Bamboo is an amazing plant. You can use it to feed pandas, make flooring, furniture, and even bicycles and saxophones. And yes, skateboards too. The crazy thing about bamboo is that it has a stronger strength to weight ratio than maple, but has been know to grow 4 feet in a week’s time! Think about how many boards in a year that a typical street skater goes through. What if you could make a bamboo board that performs as well and lasts as long as a hard maple deck? There are companies making decks containing various percentages (up to 100%) of Bamboo, but they are mostly carving or downhill setups not meant to take the torture of street or bowl riding. Today I received an email and pictures from a Slovakian company with a Chinese manufacturer of 100% bamboo skateboards shaped like a typical popsicle stick. Even that’s nothing new. Check out some bamboo Skateboarding action after the jump.

Steve Caballero has endorsed Powell’s new line of beginners boards (AKA Cheap and Chinese) called Powell Golden Dragon. Tony Hawk does it, Andy MacDonald does it, even Mike McGill does. Why not Cab? The Powell versions ($70) seem to be a notch above Andy’s ($50) and Mike McGill’s (models from $30-$60). I couldn’t find a link for priccing on Hawk’s low end models. Maybe I imagined them. The Golden Dragon trucks even have a bit of interesting detail instead of being completely devoid of character. Let’s see, Cab, Hawk, and McGill. When do Lance and Tommy come out with their own line of cheapo skateboards? What about Per Welinder and Rodney Mullen? Oh wait, they already have crappy boards.

We’ve weighed in on “The War on Blanks” before, but it keeps popping up, and looks like it’s going to be an industry focus in 2007. Personally, I can’t respect hypocrisy, which is what I see when a company says blanks are bad for the industry but Chinese manufacturing is good. It’s all about the profit margins. I think it’s a case where the industry has made it’s own bed and now doesn’t want to sleep in it. What I’d like to see is information on where these blanks coming from and how many different skateboard manufacturers actually exist. The quote coming from George’s mouth above is actually from Andrew Reynolds on the web site called “A World Without Pros.” More hypocrisy and links concerning the War on Blanks and the War on George Bush as expressed on skateboards after the jump.

Believe it or not, that’s an actual CNN headline and not something I made up. With the news that Miami’s Cubans in exile are planning to celebrate the impending death of Fidel Castro in the Orange Bowl (WTF?) now is a good time to bring up the Subvert Cuba Project. Probably due to in part to our embargo, Cuban skaters are really, really hard up for gear. That’s hard to believe considering Rodney Mullen insists China makes the best skateboards. The Subvert Cuba Project is like a bizarro Berlin Airlift, transferring skate goods from Germany to Cuba. You can buy decks from which a part of the proceeds are donated, or you can send used gear. Now seems as good a place as any to mention that Cold War Skateboards has a Fidel Castro and John F. Kennedy model called the Detente 2, of which absolutely none of the profits are donated to Cuba or Ethiopia. Sorry, couldn’t resist a Dickies reference somewhere. Maybe when Fidel dies the Cubans will finally be able to get some decent skateboards. In the mean time, I don’t the Detente will make it past customs, and I’d hate to see someone imprisoned for riding a smart-assed American skateboard. [ Source: Kingpin Magazine ]

We can all agree that prefab ramps in skateparks blow, but what about for home use? Prefab ramp kits have been around in various forms for a while. They are usually pretty expensive, especially when allow for shipping. Personally, I’ve never quite understood the appeal of them, but for the mechanically challenged or just plain lazy, it takes the guesswork out of the critical aspects and drastically cuts down the actual build time. What’s new in the world of prefab ramps for the home? Computers. CNC (Computer Numerical Control) means that these kits can be cut out by a computer attached to a router instead of by hand, allowing for the possibility of cheaper and better designs. Compare two ramp kit companies (products, not ad models!) after the jump

Saturday there was snow in the big bowl. I heard that it was dry on Sunday. I went Monday afternoon. Nice sunny afternoon but the park was wet everywhere the sun didn’t hit. It was mostly unskateable. Smay went to West Linn and found the same thing. I skated the pipe for a while, then I went to get a weedburner. I wasn’t going to get shut out like that again.

More overpriced skateboard based furniture, but don’t take our word for it:

Skede-tuoli on saatavana nahkapäällysteisenä tai pelkistetyn teräksisenä. Tuolissa käytetään harjattua, ruostumatonta terästä. Se on saatavana yksivärisenä beigenä ja mustana. Tikkauksissa vaihtoehtoina ovat beige-beige, musta-musta, musta-beige ja musta-pink.

Uh, yeah. Available from Tunto Designs for 800 – 1050 € which is about in the $1000-$1400 range according to GoCurrency. If that’s not already too expensive for you Mr Warbucks, don’t forget you’ve got to pay for shipping from Finland. You can get it in plain steel, leather upholstered or without the skateboard even. Although, if you are going to go to Finland to get a chair, you might as well get the deck from the Finnish company Control as well. Looks a little forced and not-so-elegant to me. A couple more pics after the jump. [Source: PadStyle ]

Merry X-treme-mas! Ho, ho, haaar! Here’s a wrap up of skateboard Christmas ornaments. Sorry Jews, Muslims, Mormans, Rastafarians, Pastafarians, Pan-Africans, etc… Nothing against you. Praise Jeebus and give thanks to Batman.

A while back I stumbled across some videos from these two jokers Adam Colton and Adam Stokowski, also known as Adam². When I say jokers I mean that in a good way. These two clowns (again, in a good way) have made some interesting videos that often time border on the severely goofy. Let’s face it, they are not going to win any popularity contests over at Concussion. They definitely have more of a Concrete Wave with a little Dan Gesmer vibe going. Even if you don’t dig their style, one thing that definitely comes across is their originality in the pursuit of pure fun in skateboarding, on their own terms and completely unconcerned with mainstream skateboarding. Read the review.

That’s right. If you can’t make it out to one of his skatepark opening appearances you can still get his chicken scratch on a 8×10″ photo from Target.com. If you have even more money burning a hole in your pocket you can get a 16×20″ version too.