The folks over at Thunder had a cool idea of how to determine Jamie Thomas’ next truck. They decided to play a little game called “Stump the Chief.” First they had the design department draw up some of the worst ideas for a signature truck. Gay rainbows, pot leaves, his face, etc. Then, they got the employees of Metro skate shop to come in. Next, it was off to the airport to get The Chief himself, and it was on.
The Metro crew asked Jamie questions about himself, Alabama (where he grew up), skateboarding, etc. For every right question he could remove one of the design ideas. For every wrong answer, the kid who read it got a set of the trucks that would normally be in Jamie’s monthly box. Check out the video.
Just read this on our forums and it’s defiantly worth sharing, Macba has finished it’s complete redesign and is looking better than ever, next summer is looking better and better!
As you should already be aware the full Blueprint team have been at the Berrics all this week, they’ve now released a Blueprint United which features mini sections from all their team riders. They kill it, definatly something to help cure Christmas boredom!
Head over to the Berrics to watch it, also stop by the canteen for limited edition Blueprint decks!
This Time Tomorrow a DVD by Chris Mulherns is set to premiere at the Prince Charles Theater on February 25th. Featuring the likes of Lucien Clarke, Rory Milanes, Curtis Rapp, Dave Caddo, Jimmy McDonald and many more. This is set to go off, so be sure to head down to London to watch it, if you can’t make it look out for it in your local skater owned shop soon.
We take a look at the new deck designs now on the market, these deck innovations attempt to improve on the standard deck designs by making it lighter, stronger and poppier.
Plan B Prolite
Lighter, thinner, stronger that’s the promise of the recently released Plan B Prolite skateboards. With the 3 core ply’s made thinner and military grade glue used to hold it all together this looks like the future of skateboards, by making the board lighter board control should be improved. The 3 inner ply’s have been stained black to give it a distinctive look and the promise is the board will keep its pop for longer. The ads for these boards state that:
1. It’s the lightest thinnest and strongest wood construction in the industry
2. Three thinner inner core ply’s with military spec glue
3. Better board control and response with longer lasting pop
I recently managed to have a look at one of these boards and all I can say is LIGHT, these boards are incredibly lighter than normal boards and I may have to invest in one at some point to check out the strength side of Plan B’s promise.
Darkstar Armour Ply
Carbon Fibre used within board construction?? Darkstar have decided to try and make their decks un-snapable, constructed using 8 maple veneers and topped off with an extra strong carbon fibre top sheet all glued together with super bonding epoxy makes these decks pretty strong. With a standard retail price of £49.99 your not having to pay more for the additional strength an longer lasting pop. Personally I’m not a fan of Darkstar boards however the idea of using carbon fibre within board construction is a great idea for strengthening the board and many companies are incorporating this into their board construction
Flip P2 Construction
After putting in a few years of development Flip skateboards have released their Pro 2 or P2 construction which involves putting an oval aramid fibre reinforcement panel which just sounds pretty sweet as it is. This oval panel will accomplish a couple of things for you, the first is to spread the load and stress evenly across the entire board whereas normally most pressure is put across the area of your truck causing pressure cracks and eventually snapping (not fun for anyone). The second and I’m not 100% sure on how they’ve managed to achieve this is to give you a spring loaded pop which if true would be absolutely amazing, if anyone has used one of these P2 decks please drop me an email I would love to hear from you about the Spring Loaded Pop.
Here’s a short video of Geoff Rowley with his Pro 2 deck:
Almost Shockpads and Uber Light
There’s not too much I can say about almost shock pads, they use two circular carbon fibre reinforced discs around the bolts where you are going to get your first signs of pressure cracks thus increasing the life of your board, in theory.
Contrary to the shock pads is Almost’s Uber Light construction developed by Rodney Mullen and C.L. Composites it is a “Deck inside a Deckâ€. They use an internal Carbon Fibre Foam Deck which is extremely light but as stiff as metal and is used as the skeleton of the 7-ply layup. This in turn creates a longer lasting deck with better control and response. To me it sounds like Almost are on to a winner with this type of board construction.
Element Flatlight
The final installment on new types of board construction and probably the strangest and most backwards sounding of them all but bear with me because there is reason behind the madness. Push all the concave including the nose and tail down and make the board flatter, now when I first heard of this all I could think of is the Skateside decks I first started skated on which was like skating a plank of MDF. However after looking into it further I’ve been turned into believing that this could actually be a good idea.
The idea is simple by pushing all the concave out you can obtain a snappier pop and better board control Levi Brown helped develop this board construction and sells it well in this video advertising the board.
Zero’s latest video release Strange World has been somewhat unexpected, there was no massive hype campaign building up to it’s release and they choose to announce the first thing about it only months before its eventual release. This isn’t a full length DVD either, most of Zero’s team only get brief sections and this years SOTY Chris Cole shares his section with a young Tom Asta.
The DVD opens up with Garett Hill and for good reason he has a nice style and a good selection of tricks in his part, this guy is sick and could have easily closed the DVD. Keegan Saunders follow and hes another with a nice comfortable looking style to him, a definite improvement from previous parts.
Strange World provides two montages of skaters who didn’t get full parts, the first montage consists of the likes of Rattray, Sheldon, Cervantes and Ben Gilley. All of them provide the goods with Gilley landing a huge 50-50 down a pretty gnarly rail despite destroying himself three times on it before hand.
Marissa Dal Santos breaks up the two montages with a sick section, with her busting out some big hammers.
The second montage contains the likes of Thomas, Steamer, Piscopo and Sandoval. Thomas puts hit down with his usual steeze, Elisa is solid although her sections on the short side, Donovan has a solid part and Sandoval is as sick as usual.
Next up is Dane Burman the latest Zero am, he proves his worth and he kills it, look out for his hardflip over the huge street gap. Following is James Brockman who has a section full of hammers, its some gnarly stuff.
Asta and Cole share the next section switching between the two after each trick. Both of them are insane, Asta has a mix of tech and hammers and Cole destroys everything like he always does.
James Toncowny gets the last part and this kid can skate, he kills it busting out loads of hammers, another unexpected surpise, this kid is sick.
Strange World is accompanied by a heavier soundtrack as is expected, the filter effects can be somewhat distracting and the DVD contains a lot less HD shots which is a good thing! Strange World is a good watch and is easily re watchable, defiantly worth the small amount of £10 it’s being sold for. Get down to your local skater owned shop and grab a copy.
Yo, hear this.. this is my friend Pete Sutfin that I’ve grown up skating with since day one. He’s still ripping more so than some of us, an this is just his left overs. Even gnarlier shit coming soon.
Yo, hear this.. this is my friend Pete Sutfin that I’ve grown up skating with since day one. He’s still ripping more so than some of us, an this is just his left overs. Even gnarlier shit coming soon.
Zero’s latest video release Strange World has been somewhat unexpected, there was no massive hype campaign building up to it’s release and they choose to announce the first thing about it only months before its eventual release. This isn’t a full length DVD either, most of Zero’s team only get brief sections and this years SOTY Chris Cole shares his section with a young Tom Asta.