Proving that stadium rock action sporting is still not dead in Europe Zurich’s Freestyle.CH packed in 32,000 people on September 22-23, 2011 for a multisport hucking contest (featured here is snowboard semi-finals action).
Halidor Helgason won with snowboard big air with a Frontside Double Cork 1080° with Seppe Smits and Ståle Sanbech in second and third. Pierre-Luc Gagnon won the mega ramp skate event with a backside ollie three. Follow the jump for the skateboarding semi-finals video. [click to continue…]
Tack up 28-year-old skater Chris René as another in the long list of ridiculously talented Santa Cruz surf/skate ghetto addiction survivors. Only 70 days out of rehab René blew away the judges on Fox’s new reality singing show The X Factor with his own song Young Homie. Talking about doing Santa Cruz proud. . .
“We were notified recently of a skate park that was built with wood and concrete in one of the drainage canals that parallels Interstate 8,” said Caltrans spokesman Ed Cartagena. “Accidents can happen, so in terms of exposure to liability, we try to limit that by making certain locations illegal to place things.”
Nice to know that in this California State budget crisis that CalTrans has more than enough money to destroy skateparks up and down the Golden State. Someone’s priorities are obviously confused.
Nothing says skateboarding like a nice, smooth glass of Kenny Likitprakong’sHobo Wine. Will be interesting to see what Dylan Rieder and Thunder Trucks adds to the mix. Let’s just hope it’s not a cab.
Skateboarder Simon Brooks, a 19-year-old Southern Oregon University student was found unconscious in the middle of an Ashland, Oregon street Thursday morning September 22, 2011 at 2:15 AM according to a story in the Ashland Daily Tidings.
The initial investigation indicates Brooks suffered a serious head injury after he fell from his skateboard. He was northbound on North Mountain Avenue on his skateboard before the accident occurred and was not wearing a helmet. No motor vehicles are believed to have played a role in the accident, police said.
We’re not super informed on all environmental fronts, but there is something so simple, straight forward and pure about the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s mission to defend ocean wildlife worldwide that we almost have to love them. If they don’t like what’s going on they go out and physically stop it.
DeKalb, Illinois’ Smalltown Skates shop owner Ariel Ries didn’t know what to do with all the broken skateboards that were piling up around her shop, according to a story in the Daily Chronicle. That’s when she says she thought of making jewelry out of it.
“I was really interested in the multicolored plies,” she said. “I thought, why am I not using this material?” Ries studied jewelry-making at Kishwaukee College, but there she used only metal materials. She started working with the wood from skateboard decks in April and has since accumulated about 200 pieces of jewelry. She said she’s spent at least 2,000 hours making jewelry since she started.
Sounds like it might be time to hire some third world laborers. . .
McSweeney’s Internet Tendency skateboarding columnist Joel Rice interviewed Wasserman Media Group Senior Vice President Circe Wallace to get a better understanding the wild, independent world of corporate skateboarding, and as usual she makes it all sound perfectly logical — especially the “sexy” part:
The characters are attractive! They have chiseled features and they dress flamboyantly! And, like, they’re sexy and they’re good looking kids! I mean Dylan Rieder… It doesn’t get much sexier than that! It’s like a boy band but better because they are actually doing something manly and it’s really aggressive, super-expressive and athletically intense!
Okay. We get the Dylan thing, but when she starts talking about drinking “Lucky Stripes” with Jake Phelps and Julien Stranger at 14 we kind of lost our way. But you should read the whole thing anyway.
A 24-year-old skateboarder from Lethbridge, Alberta died Friday, September 16, 2011, from injuries he sustained while towing on his skateboard behind a Toyota 4-Runner, according to a story in the Calgary Herald.
The SUV was traveling northbound on Red Crow Blvd. West when one skateboarder lost his grip and hit the pavement, after 7 p.m. . . “The safest thing that could’ve been done was not to grab onto the vehicle while riding a skateboard,” Ballman said. “I think there still would’ve been injuries or possibly worse, even if the individual had been wearing safety equipment. “
Happens all the time, but skateboarders just don’t seem to care.
A 22-year-old Swedish skateboarder who decided to surprise his friend by building a skate ramp out of wood from the friends deck is now spending two month in jail on charges of assault, harassement, vandalism, and stealing a car, according to a story in The Local.
The man ripped wooden planks from his friend’s patio and used metal pipes to construct the ramp. . . He discovered the needed tools in his friend’s car, which was locked. He smashed through the car’s side window and grabbed the tools that were there to carry out his work. . . When his friend returned home, he found a skateboard ramp in his backyard, a torn up patio and an ax thrust into the wall of his house.
Sounds like the homeowner isn’t down with visits from the skateramp fairy.
