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Check it, Neil Shillabeer has been added to the Streetboardshack.co.uk team! He’s been one of the UK’s up-and-coming streetboarders for years, check the streetboardshack.co.uk site for his team page!
Here’s an interview we did with Pipo Grosso. We have since lost contact. Word on what is up with Grosso Boards is hazy. Photo’s: Tilo Grupp
RP: Hey.
PG: Hey man
RP: Hang on 2 seconds, just getting a beer then we’ll start
PG: Ok, No worries!
RP: Ok here we go bro. How long have you been riding?
PG: I have been skating streetboards since 95. I also like to snowboard and surf whenever I get the chance.
Noseslide
RP: Who sponsors you?
PG: Mainly GrossO Streetboards, ?oh and Rockstar Bearings. DAM they are good ha ha. I also ride for Andesgrounds Mountainboards and GSD Skateboards.
RP: Seen. How’s the scene down there in Argentina? Many streetboarders kicking up a storm ?
PG: It´s doing better than ever! New riders show up all the time. Lots of beginners since we released the “Starter deck”?and we have boards in mostly every shopping mall all along Argentina. This is so cool!
RP: Sweet bro! It seems the scene is really taking a hold like that all over the world! Will you be selling the starter board anywhere else? Like the US or europe?
PG: Yes!! its in our plans, US and Europe for sure.
RP: Do you guys have many contests and events down there?
PG: We used to have contests like once a year, but now for sure we will organise stuff more often. We are organizing a meeting for October. Reaching people from Cities like Mendoza, Cordoba, and many more like Marcos Vazques from Comodoro Rivadabia (that is like 3000 kilometers fom Buenos Aires). There is a new wood bowl in one of the skateparks and many guys from all around Argentina want to come and skate it.
Frontside Indy
RP: Sweet bruv, I heard you travel to Brazil quite a bit. What’s the deal there? Much of a scene?
PG: Yeah its kicking off. Actualy Diego Romero is living there in “San Pablo” preaching streetboarding riding with GrossO. There are so many skateparks in brazil man, like over 1000, an incredible amounts of skatespots too.
RP: Damn nice man. Good to hear Diego is still killing it. You South American guys have produced some of the worlds top riders. You all have a unique style- I mean you, Diego, Ismael Calvo and Nicolas Spit Frega. What is it that gives you guys that style? Is it the fact that Summer is in December? Or is it just straight up the women ?
PG: It could be that, or the fact that…..yeah defintely the women…
Channel Gap to Feeble
RP: You judged many bikini contests since 2001?
PG: Ohh good olds bikini judging days..a few actually… untill I met the mother of my daughter in January2008. ??Last time I just “saw” a decent bikini contest was in Spain Mallorca in the “broken bones tour”.
RP: You made it back to Europe for the first time since 2002 last year, how was that trip?
PG: Dam!!! I´m still paying for that trip. It was excellent ?I got picked up by the Ositos crew. all packed in a 9 people Mercedes van and drove from Germany to England for Worlds 2008. and seeking for skating grounds on the way.?We skated a suuuper wide minirramp in Frankfurt then the Belgium skatepark that was sooo great. and after that meeting everyone else in the NASS was wicked..
Rodeo
RP: Tell us about Grosso?
PG: Back in late august 2001 a few months before worlds in France 2002. I thought of a flat bracket design for streetboard bindings. I made a few prototypes and designed the first “Grosso Pro Link Bindings”. I made like 15 and took them to worlds and I sold every single one I had. When I got back home many people kept asking for more. Along the years I teamed up with my actual partners and buddies on a wood laminated long skateboard manufacturing project that ended on what it is today.? Lots of hard work and grate investments. Also developing mountain boards and streteboards helped by binding sales and lots of supporting friends with motivation we started www.Grossorg.com Multiboard lab
End of Transmission
This didn’t make Issue 3, here for your reading pleasure; Big up to Alex Wheeler for the write up…
Nationals
So on a damn cold December night, myself, Simon, Dai and Josh all piled into one car and took the 4hour trip down to Revolution in Kent for 2008’s national championships, arriving some point after 11pm in a shopping complex covered with enough frost to look like it’d snowed a few inches, and we all snuck into a room in the local TravelInn. I’m sure they noticed eventually, so safe for not charging us for that! We got to sleep pretty quickly, and woke up early the next morning for a Sainsbury’s breakfast, and a day of getting to know the park. It’d been rebuilt since the last streetboarding contest there as part of the rolling dead tour in 2007, and the new ramps were a major improvement, making for a course with plenty of gaps, a kink rail, wallride and a nice launch box, even if it is a little bit narrow. We were joined a bit later on by Neil Shillabeer and Max Anderson, and absolutely no one else. The park stayed pretty much totally empty all day, so we all got a good practise in. Simon put lines all over the park, Dai cleared the box with some nice BS 360s and Neil pulled out some huge FS 3s, until he went big enough to go flying off the side of the box. After a long day, we went back to the hotel and hit up the Toby Carvery for an awesome pre nationals dinner. You should go to that place, it rules.
The next day we woke up and things took a bit of a bad turn for Simon. The flu I’d been recovering from had finally caught up with him, and although he put in a good effort to skate that day, he took the decision to judge the contest. Dai took a bit of a blow from the flu also, but decided to power through it. We drove to the skatepark and streetboarders started to pour in, including Sergi Nicolas, Gabi Munoz and Eric Brun from Spain, Thomas Kienle and Christian Kamm from Germany, as well as a whole load of UK riders old and new. After about an hours’ warm up, the contest began with the amateur street. Ole Treptow made some sweet lines and smooth grinds, Richard Bulger did some smooth manuals and airs and Tony Alvarez pulled some inspiration from an online video of Alex Morton with some rail bump-bs180s. Josh went for some big rodeos, and Dai decided the right cure for the flu is to try a massive frontflip or two.
Pro Street was next, with some crazy runs in the prelims. Andy Garret pulled a rodeo on just about everything, I did a BS 540 and a BS Rodeo, Christian Kamm went massive with a style fs Rodeo on the launch straight into a switch 540 on the following quarter, Max Anderson pulled out some big Misty 720s and Sergi nailed another siiiick run featuring several awkward gaps, including one from the parks only’s quarterpipe, about 6 foot forward and onto the wallride, qualifying in first place for the finals.
The Miniramp contest took a different guise, with the riders riding in jam format, and the weakest being knocked out every few minutes until only the winner remained. The am’s were up first, with Robert Paine riding a pretty damaged looking spluge throwing 540s and nosestalling a pipe someone had screwed into the wall. Richie Bulger tweaked some nice airs and primo slides on the coping, but Ole Treptow gained his second victory of the day, making good use of the ramps’ unusual layout with some bs tailslides and fs airs.
Pro street followed, with an action packed fast paced 15 minutes of incredible riding. Streetboarding has a huge advantage on Miniramp, being able to combine the technical aspects of inline skating with the airs only seen by skateboarders on a vert ramp, and the contest was a perfect demonstration of that. Max Anderson placed third, putting down a clean McTwist, some big 540s and an alley-oop switch fs feeble along up and across the elevator coping. Thomas and Sergi battled it out for the first place, both trying for big BS 540s, and with Thomas popping switch 360 blunt reverts like they were nothing and a list of other stupidly difficult grinds, such as BS feeble to BS nosebluntslides, it was a close call. Eventually, Sergi took the win by gapping up onto the vert wall part of the ramp into a nosestall to bs noseblunt, straight into a massive BS 360 to rock’n’roll. After the final runs, everyone piled back into the Street Course room for the Pro Street Finals. Eric Brun Landed a styled out 270 BS lip 270 out and a huge BS 720 nosegrab over the box, and Sergi tried to make an improvement on his preliminary runs, sticking his transfers, a nice gap to lip on the top rail, but failing on a switch FS blunt on a ledge and a corked BS 720 transfer. Christian Kamm dropped in next, flowing around the park with trademark speed and accuracy, pulling massive BS 180s and FS Rodeos over the launch box as well as a smith to lip to 50 on the kink rail. It was Max Anderson’s day though, as he brought out a huge Misty 720 on the launch box into a FS Rodeo 900 on the next quarterpipe, as well as a big gap to FS feeble grind on the kink rail, securing both the UK national championship and European championship in one run.
The final order of the day was the best trick contest, with each rider taking two attempts at a trick. After such a tiring day, only a few people were feeling up to the challenge, so the contest was short but gnarly. Josh Newman tried for a big Misty 720 on the box, Max tried to put down another Rodeo 900 on the quarter pipe and Sergi went for a BS 900 corkscrew transfer, before getting some of the other riders to push him down the big flatbank so he could try and clear half the skatepark again in the warm up for the second round, which resulted in annihilation of his new Pro Model Campaign. Christian Kamm landed another stonking Rodeo on the launch box, and a clean BS bluntslide all the way up the longest ledge in the park, taking first place.
With the contest over, everyone gathered on the upstairs balcony for prize giving. The final places looked like this:
International Street:
Max Anderson
Chris Kamm
Sergi Nicolas
International mini:
Sergi Nicolas
Thomas Kienle
Chris Kamm
Amateur Mini:
Olé Treptow
Richard Bulgar
Robert Paine
Amateur Street
Olé Treptow
Richie Bulgar
Tony Alverez
UK Pro Street:
Max Anderson
Andy Garret
Alex Wheeler
UK Pro Mini:
Max Anderson
Alex Wheeler
Paul Nash
UK Am Mini:
Richard Bulgar
Rob Paine
Chaz Martin
UK Am Street
Richie Bulgar
Neil Shillabeer
Chaz Martin
The top pro riders received cash prizes and the amateurs earned some much needed new boards to get practising on for next year. See you there!
This was supposed to be printed in Issue 3, but space prevented us.
THE PATENT
Streetboarding is, and has always been, under the influence. It is under the influence of a restriction set in motion many moons ago when shoulder pads & Banana Rama were just giving way to day glow & cycling shorts. It was undertaken with motives that are the polar opposite to those who are now in possession of it. I am of course talking about The Patent
The very mention of the word sends groups of boisterous Streetboarders into hushed tones and suspicious glances.
No more, let’s all come out of the patent closet.
We are getting very close to the end of the patent. I’m not going to name dates, I ain’t no toe stepper. If you really want to know, do some research. I have a mate called Google, and he knows everything, I’ll happily put you in touch, he’s always online.
If you are reading this without the faintest idea of what the patent is, I say to you, with my best Italian American accent FUGEDABOIT!
Seriously, it will save you a vast amount brain gigs to fill with new switch ups, handrail approach angles and the like.
The patent castrated Streetboarding at birth. Its seed could never be spread as it should. In the early days of the sport, the patent seriously restricted its growth, its march to man hood. We have had an interrupted evolution.
It must be made clear that I’m not, by any means, pointing fingers at Dimension Streetboards, the current patent holders. In fact they are, and should always be looked upon as, saviours of the sport.
It’s time for a quick history lesson so pipe down at the back! You will be tested later. After the collapse of Snakeboard, the patent (and Snakeboard brand) was sold to a faceless UK toy company. All they were interested in was paper, not the sport. Production of boards stopped, outlook was bleak. In 2001 myself and Brinton Gunderson visited their lair. With cat in lap and cronies surrounding him, the Boss flicked us away with a figure of £1m.
Fast forward a few years and Brinton Gunderson, Josh Mick and Victor Murstig risked personal financial ruin, bought the patent and duly set up Dimension Streetboards. Without them, we would be riding boards made from chopping boards and shopping cart castors (mmm sounds vaguely familiar, we’ll come back to them).
The patent is a curse. I know that all in the sport would gladly get rid of it. For me perfection is a place where you can pay for room with your good looks and 540 tail grab for a pint. Money is a necessary evil. One thing I know however is that many haven’t given a second thought to what the end of the patent will mean. Yeah, amazing; we can all start board companies without paying the licence fee. If you really had wanted to start a board company over the past few years, were really serious and I mean financially serious, no one would have stood in your way. Dimension and Highland would have welcomed you with open arms. In Europe, we have so much to thank Neil Thomson and Highland for. Highland have invested so much into the scene, especially in the UK. Imagine if we had six companies like Highland and Dimension. That would equal six times the investment into the growth of the sport. Highland & Dimension spend a large majority of their profit on advertising; events etc and this would be multiplied by a factor of six. Surely this can only be good for the sport. We are nowhere near saturation point. Our journey in popularity has only just begun. Any new company would not be competing against the established marques for sales, but pushing sales to those new, potential riders, who are out there in plentiful numbers. Imagine what could be done. Now I am going to spell out for you the stark and sobering reason why it needs to be done.
When the patent ends, there is no doubt in my mind that at least two, huge, companies will start producing boards, it’s inevitable. My reason is, in the past few years, there have been many boards on the market that resemble ours, but different enough to evade the patent. No question, they wanted to produce streetboards, but didn’t want to get a licence. Now scour the streetboarding.com forum, and read all the posts we have had about “How come those boards have sold millions, and we’ve sold a fraction of that.” The reason is that those behind those boards are in it for the money. They had a lot of it to spend on marketing, have sold their quotas, reaped their profit, and are now on the search for their next quick buck.
Take one guess at what “product” is next in their sights.
They could easily squash every bit of respect that we have spent the last ten years in gaining with one pinstripe, corporate hellfire cheque.
So in conclusion, what must we do? Firstly, we have to hope that at least one of these big spenders realises that the boards of our backbone companies are far superior than anything they could ever come up with, thus investing in companies that will then spend any profits on growing what we are all about, the sport of Streetboarding.
Finally, we need to ready ourselves. We need to march buff chested into the future. We need to make the voice of our scene so loud that no matter what cheesy, fad ridden marketing campaign they crap out, we cut through it with double backflips, 450 blunts and clean stomped 20 sets.
We thought it would be fun to test your knowledge of the history of the sport. From time to time we’ll be posting these up, just a bit of fun…
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Check our boy from Argentina killing it, Especially the 720 up the London Gap, Brrrrap! Streetboarding inspiration….
Marcos Vasquez - Red Pen Streetboard Magazine from Red Pen Streetboard Magazine on Vimeo.
Marcos Vasquez - Red Pen Streetboard Magazine from Red Pen Streetboard Magazine on Vimeo.
Colin Horan of Day One Brand does it again with this lil edit of the UK’s Streetboard Maestro Josh Newman.
An evening with Josh Newman… from Colin Horan on Vimeo.
Red Pen Streetboard Magazine continues it’s summer expedition around South America with the legendary Argentinian Streetboard film maker - Diego Romero!
RP: Hey Diego, how you doing?
DR: I’m cool, now living in Brazil and working alot, but also skating tons as always…
RP: Sweet man, you’ve been off the radar for a while now, what have you been up to?
DR: Well, after worlds 2003 I was still doing a lot for the streetboard scene, making the RoCa boards and the first South American champs in 2004 inside a big event in Argentina, but you know streetboarding is something we do because we love, and in my case I could’t live out of it so since then I’ve been more focused on my work as film maker (camera and editing) my other passion besides streetboarding.
Laid out Stall
RP: Ofcourse man, hopefully we will be able to soon. So what brought you to brasil? What area are you in?
DR: I’m now living in Sao Paulo, Brazil, came here after falling in love with a sweet brazilian girl that i’m engaged with, but also because it’s place that I like a lot, tons of skateparks, lots of oportunities for my work as film maker and super fun people, but i still go to Buenos Aires a lot, my family, friends and Dragones are all there so I miss them a lot…
Indy
RP: What’s up with the Dragones Valodores. You still flying?
DR: Man, Dragones Voladores is not only a streetboard team that organize all the streetboard events in Argentina, most of all we are a big group of super close friends, so close that I had to tattoo our logo on my back, cause I know i can always count on those guys and will always streetboard! We all think the same way, so you’ll still hear about the Dragones. Dragones Voladores will always be flying!!! Even tho sometimes too high!! Hahahha
Back Smith
RP: That’s what it’s about bro. What about elevate video magazine, its been a fair few years since the last one. tell us the concept of the whole video for all the new riders out there- give them a history lesson.
DR: Yea, it’s been a long time since E03, but that doesn’t mean it’s gone, on the contrary, since worlds 2003 I have been filming a lot of streetboarding where ever I go, so all the streetboard homies can wait for the next elevate video really soon… let’s remember the good times of elevate video magazine, here we go!
Elevate came to me as a great concept to me, it is the same word in English and Spanish, it means the same on both languages and I love that meaning, always go high, progress, evolution, elevate! That’s what I want for streetboarding…
The first video was done in 2001 and it was called “Patineta Banana”, but this first one was directed by Juan Saenz Valiente, (creator of all the animations of the dragones and even shadow monkeys, incredible Streetboarder, cartoonist and Dragon Volador of course). Juan has been my friend since I exist on this world and I learned a lot from working together with him on this first elevate video…
The second Elevate video was called Around the world (2002), and this was my very first full creation, I love this video, it showed all my trips from worlds 2000 in Utah (where i bought my first DV camera) my first trip to europe including the True Skool tour in 2001, lots of spain footage and finishing with worlds 2001 in argentina, this video was released on a premiere in worlds 2002 in Nantes
Blunt
RP: That video was an absolute classic
DR: Yeah it was a success, distribution in Europe was done by Ositos and I see that video as a great time for Streetboarding.
RP: It really captures the feeling of the time.
DR: Thanks bro! I love that video, it gives me such good memories. Like the True Skool tour 2001, it was epic! We need to do that again! Motorhome tour comin soon babe!!! Anyway, back to our history lesson…
E03 was the third but not the last Elevate video (4… is coming soon…) and it showed footage from worlds 2002 in France to Germany and Spain where I skated with the top guys such as Sergi, Gabi, Max Maier, Thomas K, Chris Kamm and many more killing it everywhere, this video had a super strong editing process, tons of great friends and professionals helped me there, even with original music…
This video was premiered at worlds 2003 in California and I love it too, all the video i make are a part of my life and this next one will be a big part, just think about it, been filming from 2003 to 2009 non stop, even though I didn’t go to Europe or USA Streetboarding is big in South America and you will see on this next video…
Back Noseslide
RP: When can we expect part 4? What riders will it feature?
DR: Wow, expect some crazy edit from worlds 2003 including Gabi’s backflip 5050 (WOW), South American champs in 2004, Argentinian bowl competition in 2006, Chilean mini ramp competition, Brazil scene and tons of street and park riding including riders: Nicolas Frega (Spit), Ismael Calvo, Oli, Harry and Dudu from Chile, Pipo Grosso, Juan Saenz Valiente, Uli, Negro, Alvaro, Ale, Javi Oliva…and Marcos Vasques from Argentina and Pedro Santana and Junior from Brazil also from this world is me Diego Romero, hehe
RP: Ha ha ha - You can’t forget him ! I can’t wait, in fact I really want to watch Around the World now, but don’t have VCR. Have you any plans to release the originals on DVD or as a Digital download?
DR: hahaha, I will do an Elevate classics DVD for the release of this new video so when we meet next time you can watch all this videos in a good TV.
Tweak
RP: Now that’s what i’m talking about. Moving on, how is Brasil? Are there any Streeboarders there?
DR: Brazil is such a big country dude! since I moved here I’ve been promoting Streetboarding a lot, skateboarding is really strong here and that is great because there are hundreds of skateparks and also skaters here are really open minded so people are looking to our sport with respect. The guys that are really pushing the sport here are Pedro and Junior and they skate since 95/98 on a snakeboards, maybe you’ve seen Junior on old Snakeboard posters or comercials from snake brazil, he skated with Kelly Dean and Peter Nye a long time ago and Pedro is the pioneer of streetboarding he was the first one to get a streetboard in brazil, so this 2 guys deserve a lot of respect. Not only for their promotion of our sport but most of all because they kill it!!!
RP: How do you like the lastest streetboarding films? What’s your opinion?
DR: I think streetboarding right now is going a lot to the street, I like that, but I also like park riding a lot and in my opinion streetboarding has more potential on ramps. I like the Caution videos a lot.
RP: Do you have any advice for any budding film makers out there?
DR: Sure bro! Streetboarding is an excellent combination with film making, if you are a good rider and good cameraman the combination of both is awsome, follow shots are something that are much better on a Streetboard, I’d reccomend to people to always see other videos, references are great to improve your purpose, try always different lenses, camera movements, using a tripod sometimes is good. Most of all as like on a streetboard, try to put your own style on your video, also editing is really important too so after a good footage comes a good time of work on the computer. It’s always cool to film thinking on your edit, that’s what I try to do always. Studying is good sometimes but experience and practice is what count the most for me. So go out there, Streetboard and film!
RP: Any shouts? Last words?
DR: LET’S ELEVATE STREETBOARDING !!! Big hug to all the streetboard family everywhere in the world!
