Although there hasn't been as much streetboarding as I would like - there has been a lot of preparation going on, in time for the summer.
Our bungalow is coming on in leaps-and-bounds - internally the redecoration is virtually complete and we are well on the way to being able to put up friends, guests and ravelling streetboard teams!
In the high winds experienced earlier last month, we took some experimental photos down at Kings Park skatepark.
Playing with lighting and camera settings, we got a good idea of what will work - unfortunately the darkness meant that even with powerful flashes, blurring was inevitable
Good weather has proved great for mountain biking - my friend Jon Pike and I have been hitting the downhill trails on St.Catherines Hill over by Christchurch. It's quite enough to scare the wits out of me, I can tell you...
Found a lovely rail between Bournemouth and Poole while riding - long, steep, grass behind. Perfect! Gonna have to hit this up this summer...
More news on this soon! Enjoy the sunny weather ;)
friday 30th april
Hey! The sun is shining!
Time to sit in and document has been short - we've been out skating!
Enjoy "January Jibbing" - a short edit of our snowboarding antics across January in the UK and Chamonix...
Better late than never - enjoy! ;)
tuesday 9th march
Been out of action for the last month, so taken time out to get the Chamonix 2010 together. Enjoy!
Been working on our house - got the floor down, and the walls will be done soon - gonna be a great HQ for the summer.
Hmmmm, the sun's out...
january shredfest
January has been all about the snow! And as you know, snow means snowboarding...
For a second year running, it has snowed in the UK, and this co-incided with a large windfall of snow from the BIC icerink - so after much jib-spotting and location research, I decided to do another wallride.
My good friend Sonia Shaw needed some photos for her Animal portfolio, so Sonia, her boyfriend Mark and I spent 7 hours building a wallride in Bournemouth Memorial Gardens - in a race against time to ride it before the police came...
Our luck held - the weather was good, the police were absent - and Animal sports photographer Robin Kitchin spent 2 hours taking photos and video of the wallride.
I can't show you Sonia's photos, but here are mine:
We were thoroughly knackered by the end of it, having spent 13 hours building, riding, and breaking it up - but it was a great day and the photos speak for themselves...
The next week - more snow - in the shape of a 2 week trip to Chamonix.
The first week was spent with my mum, hooking up with Flipside rider Spal and friends who were in town that week - and then our friends Rosco, Greg and his housemate (another) Sonia for the second week...
The snow was perfect - a constant cycle of 2 days snowing, then 3 days blue skies! We arrived just after it had snowed, and enjoyed fresh powder lines for 2 weeks straight - and you can't ask for better than that ;)
We spent much of the time finding powder in the gulleys, and tree-runs around the Chamonix valley, and made occasional forays into the park - although to be fair, much less park action took place this year, purely because it would have been criminal to miss the powder-riding opportunities!
But, ultimately, all good things come to an end - and we had to return to the UK.
I came back to the unwelcome prospect of an operation - so am currently convalescing and nursing a nasty 4cm x 2cm open wound. Yow :(
No streetboarding for me for a while - but we will see how things go...
december retrospective
December is the month when thing go into stasis... Not entirely however, as the big annual event in the UK streetboarding calendar - the UK Streetboard Championships - was held in St.Albans skate park.
A combination of a strong dislike for this park, and feeling rough after a skinfull the previous night meant that I was destined for judging - and Adam and I resumed our positions as professional judges (again! ;) for the event.
Max Anderson blew everyone away - pulling massive spins and flips so high that it culminated with him hitting the warehouse roof beams inverted(!), before wisely calling it a day. That boy just keeps pushing the boundarys... :o0
A week or two later, the usual suspects - Josh, Paul, Colin and I - took a trip to Corby to get some last skating in before christmas.
The boys spent most of their time working the midi ram, while I practised backside rodeos. Those resi-ramps are a gods-end...
News of two skateparks - looks like the Bournemouth skatepark planned for the memorial gardens under the flyovers may well be going ahead, and apparently Romsey is to get an indoor park! Typical! Nothing for ages, then 2 covered facilities at once..!
So Christmas, blah, New Year, blah - hope everyone had a good time..?
Upcoming news: snowboarding in January, in more ways than one - wait and tune in next time... Mwa Ha Ha Haaaa..! ;)
newsflash!
We are moving! *excitement* ;)
Short delay while broadband is out, until normal service is resumed - about 4 weeks time - but rest assured we will be comin' back to ya with fresh streetboarding action straight from the 2009 UK Streetboarding Nationals - only 4 short days away!
