Spring Report- Bopeep

Spring has sprung all over the shop and conditions on the hills have been most excellent as of late. And by the hills, I almost exclusively mean THE PEEP.

Yes this most lairy of lanes situated in the heart of the beautiful english countryside has been the scene of some pleasant shredding as of late.

outside, apex, outside/outside,outside, oh fuck-SMASH

 The peep often makes everything a bit more scary. It's not the best for learning stuff on, due to the rate of acceleration from zero to warp speed being moderately steep, however it is bloody good fun with a tight crew. It's not about the number of miles per hour which you could travel if you had such time to spare and a long enough hill, but how fast it feels. This aint no hog hill, and nobody is throwing that slide into the corner for you.

The peep must be spotted, or you will eat shit. It is your right to do that if you want to, but please ensure it is at an isolated location minus some poor car driver to scare the shite out of or spot to screw over. It is best spotted with walkie talkies, and or the right calls and signals, plus a good dose of not being a bell. Persons found to be committing acts of gross bellendry shall be fed to the sheep, consider yourselves warned. (We have sheep now and they are amazing!!! Theres also cows down the road and they lick you.)

All however has been well as of late, because those new to skating the place have quickly got up to speed with the importance of having a solid system of spotting. Some of the most important details about the system of great genius are:

EFFING LOOK AT THE EFFING SHITEBAGGING SPOTTERS!!!!! Hearing spotters whilst at speed can be tres dificile, so bledy give em a look and pay attention! You don't have to constantly be looking into their eyes, especially if they are Toby, but a glance every now and then, particularly when you are coming up to an area that they can see and you cannot, will save you.

Car up means finish your run, NOW, and get out of the road.

If you are spotting, make sure to keep your attention on the road and the riders. Being the spotter nearest the bottom should make you feel pretty damn serious.

Try and remember to smile and wave at everybody and everything. An example based on fact- "OH look at those ruffians that be lurking their lurk all over the place- ohhh they just waved! How cute waving with their full protective gear and cute little glovvies awwwhhh"

Radios don't replace car calls, they merely add to them. Send a shout and a signal through the spotters on the hill, and then also give word through the radio to those at the top of the run.

Pretend horses are hooved dragons. AVOID and dont scare them, they will eat you, and then we will hurt you also.

Spot walkers, dogs, horses, bikes, motorbikes, everything. All of these things can be bad, and if somebody is unaware they will take their usual run and things could get dicey. Avoid diceyness please.

THANK YOU :)

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In other news, the standard of riding amongst the other riders has gone through the roof, sky, into space and through the moon with the clangers sitting there observing it. A combination of some good mini scenes about the place, some not bad hills if you can find them, and these slightly more epic group sessions has created the perfect environment for the riders to kill it all over the place, and they are doing so.

Watching those schooled in the art of stand up sliding shredding it is an awesome thing. The standard of riding is always increasing. Watching the epic stand up stuff made me want to have a go, and some light shenanigans went down on classics and a globe slide. But nowhere near touching what I see at every session. And the good attitude and hill awareness is there with the mind melting skateboarding. Excellent stuff all round. Inspires me to learn new things.

Heres some of the few shots I managed to get that came out ok. The skating makes them. Regular faces.

Dylan Styles styling it consistently like a tank

Charlie Gray (Not gay) giving it some to the power of power.

Will Mack goes faster than you.

Many good things have happened here this year.

Looking forward to seeing what happens next. If the rate of progress keeps up, what are this lot going to be hitting into the corner? Everything, probably.

See you on the hill,

Will

The list of skate

The weather is rubbish, coursework is heavy, so here, in it's first draft form, is a list of stuff that I think would be funny to do on a skateboard this year. Shall likely add stuff as I think of it, and it would be fun to see how much I manage at the end of the year.

Some will be achieveable, some more hopeful ;)
If I managed something before, but would like to get back, these will be italic.

H=hands and HS=Heelside, TS=Toeside, FS=Frontside, BS=Bullsh- oh I mean backside, obviously. Will more than likely get all these confused.

Cross throughs = DONE.

1.  Have fun
2. proper ollies
3. proper bonelesses
4. Coleman into 2H HS 3.
5. laybacks without falling over
6. TS 2H 3's
7. Proper switch FS 180s, standup.
8. BS 180's, snappy hands down.
9. BS 180's, standup.
10. Linked 180's both ways, standup (oo err, this is one of the more hopeful ones haha)
11. A standup 360, any way, any how. If I learn this it will be all I do at skates for weeks after...
12. Stop colemanning and HS predrifting like a tit if possible.
13. Hands down soft wheel 3, any way, without mashing myself into the ground.
14. Toeside slides on soft wheels without taking up the whole road and causing the apocalypse.
15. Footbrake confidently at faster speeds.
16. More stable.
17. Switch backside 180 into hands down TS 360.
18. Hands down 3 HS to TS and TS to HS.
19. flatspinny things?
20. popped coleman out and then throw the board past 180 keeping my body in line.
21. "Early grabs", not like a child.
22. Watch out for fast people from europe and jump into the bushes to hide.
23. Dont crash into inliners.
24. Compliment myself when I walk past a mirror.
25. Pack less gear.
26. Be majestic and wonderful in all ways
27. Eat Ryvita and ignore Ryvita based bigotry ;)
28. Get 40.
29. Decent full runs at peep.
30. Get sponsored by a computer keyboard manufacturer.

15/03

It is truly an extraordinary task to sit and try to contemplate the sheer amount of shit that has been said in the skateboarding scene. Shit has been spoken about people, shit has been spoken about product, shit has been spoken about technique and philosophy and motivation.

A fair amount of it has been from me.

Here is some more.

COW.

Don't we all hate talented skateboarders? ;)

The elusive Team Cow, lead by the right honourable Higgins have been out, having it to the precise degree of "large as eff", on everything, everywhere. I like the new video. I like the techslide stuff because techsliding is marvellous, I like seeing Harry flying around in bowls, I like seeing Jorge get drop kicked (a lot), but most of all I like seeing good stuff happening on hills in the U.K. These days we are inundated by edits of those in the more geographically blessed areas of the world, with weather we can only dream of most days, absolutely killing it to the power of numbers that are too large to comprehend, because well, I shall explain it thus.

 

I watched the Hunger Games movie (haven't read the books hahaha) and at the start all the people from cack areas get done over. The folks from good places kick ass and grab all of the lovely swag. This is skateboarding down hills. Granted the child bloodsport analogy isn't perfect but it's not bad.

 

So whilst I like seeing somebody in a very nice part of the world kicking ass on a skateboard, boshing out massive standup slides with gusto, I do enjoy seeing some good stuff going down in the U.K. I mean if we're honest, are there many places less suited to skateboarding down hills than here? A country with souless road building (see: lack of euro hairpin filled joy) due in part to geography that can be described as "a bit naff", weather that has booked rain on every (apologies for the brief lapse into hyperbole) weekend from this one to the one right before the sun implodes and sucks our hills into an eternity of nothingness, and er... oh actually those are the two main ones. Roads and weather. The novelty of skating in the wet is temporary, unlike the novelty you get from running up the stairs in slow motion, which, let me tell you, is eternal.

 

Seeing people shred hills here is good. It shows you that there is a high standard of skating that can be achieved here, right here. So the next time I look longingly at a highly polished edit of somebody throwing stupendous backside powerslides in the sun on a smooth hill with happy smiling animals in the background, I will stop, and watch the cow edit, or watch any edit from those killing it in cornwall or bristol or london or wherever, and I will form the vocalisation "hmm" in consideration of what I have seen. I will see that whilst the standard of riding around the world is incredibly high, so too can it be here. How many people in the world throw standup 7's on soft wheels? Or bomb at 60 or slide hard wheels until they get dizzy? Few. But some do, and some are here. And that means that there is no ceiling, even though our weather sucks and our hills are few and mostly shite.

 

Here is the Cow edit.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xx4lYW7ySs0

 

Feeling very creative on a board this year. Learnt much already and intend to continue to do so. Skate everything.

 

Will

 

life

....is good. Probably more so then at any point for a while, recently handed in an art project that I had worked hard on and was actually quite pleased with, so that was nice.

 

With a handful of months left of college I feel a bit sad about that coming to an end. Excited for the future and a likely graphic design course (probably staying fairly local for a while), but a bit sad, because I really, really like college. Weekdays to me are as enjoyable as weekends really. A different kind of enjoyment, but I like having somewhere to go like college, working on stuff that I like working on, with a good crowd.

 

Given a second chance round there are things I'd do differently, but there won't be a second chance round. "This has been my go". And it was good. Also holding regrets isn't worth doing if it can be helped. And it's usually not too late to fix something, if you try.

 

What next?

 

A text transformation, a commentary on that, more art, and trying. Really trying.

 

Will

Skateboard company sponsors skateboarder!?!?!?

 

Kevin Reimer (the fast skateboard man) is involved with Powell Peralta (the skateboard company).

 

I have nothing to say about that, apart from nice one and good luck.

 

Looking through the Powell range of boards you see just that, a range of skateboards. Now this in itself should not be unusual but the tragedy that I see is that it is. If we be really crude and divide the skateboarding world up into "mainstream" and "longboarding", you get this.

 

"mainstream"

• shoes. shoes with peoples names.
• skateboards. skateboards that all look the same, save for whoever's name is slapped on it.
• videos with the mandatory throwing around of boards-really, really funny.

and so on. a culture of "this is skateboarding", please buy these products, care about these pros because we said so. Too much to do with selling names and fashion, not skateboarding.

 

"longboarding"

 

• loads of different boards
• less "care about this person because we said so" and more "look what they are doing"
• more empahsis on you and doing what you want

And the REAL tragedy here, is that "longboarding" is just a term for this way of skateboarding. This way of skateboarding- fun, whatever you want to do, whatever board, that is proper skateboarding! "Mainstream" is bollocks! We say longboarding because it seems so radically different to how mainstream skate culture is, the difference is hard to process without using a seperate term, and the sadness of that is that people think it isnt skateboarding. I'll tell you what isn't skateboarding- reams of boards, and shoes, and apparel, and shit that you are supposed to buy because it has somebodies name on it.

 

So frankly I don't give a toss if "mainstream" skate companies want to follow Powell and get in on the "longboarding" thing, because that is saying "we want to make stuff that people are enjoying riding". Granted most will do it seeking profit but why not? Money is really nice. And you lot get the skateboards.

 

But what I do not want to see, as I am seeing lately, is this "names" thing crossing over from "mainstream" culture to this thing that is actually skateboarding. Give somebody respect if they have earnt it, if they have done something cool. Please avoid this thing whereby people put their name in front of their skating. I mean if you catch some footage of somebody and post it up somewhere and title it "Derp Derper does this" than cool, but please stop spamming the fuck out of yourselves to everybody, and assuming people should care.

 

The thing I like about skateboarding is that I can leave everything in my mind at the door. Skateboarder first, skating first, "Hi I'm Will" if you really want to know. Not MY NAME IS THIS, WATCH THIS, LOOK AT ME. The people in skateboarding that I respect havent got to say a word, but when they do, it's worth saying.

 

to summarise

• nice one mr reimer
• your name doesn't matter half as much as you think
• yeah skateboarding
• yeah skateboard companies making skateboards that are cool

 

Bye

what I want

 

I've always thought that people who rely on the new year for some kind of new start are really a bit dumb. A date ticks over and people hope it will bring some new thing. And then I'm sitting here now hoping for that. I thought it so stupid before so to be hoping for it I suppose shows to me how not content I am with things now.

 

I think if you can think about what you want and tick things off when you achieve them you can feel better about yourself. So some goals, I wont write them as definite because I never really can set things that I intend to go for for definite.

 

Next year I want

 

Some kind of job. I'd be a bit proud of myself then, I'd feel like somebody, more.

 

To make it to the vandem freeride

 

To have something other than skateboarding that makes me feel properly happy and like I'm making something happen.

 

To generally be happier. So many days I just have no motivation, when I'm away from college and skateboarding I really feel shit too much of the time. It's not good, and I don't want this. I suppose now I realise that I've spent a while like how I feel now, with too many shit days.

 

Thing is, I don't know the order of how to go about achieving these things. Would having a job make me feel like less of a shit person? How would I feel like going out and doing that if I feel as I do now? How do I get motivation when for too long now I've had so little?

 

I want to be happy, employed (however small), motivated and skating as much as I can.

 

I've got a cv, and theres a few in my bag. I printed one ages ago and it's taken so long to even think and put one in my bag. A lot of the time I just don't think, and then feel shit about whatever later. I suppose you could call that some kind of step, although to think of that as one makes me feel pretty useless.

 

I've had a policy recently of just trying to avoid writing on the internet when I feel shit, and I think this very post is a reason why I decided to do that.

I, Skateboarding person

A few days ago I realised the vague funny-ness of having got into "skateboarding" several years ago (because I looked at people skating in the skatepark and it dawned on me that I could buy a cheapo argos board for a fiver and get involved too) and then skating on my own a lot, hating it, finding people to skate with, skating hills with them, loving it, and then ending up skating a lot on my own again and really, really enjoying it.

The argos board that I bought probably funded some massive corporation. It gave them a fiver, the board was shit and I snapped a bit off the trucks standing on it in the living room, but it gave me skateboarding, and I have ended up giving money to the nice "skater" companies. That should probably just be "nice companies" actually, because the idea that skateboarding makes you immune from being a bellend is a false one based upon the skatery "everythings cool in skateboarding" thing.

So big companies and shit, cheap skateboards are not always a bad thing. Books and covers and skateboards.

 So anyway the skating I do now, on my own, is sort of freestyle. Although firstly a word with "free" in it that refers to doing one thing in a certain way isn't very accurate and secondly using the word "style" inside any sentence referring to me skateboarding is a bit dodgy.

So if you divide the skating i've done into thirds, you get- roughly, the bit where I skated parks and around here on my own and was a bit tired of it, the bit where I skated hills with people and loved it, and now, where I want to go and skate hills with good people but the opportunities are few, and I spend my time doing this, "freestyley thing".

 I think "free" is better. Free skateboarding. The buy in is any skateboard I like (but mostly a 13"WB sym double kick), the setting is anywhere I like (but mostly a quiet industrial estate with a killer sunset), and the feeling is good. Only once have I gone for a skate and felt a bit shit and not been able to really skate. The rest of the time I just muck around, enjoying the novelty of being a person that has evolved for a fair while to walk around and talk shit, not walking around and not talking shit but rolling around on a funny plank of wood with wheels and trucks and some octane and newtons stickers I cut up and merged and stuck under some clear griptape- that didn't look so good actually, but there might be a philosophical point there (unintentional, mostly).

In the first third of my skateboarding thing I couldn't ollie to save my life. I'd try bloody hard if it were to save my life but the additional pressure wouldn't help. In this third, I can, a bit. A little bit. A little bit moving as well. We're talking airs over ants here but I'm not so sure I care as long as it sounds like an ollie and I'm grinning like an idiot. And the thing is, it's different. It's because I've gone out, and just spent time on a skateboard. Not thought about it, just done stuff which lets you feel more comfortable on a board. You can't climb stairs if you can't walk, unless you are really good at dragging yourself with your hands.Actually thats a shit metaphor and it doesn't help.

But the point is there, and it's something I've thought of before.

You get fuck all for sitting and thinking about how much of a twat you are,

You do get something by doing stuff, any little things build more and more.

So doing skateboarding, enjoying it, mucking around, doing things that arn't "tricks" but I don't care, that is where progress came from and will continue to.

And then progress. That word. I don't know if I care as long as I'm having fun. Skateboarding is, for me, escapism.

I hope sometime in the near future I'm skating on a hill again with good people. But, in the meantime, I am still happy, doing my thing down a miserable looking estate on my tod.

I'm really looking forward to the future, and getting back on a hill, whenever, wherever, with whoever...

Will