photos: Anthony Smallwood

If you don’t know what the Rock Creek Park longboard picnics in Washington D.C. are then here’s the low down. Chris “Ono” Buono, who rides for tutone and is the stoke machine of the DC area, wanted to put on an event in D.C. to get people stoked. He got minimal response from potential sponsors so he said FUCK IT and posted a date and said come freeride. His girlfriend and her mom quickly jumped in to say they would bring some food. That first picnic was a good start with a decent turnout, great weather until a torrential downpour that we skated through anyway. Since then Chris has held a picnic almost every month until winter set in. Now that the weather has turned around and the season is starting he brought back the picnics this past weekend to kick off the 2011 season and get kids stoked out.

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If you want to read about what happened at the Longboard Expo go to any other site to get the play by play. Other places ate it up and fed you constant updates. I’ll quickly tell you the three or four things that stood out to me that were rad: 1) Gullwing and how Mercado is bringing it back, 2) Earthwing’s new High Tailer because it’s just plain bad ass and one of the manliest skateboards out there, 3) Comet’s new graphics for 2011, the line up just looks sick and 4) Seeing Ian Comishin bringing KebbeK back big time.

I didn’t stay too long, it was crowded and after making rounds to companies I wanted to check out and some intense jungle juice, Pat Schep, Nino and myself decided we’d had enough and it was time to go shred Chelsea Pier. Talking about skateboarding is not skateboarding and we wanted the real thing, no bullshit. The rest of the day sums up my feelings on skating versus the vibe that I get from certain media outlets, forums and events.

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Photos: Blair Caldwell

The fourth New Jersey Slide Jam went off without a hitch this past weekend, which I was amazed about. I got up at 6am and was on the road by 6:30 somehow getting to the park where we met up on time. I haven’t done that in so long, it’s so much easier when you’re not in a group of skaters but just a single person. It was windy and a bit cold when I got out of my car and saw Andriy with a big smile come running up. There weren’t a lot of people there yet but by 11 we had a big crowd of at least 30 people.

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ONO BUONO here with a little recap of the most stoke filled longboard show on the east coast and the first of its kind in Baltimore! AVE. Skate shop! It’s been open for a few months, but Billy just put a team together, and this is what we did within a week of meeting up for our first riders meeting!  There’s no hesitation in the shop. IT’S RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW, and IT’S ONLY GETTING BIGGER FROM HERE! February 4, they threw their first, “First Friday” party and it was ROCKIN!!!

First Friday night at 8! Be there!  Alley and I showed up an hour before the band got started.  In a matter of minutes the shop went from Billy, some of the team members and the band to a packed house. There was free beer and wine for the 21 and up, stoked skaters and some locals from off the street wanting to check out some new fun.

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The NOVA Nontest seemed pretty doomed from the start. The day it was supposed to go down it snowed and the road would not have been fun to ride, it would have been about who could just stay on their board. Then this weekend when it finally happened we got busted twice and skated three different hills throughout the day.

I got there an hour early to scope out the park and direct people where to go and was surprised to see the Fountainhead park gates open. The original hill was supposed to be a closed road in a park but there was tons of activity amongst park rangers and mountain bikers.  I think a handful of people got a run or two in before we were asked to leave. Determined to get the event off, we moved the crowd of thirty or more people to Occuaquan Park and had a couple awesome massive pack runs down the mile long, mellow down hill. It was actually pretty insane seeing that many people pack riding, tons of kids wobbling on the wavy pavement although it’s only maybe 30mph, all the downhill guys blasting through the pack pushing people out of the way, playing chicken with cars because you have groms on the right of you that you can’t push out of the way for fear of causing a pile up.

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It’s been a long time since I’ve done any sliding and an even longer time since I’d been to a slide jam. I’d mostly just been going fast or skating the nearest concrete park, getting some round wall on. This event got me so stoked on longboarding and on my area again though. Tyler Weaver threw down hard bringing a good turnout to his hill in Ashburn.

Pat Schep was staying at my house for the night on his way home to South Carolina so we got up and hit the skatepark and got to the hill a little late. It was about an hour late actually and were stoked to see a group waiting at the top to take a run as well as another group walking back up the hill, kids with blankets spectating and others taking pictures and video. As we started walking up the hill to meet everyone and shake off the cobwebs we saw a couple kids come blasting down the hill throwing some big soft wheel stand up slides and were immediately blown away. We had no clue who anyone was and a bunch of people were ripping. We were seriously expecting a bunch of douche bag, suburban kids that sit on silverfish all day and can hardly skate.

After a bunch of party runs and everyone having a good time a cone got brought out and Pat said longest stand up slide contest. I saw so many kids eat it pushing past their comfort levels. I saw Pat EAT IT at his normal comfort level too. I wasn’t skating with a helmet because it was so damn cold but finally finagled one over my hat after seeing a couple people go down and knowing how fast I wanted to go.

The kid we decided won was Nathan Bergel and I don’t think anyone really knew him before that day, which is pretty awesome. It’s always incredible when people come out of the woodwork and shred. Congrats to him and everyone else that got something.

All in all this was a great time and completely rebuilt my spirit and love for longboarding. I come from the time when longboarders were few and far between and if you ran into another you stopped and hung out. Now there’s a million little fuckers riding around on longboards that would rather tell you to fuck yourself then have a session with you and that gets me down sometimes. It gets me kinda warm and fuzzy to know that there’s a ton of local kids getting gnarly and that there’s plenty of new people to skate with now.  If you weren’t there you missed out and should come to the next slide jam on January 8^th. It’s cold as balls but at least we have some to be out skating in said cold!

Photos: Crystal Graves

The last time the race in Bainbridge, Ohio happened it was one month before I started getting seriously into downhill skating. It was an IGSA World Cup event and I remember seeing ridiculous speeds being clocked on the hill as well as some good carnage in the right hand 90. I got so excited to try and attend the event the following year in 2007 but it never happened and seemingly went the way of the Dodo. The east also lost Top Challenge and Munnsville, which were some of the most well attended and long running races in the world. Thanks to Dan Oliver though we got Bainbridge back this year under the new name of Soldiers of Downhill. With the help of Pennsylvania natives Jamie Reis and Sean Graves this event went smoothly and efficiently which for the first time running a race is really impressive to me. You can’t keep everyone happy all the time but I don’t think a single person left without a tired smile.

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The High View outlaw race in Burlington, Vermont was one of the best races this year on the East Coast and if you missed it you messed up. I messed up, but by staying home I saved enough money to make it to the Soldiers of Downhill race in Bainbridge, Ohio on the 16 and 17, which I encourage everyone in the east to attend since it is the only major closed road event this side of the U.S. this year. But this article is about Vermont, and I’ve been talking to Tom Wilson, one of the organizers, about how it all went down and it went down big!

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Recap – Sean Graves

Photos – Crystal Graves (what a tag team huh?)

The 2nd Annual Clearfield Downhill Event, themed this year as the Mustache Ride Derby, was a perfect success.  Riders from all over the east coast met up in central Pennsylvania, along with 4 Canadians that made the trip.  The event drew in 29 racers, roughly a dozen other skaters and at least that many spectators, all with steezy mustaches to show.

The weekend events started late Friday night when “The Canadians” arrived in Clearfield close to midnight.  We spent a few hours hanging out and had a nice carpet slide session.  Dmitri threw down some sick 360 shuvits, while Matt K worked on some new moves yet to be named, on a few naked decks.  I think carpet sliding is going to be the next big thing.  For those looking to start, a nice plush carpet works better than and area rug.

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1st dmirti
2nd matt k
3rd sean
4th ludo
5th rob m
6th pat s
7th wayne p
8th andrew b

Looks like everyone had a great time. Thanks to all the sponsors!