S.E.D.J. Day 29 - Day of Falling Over at Stockwell

What a perfect day for falling over.  If you ride a skateboard through the winter there is a temperature barrier that once colder than this arbitrary threshold, slams hurt at least 25% more than at warmer temperatures and concrete is 10% harder. FACT!

Johners on a One Foot Manual Beer-Run

Zombie after a nice impersonation of a sack of spuds.

Weirdly it seems you are also more likely to fall over, at least that was the evidence gathered from Day 29 of Skate Every Day in January at the hallowed Stockwell Skatepark.  It seemed like everyone was hitting the deck, and some were awesome. So much so that I missed one of Alex's because I was picking myself up off the floor at the time.  It wasn't quite carnage but more a skateboarding comedy of errors and I'm pretty sure nobody got hurt, badly I mean.

Jack tweaking over the Sausage

Zombie popping EARLY!!

The thing that struck me on my ride home was just how much worse it could have been.  I had at least two close calls with Alex, 2 with Martyn, 1 with Johners, Josh almost got me twice and Zombie only the once, it was like someone had sent the Red Arrows up pissed and blindfolded. The rest of the tumbles were self inflicted mishaps that happen when your having fun on your skateboard.

Johners Sound System, no D'n'B, alright?

 Between all the collisions and rolling around on the floor everyone seemed to be having a good laugh.  The crew at the park was a quality collection with appearances from types such as Johners, Zombie Stu, Will, Alex, Martyn, Ewen B. , Josh, Jack, Pete H., Jamie "Horse Zine" Hall and others.. and we even had food laid on buy Johners and Dave and helpers; BBQ's in January are awesome, if only for the ambient heat that's available if you hang out chatting with the chef.

Will just making sure everyone is behaving.

Martyn at High-Speed and Zombie going Low-Brow.

I had a great day down at Stockwell for Day 29, the last weekend day of SEDJ.  Great people to skate with thanks to Zombie for making the trip specially; and to everyone else who came down to help make Day 29 a really fun skate.

Day 30 is going to be the last of the Lunch-time Smash'n'Grabs: it's another Meanwhile Gardens if dry and Meanwhile II if wet.  I'll be at one of those places at 1.15pm. 

[LIALC]  

S.E.D.J. Day 27 - A Return to The South Bank

I'm putting Day 26 behind me and moving on.  Parking my bike on SOHO square was the first step in avoiding any repeat performance of getting blocked in. Knowing that I had to pop over the rive to the South Bank was another source confidence that Day 27 of SEDJ would go off without a hitch. Today was going to be a bit of a re-union with one of my oldest mates Howie.  We used to skate together back when we were about 14 onwards and the South Bank was always the first spot one on our regular trips to London with the rest of the Wokingham crew.  So skating there with Howie again, even for half an hour, was going to be good lunch break.

You'd be forgiven for thinking that this is the bit were I start telling you how it all went wrong and how I'm on the verge of murdering the bastards responsible.. but not this time.

Howie sampling the new-ish offerings

 Ten minutes over Westminster Bridge and I'm underneath the Royal Festival Hall, Howie is already there and Martyn turns up seconds after I've said hello to H.  Bikes locked, helmets and jackets stashed and off we go.  I was all about the banks, they're are definitely my favourite thing about what is left of the original undercroft.  Martyn was hitting the blocks and Howie was sharing it out all over the place.  We were all loving having the undercroft almost to ourselves with only another four guys skating and was starting to bring back memories of the first time we ollied the seven, not that I was bout to throw myself down them on this visit.

Martyn shows how nose-manuals should be done.

As with all these lunch time skates it was all over too quickly but after this there is only one left on Monday so I could handle going back to work: plus the fact I was going to be skating with Howie again on Day 28 at Tolworth.  Thanks to Howie and Martyn for coming out and keeping me company.

[LIALC]

S.E.D.J. Day 22 - South London Street Skating Eutopia.

I don't see myself as a worrier.  I'm generally pretty good at figuring out the stuff that is out of my control and letting fate or the universe or whatever, sort things out.  Planning where to skate over the last three weeks has affected my sleep, being able to squeeze in the lunch-time skates has definitely affected my heart rate and blood pressure.  Now that I'm only 9 nine days away from the end of Skate Every Day in January I was starting to get a bit obsessive. As with many things in life, sometimes things just happen for a reason. Like today.

We had no real plan other than meet up at Elephant and Castle and go find some street spots. On my ride to E&C the sky looked a little dark and for a split second I thought rain was going to stop play but that feeling passed.  As soon as I hooked up with Adam, Ivan, Jamie, Alex and Martyn, any stress-head tendencies disappeared and all I had to worry about was staying on my board, shooting some crappy photos, missing Alex's make on his blunt-slide transfer to grind while on filming duty and laughing a lot.

Martyn going high at E&C wall.

Ivan got the grind, but preferred this shot.

This was the second time Alex made this bluntslide-transfer to 5-0 down the corner.

Refreshment break.

I don't really know what to say about this shot.

Johners' frontside bluntslide transfer close-up.

Alex Wallies over.

Work continues on Jamie's Planking Documentary.

Johners styling out his Front-Rock pop-out.

A blurry compact digital shot of Martyn's Front board.

You don't need a blow by blow account of what happened.  It's getting late, I'm completely done-in and writing this is sapping the very last remnants of energy from my brain.  Let's just say that Day 22 raised the bar.  Skating a real street spot that was so much more fun than it originally suggested and doing it with some of the best people out there.

Day 23 is going back to Stockwell.  It's an after work visit this time, from 6.30pm to 7.30pm. If you are around I'll hopefully see you there.

[LIALC]

S.E.D.J. Day 13 - Clapham Common and The Jaws of Defeat.

I knew it.  I deliberately didn't mention anything about today's date in any of the emails or yesterday's post.  Did it do any good in avoiding the curse of Friday the 13th? Did it Fuck!!

Martyn had cycled from Burmondsey to come and skate this brand new park, so new the fucking thing isn't even finished,and was just as pissed off as I was when we were met by contractors still working on the park and refusing us entry to skate.

The as yet unfinished Clapham Common Skatepark.

It had to happen at some point and I think 12 days straight without any real hiccups is good going. Thank Christ there was another option open to us.  I was all set to go a bit fiery-headed about the whole situation but Martyn kindly reminded me that the paddling pool used to be the only spot in this area.  So a two minute walk over the common and we had waxed painted curbs and a tiny little D.I.Y. quarter to mess about on.  The clock was ticking.

A bit of minimalist D.I.Y.

The concrete that had been thrown up against the surrounding wall was barely skateable but I gave it a go anyway.  Mostly it was a curb session in amazing almost spring-like conditions. A good covering of leaf litter and tiny twigs made for plenty of wheel-jams which started to get  almost comical after a while, always coming just half a second before you are about to pop up onto the curb.

Martyn styles out a 50-50 at the paddling pool.

Both Martyn and i kept positive, dug deep for bit of the old Dunkirk spirit and managed to snatch victory from the Jaws of and unfinished concrete skatepark.  The word from the guys working there is that it opens this weekend, so maybe one day next week I'll actually make it happen.  For Day 13 it's still ticked, just not in the way I'd planned.  Huge thanks to Martyn for making a big effort to come and skate today.

Tomorrow is Day 14 and a return visit to Tollworth.  If you believe what people say there should be a few of us here tomorrow, from 12.00 for bout an hour and half.  If you're in the area get down there.

[LIALC]

S.E.D.J. Day 5 - White Grounds - The Forgotten Park

Admittedly by that I mean that I'd forgotten it was still there.  Mainly due to the fact that every time I've been there it's been locked up, forcing us to climb over the fence.  Of course there are advantages to that, you get the place to yourself.

Today I was accompanied by Martyn Thomas who took time out out from running his business to come and have a half hour skate with a deluded mate. After scaling the fence it was soon apparent that we'd made a classic mistake and arrived without any clean-up equipment, and to be honest we wouldn't have needed much, just something to clean up the puddles at the bottom of most of the banks.

We both tried riding just riding through them but the concrete is here is nice ans smooth and so deadly when wet. That left us with the option of skating around the water, we didn't really have time to waste on mopping up anyway.

I'd ridden over from Soho on the motorbike in about 15 minutes and needed to get back roughly on the hour so it was half an our of skating what we could. For the first Smash'n'Grab session of Skate Every Day in January (S.E.D.J.) I was happy.  I had a good friend to skate with and I figured out a few things that will get me out of the office and back a bit more smoothly next time. 

Another bonus was rediscovering the White Grounds, next time I'll just throw a copy of the metro in my bag and we'll be rocking. It's actually a great littel park with quirky lines and some properly challenging bits.  Who knows, maybe this one will last beyond S.E.D.J., I hope so. Thanks to Martyn for suggesting the park and heading out to skate too.

 

Tomorrow is another Smash'n'Grab, this time it's Victoria Park to hook up with Kev McKeon and any of you lot who fancy heading down for a skate at about 1.15PM? Com on, have a lunch-time skate, it's great for your digestion.

[LIALC]