Tour Day Seven – XC

Well today was the final day of the tour and what had the weather decided to do……..rain. Never mind as the final stop of the tour was XC, a new indoor skatepark in Hemel Hempstead. Only 40mins away from the last Travelodge, so a quick stop for some breakfast at Sainsbury, last fill up of petrol then hit the road.

The building of this XC is crazy, the strangest place for an indoor as normally indoor parks are in some run down warehouse but no not this one. The only bad thing about the design of the place was for some reason somebody thought it would be a good idea to have one of the walls of the park as a wired mesh…….meaning when it was raining it got the park wet. Brilliant idea as it then meant that you couldn’t skate the vert wall, step up and use a little ramp to carry on your runs. Really bad idea.

Once we had all worked out what tricks to try and get on film it was time to get out the camera and start to get some more footage. Hold on one second…………………….you can’t do that!!! You need to fill in a form to say that your only filming your friends and that your friends have given you permission to film them as well! Once I had filled out that film it we were good to go, and seeing as it was the last stop everyone was just throwing down tricks and racking up a lot of footage.

After what was only meant to be a 3 hour session but 8 hours later it was time for that long drive home, via Farnborough to drop off Dave, then back to Gloucester.

Overall the tour was a big success with new spots being found and skated. New friends made along the way and most of all just having a lot of fun. Now for the long process of sorting out the photos and getting the film developed and scanned. So watch out for new photos coming soon!!

Tour Day Six – Leicester

Well today was Leicester……and maybe today was just a day that wasn’t meant to be as nothing happened in the way of photos, however event wise a lot happened!!

First of skating Leicester’s Vic park which is an okay park really although the floor does seem to eat your board quite a bit. Apart from that it does have a nice ledge to skate plus a hip which seems to pop you miles in the sky!

After a two hour session there it was time to get some food and try and session some street. When trying to find street in Leicester make sure you know where your going as it’s quite a maze of roads. Once finding some stuff to skate and being told that your not allowed to skate on the “street objects” it sort of killed the session.

That wasn’t the only thing that was killed tonight as Phil’s van died on the way from Leicester towards the next Travelodge. Therefore the tour ended too soon for Jake and Phil. Missing out on the last skate park tomorrow and waiting in some lay-by for a tow truck back to Aldershot.

Nevertheless the tour must go on……last place tomorrow so lets end on a hyped brand new skate park.

Tour Day Five – Sheffield

The rules of going on tour are always have a back up plan incase of rain……which is a good job we did today as waking up and seeing a wet car park with grey clouds above is never fun. Good job for plan B – Sheffield’s indoor park, The House.

Not a bad little park really but it’s just been overrun by the two wheel monsters called scooters! Once everyone had finished snapping their boards (Jake and Jimbo both snapped their boards within about an hour of being at the park) it was time to try and skate plus get some photos.

Had a very very close call when shooting a sequence with Phil Gee as he kicked out his board and almost ended up smashing the 16mm but instead hit the top of my hand. Bit too close for comfort really, although he did get the trick in the end.

Once everyone gave up trying to fight with the scooters it was time for a bit of street skating and another DIY park hidden within Sheffield.

What a park it was as well, another fine example of skaters doing what they do best and building something for skaters by skaters! Although for some reason I seem to be cursed when it comes to getting out my Bronica as once again the same as what happened at Stoke, out came the rain! Nevermind still got the trick in time just before the heavy downpour!

Hopefully some more street skating tomorrow and with a red sky at night, hopefully some good weather as well is in order!

Tour Day Four – Liverpool

It’s getting to that stage when you wake up in the morning and your whole body is totally sore. Nothing a bit of a Subway mega-breakfast can’t sort out. After that’s been eaten it’s Liverpool bound.

When you see a sign that says £3 parking all day you know your on to a winner! Once that’s sorted the street session is on, and within 10mins I already had the first Liverpool skate photo under my belt. Next stop head into town, well not before getting some free Red Bull off the Red Bull Mini car, which just so happened to drive past when we were having a game of S.K.A.T.E

The city was soo busy to skate some of the spots that we went up to the local skate shop Lost Art and chilled in there for a bit. The guy in there was kind enough to tell us about some more spots we hadn’t been to yet. Lucky for us a local skater was there and he then took us around the different spots on what seemed liked a skater tourist guide to Liverpool, such as the DIY park down at New Bird.

The New Bird park is such a nice place to skate and it’s amazing to see what a group of skaters do when they get hold of some land and build some ramps. Pool coping, tight vert quarters, this place had everything, including ending another roll of 120 film to bring the total up to 2 rolls shot now.

All in all Liverpool is quite a strange but nice city, a place that does need some more visits to see everything as it’s soo hard to fit everything in to one day.

Let’s hope the weather for Sheffield holds up for tomorrow!!

Tour Day Three – Stoke

Stoked on Trent!!

This place was crazy, soo much to skate and going on. Think the saying of the day though was – “go big or go home!” The stuff in Stoke seems so much bigger than what everyones been used to it, nevertheless quite a lot of stuff happened.

Hopefully the photos on the Bronica come out ok as wasn’t too sure if the flashes were firing, but I can’t check seeing as it’s on film?! Then the rain started to set in so couldn’t carry on shooting which was a bit rubbish really. Lucky the sun came back out and so did the Nikon D700.

Had a close call when shooting a double ollie down the big set as almost got taken out by Jimbo on the landing!

Overall Stoke was such a crazy day and so much more to come! BIG street session tomorrow in the way of Liverpool.

Tour Day Two – MK

Early starts are always the best way to make sure you get a plaza to yourself for a good hour. So with the park empty it was time to load up some film and power up the flashes. Once some 120 film was fired through, switched to the D700 for some machine gun action.

Tricks were just going down left right and centre once some shots were fired from the Nikon. This also then meant a lot of slams to get those all important tricks!

Seeing as it’s only been the first real day of the road trip, loads of tricks and slams have happened already and the feeling of having a shower plus bed in that Travelodge sort of way can only be described as rewarding.

Bring on Stoke on Trent tomorrow!

Tour Day One – Farnborough

Well Day One is over and if today is anything to go by the rest of the trip should be soo good!!

Good to meet up with old friends again and skate stuff which I haven’t done in a long time. Not many photos today but tomorrow should be a sick day – MK better watch out!

Skateboard Tour 2011

Well as of tomorrow I’ll be on a little tour around the UK skateboarding and hopefully shooting loads of photos! Got a lot of big places lined up such as – MK, Liverpool and Sheffield just to name a few. Therefore I thought I’d make it a bit easier to keep you guys up to date on our events via my news feed. Hopefully if I get round to it I’ll try and do a day overview to see whats been going on. Otherwise I’m pretty sure I’ll be using my Twitter for random updates during the day.

Lets all hope for some good weather!!