The Gatorade Free Flow Tour hits the Department this Saturday July 10th. Get some before it shuts down. The Department, not the contest series. The Alliance of Action Sports puts on this tour and the Dew Tour. I saw some of the Dew Tour on TV the other day under the program name of “Action Sports.” More interesting is the fact that they aired a commercial for their online store. I don’t know if they are carrying their own inventory and doing their own fulfillment or… hold on. I just called the 800 number, and once I got past the corporate phone tree messages, the person that answered said they were from StandardBoardShop.com.

The BCSA is holding a memorial skate challenge for Tommy McGuigan called “Dawn of the Shred” on Saturday July 10th @ 1pm. The event will be held at the Eric Scott McKinley Skatepark in Corvallis and is a fundraiser for the proposed Corvallis Skate Bowl. We will have live music from Hermit, The Left Ovaries and others and a BBQ. The skate challenge includes a skate track time challenge, long ollie (ramp to ramp), longest grind in the bowl, best trick and highest ollie/hippy jump.

I love watching videos from the Far East Skate Network. They sweat skills and poop creativity. Keep watching, because just when you think you know their next move, they throw a curveball.

– Thanks to t Skate D for the tip.

More girls in catalogs with skateboards today, although these gals don’t actually ride them, what with no grip tape and all. Justice is the name of the catalog. Never seen it before, but then again I don’t have any tween daughters.

– Thanks to John Egertson and Matt Jamison for the tip.

Back to the Future stunt footage mixed with Herbie Hancock. Whrrrrrit whit wirrrrrr. Wrrrrit rrrit rrrrit whirrrrrr.

– Thanks to Adlan Farazi for the tip.

Athleta catalog cover for summer 2010. There might be other images hiding on the Athleta web site, seeing as how they are for more or less seriously atletic women, it’s not Delias, you know. Although Delias does own CCS. Those are not appropriate skate shoes young lady.

– Thanks to John Egertson for the tip.

I haven’t seen Mark do this before. It was pleasing to see. I’m sure it was more pleasing to be the one landing this. Enlarge-o-rama.

I found out about this from a non skater, you know, a civilian. Turns out the new indoor park is next door to one of those warehouses full of inflatable bounce houses for kids. My informant was there for a kid’s birthday party. I went to go check it out on a Saturday but nobody was there. The place looks like it’s still under construction. From what I can see, it’s standard indoor street course type fare. Basically a one hit back and forth affair. From my vantage point ( standing on the roof of the SUV backed up against the roll up door) it also looks like really close quarters. There’s also what appears to be long miniramp with one end bowled in. Before actually seeing this place I thought it might ease the pain of The Department shutting down, but I’m fairly certain it’s not going to fill that gap. Ripzu is admittedly run by parents of skateboarding children looking for a sterile environment for kids to skate. Not that the Department is especially gritty. The rates seem high but this place might actually survive based on the fact that a lot of parents are already going next door with little kids on a regular basis. The Ripzu site (not sure what the name means?) has some construction shots that are a lot more clear but not as recent my spy-cam shot.