Mountain Dew has caught on to the “freestyle rolling” phenomena and has put some of our industries top rollers on the Ball 4 Real Tour. What this means is after the basketball portion of the tour is done, rollers such as Julian Bah, Brian Aragon, Franky Morales, Billy “Fish” O’Neil and Mike “Murda” Johnson, plus many more will get to show case their talents across 30 American cities. If you need to find out what the Ball 4 Real Tour is check out the basketball information HERE, but more importantly, if you want to find out when the rollers will be a city close to yours check out all the dates at http://www.freestylerolling.com/
I would like to personally say that this is a great way for rolling to get exposure and if you live in a Canadian city that boarders one of these events you should do everything in your power to make it out and support the industry.
Whats going on people? It’s Nick here telling everyone that the H.S.W has started so far and we have only hit 2 spots and the tricks have been crazy. Jon Topping and Steve Chappel already have their names entered to win FREE PRIZES. The Tricks have been crazy and everyone seems like they are having a great time, and we are only a couple of hours into this thing and alot more people are comming to.
The Hamilton Skate Weekend kicks off today and we expect it to start off smooth. Please write down the contact info found HERE. Remember, Roger will now be staying in Sauga later to wait for those kids to get outta school and hopefully you’ve reserved your spot. Nick will be at the Hamilton GO station to meet those people coming in by way of bus. Brian and Steve Chapple will be at Delta Secondary school around 12 noon to meet up with anyone there. You can find a map of Delta HERE. We hope to see a great turn out.
The Pop Contest is going down on June 23rd in Kamloops B.C and has always been one of Canada’s top competitions and this year is no different. The Popularity Contest was able to get some main sponsors such as,
-Shop-Task
-Rollberblade
-Kin Rol
-4×4
-IDFA
-Ground Control
-Vicious Bearings
-Budget
-Sol Crew
-Gangstore
-Kil-Logic
-Remz
-Razors
-Jug Liners
With such a large backing it should come as no surprise as to why this is one of Canada’s top events of the year. So if you can make it out to Kamloops for June 23rd 2007 and go to the Popularity Contest, I highly suggest you do it. If you want more information check out http://getinlinekamloops.com/
The Empir3 Distribution website has posted up the recent Able line including T-Shirts and Frames. If you want to check out all the T-Shirt designs go to THIS link. The new frames are the following.
Well it has been brought to both me and Roger’s attention that kids don’t get off school until 3 on Fridays. Meaning our original plan for the Skate Weekend said that we would leave Iceland at 3 to pick up who we have too. A revision has been made, and Roger will now stay at the park until 4:30 to make sure the high school people can get picked up.
Well what can I say, my good friend Brian Lofgren came through with an excellent website that explains everything for the skate weekend coming up. It even has spot locations on a map and information on each spot. If you would like to check out the website go to http://home.cogeco.ca/~blofgren/webpages/1.htm. Like the website says if you are coming to Hamilton via Go Bus let me know so I can meet you, If you already know where Delta High School is just go there for 12 because thats the official meeting spot.
**Map of Delta**
Other information you should know.
-Roger has made a map that will be posted on the apartment wall with all spots outlined.
- I will meet people at Delta anywhere between 12 and 3, the time difference is because people may be getting here late from the Go bus.
-The apartment address is nothing you have to worry about because everyone staying will leave with us after the Friday night skate to the apartment.
The day began like every other day in my life. Nothing seemed different, but little did I know that the day would become a permanent memory in my life as a rollerblader. I was awaken by a phone call from my work, Wendy’s, and they wanted me to start early. With nothing better to do, I got up, dressed, and headed off to the prison that I call work. After 7 excruciating hours of cooking hamburgers and making sandwiches, I was finally set free at 5 pm, and that’s when my day actually begins.
When I got home I immediately jumped on the computer to see if any of my fellow Hamilton rollerbladers were online. As it so happens Nick was online and of course willing to skate. We had to wait till about 8 pm for a vehicle, which I had to beg to be able to use. So our session turned into a night session. I got to Nick’s and we headed downtown to skate some rails, and thus the session began.
We started the night at curvy church, a chill spot with nice low rails. Unfortunately we ended up being kicked out after only 10 minutes of skated. So we headed off to the school board rails in the center of the downtown core. After spending 10 minutes to find parking as there was a Bulldog’s game on at Copps Coliseum and most of the parking downtown was taken. So we finally parked and skated to the rails. It was a fun session, were we both perfected some of our tricks and tried a few new ones. After the rail got boring we headed to bumps and berries, another low rail in the area. However that also quickly became unamusing, so we moved the session across the street to one of our favorite spots, THE LEDGE! I was able to throw down some back royales, back farfs and a nice topsoul. Nick on the other hand tossed out an ao soul, which had both of us stoked for the night!!! After chillin on the ledge for about 10 minutes we decided to call it a night and drove back up to Nick’s house.
**Spots mentioned**
Curvy Church
School Board Rails
Bumps and Berries
The Ledge
On the way to Nick’s, I decided to stop off at a rail that I have never fully scoped out before. However on this night the rail was the last thing I wanted to skate, for what we found in the parking lot of the building was much more intriguing. We found a dumpster!!!hahaha Doesn’t sound like much, but around this 5 ft high grind obstacle with plenty of plywood and platforms to build a launch with, which we could use to get up and grind the dumpster. However, it was dark, and there were still cars parked in the lot. So we drove back to my house, were we picked up a spot light and some extension cords, then headed back to the spot, with a stop off at Nick’s house to get his camera as we wanted to document the night. We arrived back at the spot just after midnight and began to set up.
**The Dumpster**
We had found an outlet on the side of the building, but to our great disappointment it did not work! Fortunately we don’t quite give up that easily, and we checked a light pole at the edge of the parking lot, and unbelievably we found a working outlet attached to it!!! Then we hit another road block. We hadn’t brought enough extension cord to cross the entire parking lot, and couldn’t get the spot lite enough to skate. Again it seemed like a bust, but as I said , we don’t give up easily. Near the first no working outlet was an open door which lead into a tool shed of sorts. After stumbling around in the dark shed of a few minutes I returned with a 50ft extension cord, and thus the session was on again!!
**The Dumpster With Light From Random Extension Cord**
We moved the light into a great position on the roof of my truck, and then began construction. After about 15 minutes, and some trial and error we had a solid ramp that we could use to skate the dumpster. We waxed the shit out of the top edge of the dumpster and laced up our skates. After tons of practice runs, rolling up the launch and stopping, I was finally able to throw out a couple back royales. The back royales were my warmup to do a tru-spin mizou and after a couple of attempts were I completely bitched out, I finally laced it first try. I was completely pumped up. Nick wanted to hit the dumpster front side so we took 15 minutes moved the launch ramp to the other side of the dumpster. After a couple minutes Nick did some sick soul grinds. It was sick, and both of us were pumped on our creation and tricks.
**Roger’s Back Royales**
**Video of Roger’s True Miz**
**Video of Roger’s Back Royale **
**Still of Nicks Soul**
**Video of Nick’s Soul**
While I was filming Nick’s tricks we got busted. The cops rolled up on us, and we knew that the session was done. After a short conversation about how the cops received a noise compliant , we showed the cop some footage of what we had been doing and he thought it was pretty cool. He asked us to leave of course as it was 1:30 in the morning at this time. So the cops rolled away and we began to take apart our beautiful ramp.
**The Fuzz**
During the few minutes in which we talking to the fine officer of the Hamilton police force I learned something about my close friend Nick. When cops come around Nick becomes the most polite person on the fucking planet!!! I have never heard anyone abuse the word “sir” as much as Nick did that night. I had actually started laughing while we were talking to the cops because it was obvious that he was using the title “sir” more times then anyone rightfully should in each sentence. It definitely added some humor to our already awesome night session.
**Editors Note**
I really did say sir a lot, even I have to admit that.
So after the clean up, we headed out, got some food, then went home. It was a great rollerblading adventure and I’m still pumped up about everything that went down that night. From the skating to the cops to my close friend Nick’s obsession with the word “sir”. It’ll be a night of skating that I will never forget. It was just another day as a Hamilton rollerblader and I wouldn’t change it for the world.
Every couple of days I will be posting pictures of different spots in Hamilton to keep people hyped and keep the H.S.W on their mind. Here are 2 spots. Remember June 15th through the 17th come down to Hamilton for the skate weekend.
