Archive for August, 2009
MTl Classic Results!
Posted by Dave Ghent in Session on August 29th, 2009
Holy crap, such an emotional rollercoaster in the finals. It seemed like every trick was bettered by the next skater, spiralling upwards in terms of sheer craziness.
Alex Broskow threw an enormous 360 from the upper deck to flat, Chris Haffey span a fakie 650 to soul down the death box, Rob G smiled his way around the course winning a lot of new fans, Brandon Smith is the epitome of smooth, controlled rollerblading linking a fakie 720 over the hip to a fullcab kindgrind to fullcab cess slide out on the quarter, and Julien Cudot conquered all. I’ve never seen such total and utter destruction of a street course before! He took it to each skater and bested them, throwing flatspin transfers, 540 true pornstar down the rail, disaster 450 royale on the judging rail; he even nailed a 450 alleyoop top porn on a barrier six feet out of the bowled corner.
After the dust settled Julien Cudot deservedly came out on top. Alex Broskow came in second with his amazingly smooth and creative take on skating, followed by Chris Haffey in third with some complete hammers. It was a great contest, a Classic! After the contest we took the opportunity to film for a new segment we’ll be revealing shortly so look for interviews with Murda, Erik Bailey, Rob G, Brandon Smith, and Jon Julio on their personal views on smarter rollerblading.
Nova Scotia ‘09
Taylor, Mike Laphen and myself skating around for a day.
Deshi Carbon Customization
I love the deshi carbons. I’ve become so used to them that they’ve actually begun to feel heavy when I carry them around, as absurd as that sounds. Lately I’ve been disappointed in the souls, and I feel that I’ve lost confidence in a couple of tricks that I’d otherwise consider to be pretty safe; the groove seems too close to the boot for torqueslides and the soul itself can be sticky at really unpredictable times.
I started looking for a solution almost as soon as I got the skate, but without USD two pieces options are limited as not many other manufacturers use a completely flat soulkit.
Back when I skated TRS I used to use soulkits from the k2 Nemesis skates with a custom-made heel riser to hold the TRS boot solidly. Nothing skated so well; grinds were fast and effortless. With the Carbon needing no heel lift, maybe this would be the fix I needed?
Thank you so much Cody for the hookup, honest to god I won the Sunshine Skate Battle because of these. I got my torqueslides back, feel more stable on back royales and soulbased tricks are super fast again!
The reason they work so well is that the backslide area is further away from the skate like a salomon widebody, so you don’t have to bone over so much to grind. In my opinion, these are the perfect souls for these skates, now they just need some dremel action to make them a bit less fugly! Next task is to reduce the weight of Fiziks…
Blade Jam Pics!- Round 3
Finally, you say! Surely there can’t be anything else after this? Well, I’ve yet to get to the photos Wheat took at the Sunrise Skate Battle, so you’ll have to just sit there and be patient.
While you’re twiddling your thumbs, here’s the prizegiving and wrapup of our 2009 Blade Jam. I couldn’t believe how many of you showed up! I was quite prepared to sit in the park with my nearest and dearest, enjoying a nice day out- but with close to 50 people we had an awesome turnout. Thanks for giving a shit and wanting to bring Toronto back : )
Blade Jam Pics!- Round 2
I just finished the second batch of pictures from the Blade Jam on Saturday; with over 430 pictures in total, I’d say the day was pretty well documented. There are a couple of pictures in this set with Unknown skaters; if anyone recognises them, if they could be so kind as to let me know I’ll give them the credit they deserve.
Hanging round by the bay
So I’ve been on vacation for the last 3 weeks or so out here in my home town Halifax. I have taken a slight break from my blades due to the heat and the lack of people to skate with, but despite that I was lucky to get a session in with my old friend Mike Laphen whos been skating since close to 97. These days he trains for navy special ops (for real) but still fits in sessions when he can. He’s one of the very few skaters of the once populated east coast skate scene who actually still puts in time on his skates.
Helmets here are mandatory hence us wearing them and Mike actually received a 135 dollar ticket moments before I arrived at the park with my bucket and an old snowboard hemet for him (comical looking). Tomorrow I’m off to the airport to pick up Taylor who is visiting for the week and then we drive to montreal for the Classic and eventually back to Toronto. So good times all around on my end and I hope the same for you.