Walker Ryan and Kelly Hart shred PB!

Local San Diego skaters, Walker Ryan and Kelly Hart, with a few friends shred their local neighborhood in Pacific Beach. Watch as they trick over everything they find along the way! If you live here like I do, you will recognize many places they blast past or over. San Diego is a great place to skate, and this shows you how to just go out your front door and kill it!

William Spencer is a human highlight reel!

Here is some more footage from a very original skater, William Spenser!



He uses a skateboard in a totally different way than anyone else. What do you call a handstand to 10 foot drop landing on a skateboard? What do you call riding up a bank, jumping off your board, back flipping off the obstacle, and landing back on your board? I have no idea, but I know it kicks ass!

LA Skate Film Fest Behind the Scenes

Take a look into the skate film world and see some F-in amazing skating and explosions while you're at it. Get a snack, it's longer than a minute, but well worth it!

Pro-tec Pool Party Rocked!

If you didn't watch the live webcast on Fuel.tv of the Pro-tec Pool party at the Vans Combi pool yesterday, you missed some serious pool skating!  The Vans Combi pool was re-surfaced at a cost of $50,000.00 to make it smoother, faster and better.  The skaters have been talking about how much better the Combi is all month long leading up to the competition, and it showed in their skating.  The faster surface lead to higher airs, smoother coping lead to longer slides and grinds, and a few of the reshaped areas lead to never-before-seen lines. Take a look at the Masters Final:
 


The results of the Master Division were Steve Caballero in first, Chris Miller in second, and Lance Mountain in third. These skaters have skated all 3 versions of the Combi pool, and the results could have been from the eighties. It is hard to believe they are still skating at this level!

Now for the current pros, have a look at their final:



The results of this round were Bucky Lasek in first, Rune Glifberg in second, and Omar Hassan in third. Bucky has now won two Pool Parties in a row, and some think it is due to him having a concrete bowl in his backyard. Rune and Omar are both known for their pool skating, and showed the crowd why. Honorable mentions go to Nolan Munroe and Alex Perelson who impressed me more than the official results suggest. To watch all the awesome video from the Pro-tec Pool party, click here.

William Spencer - Parkate? Skatour?

William Spencer is one of those guys that defies labels.  He is a skater, he is a parkour athlete, he is what he wants to be!  I have no idea how this man eluded me for years, but I am here to tell you he does things that no skateboarder or free runner would or could do.  In this video he shows his amazing skills.  I can't wait to see what he is doing today.  I will never miss anything William puts on the web again, and neither should you!


Did you see that?  Watch that shite again.  That actually happened! This is one of the few videos I have seen that have actually hurt my brain this year.   I have to say this guy, like Shane O'Niell, Plan B, and many others are taking skateboarding to the next level.

Turfs Up! Complete

TURF's Up (FULL VIDEO) from TURFglobal on Vimeo.

This is the full length flick featuring the Turf Global team.  The entire thing is f-in great.  You get everything you want from a skate movie, great tricks, serious skate spots, and lots of fun.  The Turf team knows how keep things light but bring the big tricks!  Everyone is in here, Jason Wussler, Mike York, Larry Redman, Vince Salvi, Sammy Baptista, Jabari Pendleton, Jason Wakuzawa, Some Dude, and James Kelch.  BTW, how awesome is Some Dude, that guy gets gnarls! Watch this video, support the Turf team, get a Turf deck, and try and shred like some of the best in the biz!

Riley Hawk - Skate Movie Part 2

Riley Hawk (Tony's son) is shredding on his own.  This video is part of the much anticipated Skate Movie.  As you can see, Riley kicks some serious ass on a skateboard as well.  Watch for the smith grind to double kickflip out, I was blown away the first time.  Keep tearing the place to pieces Riley!

Turf Global Destroys PQ Skatepark for Willy's Workshop!

The Turf Global team, featuring Mike York, Lavar McBride, Jason Wussler, JJ Rice, Vitor Borger, an injured Sam Batista, and Biggs, invaded the Rancho Penasquitos skatepark in celebration of their line now being available at Willy's Workshop, a skate shop owned by a local skating hero, Willy Santos.

The demo was f-in awesome, the pros just got out there and mixed it up with the locals at the park. It was obvious from the beginning these Turf riders were there to shred and have a blast doing it.  So often it seems riders take their skating too seriously, it was refreshing to see these riders enjoy the park.

I was lucky enough to meet Mike, Lavar, Jason, JJ, Vitor, and Willy.  They were cooler than you would expect, I mean after all they were meeting me, not someone they needed to schmooze. If you haven't been to Willy's Workshop you should go.  They have a great skate shop and it is next door to the PQ Skatepark!
In this video you have Lavar McBride with a switch frontside flip, JJ Rice with a backside bigspin, and Vitor Borger with a sweet varial flip!

The demo was a blast! Everyone kicked ass and the crowd loved the show. I highly recommend viewing Turf Global's video just under these words, it rocks! They have had over 1500 views in less than 24 hours and it is being re-tweeted all over the twitterverse.


TURF x WILLY'S WORKSHOP DEMO 5/8/2010 from TURFglobal on Vimeo.

Here is Willy Workshop's video of the demo.  Contrast and compare.

As you can see in the photo on the left, Mike York was having a great day.  This attitude, or lack of, was the best part of the demo for me.  It always surprises me that professional skaters are so easy to talk to.  I always expect to be blown off, but these guys shook my hand, said hi, thanked me for coming, and re-tweeted my pictures of the day.  It doesn't get much better than that! Click here to see all my pics of the demo!

The Berrics: Plan B United Nations

This video is a highlight reel showing the Plan B riders at The Berrics skate park. These riders are pushing street skating to amazing technical levels. I have never seen this amount of mind blowing skating in one film clip. This clip is gaining popularity on the web with over 100,000 documented views in 4 days. The riders in this clip include Scott Decenzo, Ryan Sheckler, Pat Duffy, PJ Ladd,Paul Rodriguez, Torey Pudwill, and Felipe Gustavo. The video starts and ends with the AMs (Scott and Torey) as the bread of the Pro sandwich.


Scott is up first and demonstrates complete domination of tail slides. With flips in, flips out, shovits out, and other combos this kid shows us that he's got the skills to win any street contest. It's hard to believe that this level of skating is considered amateur. Ryan Sheckler comes in next. The only real criticism of Ryan's skating is he is not known for big switch tricks. To shut everyone up, or just entertain me, Sheck throws a switch, nolie, kick flip, 360 gap transfer (there is probably more to it or a name to this trick, but that is what I caught in real time). He backs that up with his patented power riding, big tricks over big gaps and drops. Following that, Pat gets started with grinds and flips that make my head hurt. He closes with a backwards feeble grind with a 360 out, and yes, Andy Macdonald is right, feebles are trending this week. Then PJ comes in with a kick flip down a 6 stair directly into a switch, nolie to nose grind, tre flip out! Mega video game combo points on that. He backs that up with flip, slide, and grind combinations happening so fast I cannot decipher every trick. If you can, let me know, because all I want to say is watch this sickness for yourself. P Rod starts with a smith grind and rolls into a feeble grind with a 180 flip? out. Were either of these switch? They probably both were, but Paul is so good riding switch I can't tell when he does. He finishes his part with a flurry of kick ass riding, and since I can't tell which way he is riding, I will let his skating speak for itself. Torey is up next and his second trick run, a crooked grind to kick flip 180 out, looks buttery, and I think that's why they give us the slow mo. A kick flip 360 over the box shows us his major pop. His part ends with a barrage of tail slides to crazy outs and a kick flip to crooked grind. Felipe has the last part of the video and may be the other amateur, but shows us he deserves to be with these kings of street. His combinations of tricks make me wonder why he and Scott are not actually pros. Amateur skating has caught up with video games and the pros. This video is a shining example of where street skating is and will be for a long time. I have no idea what the next step of progression will be, but I am sure it will turn my brain to jello.

Don't think I am the only one that thinks this video is crazy gnarly. Listen to some of the Twitter buzz. @Mikemo27 Dude... Just watched Plan B United Nations, wow they are so good. It's depressing how they get so good!!! Wow! @TheSkateSpot Plan B United Nations. Torey Pudwill is gnarly. @skatefiles Plan B United Nations is INSANE!!!! @steve_berra Plan B on the berrics. I'm sore just watching it. wow. @hhskate @steve_berra The Plan B edit was mind boggling. @dvsshoecompany TPudz and the Plan B crew really killing the UNited Nations. This is just a sample of what pro skaters and industry people are saying. BTW, you should follow all these people and entities, if you don't. This video shows us some of the heaviest hitters in skating and they are all on the same team! Make sure you watch the video a few times and try to understand all that is happening. We will see a lot of these tricks and combos this summer at the Dew Tour and X Games. I can't wait!

Great skate spot in Carlsbad!

Carlsbad, CA is known for great skating and is the home of the original skate park.  Skating is such a part of the city that there's even a group, The Carlsbad Village Association, trying to get a skate park, museum and art center built to honor its amazing skateboarding history.  So when I heard there was a great spot hidden in Carlsbad, I wasn't surprised and was excited to see it!

Not  every skater is happy keeping to skate parks; many prefer the adventure of  more rugged, organic spots and like to test their skills on different  obstacles.  So when Patrick, a local skater, volunteered to show me one of his favorite out-of-the way places to ride, I couldn't resist!  From the second I met him, I could tell he treasured this spot; a peaceful drainage ditch across the street from  Batiquitos Lagoon.  We parked on the corner of La Costa Ave and Saxony and walked east for about 3 minutes, until we came upon the access road gate.  We went around that gate, trudging through waist-high weeds and plants, then continued to a chain link fence with a "La Costa Basin" sign on it.  We gained access to the spot via an opening in the fence, about 50 ft to the right of that gate. From there, we just had to go about 400 feet back, towards the road.  Even though it was a bit of a hike, it was pretty easy to find.


As we approached the run, I was instantly struck by the graffiti.  I expected plenty, but was surprised and   impressed by the quality and originality of most of the art work!  The ditch looked like it needs a good sweep to get it ready for the summer, but it's really asking to be shredded.  It's about 16 feet wide with 3'6" high walls, has soft enough transitions to ride quickly, and varying degrees of down hill slope for a challenging ride.  At about 100 feet long, it boasts plenty of  trick opportunities  per pass.  With a good top edge, the ditch is perfect for tail and nose slides, and a few killer obstacles, like a grind-able drain hole, give the opportunity to add tricks, originality and technical difficulty to a session.  The several small drainage inlets scattered throughout could catch a wheel, so beware! Those openings, as well as the big drain hole (that's been used for grinding a little too much), and a sunken center area (which screams to be cleaned out and used for some sliding action), will keep even the best skater on his game! The run flattens out near the end,  allowing time for a skater to stop  before getting to the swampy part. For another view click here to see Google maps view from La Costa Ave.

If you decide to make the trek, this spot is definitely worth a look! Sure, it needs a little work to be totally ride-able, but if anyone wants to rip it up, don't hesitate to ask for help getting it ready; I'm always game!  It'd be great to see this spot used to its full potential!
Click to view all photos of this spot