Wednesday, April 22nd 2009

"Downtown -- things will be great when your downtown"

Last Saturday, I met up with friends Sean Renos and Julien “Hoops” Kidd for a downtown skate mish. I’ve known the two for over 15 years each. We took to the city streets like it was SF circa ‘97 all over again, straight renegade style. For me, there’s no better feeling in the world than shredding the downtown streets on a sunny weekend afternoon. Sure, San Francisco is no longer the skate Mecca it once was -- many of the legendary spots have been either demoed or skate-proofed -- but there’s still an abundance of fun stuff to skate. You just have to get a little more creative in your approach.

On a related note, I was really bummed to see that the loading dock ledges along the Embarcadero were knobbed -- RIP. This whole town is turning into one giant skate-stopper.

Below are a handful of pics from the session. Enjoy!

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Sean Renos has ups.

Jason was trying backside 180s over the pole. He was landing on it every time, but couldn't quite seem to roll away. Here he is mid bail. I'm sure he'll get it next time.

Went back to re-shoot THIS. All I can say is WOW! Looks so much better from the frontside. The sequence is being used for something else, otherwise I'd post it. Here are a couple nasty slam shots though.

Hoops with a smooth fakie ollie fakie manual to shuvit out.

This dude rolled up on a stolen BMX, tweaking ridiculously hard on speed or meth or something. He took a seat and started jamming on his drum, which I noticed had an original Lonnie Toft sticker on it. Random. Then, out of no where, he stood up, grabbed my board and started busting 360s. Again, random. Hoops summed it up best: "California is the only place where you'll find a homeless person that knows how to skate."