Tag: freestyle

The Freestyle Report August 2018 by Tony Gale

This has been a weird summer for freestyle. I don’t know if I’m just imagining it, but it feels both like very little has happened compared to the usual flurry of freestyle antics at this time of year – and that there’s a million and one things about to happen. It’s almost like we’re in the eye of the storm, and a slew of tiny skateboards and shinpads are about to rain down upon our heads any second. At any rate, let’s deal with the stuff that’s already happened and the bits and pieces I’m actually allowed to talk about.

 

Okay, we start this report with some BIG NEWS. The will they/won’t they saga of the World Championship in Japan is now settled: it’s going to be held at the shopping mall in Saitama where the JFSA usually hold the All Japan Pro on the 3rd and 4th of November, making this a brilliant way of capping off a huge year for freestyle.

Toshiaki Fujii hasn’t given me solid details on the format yet, but if it’s a true WFSA sanctioned World Championship, it has to be the classic two runs, each being two minutes long – so find some run music, get practicing and I’ll see you in Japan!

I think Never Enough might be in an intentional battle with Decomposed to feature in this section more than anyone else. This month they’re bringing out a new deck as a tribute to the “retired” Albert Kuncz, who rode for them in the late 2000s (or early 2010s? My grasp on time is slipping as I get older). I gather he basically put the board away due to a back problem – that seems to be a recurring issue in the freestyle community. All these fingerflips, pogos and handstands just ruin you. It’s a crying shame, because he was bloody good; hopefully one day he’ll heal up and find his way back to us. Until then, there’s always the Never Enough tribute boards. Hopefully they’ll be available from the Never Enough website by the time you read this.
Never Enough: Albert Kuncz Tribute

Speaking of Never Enough, they continue to be the biggest single source of freestyle related goodness in Europe. They’re now stocking the new Moonshine/Speedlab collab wheels, even more new Cirus boards and graphics, and a solid range of freestyle completes ready to go out of the box, including three different Marius Constantin pro models. Impressive stuff.

(If Marius is getting royalties from all these different boards, I can’t say I’m surprised he just bought himself an apartment with cold, hard, cash. The guy is seriously minted. And Primo says you can’t get rich doing freestyle…)

Not to be outdone, Witter tells me that the next Decomposed deck will be a limited edition Don Brown model based on his last Vision pro model… which never made it past the prototype stage. Coming in at 7.875″ by 29.5″, this is a big brute of a board, and will be cut from the Vision Psycho Stix mould which was going to be used for the original release. Is it one to skate? Probably not. Is it a curiosity worth grabbing while you can? Almost certainly.

Don Brown Prototype board
Don Brown Prototype board 2

In other Decomposed news, Witter has been teasing me about some fabled 80s reissue that he’s been working on for almost a year. He keeps bringing it up, but refuses to give me any hard details. Will it appear this month? Will it be delayed for another year? At this point, all bets are off.

As their big new products still aren’t ready, we’ve just got something minor from the folks over at Mode Skateboards for now. Connor Burke and Terry Synnott both wanted a thinner skid plate for different reasons; Terry to put on the nose for better fingerflips, Connor (presumably) for his tail for better pop on his ollies. And as Terry is prone to do, he got the material and made them in his garage himself. Mode might not have the punkest image but it’s definitely got the DIY credentials.

Anyway, if you’re in the market for skids (as you damn well should be), you can now get both Mode skid plate sizes in the original 3/8″ thickness and the new 1/4″ thinness from their website. Tell Terry I said hi.

Tradition dictates that British freestylers have to gather on a hilltop around this time of year and be very silly for a sunny afternoon, and who are we to argue against tradition?

That’s right, I’m talking about the annual UK Round Up, the most serious joke in the freestyle world. Held as part of the UKSSA and London Longboards‘ Hog Hill events, the UK Round Up is now in its fourth year of nonsense and chicanery, and keeps going from strength to strength. This year Lillis came back over to attempt to take my crown (spoiler alert: he failed again), and a group of fresh-faced British freestylers lost their event virginity while being forced to skate to terrible music from a tiny speaker.

(Actually, the amount of people forced to skate to music they don’t know was considerably down this year. Obviously word got around that Alex Foster and myself purposely choose terribad music for people who come unprepared.)

The results, for what it’s worth, are as follows:

  1. Tony Gale (273,500 points)
  2. Stefan “Lillis” Akesson (271,000 points)
  3. Denham Hill (219,000 points)
  4. Matthew Smithies (194,000 points)
  5. Alex Foster (179,000 points)
  6. Toby Lodge (165,500 points)
  7. Anthony Simm (155,000 points)
  8. Barney Lynch (151,000 points)
  9. Aaron Watts (128,000 points)
UK Round Up 2018 Podium
“Trophies” presented by ASDA’s garden section. Denham looks suitably unimpressed with his.

Yep, that’s an all-Moonshine podium right there. And considering Denham Hill took the win in the very special and prestigious Offline Instagram Grand Slam Classic, I’d say there’s some very happy folks over at Moonshine HQ right now.

Also of note is the winner of the special Spirit of the UK Round Up award, Reece Archibald. Keep on being awesome, Reece.

Over in Japan, Mirei Tschida continues to bring glamour to freestyle (or should that be bringing freestyle skateboarding to glamour? I’m not sure which way round this is working) in her fledgling career as a runway model. Maybe she’s been getting tips from her Moonshine team mate Felix Jonsson; Felix’s sashay game is STRONG.

A post shared by mireisk8 (@mireisk8) on

If you’re still looking to scratch that contest itch and can’t wait for the will-they-won’t-they situation in Japan to be resolved, remember that the US Championships will be taking place in Philadelphia on the 15th of September. Not a lot in the way of fresh info on this one, but I guess if you’ve been to the Rizzo Rink before, you know what to expect. However, this year there is a $1,000 prize purse, so maybe folks like Connor Burke and Matt Gokey will resurface and head back over there for the first time in a few years.

Head over to the competition website for the full details – and maybe jump on a Greyhound now if you’re planning on getting there on the cheap.

Philly Freestyle 2018 Flyer

My ongoing project to enable newcomers to learn the ins and outs of freestyle skateboarding continues. Head over to FreestyleTricktips.com and pick up a trick or two; this month I’ve covered the spacewalk, rolling fingerflips, casper disasters and even managed to enlist my Moonshine teammate Nick Beaulieu for a tip on the Butterflip, so there’s something there for everybody.

So who watched the episode of Vice’s Post Radical featuring the World Round Up? If you haven’t seen it yet it’s available over at their website or through various methods of watching and downloading video online with varying levels of legality.

Honestly, I wasn’t all that impressed with how well freestyle came out of it (and it looks like I’m not the only one), but as you might expect, there are a lot of folks out there who just seem happy that someone’s paying attention. Personally, I’d rather they left us well alone rather than spend the best part of 45 minutes making us look like a bunch of kooks, but that’s just me.

If you’ve just gone off and watched Vice make a joke out of the World Round Up, I’ve got something which will (hopefully) help get that foul taste out of your mouth. It’s the return of the legendary DCMH!

For those who don’t know (which is probably the majority reading this), DCMH (otherwise known as Double Chin and Meat Head) are Jari and Vesa Paakkari, two brothers from Finland who were producing high-quality freestyle videos way before anyone else had the inclination or the means to do so. Jari seemingly had the ability to learn basically any trick he saw, and made a real noise in the freestyle contest circuit in the early 2000s. Now he’s back on the freestyle board, he and his brother have started producing videos again, and… well. Watch it below.

TRIGGER WARNING: CONTAINS MEMES. ALL THE MEMES.

Words cannot express how much sheer joy the return of DCMH has bought to my life.

Tony Gale is a British professional freestyle skateboarder and rides for Moonshine Skateboards, Jimmy’z, Seismic and Synopsis Bearings. July has been far too hot for his northern blood, so he’s spent most of this month in a permanent state of drowsiness and wondering whether or not he’s actually a lizard. Maybe David Icke was onto something.

?>
Posted on by Tony Gale

Excursions: Skateboarding in the Eastern Bloc by Tony Gale

Skateboarders over a certain age often seem surprised to see me freestyle. There’s a common belief, consciously propagated by the “industry” and the associated media, that freestyle is totally dead – a belief not helped, admittedly, by the tendency of freestylers to hide in abandoned parking lots and empty basketball courts. Generally, I tend to inform these folks that yes, freestyle is alive and well, with strong regional scenes in various parts of the world, most notably Brazil, Japan, Sweden, the UK, Germany and, oddly, Romania.

 

The presence of skateboarding – never mind freestyle – in this former Soviet satellite state is a relatively new development. Behind the Iron Curtain, skateboards were a rare sight; any available skateboards were all locally-produced, with designs almost a decade behind the western skate industry (this article from East Germany shows what Communists were dealing with in 1987, for god’s sake). There were a few trips across the Curtain by European skaters, most notably for a competition in Prague in 1988 which was covered by Thrasher, but skateboarding didn’t really get an opportunity to thrive until the dissolution of the Soviet Union. As such, the community and culture – in Romania at least – is still very young. There’s not a lot of home-brew skateboard companies or manufacturing, and both skateshops and skateparks are few and far between.

This is where Marius Constantin comes in. Marius is 31 years old now, and I first met him at the Paderborn BBQ contest in Germany back in 2015. I’d known about him for a few years prior to that, though; Marius is one of the most pro-active and enthusiastic supporters of freestyle in Europe – if not the world – and made a name for himself in Romania as being one of the most visible Romanian skateboarders on YouTube, first by documenting his local scene in a series of videos, and later, doing trick tips in his native language.
Marius Constantin

Generally speaking, the idea of the skateboarding “YouTuber” brings bile to the back of my throat, and from what I see, many other skateboarders have similar responses. There’s a lot of nonsense, ego, and self-promotion in that sphere, but Marius came to the platform with a different approach: he wanted to promote everyone else, not himself. Marius isn’t the star, he’s the scene-builder – something which was evident every single time I saw him on the “contest circuit”. He never wanted to talk to me about the latest tricks he landed, only the tricks his many young freestyle proteges had learned. He always seemed more stoked about showing me a video of a young Romanian child from an impoverished village doing a pogo on a cheap, battered board than his latest rail combo, and that was refreshing. I quickly realised Marius was quietly building up this little freestyle scene; pretty soon, he started bringing some of the teenagers he was teaching and supporting to events – and they were good. Really good.

In all honesty, I’d been thinking of going to Romania for a long time to see what was happening over there. Marius kept inviting me, and I kept making excuses to myself; it’s hard balancing a day job, family life and travelling, and I just didn’t have it in me to jump on a plane. However, when I realised I’d made up my mind to not go to the World Round Up in Vancouver again, I realised this gave me the time and funds I needed, and the decision was made. I spoke to Marius, checked he was free, and booked a flight.

There’s an old joke, dating back to the Cold War: during the Space Race, NASA realised a regular ballpoint pen wouldn’t work without gravity, and spent millions of dollars developing a replacement that would work in orbit. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, simply used a pencil.

While this turned out to be false, there’s some truth in it: the people of the Soviet Union had a habit of finding simple solutions to problems, some of which were elegant, some of which… not so much. As soon as I arrived in Bucharest, I realised this obviously still existed in Romania. Rather than taxi the plane up to the terminal and have an expensive tunnel to connect to the door, the biggest international airport in Romania just leaves the plane on the tarmac and brings buses out for the passengers. As I’m riding back to the terminal, I then see a distinctly Soviet-looking tractor – a proper agricultural piece of farming equipment – being used to tow the baggage back to the airport. I’d see various examples of this “keep it simple, stupid” mentality during my trip, and while it was sometimes amusing to see, it was a refreshing change to the overly bureaucratic nonsense I see back home.

In conversations I had with Marius over the years, one thing came up time and again: freestylers in Romania just couldn’t get product. In England, we always had to import our gear from the US, so I understood his plight. He’d got kids cutting down street boards, but they couldn’t get freestyle wheels or skidplates; he was trying to get local shops to bring in suitable product, but as is often the case, shops are too conservative to support what they perceive as a small niche, and would rather sell shoes and clothing. So Marius did what Marius does, and did it himself. He started a shop, and started importing and stocking the product himself. Based in his home town of Slatina, about two hours away from Bucharest, Nose and Tail supplies freestylers across Romania, but due to the amount of respect Marius has earned from the skate scene in general, often gets customers from larger towns who’d rather support a real skater instead of the businessmen who run their local shops, who they see as only interested in profit.

Nose and Tail - Overview
Nose and Tail is a PROPER skate shop. Sights like this are getting rare in the UK.
Nose and Tail - Boards
Nose and Tail stocks a good range of boards – US pro decks sit alongside smaller EU brands.
The banner roughly translates as “from the skaters, for the skaters”.
Nose and Tail - Accessories
I always judge a skateshop by what they actually provide at the lower end of the scale. I’ve been in too many places that don’t stock things like kingpins and pivot cups, so this was a refreshing sight.

On my first day in Romania, we went on a small tour of Slatina’s old district (in summary: absolutely beautiful but almost completely abandoned), and then swung by the skate shop to check in on Alexandru Lilea, a young freestyler to whom Marius gave a full-time job. In a country where the monthly minimum wage is around 1800 Lei (about $450 USD or €385 EUR) but a pro deck still costs about 265 Lei ($66 / €57) – and a freestyle complete can run to an eye-watering 800 Lei, meaning you’d have to work for over two weeks to afford one – Marius is keen on supporting his proteges where he can, often buying them food during sessions and giving them product when they need it. Like most days in most skateshops, it was pretty quiet when we turned up (a lot of Nose and Tail’s trade is online), so we found Lilea doing literally nothing to earn his keep. I’m pretty sure he was just idling away the hours on Youtube, to be honest. But someone has to keep the doors open, and if it means he can afford dinner at the end of the day, Lilea’ll do it.

Nose and Tail - Budget boards
This rack is full of the “budget” boards – between $75 and $100 for a complete. Marius chooses the cheap end carefully to make sure he isn’t selling anything unrideable.

I took the opportunity to look around Nose and Tail, and found it surprisingly well-stocked, considering the cost of everything; there was a good mix of board brands and shapes, with both European independents and American big names represented on the walls. Marius also carries the best budget brands he can find to try to make sure the poorer kids can have a decent ride, too. One big surprise was that unlike British shops, which tend to carry themselves along from month to month by selling shoes, Nose and Tail stocks a lot of seemingly unrelated product like spray paint and kendamas, but barely any footwear at all. Apparently there was a big kendama trend last year, which ended up bringing in a huge amount of money to the shop. (Who would have thought ball-in-a-cup could prove so lucrative?)

The one thing Nose and Tail has in common with its English counterparts is Thrasher tees, however. Marius had to arrange for them to be imported specially, as no one else was carrying them in Romania, and it apparently ended up being a smart move. Got to stay ahead of the trends to stay alive.

Finally, as the afternoon cooled down (it gets unreasonably hot in Romania during the summer), we went for our first skate session of the trip; Marius loaded up his car with myself, the two Alexandrus (Lilea and Stirbu), and we headed out to nearby Craiova, picking up Daniel Popescu, a 12-year old beginner from the countryside who was stoked to be joining us. Craiova is a beautiful, vibrant place, where they’ve pumped money into the old town and turned it into a fantastic space, full of life. When we turned up at the spot – a beautiful plaza in the centre of the city – it was already bustling with all sorts of activity. There were kids playing football (that’s “soccer” to any Americans reading this), riding around on bikes, playing guitar, and, of course, skateboarding. The guys who were already skating there were street skaters, doing tricks up and down the small drops from one section to the next, and many of them had spent time in other European countries for work. They were pretty surprised to see an Englishman in Romania – I guess not many folks from West Europe make the trip. All in all it was a pretty cool trip, but it was interesting seeing how so many of the Craiova crew fitted the exact same street skating stereotypes I see in other countries; the same clothing, the same attitudes, the same aloofness. One of Marius’ friends back in Slatina expressed his distaste at that, saying they “weren’t real Romanian skaters”. I guess the industry’s marketing schemes are even starting to take root in Eastern Europe now.

Like an idiot I forgot to take any photos while I was in Craiova, but thankfully Marius made good use of his GoPro sponsorship and filmed some footage so you can at least get a sense of the vibe.

We finished off the day with food and drink outside a little restaurant in one of Craiova’s older districts, just a short walk down some cobbled streets from the plaza. Some high-quality whisky sours worked out at about $3 each, so I kept the waitress busy while Stirbu expressed amazement at how many I was buying. Oddly enough, everything’s a bit hazy after that.

Day 2 was entirely Slatina-based. The idea was to arrange for a session at Marius’ local spot, an amazing open plaza outside the “Casa de Cultura a Sindicatelor”, a cultural centre built during the Communist era and surrounded by matching Communist-era tower blocks. However, due to the overbearing heat, we spent most of the afternoon lounging around in the shade as the crew gradually turned up. At one point a worker came by in a street sweeper, cleaning down the surface; within minutes the water had evaporated. Way too hot for this Brit.

Kendamas
Kendamas are apparently the game of choice when it’s too hot to skate.

As far as freestyle goes, it ended up being the same group as the previous days’ trip to Craiova by the time it was cool enough to skate, but Slatina’s street skaters were a very different breed to their Craiovan counterparts; younger and more innocent, there was no hint of a “too cool” attitude amongst the group, and while there was still a noticeable amount of physical distance between the freestylers and the street riders due to the sheer size of the space, all in all, it was a very chill session. Families walked through, heading to the cultural centre or one of the bars, and no one seemed to mind about the noise and movement created by the many skaters in the plaza.

I would later ask Marius what the older folks thought of the growing skate community; unsurprisingly, the reaction is much the same as we get in other areas where skateboarding is more established. The big concern, as always, is the damage that street skateboarding does to the environment and the speed at which street skaters move through a space. Unlike other countries, however, there isn’t a big push for corralling everyone into skateparks; Slatina itself only has a small arrangement of a prefab quarterpipe and funbox at the other end of town, although Marius has been trying to get a modern concrete plaza built for quite a while. The local government are certainly keen (they’ve even paid for Marius to travel to international competitions to represent his country a couple of times), but there’s a lot of other projects which are higher up on the priority list for funding. It’s worth noting at this point that I was pleasantly surprised by Slatina; there were some absolutely stunning public spaces and parks, and there’s been a real move since the economic slump of the early 90s to “beautify” some of the old Communist buildings – to the point where they look considerably more aesthetically pleasing than their equivalents in London.

With regards to the actual skateboarding – freestyle is definitely developing quite well in Romania. This was the first opportunity I’ve had to have a casual session with the two Alexandrus, and it’s interesting to see them both progressing down such different paths, even if there is a common tendency towards 80s nostalgia for both of them. Lilea spent most of the session working on rolling double fingerflips, 540 variants and handstand shuvits; Stirbu preferring more complex and esoteric 50-50 tricks as a general rule. Both are learning fast; Lilea went on to win the amateur division in Paderborn a month later.

Alexandru Stirbu - MF Casper
Alexandru Stirbu’s groupies don’t seem to be impressed by his MF Casper.
Marius catches a butterflip
Marius catches a butterflip outside the House of Culture. If you look closely enough, you should be able to see Alexandru Lilea being lazy in the shade behind him.

Marius, meanwhile, has finally found chance to take a step back from the arduous task of getting his business up and running and is putting in the time on the board again, and it shows. He ended up picking up fourth place – his best pro result – in Paderborn. If he keeps this up he could be a contender for podium places next year. Surrounded with this group, the young Daniel Popescu should have all the inspiration and guidance he needs. His enthusiasm really showed through – every time I was finished shooting a trick of one of the older guys, Daniel would come and pester me to shoot some photos of him. It was really great to see. Since I returned home, a few of the street skaters I met have been making the transition and getting involved in the local freestyle scene, too. There’s a real future here.

Marius films the kids
Marius always documents the beginners and tries to make them feel included. It’s not only very cool to see, but it works – there’s a lot of young talent coming up as a result.

We ended the day at Marius’ place with Romanian wine and some traditional food, cooked by his friend (and now freestyler) Catalin. Another major surprise on this trip was how good Romanian food and drink is. The country is still very agrarian, with incredible vineyards and amazing fresh fruit and vegetables. If you get the chance to try some Romanian wine, give it a go!

I couldn’t come to Romania and not go to Bucharest; I think Bianca, Marius’ other half, may have murdered him if he didn’t take me to see the capital. Marius lived in the city for a while; all he ever told me about it is how much he hates it. Far too busy, too much traffic, expensive, etc. – all the standard complaints made about every major city worldwide.

Romania - Orthodox Church
Two very different buildings, created by two very different ideologies, spanning a gap of over 300 years.

One of the constant themes running through my time in Romania was contrast. You have three definite time periods all sitting uncomfortably side-by-side; the traditional, the Communist, and the Capitalist. Bucharest exemplified that experience. One of the first things I saw as we walked from our parking space was a monument to the anti-communist revolutionaries, entitled “The Revival’s Memorial”. One minute later, there’s a beautiful old Orthodox church, apparently dating to the 1720s, with two crosses of Salem perched on the top of the twin bell towers – overshadowed by Ceaușescu-era apartment buildings. It’s such an unusual mishmash of architecture and history that, at points, it can seem quite overwhelming; there’s simply so much to take in, no matter where you look.

While we were strolling through the city, visiting bookstores, checking out old churches and feeding pigeons, someone randomly jumped off a bench, saying “Marius! Marius!” Marius went over and greeted the guy like they were old friends, and as I couldn’t understand a single word of the short conversation, I asked Marius for an explanation as we walked away. Turns out Marius didn’t know the guy at all – the guy knew him from Youtube. You wouldn’t have known it from how Marius interacted with him. Later he admitted to me that he finds it tiring sometimes, but it doesn’t show; it almost sickens me how goddamned nice he is sometimes.

Eventually we made it to our destination: a surprisingly large outdoor skatepark tucked away in a public park, with characteristic late 90s/early 2000s prefab jump ramps everywhere. I found the local skate crew effectively tucked away to one side with a couple of flatbars; the main park was swarming with scooter kids and the occasional BMXer. Every so often, one of the skaters would head off to try to skate some of the main park, and when they did, it became apparent that the skill level is quite high. Romania might not be a well-known skate Mecca, but the local scene certainly seems strong.

I took a couple of runs across the park, trying to relearn some of my old bank tricks on a very dodgy oversized wooden flatbank at one end (I swore it was flexing every time I landed on it). Eventually I gave up on trying to skate the haggard behemoth and spotted a section of the park which wasn’t part of any scooter lines, so co-opted it as a makeshift freestyle area. Before I knew it, there was three or four scooter kids who’s stopped riding and sat down on a ledge to watch. When they tried talking to me, I had to play the part of the ignorant Brit – “Sorry mate, I only speak English” – only to be met with absolutely perfect English from an eleven or twelve year old child in response. They came out with the usual response to freestyle (“what is this? I’ve never seen anyone do this sort of thing before! It’s amazing!”) before asking the inevitable question: “Why are you here? In Romania?” I was tempted to respond “because I had some time to kill and fuck me, Romania is a cheap place to visit”, but tried my best to explain that I was staying with a friend of mine who is also a professional freestyler. Thankfully, Marius appeared at that point (I think he’d wondered where I’d disappeared off to), and so I introduced him to the kids while the two Alexandrus attempted to wow the fledgling crowd. Once one of us mentioned Nose and Tail, they worked out who he was… but only from the kendamas he’d been selling for the last year or so.

You can’t win ’em all.

Marius, the Romanian superstar
“Yep, kendamas. I’m your guy.”

Although I had one more day in Romania, it seems fitting to end this piece with the end of my day in Bucharest. Stirbu left the group when we jumped onto the subway after the skate session, and Marius dropped Bianca off at her tram, leaving just Marius, Alexandru Lilea and myself for the two hour ride back to Slatina. As we headed back to the car, we stumbled upon a group of street skaters hanging out at a local spot – a very, very battered war memorial which has seen more than its fair share of street skating in the last two decades. One of the guys had his arm strapped up, and I got talking to him – his name was Razvan Popescu, and Marius would tell me later that he’s pretty damn good, with a whole bunch of sponsorships to his name. This post on his Instagram is actually him skating the memorial we met at.

A post shared by Razvan Popescu (@razvanrawmania) on

One of the things we started talking about was the difficulty of being one of the first skaters in a region, how tough it is not having people there with you to learn from. I could empathise; starting out as a freestyler in England in 2001 was nigh-impossible, with learning new tricks like fumbling in the dark. Everything feels like reinventing the wheel. Razvan and other guys his age in Romania went through the same experience with skateboarding in general; they could see what was possible through print media and video, but pre-Youtube, they had no one to tell them how to flick their foot for a heelflip, how to keep your head up during a backside flip. It’s pretty amazing to me to see how far skaters like Razvan have come, and how such a young scene has flourished in the last twenty years, despite the economic difficulties they’ve faced. It says a lot about the tenacity of the Romanian people. Part of me hopes that, to a certain degree, they can stay under the radar; the last thing Romania needs is Barcelona-style skate tourism ruining the local skaters’ relationship with the government and non-skaters. However, while the skateboarding industry isn’t paying much attention to Romania right now, the Romanians – especially the freestylers – are getting a whole lot better and are starting to look out at the world around them.

It’s only a matter of time before the world starts looking back.

?>
Posted on by Tony Gale

The Freestyle Report July 2018 by Tony Gale

 

Mid-summer. Sweat. Heat. Sunburn. Storms. Ridiculous skateboarding. Ruined knees. It’s the same every year, no matter where you are and what particular niche of skateboarding you’re interested in, but freestyle just seems to be going from strength to strength. There was some discussion in the British scene about the fear of stagnation, and while there’s definitely some concern about the lack of a coherent plan for growth amongst the Freestyle Community, we seem to be shambling along just fine for now. Lots of new products, skaters, websites and tricks means lots of news, so let’s get stuck in.

 

A new report means new Decomposed product. That’s just the way it is. This time around we’ve got new double kicks – a 7.5″ by 29.25″ Tim Morris and a 7.25″ x 32″ popsicle Kevin Harris, both double kick and riffing off classic 1980s graphics. If I was buying I’d say a Morris for under the feet and the Harris for the wall, but if you’re tall and fond of ollies, you might prefer it the other way round. Pick them up from Decomposed’s website – and tell Witter to buy some bloody advertising on Everything Skateboarding while you’re there.

Decomposed Harris 2018 Decomposed Morris 2018

 

There’s a new wheel in town, folks… and it’s BLACK. Moonshine decided to fill that niche left over by the end of the black Momentum wheels and bought out an insanely well-priced collaboration with Speedlab. I’ve yet to try them out, but I hear really good things about the Speedlab urethane, so I’m pretty excited about these. And at a mere $33, these should be well worth picking up – even if they are based on the OJII shape, which I’m personally not a fan of. Still, the OJs are a classic wheel for a reason, so I imagine these should be insanely popular. Head over to the Moonshine website to get yourself a set.

 

Moonshine Wheel Moonshine Wheel 3 Moonshine Wheel 2

 

If 80s style OJ-based wheels aren’t your thing, Seismic’s been the only real game in town for a while. Well, Gesmer finally bowed down to relentless pressure (by which I mean a torrent of messages from me) and bought out a new version of the Seismic Focus. Using the same improved core and closed-back shape as the widely-used 97a and occasionally-used 101a Focus wheels, this one is a nice and grippy 95a in a lovely orange-on-white design. Due to the solid core and high-grade urethane, these ones should run much faster than other grippy freestyle wheels, so I’m keen on getting my hands on a set… or five. Pick some up from the Seismic website today.

 

Seismic Focus

 

The new products just keep on coming, and the latest is from Patrick Bamford, who’s reskinned his existing shape with a new graphic. As I mentioned back in March, I really like the look of the shape, so I’m happy to see he’s doing well enough to justify a second graphic. Head over to his website and pick one up – $62.99 in Canadian Plastic Dollars actually isn’t as expensive as it sounds!

 

New Bamford Graphic

 

I’m writing this just a few days after the annual Paderborn BBQ competition and I’m still feeling its effects. Held in a skatepark in a small German town, this is the most unlikely site for the longest running (and, in this writer’s opinion, best) freestyle event in the world. Now in its 18th year, Paderborn has been playing home to an international freestyle event since 2001; Ratzi and his crew hire a giant military-style tent and beds for foreign skaters to camp in, and while the street event takes up all of Saturday, Sunday is entirely devoted to freestyle. It’s pretty amazing – no other event in the world draws such a large crowd with no side shows or other reason for them to be there. They just know some amazing skateboarding is going to happen and turn up for the show, year on year.

This year’s event was, like most years, insanely hot. Everyone was chugging down water constantly (I think Ratzi must have ram-raided the local Aldi to source that much free bottled water), and it still felt like I’d been swallowing sawdust. Regardless, skateboarding had to happen, and it was of an incredibly high caliber. Nick Beaulieu made the journey across the Atlantic for the first time, only to come head-to-head with a hoard of world-class Romanian amateur talent and a returning Jari Paakari (who has come on leaps and bounds since he re-emerged from his Finnish hiding place for last year’s Stockholm event). Eventually, despite mauling his toe on Saturday morning (and some late night, whisky-fuelled bathroom surgery to fix it), Nick took the gold home, with Alexandru Lilea and Christian Müller bringing very different 80s-themed runs to grab second and third place respectively.

It’s a bit hard for me to write about the pro division as I was involved in it (and spent the bulk of it either warming up or collapsed from heat exhaustion), but the most notable which I actually got to see was Marius Constantin finally stepping up from his Am-division winning runs and bringing a true pro-level performance to the table, bagging his highest result to date (a very, very respectable fourth place). I’m not sure which was better to watch: his run or the huge Romanian party when they found out he landed in fourth. If he keeps this up he’ll be a serious contender again next summer.

I only really witnessed one performance from the pro podium (my own), so I can’t comment too much; what I will say is that my first run sucked hard (I’m blaming the heat), I stuck a whole selection of new tricks I’ve never done in a contest before in the second and rolled away mostly clean, and Felix Jonsson was on perfect form, spinning higher numbers with more style than ever throughout the weekend (sadly, his runs were just before mine, so I missed his routine both times). However, the winner had to be Guenter Mokulys; the man is an absolute robot and seems to be back on his old form after what was a relatively disastrous year for him in 2017.

The “masters” was a bit of an odd one; returning from last year was the reigning champion Yoyo Schulz and Eli Myers, but the small division was rounded out by newcomer “Micky Bluebird”, aka Michaela Tritthart, aka The Woman With The Bendiest Legs In Skateboarding. Micky was pretty nervous in her first competition, but the crowd – and fellow skaters – were appreciative of her unique brand of footwork, and I think it bodes well for her future in freestyle. However, Yoyo’s bad back took out the bulk of his repertoire, allowing a much-improved Eli to stomp home to a well-deserved first place and the Masters title.

That’s more writing than I expected to put here, but it still feels like it’s only scraping the surface of a killer weekend. Paderborn is immense, people; make the trip. It’s worth it.

Pro Division Am Division
1. Guenter Mokulys (Germany)
2. Tony Gale (England)
3. Felix Jonsson (Sweden)
4. Marius Constantin (Romania)
5. Christian Heise (Germany)
6. Reece Archibald (Scotland)
7. Kaue Araujo (Brazil)
8. Denham Hill (England)
9. Danny Darkslide (Germany)
10. Fabian Friedberger (Germany)		 1. Nick Beaulieu (USA)
2. Alexandru Lilea (Romania)
3. Christian Müller (Germany)
4. Alexandru Stirbu (Romania)
5. Robert Wagner (Germany)
6. Erwin “Shuvit” (Netherlands)
7. Matteo Dumitrache (Romania)
8. Paul Brunninkhuis (Netherlands)
9. Daniel Greschner (Germany)
10. Alex Foster (England)

 

Paderborn 2018 Group Photo

 

Before I move on from Paderborn, I took the opportunity to record part of the in-car nonsense along the way with absolute Hero of Freestyle Alex Foster for the Freestyle Podcast. If an hour and a half of talking about Belgium, the contest circuit and the need for more organisation in freestyle is your thing, grab a coffee (or three) and have a listen to it over at the Freestyle Podcast’s site or on your podcast app of choice.

(A warning: if I remember right, there’s also a fair chunk where I’m in hysterics over the idea of Toshiaki Fujii marrying a sheet of plywood. I think all that continental air did something funny to my brain.)

The World Round Up happened. I didn’t go this year (I opted to spend that time period skating around south Romania with Marius Constantin and his crew, a trip which will be reported on in full on this website when I find the time to write it), so I can’t really say too much about it other than what I saw on the live feed and what I’ve heard from others, which is a mixed bag. Generally, I hear the floor was notably grippier than it has been in previous years, and the crowd was oddly lower than it has been for a long time – something which I’ve been told could be down to the rest of the “fairground” outside the curling rink being much further away than it has been before, limiting the amount of passing traffic and curious passers-by.

Thankfully, one of the World Round Up’s staff, Hippie Mike, has already covered the World Round Up in full for us so I don’t have to sit here and speculate about something I didn’t attend. The full article is over here. Yes, here. This link. CLICK IT.

 

World Round Up Results

 

Small event report: the 9th of June saw the third annual Battle of the Boards in Brighton, England. Held on the sea front on possibly the worst surface possible (it melts in the sun. I wish I was making that up, but I’m not), it started life as a longboard dance competition with a couple of smaller competitions to spice things up (longest wheelie, best g-turn, best trick and a classic high jump), but this year extended out to include a tight slalom race, an electric board race – and a freestyle competition.

With each skater getting a single one minute run and no choice of music, this was hardly the most professional event going, but still, fun was had; seven freestylers entered, most of whom had never entered a competition before, and at least half of which had no idea the competition was going to happen until I cajoled them into it ten minutes before it started. In the end, the top spot went to professional heckler (and my former Capital teammate) Byron Lawrence, with Mark Goddard wheelie-ing his way to the second spot and Byron’s son Cameron Lawrence stepping up for third place.

Really, the “competition” wasn’t the point of the whole event; the fact of the matter is that when you get a group of like minded people together in a public space, get some music blaring and put on an event, you’re going to have a good time – and an audience. Moreover, the gathered crowd of passers-by seemed to enjoy the show, with the high jump being an especially big draw. Sometimes, keeping it simple really is the best way.

 

Battle of the Boards 2018 Podium

 

Some good news just in from NYC: Uncle Funkys skateshop in Greenwich Village is not only stocking but SELLING freestyle product. No doubt it’s Pete Betti’s doing, as he’s been working there for a while; he tells me they had a few requests for a freestyle-specific setup, and as such, they’ve sold a few complete Decomposed boards and some Moonshine decks.

Time and again, we’re told that “no one wants freestyle product” by people in the industry, but if you put them out there, they actually sell. Who would have thought? It’s almost like the folks telling us no one wants them have some sort of agenda to push. Hm…

Anyway, if you’re in town, swing by 128 Charles Street in Greenwich Village and give Betti a big pat on the back.

Elsewhere in the dark depths of the internet, I’ve started a whole website devoted to teaching people the act of freestyle. If you’ve been reading these for a while and don’t really know where to get started with all this board-flipping weirdness, head over to FreestyleTricktips.com and give some real tricks a go. I’m starting small with the absolute basics and building up a library so that no matter where you’re at in your exploration of freestyle, you’ll be able to get up to speed. There’s a little introduction video below; all the video version of the tricktips are on that Youtube channel, so you can follow the project on there if social media is more your thing.

 

 

Looks like I’m not the only Brit getting to work. Denham Hill has begun a project entitled TERROR-FIRMA with the intention of promoting freestyle worldwide. He’s been producing classic tattoo-inspired artwork for a while, and now that’s going to go onto clothing, with profit from said clothing being funnelled straight back into supporting international freestyle. Absolute hero.

Give him a follow on Instagram over at @terr_frma and tag your posts with the #terrorfirma hashtag.

 

Sad event news now: The promise of a World Championship in Japan has fallen through. Toshiaki Fujii tells me they were having issues with one of the major sponsors, and there were all sorts of conflicts and problems. Hopefully they can get it all sorted and get something in place for next year.

At any rate, with Stockholm and the World Championships not happening this year, we’re now left with two more significant dates on the calendar at this point: the US Championships take place in their usual home of Philadelphia on the 15th of September, and the All Japan Pro should be happening later in the the year, although I’m still waiting on a confirmed date on that one. Toshiaki? Moichi? Anyone?

Something else for your calendars: Vice’s new show, Post Radical, did some filming at last year’s World Round Up. Presented by Rick McCrank, the series seems to be about the hidden niches in skateboarding; the episode about freestyle should go up on Vice’s website on July 31. I couldn’t figure out how to embed things from their proprietary video player so head to their website to watch the first episode now.

Right, let’s have a palate-cleanser to end this giant update. And what better freestyle sorbet is there than Reece Archibald’s patented brand of footplants and nonsense? Grab yourself a Dib-dab or ten, kick back and let it wash over you. Then, of course, go skate!

 

 

 

Tony Gale is a British professional freestyle skateboarder and rides for Moonshine Skateboards, Jimmy’z, Seismic and Synopsis Bearings. This month he’s been throwing himself into the concrete skating banks and throwing 720 shuvits in a desperate attempt to catch up with some of his Japanese teammates; if he makes it through to August in one piece, it’ll be a miracle.

 

?>
Posted on by Tony Gale

The Final Results: The World Roundup 2018 by Hippie Mike and Jim Goodrich

There was a different vibe at the 7th annual World Round-Up Freestyle Skateboard Championships held at the Cloverdale Rodeo & Country Fair in Surrey, BC, Canada. It was almost as if everyone there really wanted to win. With the best Freestyle Skateboarders flying in from all over the world, you would figure winning is always priority number one. But in past years it has had way more of a family/community feel to it, and everyone was just stoked to be there together and have fun.

Now that the contest has hit its 7th year, some of the older veteran skaters have stopped coming, or stopped competing anyway, and there has been somewhat of a generation change. In the past it was freestyle legends like Guenter Mokulys, Per Cangaru, Masahiro Fujii, and Stefan Lillis Akesson that everyone would be trying to beat, but now it’s the youngest members of Freestyle that are the ones to watch out for. Isamu Yamamoto from Japan has been the person to keep your eyes on for the past four years since he showed up for the Amateur contest at age 11, and now at a mere 15 years old he is the one every competitor knows they need to try and beat. Isamu is a protégé of the Fujii Brothers (Masahiro and Toshiaki Fujii), and his skill level on a skateboard is way over the top.

 

Left: 5th place amateur, Ikkei Nagao. Right: 3rd place amateur, Yuta Fujii. Photos by Jim Goodrich. 

 

Since Isamu jumped up to the Pro division a couple years ago, a few more of these young Japanese wonders have been controlling the Amateur contest. Last year Marcio Torres from Brazil battled it out with an 8-year-old Yuzuki Kawasaki (and barely beat him), and this year came down to the two of them again. Marcio’s runs are choreographed to perfection, and he always performs with a smile, even when he’s upside down. But the now 9 year old Yuzuki has the skills to pay the bills, and when you’re that small-statured it makes everything look so much more difficult.

Between Yuzuki and the two 12-year-olds, Ikkei Nagao and Yuta Fujii, you would think the Amateur contest was made for kids, but there were guys in their 30’s in there too doing everything they could to try and compete with these young Japanese phenoms. From thirty one competitors in the qualifiers down to only fifteen at the Sunday Finals event, it was definitely a battle for survival- but when the day was done, Yuzuki Kawasaki was named the winner and Best Amateur Freestyle Skateboarder in the World!

 

Left: 1st place amateur, Yuzuki Kawasaki. Right: 2nd place amateur, Marcio Torres. Photos by Jim Goodrich. 

 

The Pro division was even tougher, of course. As mentioned, the mentality in all competitors was simple: beat Isamu! Well, if you know anything about Isamu Yamamoto, it’s that on any normal day he is either skateboarding or sleeping. Isamu won the Pro division last year, and since then has been travelling the world being featured on television shows, filmed for YouTube videos, and even performed for some high political figures. His work ethic shows in his skating; you can tell how hard he practices by watching him for just five brief minutes.

With a couple new faces in the Professional category, it was anyone’s game. Turi Zoltan and Sto Strauss might have been first- timers to The World Round Up contest, but both have tons of experience in Freestyle competitions. Turi was in 4th place going into the Finals, and definitely let the world know how highly skilled and consistent he is, but he couldn’t quite push through in the Finals to win it all. Many people had flawless runs in the Pro Finals (putting on an amazing show for the audience), including Guenter, Lillis, Andy Anderson, and Canadian Ryan Brynelson.

 

Left: 5th place pro, Andy Anderson. Right: 4th place pro, Mike Osterman. Photos by Jim Goodrich. 

 

Ryan has been a part of The World Round-Up since day one. Learning most of what he knows about freestyle skateboarding from the Canadian Legend himself, Kevin Harris, Ryan put on an amazing performance mixed with smooth flowing wheelie tricks, handstands, technical stationary maneuvers, and some of the fastest and most controlled 360 spin moves of all the competitors. Ryan took 3rd Place in the contest and was super stoked; he also won the 360 spinoff competition the next day.

 

Left: 7th place pro, Diego Pires. Right: 3rd place pro, Ryan Brynelson. Photos by Jim Goodrich. 

 

So it came down to two legends from two completely different eras, Guenter Mokulys and Isamu Yamamoto. At age 54, Guenter has been around the planet competing and doing demos his whole life and is the 11-time world champion… but could he beat a 15-year-old? With two flawless runs, showing off so many unique and powerful moves, Guenter received the utmost respect from the crowd, the judges, and the other competitors, but wasn’t quite able to win it all.

 

Left: 2nd Place Pro, Guenter Mokulys. Right: 1st place pro, Isamu Yamamoto. Photos by Jim Goodrich. 

 

Isamu came out in Run 1 with power, skill, and insane speed; when you add in “perfection”, it backs up his case of why he should be known as “The Best Freestyle Skateboarder in the World”. This kid is unstoppable, and almost never misses any of his tricks. Mind you, he did bail in the beginning of Run 2… but instead of crying about it, that was the moment when Isamu Yamamoto made sure everyone around knew his name, getting back on his board, and throwing down combo after combo at such a high rate of speed he should have been pulled over by the cops. The look on every competitors’ face after his second run was a mix of astonishment and fear, and all were left speechless. It is obvious that Isamu is a freestyle skateboarding machine. So put your hands together for this amazing kid from Japan, Isamu Yamamoto– repeat winner of The World Round-Up Pro Division!

 

The participants

 

With almost 60 competitors representing 14 countries, ranging in age from 9 to 59 years old, it was an interesting contest to say the least. The times are changing, as they always do. But Freestyle is not dead, and with these young bucks taking over I’d say it’s here to stay for quite some time. Big thanks to Monty Little for working all year to ensure this event is always top notch, and check out http://skateboarding.starbeat.tv to see all the competitors’ runs from the Semi-Finals and Finals. Watch them yourself so you can see first-hand what a battle it was

Until next year…

Hippie Mike

 

The winners in the pro division, left to right, first through tenth. Photo by Jim Goodrich. 

 

 

Final Results: 2018 World Freestyle Round-Up

Note: The Final Results shown below show only the Pro and Amateur standings for the skaters that made the cut into the Semi-Final and Final Rounds.

AMATEUR DIVISION:
1 – Yuzuki Kawasaki – Japan
2 – Marcio Torres – Brazil
3 – Yuta Fujii – Japan
4 – Josh Dunstone – Australia
5 – Ikkei Nagao – Japan
6 – John Sawyer – USA
7 – Kristopher Abramovic – Canada
8 – Dillanger Kane – Canada
9 – Cristobal Bahamonde – Chile
10 – Nick Beaulieu – USA
11 – Mirel Tsuchida – Japan
12 – Alexander Rademaker – Switzerland
13 – Tyrone Williams – USA
14 – Stephen Alksne – Canda
15 – Bruno R. Franca – Brazil
16 – Jordan Sterling – Canada
17 – Bruce Noe – USA
18 – Riley Allen – Canada
19 – Eric Lowery – USA
20 – Adam Flood – Canada
21 – Alex Foster – England
22 – Matt Phillips – Canada
23 – Andreas Tsougrianis – Canada
24 – Vaughn Johnson – USA
25 – Daniel Greschner – Germany

HENRY CANDIOTI SKATE-4-FUN AWARD:
Shen Meng – China

AMBASSADORS OF FREESTYLE AWARD:
Masahiro Fujii and Toshiaki Fujii – Japan

THE SPIRIT OF THE ROUND-UP AWARD:
Ricky Rodriguez – USA

PRO DIVISION:
1 – Isamu Yamamoto – Japan
2 – Guner Mokulys – Germany
3 – Ryan Brynelson – Canada
4 – Mike Ostermand – USA
5 – Andy Anderson – Canada
6 – Stefan Akesson – Sweden
7 – Diego Pires Afonso – Brazil
8 – Turi Zoltan – Hungary
9 – Jesse Whalen – Thailand
10 – Denham Hill – England
11 – Reece Archibald – Scotland
12 – Felix Jonsson – Sweden
13 – Christian Heise – Germany
14 – Matheus Navarro – Brazil
15 – Shen Meng – China
16 – Jacob Whitt – USA
17 – Masahiro Fujii – Japan
18 – Lucio de Lima – Brazil

LEGENDS FREESTYLE CLASSIC:
1 – Bert Mathieson – USA
2 – Jay Mandarino – Canada
3 – Claude Regnier – Canada

BEST TRICK AWARD:
Turi Zoltan – Hungary

360 SPIN OFF AWARD:
Ryan Brynelson – Canada – 64 1/2 Spins

BEST HANDSTAND TRICK AWARD:
Marcio Torres – Brazil

LONGEST COCONUT WHEELIE AWARD:
Matheus Navarro – Brazil – 88 Feet

 

?>
Posted on by Bud Stratford

The Freestyle Report May 2018 by Tony Gale

Okay, folks. Here goes. We’re in May. This is where things really kick up a gear and the professional freestyle community en masse has to shake off the cobwebs and collectively get their tired butts in gear for a summer of non-stop events.

As such, It’s normally about this point that I start looking on the summer with a mixture of excitement and dread, knowing full well that I’ll be exhausted by the time October comes around. But hey, at least it gives me a lot of content for this here report, so let’s get cracking.

 

 

I have no idea what sort of release schedule Witter is working to over at Decomposed, but he’s just churned out yet another deck. His latest offering is a double kick version of the Ray Meyer model he released last year, with more “modern” dimensions (by which I mean it’s not got a super-short nose). Coming in at 7.5″ by 29.25″, with 5.75″ nose and tail, this should hopefully incentivise Ray to crawl out of the woodwork and get his crazy toeside rail to no-handed 50-50 spins back.

 

 

Of course, if you want one yourself, you can check it out and buy one at Decomposed’s website. Keep an eye on that page for a few more decks over the coming weeks, including a new Tim Morris deck and a new and improved reissue of the Lindgren; anyone who knows me even slightly should know that I’m very excited to see that last one.

 

 

 

Meanwhile, over in Europe, Romania’s Marius Constantin has a special guest model out with Germany’s Never Enough. Coming in both double kick and single kick flavours, it measures up at 7.3″ by 28.9″, making it slightly longer than his standard Cirus model. I know Marius has been wanting to get a single kick board for a while, so I’m glad that Cirus gave him permission to do this with Never Enough. Check it out at Never Enough’s website; they also have one ready to go straight out of the box in their range of freestyle completes, so if you’ve been reading these reports for a while and want to get involved, this’d be a perfect way to get started.

 

 

 

Elsewhere in Europe, Titus has decided to do a super-limited reissue of Christian Seewaldt’s Silver Surfer deck. There’s only 100 of these beauties available, and according to Christian Heise, they weren’t available to him at wholesale prices, so this might be an internet-only deal. Coming in at 29” x 7” with a very mellow concave, this would probably be a great deck to skate, but at a painful €79 ticket price, I suspect these will be destined to be wall hangers to everyone who picks one up. It’s a shame, really; Seewaldt never really seemed to get as much attention as he probably deserved, and it’d be great to have these readily available as a general-use freestyle board.

 

 

Who is Stephen Alksne? And who the hell are KABOD Skate Co? It’s a mystery to me, but apparently KABOD are making and selling freestyle boards to Alksne’s specification somewhere in Canada. I couldn’t find a website or any way of buying a board for yourself, but they’re out there and they exist.

 

 

It’s always refreshing and interesting to see new faces (and boards) appear. Will Stephen make it out to the World Round Up this month and go through that trial of fire as his induction to the global freestyle scene? We’ll have to wait and see.

 

 

On a slightly less exciting/pleasing note, there are rumours afoot that Kryptonics might be winding down production on the white 91a, 94a and 97a wheels. Anyone who listens to the Freestyle Podcast (blatant plug is blatant) will probably know I’m not a big fan of their urethane, but they make great entry-level freestyle wheels- particularly in regions and markets where it’s tough to get some of the “standard” freestyle wheels from Seismic, Mode and Decomposed. Currently they’re still shown on their website, but if you’re a fan, it might be worth grabbing some now- and possibly sending a note to the folks over at Dwindle telling them to keep them going.

 

 

Time for another frankly depressing “product availability” rumour: it would appear that Tracker are winding down production of the Racetracks. Witter reports that he’s having problems getting hold of them and they seem to be sparse over here in the UK. As a long-time Racetrack user (and advocate), this worries me slightly; it leaves us with nothing American-made but the Fultrack in the 10Xmm sizes on this side of the pond, and I’ve always found those a little too low. I guess I’ll have to give Orion a shout and see if we can get those over here instead…

 

 

I’m going to finish up the product section with Mike Osterman and Daniel Trujillo’s big product launch. The inevitable has happened and Waltz has put out two boards; both boards are cut from the same mould and have 13.5” wheelbases, but are considerably larger than the freestyle average, at 7.75” and 7.5” wide. Looks like neither is perfectly bidirectional, with the 7.5” having 6” nose and tails of slightly different shapes, and the 7.5” having a 6.25” tail and a 6” nose. They look surprisingly conventional considering Osterman had his hand in it; I guess Trujillo IS keeping him in check.

 

 

So what comes next for Waltz? Will they pull a Moonshine and start adding new board shapes and designs to their line every six months? Or will they go Mode’s route and stick with two solid board shapes? I suspect I may know the answer to that, but we’ll wait and see.

 

 

 

 

Have you bought issue ten of Broken Fingers yet? I got my copy this week and, as ever, it’s a fantastic little mag. Great photography, interesting articles, and an interview/bio of Darryl Grogan, all for the low, low price of $5. Support the only print magazine in the world dedicated to freestyle skateboarding and buy a copy or five today.

 

 

 

Here’s an interesting development: Isamu Yamamoto is now riding for Bustin longboards. The post announcing it on his Facebook page said he’s sponsored by them for “freestyle longboarding”, and I assume he’ll still be getting his freestyle boards from Powell– but considering Powell have been trying to break into the longboard market for a while, I wonder how well this will go down with George?

Either way, the custom boards Bustin made for him featuring Isamu’s art are pretty damn cool. They don’t actually look very long to me – but then Isamu is still only about 4ft tall. Even a street board is close to longboard proportions on the lad!

 

 

The World Round Up is just round the corner, and at the time of writing, it looks like the registration has closed at 51 skaters (although there are some names listed on the website who I know aren’t going, so that could be an overly optimistic count on Monty’s part). Some notable folks on the list include Gresch Bandicoot (known to governments worldwide as Daniel Greschner, if you’re looking for him in the competitor list), Alex Rademaker and Turi Zoltan, who are all crossing the pond to go to the Round Up for the first time. My prediction is that Rademaker will adapt to the slip-and-slide of the curling rink with his characteristic ease and an ever-present cheeky grin, Gresch will spend a whole weekend swearing at people in German and engaging in sarcasm and absurdity, and Turi will spear himself in the chest with a pogo transfer at least once. I wish them all the best of luck.

Another guest in Vancouver who I’m excited to watch is Jesse Whalen. He’s not been out to a competition for a couple of years, but he never lets me down. Will he place top ten? Top three? Take the gold? I can only hope. That top prize of $3,000 CAD would go a long way in Thailand – which, according to the competitor list is his new nationality. Obviously not a Trump fan then, Jesse?

Anyway, no matter who you’re rooting for (Go Moonshiners!), there should be a live feed covering the Semis, Finals and the Awards ceremony on Saturday 19th and Sunday 20th of May. You can watch it from the comfort of your own home via the World Round Up website; the time difference makes it pretty hellish to watch from this side of the globe, so you might want to take Monday morning off work if you’re planning on staying up until 2 or 3am in Europe to see all the action.

 

 

In SUPERIOR ROUND UP NEWS, the prestigious UK Round Up is rearing its ugly SUPERBLY MAGNIFICENT head again. The date has finally been announced as the 14th of July, with the location being the fittingly unsuitable Redbridge Cycle Centre as part of the UKSSA and London Longboards’ Hog Hill event. This is now the fourth year freestylers have been gathering on a private road on an exposed hillside in East London for a shambolic FANTASTIC event, and while it’s as suitably silly as LateTricks’ page for the event may suggest, everyone who’s ever made the journey (which includes such prestigious international guests as Lillis Åkesson and Alex Rademaker, surprisingly enough) has had a good time. Check out LateTricks’ video of the 2016 event below to see what to expect, but I do recommend you read through the official contest rules so you don’t get caught out.

 

 

If you’re on Facebook, you can join the private British Freestyle Skateboarding group to keep up with the developments on the freestyle side of things or sign up to the general event page  to add it to your calendar.

If you want to come along just to hang out, there’s also slalom, downhill racing and longboard freeride happening on the site all weekend, so it’s worth making the journey to east London. If you’re coming via public transport, Redbridge Cycle Centre is between Fairlop and Hainault on the Central Line, making it pretty easy to get to from any London train station (providing you understand how the Underground works, anyway). I highly recommend you go further down the line to Hainault, though – it’s far easier to skate from Hainault to the site and you can pick up snacks and drinks from the newsagents and convenience stores on the way. There is food and drink available on site, but going this way means you get to buy Turkish delight and cheap Bombay mix, so it’s worth the slight detour.

 

 

Before the UK Round Up ruins your life appreciation for lesser events, get yourself over to Germany for the Paderborn BBQ event. I have no new news related to it, but it’s important you remember it’s happening. Saturday 30th of June. Don’t miss it.

 

 

Something else new that readers might be interested in is that post-Cambridge Analytica and Zuckerberg-at-Congress, there’s been a bunch of folks who’ve been questioning whether we had it better in the “good ol’ days”, before Social Media behemoths took over all our online time. Well, a small group of skaters decided that maybe it’s time to move away from the Facebooks, Twitters and Instagrams of the world, and own our own online spheres.

As such, I bring to you Always Will, a new webforum for skaters who don’t want the cliquey street-only nonsense of places like the SLAP forums, but would still prefer a place away from Facebook. It’s only been up a month and membership is low, but it feels exactly like the early 2000s – only with the benefits of fast internet speeds, easy embedding of video and images, and people can actually type competently. Sign up and give it a go.

 

 

I’m going to end this report with a video from Japan. I love the Japanese scene – always have since the early 2000s, when I first saw the Marvelous videos. They roll faster and do bigger tricks than anyone else, but more importantly, they’ve kept freestyle going for decades. I think this is probably down to the tireless work of the Fujii brothers, both of whom deserve the adoration and thanks of freestylers worldwide – and the net result of this is that Japan now has some of the best freestyle skateboarders the world has ever seen. The video below is a great example of why this is the case – their sessions are inclusive, with people of all ages and genders just having a great time.

It also helps that there’s no nonsense – just bloody good freestyle. Take note, people. This is how scenes should aspire to be.

 

 

 

Tony Gale is a British professional freestyle skateboarder and rides for Moonshine Skateboards, Jimmy’z, Seismic and Synopsis Bearings. This month he managed to ruin his back hip through over-exuberant 540 shuvits, and as a result is glad he hasn’t already spent money on flights to Vancouver.

 

?>
Posted on by Bud Stratford

The Freestyle Report, April 2018 by Tony Gale

It’s still not quite Spring over here in England (no matter what the calendar says), yet it already seems like we’re ramping up on a massive scale, freestyle-wise. The economy might be teetering on the brink of collapse and World War III might be on our doorstep, but there are kickflip variations to learn, new board designs to make and contests to be held. Freestyle can stop for no man, and I’m already feeling exhausted. This is a much bigger report than I expected considering how delayed the last one was! Put your feet up and tuck in. There’s a lot to get through!

 

I’d like to begin this whole report with a simple statement: Virgin Blacktop is fucking rad. Hopefully the trailer embed below will work, but if it doesn’t, you’ll have to head off to Vimeo for a couple of minutes. Just come back when it’s done! There’s lots more news still to come.

 

 

 

Anyway, Virgin Blacktop has been in the works for a while, and it looks incredible. It’s like an east coast Dogtown and the Z-Boys, and if that statement doesn’t make it clear enough, the full-length piece is going to be worth supporting, watching, owning, forcing on your friends, and generally shouting about from the rooftops. At the time of writing it’s already had its premiere at the Bay Theatre in Morro Bay, California, and is about to head out on the festival circuit. Follow the documentary on Facebook or Instagram to find out when it’s near you – or when you can buy a copy. Let’s be honest; if nothing else, it’s worth it for the Humeres footage alone.

 

 

More media news now: Broken Fingers’ first issue of the year is now at the printers. If you’re a stickler for zines and the printed word, you should be able to pick up a copy at the Small School Cooperation by the time you read this. And if you haven’t read the previous issues, copies of the stand-alones and the four-issue collections should all be available for purchase, too. Support the only all-freestyle print magazine in the world and fill up your bookshelf.

 

 

While the Freestyle Podcast team still can’t get their shit together, Sweden’s Skateboardpodden stepped up with a two-part Hazze Lindgren interview this month. While the first half is largely in Swedish, a good block of the second half was in English due to a surprise call-in from Don Brown. You can listen in over at their website or pick it up in your podcast catcher of choice.

 

 

Next up is some important news: the World Round Up has capitulated to the vocal minority and has dropped the deeply unsatisfying minute-long quickies to give everyone ninety second runs across the board. Obviously this is something I’m relatively pleased about – even if I’m not going this year – but it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

My prediction is that the pro division should look much more comfortable with this shift, but the am division will probably see a major upheaval due to the extra time. In previous years, street skaters have been able to roll around, do some flatland tricks and place higher than skilled freestylers who didn’t have the time for combos and wheelies that they’d get elsewhere. If everything works well, this extra bit of time should prevent this from happening again. Hopefully.

Anyway, if you’re planning on going, you’ve not got long to book your flights; the Round Up kicks off on the 18th of May.

 

 

Speaking of flights, Nick Beaulieu (a.k.a. The Container Boy, a.k.a. the 17 year old Moonshiner who’s doing harder tricks than 99.5% of all people who’ll ever read this piece, including the guy who’s writing it) just told me that he’s booked his flights and heading to Europe for the first time. Why? Because Paderborn, obviously. Can he unseat Robert Wagner’s position at the top of the Am division in Europe? Quite possibly. He might face some stiff competition from another couple of American Ams looking at making the journey, though.

Where’s the American pro contingent, though? Mike Osterman’s already confirmed he can’t make the journey this year; Connor Burke? Pete Betti? Jacob Whitt? Time to jump on a plane lads… Paderborn starts on the 30th of June.

 

 

One American pro who won’t be heading to Paderborn this year is Dan Garb, as he’s just upped sticks and jumped on a flight to Japan, where he’ll be living for the foreseeable future. Current reports are that his penchant for bright pink camouflage and anime griptape is endearing him to the locals and Mario Steinemann is currently curled up in a corner in Switzerland, crying and rocking backwards and forwards due to an overwhelming sense of envy. We at Everything Skateboarding wish him luck with his new life and recommend he stays well away from the fugu.

On a potentially more interesting note, Dan Garb’s due to receive a pro model from Moonshine Skateboards this summer. The shape and mould have already been finalised, and trust me on this – it’s probably not what you’d expect. Start saving your pennies because this is one you’ll want to try out.

 

 

Staying in Japan, the latest Megane cup has given Powell’s Japanese wunderkind Isamu Yamamoto his first win of the year. Moonshine’s Mirei Tsuchida and Yuzuki Kawasaki took second and third places respectively, meaning this was a podium comprised entirely of skaters who aren’t even allowed to drink a beer to celebrate. Give it another five years and Japan will put professional freestylers worldwide out of a job.

 

 

 

 

Fresh off her podium placement, Mirei continued her one-woman battle to bring a sense of elegance to freestyle by both walking the catwalk and doing some skateboarding at a major fashion show in Tokyo, hereby proving that not all freestylers are awkward, socially-inept nerds.

(Rumour has it that this is the real reason Garb’s moved to Japan: someone has to offset Mirei’s existence.)

 

 

 

 

When asked for news, my comrade from over at the Freestyle Podcast, Bob Loftin, requested that I state “Bob Loftin continues to degrade and degenerate both on and off the skateboard.” While I don’t doubt for a second that every word in that statement represents absolute truth, it also transpires that he’s booked some plane tickets to Florida to meet up with New England ex-pat and Mode Skateboards head honcho, Terry Synnott. While it’s entirely possible that they’re working on a retirement community for aging freestylers (I hear Joe Humeres has also found his way to the Sunshine State in recent months), I have suspicions that they may be cooking up something a bit more interesting than that.

And no, I’m not talking about Key Lime pie.

 

 

Speaking of Mode Skateboards, former Mode pro Mike Osterman’s new project with fellow YouTube darling Daniel Trujillo, Waltz Skateboards, has taken the next leap towards legitimacy by producing their own freestyle boards. While shapes and sizes are yet to be announced, photos of the completed boards are available on the internet if you know where to look.

Single-kick aficionados will have to wait for a while, though: the first two designs both appear to be double-kicks. Whether or not Daniel Trujillo will take over Terry Synnott’s job as moderator of Mosti’s board shape flights-of-fancy has yet to be seen.

 

 

The only news I’ve got from Australia is that there is no news. It’s been the height of summer over there in recent months; what on earth is Josh Dunstone doing?

 

 

Let’s end this with a bit of hot video action courtesy of Alex Foster and Latetricks now, featuring the usual motley crew of hideous British vagrants, an adopted German and a guest Texan. Flo Skatepark in Nottingham was kind enough to let us all take over their mezzanine area again and, after a demo for the kids, much freestyle-related silliness occurred. Grab a coffee and click play.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tony Gale is a British professional freestyle skateboarder and rides for Moonshine Skateboards, Jimmy’z, Seismic and Synopsis Bearings; he’s spent most of this month drinking insane amounts of coffee, taking on too many projects, and attempting to remember all the tricks he learned before the long, dark winter set in.

 

 

 

?>
Posted on by Bud Stratford

The Freestyle Report March 2018 by Tony Gale

2018 is definitely messing us about now. As I write this, I sit in a tiny cottage in south east England with a log fire burning and snow on the ground outside. Snow. In England. At the end of February. Two weeks ago I was skating around in bright sun wearing just jeans and a T-shirt! My old, broken joints can’t really handle all these sudden changes in temperature, but we’ve got to keep plodding on. Freestyle demands it.

 

 

Normally I deal with events first but something really demands to be at the top of this list. Madrid, the iconic 80s company who once sponsored Primo Desiderio, Greg Smith, Bob Smeltzer and Mac, have finally dipped their toes back into the game with a series of apparently Decomposed-exclusive freestyle boards. They’re all identical shapes – classic non-concave single kicks with modern 28” by 7.5” shapes – but with modern-looking graphics. Unfortunately, a couple of them appear to have not been designed very well for the 7.5” width, with key elements of the graphics disappearing over the edge. However, with the thicker 80s style veneers, these should be worth picking up. Grab one from Decomposed today; hopefully, if there’s enough visible demand, they’ll commit a bit more fully to our little niche.

 

 

 

Before I leave Madrid behind, I have a little rumour to proliferate… I spent a bit of time at the Madrid stand while I was at ISPO, and it seems like Decomposed aren’t the only freestyle company they’re working with. Whether or not something will come from the partnership is yet to be seen, but it’s interesting to see an iconic 80s brand start to get dragged back into freestyle.

 

 

Last up on the new product front is a totally new board company. Patrick Bamford has a Canadian-themed 7.5” x 28.25” single kick available on his new website, Bamford Freestyle Skateboards. Strange; this time five years ago it seemed like you couldn’t find a single kick deck anywhere. Now everyone and their Grandma are making them!

 

 

One thing that is really nice to see is that Patrick has deviated away from the stereotypical ’80s throwback shape of overly square tail and horribly short nose which has defined single kicks for so long, so that deck should skate pretty well.

 

 

Team changes now and Jacob Whitt, the ever-prolific video-monger from Texas, has landed on Sk8kings’ wheel team. It looks like wheel teams are all the rage these days. I always thought wheels were an odd sponsorship proposition, as they lose the graphics within an hour or so of freestyle. It’s not even like Jacob can wear a Sk8kings shirt to promote them; he seems to be topless for about 97.3% of his waking hours. The embedded video below is probably the only time he’s worn a shirt all month.

 

 

 

Momentum is really building for the next World Round Up. If you’re in the unlucky position of having given your email to Monty Little at some point in the last decade, you’ve no doubt been getting countless photoshopped images of various skaters in your inbox for the last week or two.

If you’re interested in going, head over to their website to register and book your flights to Vancouver. The event runs from the 18th to the 21st of May, 2018. I highly recommend that if you’re flying any real distance to the event you get there a few days in advance; the schedule is brutal and you really want to be at least half-way recovered from jet lag before you get thrown into the prelims.

Anyway, registration is already underway; if you’re planning on entering the pro division, you can expect to be up against Diego Pires, Denham Hill, Mike Osterman, Matt Smithies, Daniel Trujillo, and, most excitingly, Jesse Whalen. Over in the Am category, you’ve got Ikkei Nagao, Yuta Fujii, Phil Larin, Bryce Noe, Vaughan Johnson, and Nick “spends all his time in a shipping container” Beaulieu.

After Rick McCrank entered last year’s event, Chris Haslam expressed an interest in joining in for 2018’s event. Will he turn up? What division will he enter? And will he bring pizza? Book a plane ticket and find out.

 

 

I got an interesting message this week from Japanese legend and my fellow Moonshiner Toshiaki Fujii; it sounds a lot like the Japanese are keen on stopping all the filthy gaijin from invading their annual All Japan Pro event by hosting this year’s World Freestyle Championship. Details are thin on the ground right now, but it seems like it’ll be your typical Japanese tightly-organised, well-planned, heavily-promoted freestyle event, and held sometime around late October or early November.

I’ve never known anyone say a bad word about a Japanese event, and they always have huge and well-engaged crowds, so this is one worth making the trip to. I’ve been thinking about heading over there for years, and I think this time I’ll finally make the journey. I better start studying Kanji now.

 

 

This is your mandatory Paderborn reminder: the BBQ weekend kicks off on the 30th June. I have no new news regarding the most significant event in the freestyle calendar, I just want to make sure everyone knows about it. Come and camp next to a skatepark for a couple of days, drink yourself inside out, and bear witness to some of the most ridiculous freestyle you’re ever going to see. The only excuse I’ll accept for not coming is a rare allergy to Germans. That or a crippling fear of schnitzel, sauerkraut and bratwurst.

 

Christian Müller is a regular at the Paderborn comps, bringing a bit of old-school ’80s street to the weekend, and while I usually hate foot-on-the-floor stuff, it’s impossible to not love Christian, especially with G-turns this good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tony is a professional freestyle skateboarder from England and rides for Moonshine Skateboards, Seismic, Jimmy’z and Synopsis Bearings; he’s only been writing these reports for a few months and he’s already running out of witty ways to write these profile things. That’s what a steady diet of coffee and whisky will do to you. Just say no, kids.

 

 

 

?>
Posted on by Bud Stratford

The Freestyle Report February 2018 by Tony Gale

 

Okay, is anyone else sick of this bloody winter? It seems like it’s been going on forever, and as I write these words, summer seems like a far¬away dream. I’m personally amazed that anything is happening in the freestyle world, but hey, I guess that’s one of the benefits of this world of tiny boards and silly flips; there’s always a space in the garage, warehouse or office to bang out some casper tricks in-between working on various projects in a bid to hold onto your sanity. Anyway. Some stuff has happened since 2017 died a death, so here’s a bit of a recap. Grab a coffee and catch up with the flat folk.

 

 

In the interest of blatant cross-promotion, the ongoing Broken Fingers freestyle-only zine project has just put out its second compilation. Pick up the Year Two book for one handy binding of issues 5 through 8, giving you interviews with Marius Constantin, Connor Burke, and Kauê Araujo, the history of the kickflip, and photos from most of the events from last year, amongst other titbits of goodness. It’s a non-profit, so all the money you spend on the zine goes into printing more zines. As it’s the only printed publication dedicated to freestyle, it’s worth your support. Head over to the website to grab a copy.

 

Broken Fingers, Year Two cover (left), and Bob Loftin (right) with a nose manual. Cover from the Broken Fingers website; Bob from his Facebook cover photo.

 

 

Next up on the “things I’m also involved in which I want you all to pay attention to” list is the Freestyle Podcast. Amazingly, we sorted out our various technical difficulties  over the Christmas period and reconvened for the first podcast of the year – featuring a lot of swearing and explicit stories, so this isn’t one to listen to with the kids. Grab it on your podcast app of choice or listen to it in your browser here. 

 

 

Brazil, as ever, brings us the first contest of the year with the Big Rio event. Tai Tai  has been putting these on this event outside of the usual Brazilian freestyle  scene/organisation for a few years now, and by all accounts, it always ends up being a great time. This year, Felix took home the win, continuing his habit of winning big events in American countries.

Personally, I’ve never made it out there, in part because it’s a long-ass flight, and in  part because I’m never skating much at this time of year. However, I asked Tai Tai  and Felix about the event, and while Tai Tai obviously is somewhat biased, what Felix had to say makes me think it might be time to make the journey. The event is  run alongside Rio’s Tattoo week, and the crowd is both large and interested in  freestyle, with spectators giving Felix the thumbs up when he made eye contact with them mid-run. That’s not hard to believe considering how damn friendly the Brazilian  freestyle scene is! Tai Tai said that Tattoo Week brings in 30,000 people in 3 days,  and that the organisers were surprised that more of those attendees were interested  in the freestyle event than the bands on stage.

Also of note is that Felix tells me this is the best surface he’s skated on at a competition; obviously that’s down to personal tastes (we ended up having a big
debate about Stockholm’s surface), but I trust Felix’s judgement on this one.

1. Felix Jonsson (Sweden)
2. Gustavo Kennedy (Brazil)
3. Cristobal Bahamonde (Chile)
4. Kauê Araújo (Brazil)
5. Thomas (Brazil)
6. Kesley (Brazil)
7. Alexandre Feliz (Brazil)
8. Fábio Napoleão (Brazil)
9. Tai Tai (Brazil)
10. Bruno Antunes Zero 09 (Brazil)
11. Carioca (Brazil)
12. Vítor Salazar (Brazil)
13. Adalba SubSolo (Brazil)
14. Elias da Costa (Brazil)
15. Janers (Brazil)
16. Celso Chef (Brazil)
17. Thiago (Brazil)

 

Felix Jonsson and Kauê Araujo representing Moonshine in Brazil. 

 

 

At the time of writing, the date for the next World Round Up hasn’t been formally announced, but I gather (through looking at their website every week until it gets updated) that the weekend of the next Canadian freestyle-fest is going to be the 18th to the 21st of May, 2018. Dust off your Stetsons and dig out your crotchless chaps;  I’ll be bringing you more concrete info on what to expect next month.

 

 

This brings the total announced events for the rest of the year up to two so far; the  Stockholm, All Japan and Philly dates have yet to come in, but as I mentioned last month, Paderborn has already been announced, and the annual German celebration of freestyle, beer and debauchery kicks off on the 30th of June. I’m going to keep  hammering that date home every month until everyone reading this tells me they’ve  already booked their flights and are sick of hearing about it.

Speaking of which…

 

 

I hear rumours through the grapevine (which is an odd nickname for Yoyo Schultz,  but I’m going with it) that a certain European legend is dropping in at Paderborn to  say hi. While Yoyo says not to expect any skating from them, it’s always good to see  some old faces return to the scene. So who’s it going to be? Speculations on a  postcard to the usual non-existent address.

 

 

Bit of video footage for your amusement now and we head over to an usually gloomy-looking LA for Ricky Rodriguez’s annual JanJam, with a guest appearance  from the East Coast Beast, Pete Betti. Turn off your thinking modules and let the freestyle goodness wash over you.

 

 

 

We start the new products section with the news that the 29-incher that Terry was working on over at Mode has been released (annoyingly at around the same time as  the last Freestyle Report went live; Terry, if you’re reading this, we need to co-ordinate our timings better). As I mentioned in the last report, it’s built on the same  rocker mould as the Rogers, but features a very clean Art Deco graphic and comes  in a hair larger at 7.4” by 29” instead of the 7.3” and 28.75” of the Rogers. It says a  lot about freestylers that the tiny increase in both directions will be a deal maker or  breaker for everyone who looks at it; I don’t envy anyone who spends any amount of  time trying to please this demographic.

 

The board (far right); Terry Synnott, the fellow responsible for it; and the yellow wheels that would go so well with it. Photos swiped from here and there, but mostly Facebook.

 

Anyway, the board is beautiful and, at the time of writing, in stock on Mode’s website. Tell Terry that Tony sent you; it won’t get you anything, but it might convince him to buy ads on this website, and we’ve got to keep that whisky flowing somehow.

 

 

Not much else in the way of new products at this time of year, but I’d like to point out that the Eastern European scene is being further bolstered by the one man Hero of Freestyle, Marius Constantin, who’s expanded his range of freestyle products in his Nose and Tail Skateshop in Romania. If you’re out that way (and I know there’s a LOT of freestylers in Romania), give him some love and buy your stuff from him. He deserves it.

 

I’m going to wrap up this one with a tender and heartfelt message to someone who normally just mocks and berates me whenever I see him. Apparently Shane Rouse took a dive off a ladder at the end of last year, fractured his eye socket and buggered up his shoulder and knee. Latest reports are that he’s got water on the knee and a partial tear in a tendon in his shoulder which will need surgery, and while I usually just make jokes at his expense whenever I see him, I genuinely hope he gets well soon (if only so he can teach me the secret to kickflipping into a cross­footed casper). I’m not about to share his personal details in a public forum, but if you happen to know how to reach him, send him some nice messages. 

 

Shane Rouse and his former Death Box team mate, Mac, at a UK event at the end of 2016.

 

 

Last time he checked, Tony was a professional freestyle skateboarder from England and rode for Moonshine Skateboards, Seismic, Jimmy’z and Synopsis Bearings, but it’s been so long since he saw some dry concrete that his sponsors may well have dropped him now.

 

 

?>
Posted on by Bud Stratford

The Freestyle Report January 2018 by Tony Gale

Well, that’s it, folks. 2017 is finally over. It’s been a bit of a chaotic mess no matter how you look at it, but we’ve survived. Somehow.

(Unless, of course, the world goes full nuclear between me writing this and Bud publishing it, which, worryingly, seems like it may be a very real possibility.)

Anyway, in the world of headbands, long socks and shinguards, 2017 was a busy year. I was worried that the winter months would leave me devoid of things to justify this article, but apparently that wasn’t the case. Let’s start with competitions, as they’re always nice and easy to summarise.

 

 

First of all, the World Championships happened. Denis Šopović summoned some of the world’s best skaters to his dedicated freestyle area in Highvalley Skateworld at Stockholm, Sweden, and a good time was had by almost everyone. To those who haven’t been to Highvalley, it’s a huge outdoor concrete paradise, comprising a series of interconnected bowls of varying sizes, a frankly massive downhill ditch used for banked slalom (and breaking elbows, if my experience last year is anything to go by), and a specially-made raised freestyle area with one of the best surfaces in the world – perfectly level, smooth and just the right mix of grip and slide. Denis was directly responsible not only for that area being built, but for it being rebuilt when the first surface wasn’t up to his standards. No half-measures here.

This event marked the second year a freestyle event has been held at Highvalley alongside Bowlstock and the World Banked Slalom Championships. This makes for a great event for spectators – you turn up nice and early and have a full schedule of skateboarding to watch. As a freestyler, this works well, too – we get to practice and hang out while the bowl riders have their event, and when they’re finished, the whole crowd comes to watch the freestylers flip, spin and slide across their area. It’s great to see an audience that appreciates all types of skateboarding and not just the typical Street League stuff that normally gets jammed down your throat.

This year, the freestyle competition featured the return of two freestylers from the past – the Swedish Mathias Dewoon, who was once heralded as “the greatest freestyle talent Rodney Mullen has ever seen” at the start of the 90s, and the Finnish Jari Paakkari, who dominated European freestyle in the mid-2000s, but who hasn’t been seen for almost a decade. Also notable was the reappearance of former Schmitt Stix and New Deal pro Hazze Lindgren, who turned up for the second year in a row to hang out and say hello (I’m still working on convincing him to practice a routine and enter).

Sadly, it’s also notable for being yet another European freestyle event with no Americans in sight. Transatlantic flights aren’t that expensive, folks. Save some of that beer money and come over to skate in a continent that doesn’t hate freestyle!

The competition itself ran surprisingly smoothly; the impending rain held off when it actually mattered, with Team Romania manning the squeegees to get the freestyle area dry, and Denis and myself stepping up to fill in for the missing MC (who dropped out two or three days before the event). Tricks were done, crowds applauded, and much beer was drunk. I’d consider that a success.

Results (Pro)

  1. Tony Gale (UK)

  2. Guenter Mokulys (Germany)

  3. Stefan “Lillis” Akesson (Sweden)

  4. Mathias Dewoon (Sweden)

  5. Felix Jonsson (Sweden)

  6. Marius Constantin (Romania)

Results (Amateur)

  1. Alexandru Lilea (Romania)

  2. Alexandru Stirbu (Romania)

  3. Robert Wagner (Germany)

  4. Andre Hansson (Sweden)

  5. Jari Paakkari (Finland)

  6. Sayed “Freestyle” Karimi (Afghanistan)

Results (Masters)

  1. Joachim “Yoyo” Schulz (Germany)

  2. Krister Philgren (Sweden)

  3. Eric Schader (Sweden)

  4. Denis Sopovic (Sweden)

  5. Hans Puttis Jacobsson (Sweden)

  6. Robert Thiele (Sweden)

  7. Magnus Gyllenberg (Sweden)

Results (Women)

  1. Sussi Eriksson (Sweden)

  2. Cecilia Wolkert (Sweden)

 

 

Next up on the contest recap is the US Freestyle Championships, held in Philadelphia for the 7th year in a row. The annual Philly comp has been the only major event on the US calendar for a while, but this year it was surprisingly lacking some of North America’s big hitters. The final scores in the pro division were incredibly tight, with handstand king Bert Matheson just beating fellow invert-nut Jacob Whitt to the top spot by half a point. Sadly, I didn’t attend this one, so I can’t comment too much on how the competition ran. Maybe if the esteemed editor is kind enough to pay my plane fare, I’ll make the journey next September and finally see what the deal is with this Rizzo Rink.

That’s assuming, of course, that Philadelphia still exists next summer, and hasn’t become the setting for a real-world fallout game.

Results (Pro)

  1. Bert Mathieson (91.5)

  2. Jacob Whitt (91)

  3. Yassine Boundouq (90)

  4. Pete Betti (89)

  5. Felix Jonsson (88.5)

  6. Sean Burke (88)

  7. Derek Elliott (87.5)

Results (Amateur)

  1. Tyrone Williams

  2. Eric Lowery

  3. Arjun Shah

  4. Hatchert Sallie

  5. Brady

  6. Dan Robbins

Results (Novice)

  1. Dylan Evans

Results (Masters)

  1. Michael Kinney

  2. Rodney Watkins

  3. Jim Simmons

  4. Mike Naples

Next on the list is the 2ª Etapa Braza Freestyle Skateboarding Championship. Brazil’s always had a strong freestyle scene, and runs events semi-regularly through the year. As far as I’m aware, this is the first time Mike Osterman has left North America for a competition, and he walked away with the 1st place trophy and a good chunk of prize money. If they also paid him for the use of his likeness in the event poster, he’s coming out of this one absolutely minted, so I’m expecting to see yet more ink on his pasty legs after the winter’s over.

Results (Pro)

  1. Mike Osterman

  2. Kauê de Araújo

  3. Matheus Navarro

  4. Rogério Antigo

  5. Brownzinho Mendes

  6. Marcos Toshiro

  7. Isnard da Rocha

Results (Amateur)

  1. Charles Ribeiro

  2. Vinicius Dantas

  3. Tavinho

  4. Luca Chiossi

  5. Wesley

  6. Fábio Napoleão

  7. Bruno França

  8. Guilherme Carioca

  9. Igor

  10. Flavio

  11. Leo

  12. Gustavo

  13. Felipe

Results (Masters)

  1. Edmar Marroca

  2. Paulo Folha Citrangulo

  3. André do Ipiranga

  4. Osmar Fossa

  5. Cicero Braz

  6. Tai Tai

  7. Mauricio Kisuco

  8. Paulo Daniel

  9. Alexandre

Finally, we cap off our contest wrap-up with the most unique event on the contest calendar – the All Japan Pro Competition. Unlike all the other events in the year, the All Japan Pro runs as a knockout format, where skaters are arranged into a bracket and pitted against each other in pairs, with the best skater advancing to the next round. As you might imagine, this makes for writing full lists of results a little awkward, and also leads to some interesting moments during the event. For instance, Yuta Fujii won the amateur division and got entered into the pros, only to make it all the way to the final after beating his uncle, Toshiaki Fujii, in the first round of the Pro division. Dan Garb also took a surprising victory over Guenter Mokulys – after not realising the event was about to start and sinking too many beers, too – only to get trampled by little Yuta on his climb to the top.

Meanwhile, the guy who all the smart money was on for winning the whole thing, Isamu Yamamoto, ended up crashing out in the first round. Canada’s Andy Anderson scraped a win, beating out Isamu by a mere two points, and then ended up ruining Yuta’s unexpected winning streak in the final with another close finish – 340 points to Yuta’s 337.

If we then take the point scores from the first round as placement indicators, this makes the final places in the pro division as follows:

  1. Andy Anderson (Canada)

  2. Yuta Fujii (Japan)

  3. Dan Garb (USA)

  4. Yuzuki Kawasaki (Japan)

  5. Isamu Yamamoto (Japan)

  6. Lillis Åkesson (Sweden)

  7. Guenter Mokulys (Germany)

  8. Toshiaki Fujii (Japan)

I’ve been saying for a while that there is a real tectonic shift happening in freestyle; whereas it wasn’t that long ago that the older generations reliably dominated the podiums, my generation – and a brigade of Japanese wunderkinds – are increasingly taking over, and there’s no better indicator of it than that table of results. Three of the top 8 pros are under the age of 16. Two of the rest are still in their 20s. Considering the rapid pace at which the Japanese kids are progressing, even my generation are probably going to be pushed out of contention pretty soon. As a “professional” freestyler, I find this terrifying. As a general freestyler, I’m just excited to see what those little buggers are going to do next.

Basically, what I’m saying is I’m not sure whether to hug Yuta and Yuzuki next time I see them… or break their ankles. It could go either way.

It’s worth noting at this point that the Germans have already announced the dates for the 2018 Paderborn BBQ contest – it’s the weekend of 30th June/1st July, with the street contest on the Saturday and freestyle all day on the Sunday. Everyone who’s been to Paderborn knows that it’s the best competition on the circuit, so even if you have to sell your Grandma’s kidneys to get there, find a way to make the journey.

Camping is provided for international visitors on site, with a military-style tent and folding beds provided. There’s even showers in the sports hall down the road, so all you need to do is bring a sleeping bag, a towel and your board. (You can also go and stay in a hotel in town if that’s more your style. We won’t judge.)

At the end of November, some of us British lads decided we were tired of the piss-wet English weather and co-opted a bit of space in an indoor skatepark. What follows is the documentation of this shambolic mess, courtesy of Alex Foster from Late Tricks. Is this newsworthy? Probably not. But it does serve quite nicely to break up this body of text. Get yourself a coffee, watch some pretty moving images for a bit, and get yourself ready for some more reading.

Okay, now on to product news. Moonshine continues to keep pumping more money into freestyle than is really wise or healthy, and comes through with their third freestyle pro model. Toshiaki Fujii’s board is a bidirectional 7.5″ popsicle with mellow concave and a suitably rad graphic. You can get them in the US directly from Moonshine Skateboards or in Europe from the incomparable Never Enough Skateboards.

It’s worth me pointing out now that Never Enough have stepped up their game and started stocking all the Moonshine freestyle models and the Cirus freestyle boards from Hungary alongside their own decks, so if you live in Europe, they’re now a veritable one-stop-shop for all your freestyle needs.

Before I leave Never Enough behind, I should point out that they’ve also been quietly expanding their range of decks over the last couple of months. There’s a bunch of new single kicks and double kicks in both the “standard” 7.25″ width and the slightly fatter 7.5″ width.

More important than all of that, however, is the release of Reece Archibald’s first ever pro model. Coming in a street-friendly popsicle shape and a lollipop graphic which perfectly encapsulates Reece’s childlike joy, this board is long overdue. And if you don’t understand why, watch Reece’s latest video and never question me again.

More Euro news: Cirus aren’t talking about it publicly yet, but I have it on good word from both their team riders and Christian over at Never Enough that they’re starting to deviate from their bamboo and carbon fibre constructions. Marius Constantin has been playing around with Birch versions of his pro model, and Christian commissioned Canadian Maple versions of all the Cirus boards to stock at Never Enough. I’m a bit mixed about that – on one hand, bamboo smells, looks and feels amazing. On the other hand… bamboo splinters suck. At any rate, you’ve got to commend Cirus for being willing to experiment, mix things up, and trying to find the most eco-friendly and economical options out there.

Now over to America, and as ever, Witter is churning out the boards faster than I can keep up with them. The latest wood out of Decomposed is a Welinder homage (note: not actually a guest model), with a Decomposed take on the famous Nordic Skull graphic and, supposedly, the exact same shape, which should make a lot of folks very happy. Personally, I’m more excited about the next run of Hazze Lindgren boards, which will apparently be made on the original mould, complete with rocker. But hey, any Scandinavian throwback is good by me.

Meanwhile, Witter keeps hinting about some ‘80s company reissuing another one of their classic freestyle decks, but refuses to tell me exactly who. Hopefully we’ll find out before next month’s Report.

Elsewhere in the States, there’s change afoot at Mode. Terry tells me that there’s a new 29-inch single kick with graphics by Paul Francis Lambert on the same rocker mould they’ve been using for the Rogers, and he’s got a revised version of the Postcard double-kick deck that uses a mellower mold. Perhaps more significantly than that, however, is the departure of long-term Mode rider, Mike Osterman. Considering how popular the Mosti board was, this is a bit of a shocker. Who knows where Mike’s going to be getting his wood from now?

Mike, if you’re reading this, you better get to work on that sponsor-me tape…

Got some freestyle news? New products, projects, or events? Let me know about it in the comment section below this article and maybe I’ll put it into next month’s report.

But for now… go and skate!

 

?>
Posted on by Bud Stratford