I can’t get away from my wasteful lust for old-growth maple veneers. I’ve been skating for too many years and am set in my ways. But my ever aging and growing inner-nerd can’t help but be intrigued by the innovations of using alternative materials to make skateboards. Aluminum boards have been around forever, but boards like Corbus Boards are all together something new. Made to be a functional piece of industrial art, these boards are meant to be ridden claims Corbus. A runaway board could make one of these metal monsters an ankle guillotine. Images via Corbus, link thanks to Make

I came across this during an image search for a post on the Screaming Hand for my skatecomics site. This guy posted about it and points to AK37 as the source. I couldn’t find it on their site though. I wonder if they got a C&D from SantaCruz. They have some pretty cool designs which I would totally wear if I was a girl! Hmmm, they might make good presents for girls.

Collectors are probably bummed, but guys who just want to ride their favorite old boards again will be stoked, as long those old boards are some of these Santa Cruz re-issues slated to ship in August. These images are from SoCal Skateshop. Get in line now, these will likely sell out fast, and then we can all comment on the ridiculous prices the reissues fetch on eBay. Olson is always mentioning how he didn’t get paid by Santa Cruz in interviews. They must have reached an agreement. Also, I think this pushes Duane Peters over the top as the guy with the most simultaneous decks out on different companies, a record that might have been previously held by Hosoi.

I was checking out the Black Label web site (See, those promotional tours really work!) when I came across something I think I remember seeing in Transworld Business that I had meant to comment on. This is the Blackhole series of “anti-wheelbite construction” decks from Black Label, and if I’m not mistaken, those are a modern take on good old fashioned wheel wells. I don’t know about you, but I miss wheel wells. On every deck I ride I get little burn spots from wheel bite. I don’t really worry about slamming from wheel bite, I think it’s only happened to me once in the last five years. It’s more of an aesthetic thing really. I just like the way wheel wells look. This new version of wheel wells doesn’t quite do it for me though. A few longboard companies have been doing a more extreme version of this for years actually. The wells actually punch through the entire board resulting in a fully functional but goofy look. (Can’t find one the damned things online when I need it.) So actually, this post should have been titled “The return of the wheel well to contemporary skateboards.” I wonder how these…

I like to geek out on multiple levels. The SkateDrive allows me to (over)spend money on two of my favorite areas of interest at once, computers and skateboarding. These are USB memory drives that come in the shape of skateboards with Santa Cruz logos. So you can put a bunch of skate rock MP3s on the drive and use it as a fingerboard when it’s not plugged in. Of course, you’ll pay a premium price for dual use “functionality.” In fact, it will cost you more than if you were to buy a 2GB memory stick and a fingerboard packaged separately, which hardly seems right. They must have done their market research on this one. I am a skateboarder who is smart enough to know how to use a computer, but dumb enough to pay an absurd amount of money for a skateboard shaped flash drive. – Thanks to Dr Brad for the tip.

If you think Tony Hawk has the market cornered on skateboarding birthday paraphernalia, well, he does. but there’s always room at the top… of the cake. Har, har. Shoot me.

Tracker has reissues of a couple decks stocked in new colorways. The GSD model and a Lester Kasai. That’s great and all, but what about Dan Wilkes? And while we’re at it, they should do a a proper Kent Watson model. Me, I’m waiting for the Tracker Man watch reissues.(No, I’m not.) Available at Tracker Trucks. I hope those boards turn… Yes, I’m phoning it in today.

So here’s the why I did it. Not my typical GVK but some of my most difficult work. It took forever to put this thing together. I don’t know if it is even done but I am sick of working on it. Just remember, I did it for you my fan. Let me know what you think. Posse out.

Hey look, I’m not making this stuff up. This is a system for skateboard wheels that consists of an aluminum hub with interchangeable urethane treads. It dates back to around 2003 or so, possibly a little bit earlier. I believe they were made by Dragonetti, although I could be wrong. If not, I think it was some similar sounding name with an Italian sounding suffix. These pictures are from a used set, and I neglected to clean out the skatepark grime that accumulated on them, but you get the idea. The aluminum hub was actually a two piece fabrication. Pressure from the axle nut was supposed to compress the hub against the inner lip of the urethane wheel to keep it stable, but the reality was that normal use would cause the wheels to slip on the center hub. It seemed like a difficult but not insurmountable deficiency to overcome. This might have been a case where the product was rushed to market too soon. They don’t seem to be available anymore. In fact, this set belonged to Grover, and he was in contact with the manufacturer for a while about the performance issues. They said they had a solution…

I’m not one for the unprovoked posting of a bunch of product releases as ‘news’ but the Riprider from Creature has got to be the coolest thing I’ve seen in forever and a day. It’s so simple, obvious… and beautiful. I’m gushing. Hey N.H.S., hook a brother up! Oh wait, I just blew my bargaining chips…