Video is by Dustin Hampton. The skater in the blue is Pete Eubank. Both Dustin and Pete are skating on Paris 180 trucks. The bushings in their trucks are standard Paris bushings but double barrel. That is, a barrel at the top and bottom (replacing the top cone with a barrel). This is what gives the truck extra stability, you are removing the lean you get from the cone and replacing it with more urethane that will be stable when compressed at speeds in a corner and on the straight in a tuck.

Other bushings that can be used are Venom Downhill or Eliminators, either in green or pink formula. If you are going to pimp out your trucks for downhill, it is best to replace the kingpin with a 3 inch grade 8 kingpin. This will give you the extra kingpin to fit on big barrel bushings and washers.

Remember: If you are going to do downhill, you MUST wear a helmet and protective clothing. Only dummies crash without a helmet. You can do serious speeds, and in a normal hill bomb you will be travelling at least 50km/h. You would not jump out of a moving car at those speeds without protection, dont speed skateboard without protection. This aint no kids play at the skatepark.

Many people are surprised because we have grown organically. That is, we have not advertised in magazines, newspapers. We have let skaters find us by themselves. One skater tells another. Rumours abound about a mythical underground skateshop with boards everywhere. It’s like when you go on a skate trip and find a skatepark you never knew about. Or in your travels you find a perfect hotmix hill no one has bombed. Or an abandoned pool unskated.

We are Hopkin Racing. Hopkin Skate. The Hopshop. Skateboards. Longboards. Racing.

Big shout out to Chatswood High. They discovered us last week. The rumours about a big skateshop in the area went through the school like wild fire. Most did not believe it. How can there be? So the skate safari was on after school one day. On the train to St Leonards, only to discover it was not a joke. Yes, it is true, it does exist.There is a real skateshop in St Leonards.

If there is no photo, it did not happen, and here it is …

It reminds me of one of my favourite Google easter eggs. (Hop has a big background in the computer world) An easter egg is tech term for an undocumented feature, usually found in games and software. A surprise waiting to be discovered.

In this case, Google has put an easter egg in their search function. If you go to Google.com.au and search for [Find Chuck Norris] and click on the “I’m feeling lucky” button, you only get one result:

Google won’t search for Chuck Norris because it knows you don’t find Chuck Norris, he finds you.

Happy birthday Chuck !!!

Everyone has raved about how good this event was, and Jacko has written up a race report on ASRA. Give it a read, and you’ll find out what happens when you race in only a g- string and helmet!!!

We have received our first shipment of Norfin Manta longboards.

Straight out of the box, the decks strike you as amazingly beautiful. The finish is exceptional. Top of the deck shows the natural bamboo through a thin clear grit. The bottom layer is as shiny as a new Ferrari. Thick clear resin layer over carbon. Looking at the edge of the deck, you can see the two layers of vertically layered bamboo. Sandwiched between the layers is tri-axial fibreglass. Norfin tell us that considerable research when into the structural making of the deck. The fibreglass layer is designed and applied to hold the flex pattern, so it has a longer life and does not sag.

The three colours we received were, a dark charcoal carbon, and a dark red carbon and a special edition floral design. Shape of the deck is what you would expect from a custom made longboard. Clean lines, small point at the rear tip, the truck cut out pattern is similar to a dervish but unique in the circular concours. The pattern only suits a Paris truck. Any truck that has a baseplate with structural wings, like the randal, will need to modify their deck. You would have to cut a small notch to fit the trucks on. Not a big deal, longboarders have be making the modification for years but some skaters might balk at modifying such a perfect finished deck.

These decks have been design and manufactured in Australia. No backyard job, these guys are set up to do custom longboards.

General specifications are 38 inches long. 9.5 inched wide. 28 inch wheelbase. The foot room, pan of the deck is 22 inches. There is a 2 inch taper at each end of the deck from the pan to the neck where the trucks are mounted. Neck is 6 inches on each end. Flex is between a Flex 1 Dervish and a Flex 2 Dervish. Though Norfin tell us this can be pre order customised. There is about a half inch camber to the deck, and a small amount of concave. Enough to make it comfortable.

Decks available at the Hopshop online or in the shop for $240. Completes will be available later in the week.

OK, so it was Monday afternoon, lovely sunny day in Sydney. New Norfins have arrived. I grabbed the deck designated as the shop board (custom floral pattern), put on some Paris trucks (Randal hangers on paris baseplates), threw on my trusty old inHeats that are worn in to be freerides. And away we go. Left the car at work, commuted home. A good 20 minute skate, plenty of hills, footpaths, bike track, pedestrians and flat land to give the deck a nice work out.

Jumping on the deck, you notice the flex. It is a nice rebound. There is heaps of width for your feet. Switch pushing is easy, the 9.5 inch wide deck comes into play, you don’t lose your footing easily.

On the flat land, I start to slalom pump, the deck is immediately responsive. The deck is set up with what Robbo would call a gangsta lean, the  trucks are very loose, so I start to get a bit of rail bite on the road. That is a good thing, to test out the deck strength, not recommended for normal use. I have not skated a 38 inch deck before and the speed I can get out of the pump is amazing. At times it felt like a big slalom board. It takes a while to get use to a shorter stance. Your feet are closer together than on a 42 inch deck.

First hill, and I get to carve some smooth road. The deck is so light, I find it is very easy to slide the back out, and drift a bit into my carves. Learning stand up slides on this deck would be easy. Where the road is a bit rough, I’m four wheel drifting a bit, but the lightness of the longboard makes it easy to control.

A big cracked section between road and footpath is coming up. I have been thinking about it on the way down this hill. Will the board have the roll weight to get through it or am I getting buckled onto the hard stuff. I hit it with speed, and the deck flies over with no trouble…and I’m still on it!

I’m now into pedestrian territory. This is where the deck comes alive. I can put it in any direction. Cutting past shoppers, carving around couples, scaring old ladies with trolleys. Nudging a few school kids who should be on longboards. When the crowded bus stop arrives, I easily kicked the deck into my hand. The first few times I scrap the tail, but the deck is light, so it is easy to control and learn to kick lower so I dont scrap the ground. Put on a tail guard and you would not have that problem. Carrying the board is easy, it is a lot more manageable than a Dervish.

Manta overall gets a 8 out of 10. Looks, finish and craftsmanship it gets full marks. It is the first of the new 38 inch decks we have reviewed this year so it is hard to compare, so we marked it conservatively. If the expected Rayne and Loaded decks are duds, it could be revised up to a 9. If I have to be critical, the grip is not that rough, you could skate it with bare feet no problem. Anyone that skates every day, and skates hard will be putting on new griptape fairly quickly. The tail is designed with a point on the  end. Anyone kicking the deck to hand grabs will get annoyed with that, wear it out quickly.  Deck might not suit skaters wanting to do technical air tricks. Anyone getting into skating, wanting a deck with style and grace will be snapping this up quick. Suit people commuting or wanting a deck for the boot of the car to skate after work. It would be nice to skate to school on, if you could stow it safely. It would make an excellent freeride deck, but would not suit fast speeds or downhill.

As a new owner of this deck, you could be this happy. (see photo below) Taken after a session on the deck this morning!! I’m calling this the Manta smile.

Hop

Sandbagging is when a racer purposely goes slow to sit at the back of a race. The tactic can be for a few reasons. The main one is to keep in touch with the leaders, draft at the end of the race, to over take and progress to the next round or win the race. The other strategy of sandbagging is what we call in Australia the Steve Bradbury. That is sitting at the back and waiting for a mistake. It is a dangerous strategy, but worthwhile if you have noticed lead racers are crashing a lot in practice or previous heats. You let the leaders knock themselves out and you coast through for a win.

All the rumours are true, Rayne’s new deck is the Vendetta. First of many releases from the big manufacturers. The big hit board of 2010 will be anything associated with freeride. The Rayne Vendetta is a new deck shoved squarely in this pigeon hole, and it has brought a big smile to everyone in the Hopshop. Here is what we know so far.

You can summarised this deck as a hustler freeride machine.

The concave is deep tub, which means there will be plenty of edge to lock your feet in. It has 1/4 inch camber. If you know your Rayne decks, the Timeline has some camber. What this means it will have a bit of flex. It is by no means be as flexy as the Hustler or a dervish. It will give a bit so make pushing it around a little more forgiving, you’ll be able to get your pump on the flat. Make carving a bit more fun.

The good news is the deck has a nose and tail like the Hustler. This makes shovits, manuals and generally kicking the deck into your hand a lot easier.

Truck mount is drop thru.

Width is 10 inch, has a waist like the killswitch and plenty of room for your feet, right where you need it.

Length is 40 inch and wheelbase 30 inch.

It should be available in in the next 4 weeks, and we’ll be doing a pre sale soon.

This deck definitely looks like the goods. A combination of some of the best features from Rayne’s most popular decks. We see bits of the Hustler, Hellcat and Killswitch in this deck. Loaded got the right combination with the Dervish, looks like Rayne has score a home run on this deck. When we get one to play with, it will be reviewed and posted on the blog first.

We have a product page for the Rayne Vendetta. You can sign up to be notified when it is in stock.

Check out what the stars of longboarding are up to, get sucked into some Canadian longboard action. You’ll see why Vancouver is the land of gnar and steez.

Everyone, except for the Hopshop, were surprised at the winner of the Open division: Pedro Barros. You all know since last year we have be raving on about the young kid from Brazil. Pocket Pistols does not just pick up anyone, and to be on their team as a 14 year you have to be special. Well Pedro has won back to back bowl-a-rama’s, wins in Wellington and Bondi.

Pedro out snaked everyone in the final, pulling off 540s, corner airs, nose grinds and smith grinds in a charging take all attitude.  Read a great wrap up written by Sasha on the World Cup Skateboarding website

Open Results
1. Pedro Barros
2. Bucky Lasek
3. Bob Burnquist

Master Results
1. Steve Caballero
2. Pat Ngoho
3. Mick Mulhall