Have you heard of this competition?

Slam magazine runs it every year and it goes a bit like this. Anyone can vote for their favourite skater. Voting closes on 1st February. The top 20 skaters are published and then that top 20 decides amongst themselves who is worthy to be the Grand Poobah and collect the $5000 prize.

Who want’s to crash this party with me?

We can because anyone can vote! That means YOU.

Who can you vote for? Slam magazine makes that clear, and I quote:

Skateboarders can practice any discipline .

However they do qualify that statement with Street or Vert. Apparently that is the only type of skateboarding they know. I think longboarding and downhill qualifies as “street” skating. It is mainly done on the street.

It is time to let Slam Magazine in on a little secret … there are a lot of longboarders in Australia.

Here are some longboarders that deserve your vote. Choose carefully, you can only vote once, but you vote for 5 skaters.

Jackson Shapiera – fastest skateboarder in Australia, 2nd in the World Championships in Germany
Ben Hay – topped ranked Australian at Newtons (IGSA World Cup)
Rob McWinnie – soul longboarder and winner of Red Bull Peru Night Race
Cameron Kite – on the podium of nearly very race in 2010.
Gabe Gwynne – style master, slide school co-ordinator, ex super grom (too old now to be a grom)
Merrick Wildash – Junior IGSA World Cup Champion 2010 – best junior in Australia and the world
Steve Daddow – Australian Grand Master – keeper of the steez
Corey Leeson – ranked in the top 20 in the world – 2 years running
Adam Yates – Landyachtz Eh Team, and official Australian Master of Ceremonies in Canada
Haggy Strom – 2010 Australian Skateboard Slalom champion and President of ASRA

There are plenty of other rad longboarders to nominate, those are a few off the top of my head.

If you want to throw in a skateboarder name, maybe consider Renton Miller, he supported Newtons this year by being our top vert skater on the Vert ramp. Or maybe the Hopkin Skate Team super grom Jack Dauth. Jack is our young skateboard ripper on the team.

Whoever you vote for, please put in a longboarder or two. If enough people crash this party, then Slam will have to sit up and take notice of a quiet revolution happening underneath their noses…psstthhh dont tell anyone, it’s called longboarding. The only difference between us and them, is Longboarders skateboard for life.

Vote now

Did you get the latest Concrete Wave magazine in the mail? Did you know if you are an Australian and you subscribe, your magazine gets air mailed to you, and you get it within days of the US and Canadian subscribers!! A chunk of radness expressed to your door.

It is a brilliant read this issue. Michael Brooke just keeps making this magazine better and better. There is news on all the latest released skate products, articles on vert, pool, street , skateboard racing and the list goes on…

Whatever your level of skateboarding, whatever your type of skating, whatever your level of interest. This magazine will impress. You’ll read it from cover to cover. Concrete Wave is the only magazine that features 100% skateboarding.

This issue, has Steve Daddow’s spectacular crash at Newton’s. Some of the articles are : Tao of Skate, Kids in the fast lane (kids and parents on downhill skateboarding), Venice Boarding School, interview with Mike Weed, Buena Vista pool, Team Green, and a double page article on Newton’s Playground!!! And that is not everything, there is plenty more. If you are like many skaters, you’ll subscribe as much for the ads as you do the photos and articles. Ads this month: Landyachtz zombies (in stock at the Hopshop), Sector Nine congratulate Evren on his Newton’s win (we will be stocking Sector 9 this year), Andy Lally gets a Seismic ad, Madrid downhill boards, Jimmy is in the Rainskates ad, plenty of skate bling ads like nimbus trucks.

Subscribe NOW. This is not a promotion, there is nothing in it for Hopkin Skate if you click on the link. This is from the Hopshop heart, a skate bro recommendation. Subscribe to Concrete Wave, your soul will be rewarded.

Hop

It was only a matter of time. Hop is on Twitter.

I will be twittering all things Hopkin Skate, Hopkin Racing, the goings on in the Hopshop and my involvement with Newton’s Playground.

Canberra ASRA Conehead Cup is on again.  This year it is round 4 and on 19th to 20th September 2009.

This is one of the best grassroots skate events on the ASRA calendar. Run by CROSS (Canberra Old School Skaters). This is not an old school event, there will be competitors and skaters of all ages.
Canberra Conehead Cup is held at Mt Stromlo Forest Park bike facility. It is a sanctioned event, ASRA and CROSS have hired the Criterium Circuit, the event is fully insured.
The Criterium is an almost flat circular track. The straight we use for the head to head slalom racing has a slight decline. The track is super smooth, but dont let it fool you, it is very fast.
The speed and cone placement make for exciting and challenging racing.
The track is big enough for racing all day and also has a practice/beginners area and a lots of room for longboarding.

It is an excellent event if you want to find out about longboarding and skateboard racing.
There will be a kids course and a beginners course, and some of Australia’s best skaters will be there to take time out to help everyone learn and have fun slaloming and longboarding.
There is a grandstand for spectators. ASRA and CROSS will have a BBQ and drinks available all day. There are toilets, change facilities and heaps of room for car parking. There is room for Dad and Mum to chill out and read a paper, or pad them up and get em skating!!

This is a great event and a fun day of skating. If you live in or near Canberra this is a must attend event.
CROSS will be running a raffle all day, tickets sold at teh venue. You might even win a skateboard or longboard to skate home on.

General public Mount Stromlo skate day is on the Saturday. Anslie Drains skate event is on Sunday.

See ASRA website above for more details.

PLEASE NOTE: I got the dates wrong in the original blog – general public day is the SATURDAY

Story by Jimmy LoRicco

So people might be wondering whats being going on down south over the past month.
Some of us dream it, others doubt it, but some of us will do anything we can to make it a reality.
Vert, what else would I really want. Being an 80′s skater, this is what we were bought up on and aspired to ride before the craze of the mini ramps blew out in 88.
My first ever demo I went to in 85 was the Variflex Demo Vert Ramp on the lawn out front of RipCurl one sunny Saturday arvo. From here got the fire burning to lurk occasionally at Corio and progress from the small bowl, to the paint tray then onto the 3rd Bowl, the Keyhole.
The first ramp I ever rode was the vert ramp behind Piping Hot in Torquay, in 1987. I learnt to drop in here first, amongst some skateboarders who I would end up skating with as an adult 20 years later on a Tuesday night, still feeling like the grommet I was back in the heyday. Here I witnessed the second wave of the US pros destroy this ramp in Easter of 87 which fueled the fire on what I believed was the pinnacle, and still do because its always a challenge to step up and ride. Late in 87 the ramp was moved out into the paddock to accommodate Ramp Riots down here in Torquay up until 89, we were lucky to witness these, but eventually they moved in 1990  Ramp Riot indoors to Festival Hall. From this point on, Geelong did get an indoor Vert ramp at a skatepark named Rivers Edge built by the Searle Family, its life line expired way too short.
So what happened then???
The ole girl was left to rot in the paddock, vert died in the mainstream and in the later half of the 90′s she was eventaully demolished.
Looking back, it was a skinny ramp, but one of the most perfect to ride for its time with 10ft Transitions and 1ft of vert.

Now the history lesson is over Folks, jump back in the time Machine and motor back to 2009.
For the past couple of years, Trev and I have been trying to sort out a place to re-erect his vert ramp which has been doing its odd demo here and there since its glory days in Motown. The original plan was to build it at my block, but due to the unfortunate economic times and general down turn of the property market, this has held us back, so after approaching many a local, business  and being rejected, finally Dragon Optical said yes and shared our vision, Bring the Vert Back to Torquay in a private setting.
Its been 20 years Candy, (oops) but we have done it. Big thanks go out to the crews who turned up over the past couple of weekends lending their hands, because it takes 8 men to safely lift and lock in one section of Transition.  The sessions have been hot and some locals who ripped it up back in the day are slowly creeping out of the woodwork. Dimensions of this gem are 40ft of width, 13ft high with approximately 2ft of Vert, Satellite is the riding surface which has been a blessing down here with the mist and occasional shower that lurks around coastal areas, a quick squeegee and off we go, I dig this stuff. Its nice to now have an environment where one can learn to ride a standard modern size and get out of the 80′s rut of riding the left over small ramps that still exist through out Victoria. I’m surprised how quickly you do adapt which at one stage a few years back I personally didn’t ever think I would be doing this today.
Cheers go out to Trev, Pete and Justin who are always up for a sesh and the extended family from Grove, Fletch, Myles and Vince who have chipped in and been loyal to the cause of rolling and putting up with my requests to ride The Ponds for so long.
Its the 20th Anniversary since the Ramp Riot was last in Torquay, I feel its time to celebrate.
Keep your ears open for when we do.
Cheers
Jimmy LoRicco

The flat

Starting to Build the Tranny

One Sunday’s hard work

Prep for Sunday’s Work

Lock it in Eddy

A complete Vert ramp

Lien to Tail

Frontside Air – sorry bum shot

Rock slide to fakie – one of my favourite tricks

Fakie Ollie – another bum shot

And to complete the bum shot session – The King and I
A casual Lien Air early release over the top. In the future, we will shoot a sequence shot with a more appropriate lip trick and another angle to do it some justice.

It is time Hopkin Skate put on a team member that was not born on a longboard. So in the interests of promoting all things transition, Jimmy Loricco has been put on the team.

I first met Jimmy at the 2007 Canberra Son of a Ditch event. When Bugs and I arrived at Anslie ditch, there was Jimmy, putting out his Rainskate wheels on the card table, and spruiking all things good about his urethane. Jimmy was one of the first ones in the ditch, showing everyone how to tame Anslie and have good time.

Jimmy’s attitude that day was part maverick, part skate entrepreneur, and part motivator. We are proud to have him on our team, we hope he brings all those qualities to the team.
Jimmy’s profile page