no flat bottom and a 6ft deep pool coping, I wouldn’t be struggling with a semi smashed knee cap right now and would be out there grinding trees, cars and horses!

You know these are good, don’t um and ah the decision, if it’s practical you’re after with style in mind, get these, they’re perfect for all sorts of skateboarding.

www.vans.co.uk for more.

2P

Crawl…Walk…Skate

Yeah fuckers, this is hot off the cloth press, Jerry Hsu’s new signature plaid. Tell you what, there’s only so much you say about a shirt, this one however, does all the talking for you! It’s a nice cut, stylish fit, lightweight and has a banging appeal to it.

I highly recommend you get one of these for summer 2009, you can hit the streets in search of fresh ‘crete and afterwards you can hit them beer gardens and get yourself hooked up with fresh toosh. All of this will work out brilliantly if you rock Jerry’s clothes, he rules on skates and has a mammoth lesbian following, get the shirt and feel the power!

2P
Crawl…Walk…Skate

OK, let’s be honest, skate companies have always been dreadful at making jeans. A certain leading Truck company have probably been the main offenders when it comes to making a jean that has some sort of shape to fit your curves so when I got these and held them up I was sceptical to say the least.

But I was wrong. This Emerica denim comes close to being the best pair of jeans I have had to date. I’m a 34 waist and 32 leg and after an initial walk to work a skate and the first wash, these Thunderstrucks were cruising in all areas.

They come with simple branded buttons, (no massive amounts of unneeded extra branded buttons etc like Altamont jeans) a shoelace belt (which was thrown out as soon as they came out of the bag), some sort of leather patch on the pocket and most importantly they feel comfortable on.

You can pick them up in Black Raw, Dark Indigo or Dirty Wash and are highly recommended, go get some.

Addict have some fresh new shirts ready for this Spring. The Two Twenty uses Japanese cotton, double contrast check patterns and roll up sleeves to keep you warm or cold dependent on the weather and these feel very comfortable once on .

Addict have never let us down when it comes to threads so if you are looking for something fresh when the sun comes out, it’s right here.

These are available now and we will feature more of their range soon. Visit www.addict.co.uk for the whole Spring range.

These suede coated Emerica‘s are probably the most simple shoe Emerica released throughout 2008.

They look sick when they are fresh out of the box and once on your feet they are seriously comfortable and pretty durable to the battle with your grip tape.

Once laced up in real life The Tope’s become a thinner shoe than pictured here but can also rock the dancefloor if you need some pumps outside of skating. Try them out for yourself, you will not be disappointed.

When the weather is freezing outside your feet need some instant cover. We just got ours into a pair of these fleece lined Vans Chukka’s this week and our feet are now warm.

If you want to skate in the UK whilst it’s snowing, then your only option is these as your standard Vans don’t come close to feeling your deck underneath your feet when it’s below freezing. Try them.

Just as the snow falls we seem to be saved by Element once again. The package had 2 items, a tee shirt and a zipped hooded sweat shirt called the .

Firstly and most importantly this La Brea keeps you warmer than a standard hoody. The fleece inner and knitted fleece outer layers are super thick, the sleeves have thumb holes and the zip goes right up to your bottom lip keeping your neck warm. Once the hood is up it’s bye bye minus 1’C and hello warmth.

This also comes with 2 really deep pockets on the front in case you really need to dig deep out of the cold but overall this is killer and will get you through this winter.

See more of their winter range here.

Well I got this City deck to review, and I guess it was a bit much to ask, but I was totally gutted that after stepping upon it’s laminate exterior I was not as good as skater as Dave Bachinsky. Never mind, can’t win them all!

However, I was really feeling the similar shape nose and tail, something a lot of decks tend to overlook with very specific ‘use this end for ollies, this one for nollies’ shapes. I want to be able to use my board both ways round, last doubley as long doesn’t it? Got to think about these things post-credit munch.

Global crisis’ in mind, the graphics on this is literally plastered with names of, yep, you guessed it, lots of cities. I did have a couple of blonde moments where I would think to myself “Where the hell is ‘Nairo’ and ‘New Ork’?” only to remember that I did A-level Geography and to stop being an idiot.

I was pretty stoked that whilst skating this board in Bristol, after an already successful day, I managed to learn frontside nosebluntslides having never tried them before. Good work City! Didn’t stop me slamming in front of the only hot girl we saw the entire day though… lame.

So, in conclusion. Great shaped board, helps you learn new tricks, but makes you look like a knob in front of girls, which to be fair most skateboards do so I can’t really blame it on City!

Visit www.cityskateboards.com for all the trimmings, podcasts etc and here for their catalogue.

9/10
Moose

Tony Tave had one of the radder parts in the last Element video but still seems a little off the radar compared to his team mates. I guess this is possibly due to this OC local focusing on his skating rather than TV career. Tave is right up there with the best on street and has a switch tre to even compete with Stefan Janowski’s switch skills.

The appearance is a bit of a departure for Element, this graphic looks like something Alien Workshop would put out, but Element seem to be going in new directions as far as art goes, so I guess anything goes at the moment.

This is a pretty standard construction from Element, still very light even without it being a helium/fibrelight. As standard it has a huge nose and relatively sharp tail, all the better for crisp ollies. The concave is a little mellower than I prefer riding, but it ran full length so forwards or backwards it still felt like it wanted to stick to my feet (thankfully!).

These boards are a straight up trade off between durability and weight, the deck itself was very stiff and had a good pop, but I feared for how thin the deck was. Its flex was convincing enough, but tail wear was a bit of an issue, I was through to the last play within a month, but I had rode some pretty gnarled up floors. Even after a few weeks to the woods credit the pop hadn’t subsided and it rode as new still.

I’d say Element’s regular wood is happier in the skatepark rather than rough streets, but that’s my own opinion. On the whole it performed right through to the hand-me-down stages of a decks life and is still going strong. Once you get hooked on the angles of this deck, I think it might make a few other decks feel a little alien in comparison.

Sweet ride – 8/10

Find more at www.elementskateboards.com

Phil Procter

Sin City Series – Blacklight wood

Yeah, skateboards still evolve all the time, you might not always be aware of this, but every company out there tries something new every now and then to give their boards more appeal to the likes of you lot!

Black Label aren’t new to this era of fresh ideas, they’ve already come up with the blackhole decks, powerbeams and now the ever lasting blacklight! Blacklight gives you maximum strength and minimum weight…..wait, that’s how boards should be? Why isn’t anyone else doing this?

This board like many other labels I’ve had in my skate span is amongst the finest wood a tree can produce. It’s actually super light and I’ve been rocking to fakie for over a month now and the fucker won’t crumble! The pop retains at maximum strength still and I’ve honestly been around the block a few times on this black beauty. The shape is what you’d expect from Kyle’s style, simple and quirky at the same time (it makes sense to me). Its medium concaved with normal nose to tail ratios, but it comes around so quickly when you roll your foot off the side for it to flip, you’ll be stoked on it.

I honestly highly recommend this board to anyone who feels the need to start 2009 with fresh wood under their feet; it’s strong, light and snappier than rice crispies! The graphic alone is worth a purchase, gambling and rubber duckies are hotter than dessert sand.

Like Shuriken Shannon said, “phfff, it’s BlackLabel bitch, that’s all I got to say!!”

Check out Label at www.blacklabelskates.com and some footage at the Berrics, it’s the hottest edit on that interwebsite fosho!

9/10
Walk…Crawl…Skate…Die
2P