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