I have been getting some stick recently for being extremely slack on the blogging front. This is perfectly justified as I haven't posted anything of great substance since before I went on Holiday on the 11
th of August but that is about to change. This post will hopefully make up for some of the absence of updates, it is the first occasion on which well known skaters from around the country have made an appearance on this humble blog. Sidewalk magazine's 'Big Push' competition is the reason our haggard concrete was graced with the urethane wheels of various pros and
ams all looking to travel and skate whatever they could. The guys from Shiner Distribution asked Dog on the Tyne's James
Coyle to show them round so I tagged along with my 35mm in the hope of getting something worthy of blogging and with people like Scottish Skateboarding powerhouse Stu Graham in tow it would have been hard not to. None of the images have been edited in
photoshop and they were all shot on 35mm film. CLICK TO ENLARGE
The guys from Shiner Dist. had been to a few spots in the morning but I met up with them at one of Newcastle's best known spots; Gap to bench. Carl 'Potter' Wilson got straight to work with a gap to
lipslide.
Barney Page is one of the most talented skaters I have seen skate, he didn't land this back smith to gap out but he did plenty of other things that were not blogged.
All I know about this guy is that his name is Matt and he was injured. That didn't stop him from trying to backside lip slide the bench, unfortunately this was another trick that wasn't landed as we got the boot by the infamous 'Street Rangers' that lurk in every corner of town waiting pounce.
The boys watching on without an Englishman in sight.
The next stop for the Shiner team was Exhibition skate park. Not since the day the park opened have I been as excited to go, the prospect of watching Stu Graham blast around the bowl at mach 10 was hair raising.
Carl Wilson got straight to work when we arrived and pulled out a sick line starting with this front side
ollie, finishing with the back smith below. There was a lien to tail between the two but I can't wind my film on that fast.
Stu started to get warm and was loving the bowl, which he hadn't skated for over 6 years. The smile says it all...or is ti a grimace?
Once he he was warmed up he really started to show the local
radgies and
BMXers what he could do, all of whom stopped riding their bikes in the bowl simply because one collision with this guy would leave you needing reconstructive surgery in at least one place on your body. This back side air over the deep end hip was done so nonchalantly that it didn't register at first, once it did I was already excited about getting the film back.
Carl then repeated his earlier line but this time he finished with a beaut of a backside tail slide.
Stu then tried this front side grind from deep to shallow, he didn't make it but I know he's done it before and it makes a nice photo.
Shiner's last trick in Newcastle was the best one I've ever seen done at
Exi park. Carl was feeling the effects of a long couple of days of skating and travelling but persevered and stomped this front side flip over the channel. Annoyingly for me it was getting dark so I couldn't have done much to combat the motion blur.
After Carl landed his trick and we checked out the footage we headed over to brewery bank to unfortunately find a car sitting right in the way. It was getting on so we headed to Clayton street for fish & chips before the team headed off to Sheffield to continue their adventures throughout Britain's skateboarding countryside. Cheers to Jerome and all the skaters for being so sound and letting Dog on the Tyne tag along.
The next day I was pleasantly surprised to find the UK I-Path team skating at the waste ground, they were also on the big push.
Harry
Lintell was going off and pulled out this back lip on the rail, he also back
smithed the whole thing in a line which blew my mind.
I-Path brought a special guest along with them in the shape of
Conhuir Lynn, another heavy hitter in the skateboarding world. He's a friend of Newcastle's Irish contingent and him and
Coyle pulled out some nice doubles lines, here he is
kickflipping into front side crooked grind.
My roll of film had run out by this point and I had no more as I was not expecting to be shooting with the I-Path team, so unfortunately this is where the Big Push Blog comes to an end. I hope this has made up for my slackness over the past 4 weeks. More non Big Push related blogging will be on its way shortly.
Ben.
