The Vancouver Sun reports on an amended city bylaw in Victoria that will finally allow skateboarders the same transportation rights as bicycles, lifting a decades-old ban on skateboarding downtown and removing provisions allowing skateboards to be confiscated by authorities. In a unique twist, helmets are not required, but nighttime lights are. [Photo: Bruce Stotesbury: Times Colonist] – Thanks to Matthijs for the tip.

This cheap looking Alva complete sold for $118 on eBay a while ago. The sticker on the tail says it’s ‘made in Taiwan’. Sean Cliver thinks some company had a short-lived licensing deal with Alva to produce cheap completes, since there are only a few examples of these Taiwanese decks. Anyway, I did some research: details of this deck and more examples of Alva completes after the jump.

Mischo Erban has allegedly NGV Nextboards has set a land speed record for an electric skateboard on level ground at 109.2 kph or 67.85 mph. According to Mischo, the speed of the actual device had not maxed out yet. He did manage to melt a couple sets of wheels in the attempt. There are a lot of electric skateboards out there, most of them seem to geared towards the campus cruiser market, so this one is a bit of an outlier. One thing the admittedly have to tackle is their proprietary wheel setup, which seems like a deal breaker for anyone who would be serious enough about this type of riding to want to spend the dough to buy one.

I’ve never heard of Skika skateboards, but someone at Skika definitely knew the Vision ‘Guardian’ deck from 1984-85, designed by John Grigley. If you look very closely you can even read ‘old ghost’ on the head of the skull and there is something written on his chin too (probably ‘guardian’ like the original deck), but the pics are of very poor quality and the seller won’t send me better ones, so I have no more info on this one. You can see some amazing colorways of the original deck on disposabletheblog. I found this knock-off on leboncoin.

Tony Hawk on a vertical corkscrew run specially built in his facility, paid for by Sony Action Cam. You remember Sony Hawk… Yuk yuk yuk. I guess I overestimated his skills, I assumed this would be a piece of cake for him. What a fun line.

John Lucero is the guest on this FOSFM podcast/radio show run by Mark “Fos” Foster of Heroin Skateboards. It’s a rambling, not quite technically adept affair, but it’s still interesting to listen to, especially when they talk about the ABD obsession in skateboard videos and the industry in general. I haven’t heard this show before, so I don’t know what the regular format is. This episode is 90% talk with the occasional record spun live. The music selection is good but bland. Not to say the music is bland, but it’s kind of like a compilation of songs you’ve heard a million times in the past, or on any “New Wave” compilation, with the exception of Lucero’s own joint venture label (Black Vinyl Ltd) release of Dime Runner. and a couple other tracks.  (my talk about the music in this post takes up a lot larger percentage of this post, comparatively.) The beginning is a little slow, but stick with it. There’s a lot’s of talk about Black Label influences, Lucero’s graphic work, and of course, skateboarding. Thanks to Darren Clum for this, he’s been helping out with some Broken Kingpins action.

From the Wood Studio in North Carolina. This guy mostly makes beautiful furniture, and the occasional skateboard. The routered tops on GripCarve Longboards are supposed to negate the need for grip tape. Realistically, they look interesting and probably work in context with the situation you’d expect to see these boards. Coffee and Campus Cruiser? Yes. Downhill bombing? Not so much. – Thanks to Matthijs (who can finally see this) for the tip.

Yet another electric skateboard designed for the commuter. Movpak is different in that it folds in half and then slides into the a backpack that is attached to the board. So there’s that. If you watch the videos, you can see that the board looks flexible, possibly a little rickety due to the hinge mechanism, but it’s hard to tell for sure. The ride looks a little cramped with that backpack stuck on there. The overall range of 14 miles isn’t noticeably higher than other electric skateboards. The backpack can’t hold as much as a conventional backpack that doesn’t have a skateboard compartment. So what’s the true advantage? I suppose it’s portability, and the ability to not look like a skateboarder once you’re done traveling. You can preorder one now for $999, a price that is allegedly 50% off.

Exposure is an all girl skate contest created and run by professional multi-tasker Amelia Brodka (pictured above). This year’s edition at Encinitas Community Skate Park included street skating and Tony Hawk’s portable halfpipe. Video by Dan Bourqui.

These images were sparked by a post in the Vintage Skatemag Gallery for a board called the Chaka Zulu. I had a vague recollection of these advertisements from back in the day as being some sort of foil clad foam core deck, but I wasn’t sure. Nathan McDernott saw the post and sent in some pictures of his Galaxy board collection. He has confirmed that these are foam core boards clad in a thin sheet of aluminum. He also mentioned there were some Nash skateboards made with the same technology. Texas Rec Corporation was the manufacturer of the Galaxy skateboards, and their mailing address in Wichita Falls, Texas is about 120 miles from Nash’s location in Fort Worth. These two companies are separate entities, so the Nash models might have come about through geographical proximity and one company or the other reaching out for more business. Both Nash and Texas Rec are still in business, primarily making water sports accessories, with Nash tending towards the more active items you might ride on, while Texas Rec makes a lot of lounge chairs and life jacket related items.