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Adidas presents The Obstacle in London Town

Last weekend was by far the busiest so far this year for skateboard events in the UK. The Manny Mania final was held at Bay 66 with Manchester’s UK Lloyd McLeggon taking the wedge, War of the Thistles attracted the bowl riders in Scotland, “The Heart Of Skateboarding” memorial jam for Bingo saw locals session hard at R-Kade Skatepark in Redcar and The Obstacle comp from Adidas was a highlight for many down South at the Central Foundation Boys School over in East London. Unfortunately it was also the same day as Crossfire’s Barfly curation at the Camden Crawl so David Woolley headed East to report on what went down in that schoolyard.

TradeMark Gonzales

This get together was kept pretty much on the quiet with the location announced only a week before kick off but as word spread through the web, select shop teams were planning their journeys for a memorable jam session whilst the Obstacles that were designed by Mark Gonzales, were being primed by Rodney Clarke, Dave Chesson and friends at the Pioneer park in St Albans.

Boots nails a blunt

After a warm up sesh a pro demo kicked off proceedings featuring Adidas team riders and of course, the one and only Mark Gonzales who has been spotted more times than Animal Chin skating London’s parks and street spots over the last 3 weeks. Not only will the Gonz be 43 years young exactly a month after this very event, but he’s still got the steez that he is famous for as he hucked out super smooth 5.0’s, trademark fs board slides, bonelesses and classic knee boarding tomfoolery! To have such a legendary skateboarder turn up to our country weeks before a comp to soak up the atmosphere and enjoy British culture is nothing but an honour and as usual he was the gentleman everyone has admired for so many years.

Lucas Puig tames the schoolyard

Nestor Judkins had front tail’s on lock, Pete Eldridge took a box of tricks home from the session alongside the impressive Lucas Puig whose tech skills just have to be seen live. The UK contingent was led by the gifted Chewy Cannon and Stereo’s smooth operator Benny Fairfax whose huge backside flip over the barrel backed up the hype on why he’s one of the most talked about UK skaters in the US right now. It’s funny to think that he walked away a winner at one of Crossfire’s very first skate events 8 years ago but no surprise that he’s up there with the best of them thesedays.

Death Skateboards pro Boots was also on form and on third try took a sick backside noseblunt whilst Karim Bakhtaoui‘s massive shuv’s over a thigh high barrier made palms come together from around the school yard. It was an impressive session with fun in mind and that’s exactly what came from it, thankfully there was more to come.

Benny Fairfax takes Three Stripes over the bin

After the pro demo a shop team competition kicked off featuring many team riders from independent skate shops from around the UK. 10 minute jam sessions were organised for 3 shop teams to skate together with 2 riders representing each shop. Skaters from Note, Exist, 50:50, Natterjacks, Detour and Slide impressed amongst many others before a best trick jam ended the day on a high with the soon-to-be Fresh Blood ripper Manuel Lopez taking the free trip to Barcelona as the main prize with a 5-0 Varial Flip out. Watch that in Harry Garcia’s edit and more from the day in Tidy Mike’s clip on this page. It was a great day out and unique to the London event calendar so well done to everyone involved.

WATCH HARRY GARCIA’S FOOTAGE

WATCH MIKE PEARSON’S FOOTAGE

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Skateboarding News

Watch: Gonz and co in London

This Sunday the shoe brand Adidas held an Obstacle event in a school yard in London’s East End with guest team riders performing a demo session and invited skate shop teams to jam on the pre-made obstacles.

Hold Tight Henry was there to capture the footage as was Tidy Mike from 5050, so look out for those as soon as they are edited but here’s a fun teaser with Rory Milanes, Gonz, Joey Pressey, Karim Bakhtaoui, Kevin Lowry that went online this afternoon shot around London before the vent took place.

More from this event here soon…

Categories
Skateboarding News

New Frankie Hill documentary parts roll out online

3 more parts of the Frankie Hill documentary have been released to the web this weekend featuring Pat Duffy, Lance Conklin and more discussing how influential Hill was to street skating alongside stories from Hill himself.

The documentary is being put together by Nate Sherwood and completely free to watch in its entirety once a new site has been built to host this and more films on the history of skateboarding.