Skaters in London are fighting to save the legendary and historical spot known as Southbank. The Southbank Centre wants to build retail shops to help fund some other renovations and redevelopment. The plan calls for building a nearby skate spot that would actually be 10% larger than the existing floor plan, but the community of skateboarders aren’t having it. Ironically, Southbank Centre management and supporters of the new development are accusing the skateboard community of bullying the public image of Southbank Centre through manipulation of the press and PR. There are some great quotes an article in Metro.

– Photo credits, the senior Mrs Kilwag. Yes, my mom is in London. She even signed the petition.

Man, I just hate those popsicle stick shaped boards, they’ve got no shape and no style. Mumble, grumble. Nothing you can do will make your popsicle skateboard worth remembering. Unless…

This is an old photo from an Element Eden art board show in Toronto called Smile on Your Brother. Amber B’s “Neo Popsicle” is a triple entendre – popsicles, popsicle stick shaped skateboards, and Neapolitan ice cream. I’m smiling even though I’d much prefer the traditional bomb pop. 2009???? Can you tell that I’m clicking “publish” on some old drafts?

[Source: Swellblog]

I found Stoic skate zine on in the portfolio of Illustrator Alex Gorodskoy while looking for something that was probably screen printing related. It’s a killer looking zine with nary a traditional photograph in it, instead they have been replaced by drawings of photos, or constructions. You can see the whole issue on.. Issu. Every other time I’ve been to Issu lately, their server seems to be overloaded. So you might have to check back if it won’t load immediately.

I met a guy lurking outside of the Street League contest in Portland. He said he could show me something I hadn’t seen before. I told him “Not, here. Not now, especially with my kids present.” No, no… I took a glance and said “I don’t know man, I’ve seen hubcaps on skateboards before.” But then I took a closer look, and he explained that these were bearing covers. If you look closely, you can see that these are indeed unlike any other bearing cover that you’ve seen. I’m still unclear as to whether Sk8rNutz are a complete assembly that include the bearings, but they are definitely more useful than Sk8nutz. Sk8rNutz vs. Sk8Nutz, a subtle distinction in product names, but not in product. If you are going to spend a hundred dollars or more on ceramic bearings, these look like they might do a good job of protecting your investment.

Adidas Skateboarding is celebrating 15 years of having Mark Gonzales on the team with a video featuring photogs and videogs waxing nostalgic about him and the of course, a whole lot of skateboarding. As you should expect, it’s highly entertaining. Here’s to another 15 years of the Cult of Gonzales.

Nike SB is now one of the major sponsors of Street League Skateboarding. Next stop is Portland, Oregon this Sunday. Nike’s team put on a little demo yesterday at the world headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon. This morning this big skateboard was parked out back.

A few shots of the event after the turn.

Rip Skates was a (crappy) budget brand from Surrey Skateboards, a skateshop in the UK that exists since 1977. The shop in Surrey closed down, but you can still visit them online and buy their new stuff or check out the cool pictures of the good old days. The graphic on this deck looks great, the ‘monster clown’  killing the vert skater and destroying his ramp reminds me of some of the old Deathbox designs. Was it a reference to the death of vert in the late 80’s? Anyway, it was very unlikely that you would have become a good street skater with this complete! For sale on Gumtree for £5.

The 3rd annual Mt Tabor Challenge is this Sunday in Portland, Oregon. Open class requires an “old school” tuck. There’s also classes for Masters, Groms, and bikes (no pedaling). Details on PDX Downhill. If you’re not familiar with Mt. Tabor, it’s a fairly mellow but fun closed route that isn’t very technically challenging, unless you start at the very top and have to dodge pedestrians and cars after threading the needle (gap between gate and pole) to pass through the parking lot at the top third of the course. Even if you start lower, you can still get going fast enough to get hurt though. Full flyer and illustration of the tuck after the jump, plus bonus footage of last year’s event courtesy of KC. Yes, there is a Major Media event happening the same day.

Web host issues. Ebay Watch and GVK are affected/unavailable in the mean time. Working to get this resolved. Hopefully back soon.

UPDATE: Everything is as it should be. Please leave a comment here if you something isn’t working for you. Thanks for your patience.

In June there were (at least) 2 fake Brand-X decks for sale. The left one is a copy of a 1986 Sean Goff model that was designed by Steve Krajewski, it even says ‘Sean Goff model’ on the top right. The right one was based on the 1987 XEX-model by Bernie Tostenson. It’s actually the same like the one from last month, only in another colourway and I think it could have been made from another company  too, because the design looks slightly different.