This cave on the right was my frigid office for two days. Sketchy working conditions create some of the best memories of these crazy events we do. Can't wait to return to the cave next year
They had those same pissers as Amsterdam, except they make portable versions of them. That one probably drains right into the ocean there
That's Thomas Vintr from Prague 360 flipping into the bank while the jumbotron thing shows a quarter second delay
Rob Maatman is one of my favorite Euros right now, not just because of the extra cool first name. This frontside nosegrind at the top of the downhill course was finished up with a bigspin back boardslide at the bottom of the hill on the rail
This is Nassim Guammaz, a Netherlands local kickflipping down the four and a half stair. He didn't make the cut in the Qualifiers, but on the night before the Contest, we got to see ripping footage of him in a video premiere at the bar. It was cool to see so many people we've only seen in Contests here having video parts and making it happen in their scene
Look at that crew on the sidelines. Aaron Suski, Jerry Hsu, Kenny Anderson aka The Perfect Man, Dylan Rieder, possibly the future Perfect Man, Jake Johnson, and Alex Mizurov. Thanks for taking a tour break and coming to the skateboard shindig
Somehow Lutzka got directly associated with this type of hat, therefore Phil Zwijsen from Belgium is referred to as the Euro Lutzka. I bet K-Swiss is much more accepted here than it is in the US and A
They call them "toilets" here, not "bathrooms." When I ask where the bathroom is, I wonder if they think that's why I haven't showered for so long
Our old pal Adrien Bulard here is still on "no speeka Engrish" status. You didn't know they got gingers in France, huh? Me niether. That's a frontside nosegrind between blunts, not the skateboard trick kind
Adrien Bulard pulled the king of fatties to flatty for the weekend, at least until Douwe Macare switch flipped it in Best Trick. This is 360 flip off the bump to flat
That's Niels van der Zeeuw closing in on a frontside nosegrind on the tall hubba
After Bastian cab flipped the big gap into the bank, he cab double flipped it. Then he went back in his cave or where ever he's been. Rothmeyer had an idea I agree with: Invite Bastien to the Maloof Money Cup next year
While all that ripping skating was going down outside in the cold winds, you could retreat inside to get a damn good meal and still watch the Contest on TV. A first class skateboard shindig
Did the caterers skate? Obviously not if "half pipe" is still in their vocabulary, but they made a good effort. The 360 soup was tight
Jake Johnson skated Vans Downtown Showdown and Tampa Am in 2007, but I don't remember that because he wasn't on the radar yet from a major video part. After this weekend, I remember every single thing Jake did and also got to meet him. I think he's taller than Tony Hawk
They put more stuff on their hot dogs than we put on pizza here. Thanks Marco for treating us to the best hot dogs in Rotterdam
Leander Geelhoed is another Rotterdam local we've become friends with over the years through AmsterDamn Am. See you there, Leander. That's a BS180NG
Simo Makela is bringing this nollie flip into the big gap to bank from Finland
Aaron Suski was here with the whole Emerica team on tour. That's a 360 flip
Collin Provost snaps these frontside flips to lip far above that low rail
Curren Caples 360 flipped the big gap into the bank and more on Saturday which got him the Golden Ticket to the Finals on Sunday and $1,200 for 10th place
After Kenny Anderson made everything on this bank look flawless, it was called The Perfect Man Bank all weekend. That's a nosebonk into it
Collin Provost hard flipped into that big giant step up
Right after the Contest, there was the photography show from the Photo Contest on a boat. Johathon Mehring ended up winning $5,000
A few of the photos from the Photo Contest. In the top photo, Jonathon's is the 4th one to the right that you can't really see. It's a frontside flip on a log ship
A small sample of the weird food going on. That's watermelon with candy wedged between. It's available for all you can eat at the Contest
It's now about 2am in Barcelona where we arrived a few hours ago. Everyone is out having drinks with the DC team while I'm stuck uploading party photos from two nights ago. That's Kenny Hughes with Misha Cracker before and after he noticed his Element shirt
It costs one Euro to go to the bathroom in this Rotterdam club that the after parties were at every night
Just when I was about over the weird techno show, Marco shows up with beer coins. I guess I'll stick around a bit
Girls love tights here. Printed ones, hot pink ones, leather ones, etc. I'm not a fan of this style
Alex Mizurov and Georges Agonkouin who was hurt and couldn't skate this weekend
There seemed to be a lot of little kids rolling in the club. This mom made sure her and her son matched it up with the camo kit
I thought I had some serious hip hop history after a quarter century of being into it, but this guy was before my time. He was the DJ at the party Saturday night in the side room. This is DJ Kool Herc who apparently originated hip hop music
If you aren't rolling with a girl, at least rep one on your shirt
Oh, all that partying was just Saturday night. We still have all of Sunday at the Contest to go. DJ Wade has not put a drink down since
Trophies were being hand crafted on Sunday as the Contest went on
That's the Erasmusbrug bridge behind the tightest pants in the Contest, Peter Molek. In 2005, planes flew under that bridge for the Red Bull Air Race. I wonder if Red Bull Sarah knows that
Neil Smith is from London and was a crowd favorite with stuff like this switch noseblunt slide
Jake Johnson 360 flipping under the backdrop of the Erasmusbrug bridge
Rob Maatman - bigspin boardslide
Ricardo Paterno is another one of my Euro favorites. He also had a ripping part in that video we saw at the bar Friday night. That's a kickflip nose manual
The camera guy kept getting trippy on the jumbotron thing. Made me want to get some mushrooms from Amsterdam
You know what Jake Johnson is going to do out of this backside nosegrind
Tim Zom blew it out on this big rail into the bank. This back smith was one of many tricks he did that put him in first for the Contest and Best Trick
Ever seen flat spots that bad? Curren Caples was powersliding on purpose to create that. The surface on this course seemed to be flat spotting everyone's wheels
These big ol' women had nothing to do with the Contest. They got nekkid as Schaefer was reading the results and tackled him. Ew
I wonder what this curious kid was discussing with the streakers
Congrats Tim Zom. See you all in Amsterdam next weekend. Thanks to everyone who came to the Contest and thanks to everyone that had us out to help run it
Looks like the Kiddie Course isn't going to be done until tomorrow. Here's some photos from our first session on the main course and some random bar antics at Skateboard Industry Night in St. Pete: A New Course and a New Bar Scene.
You can get a fisheye's view of the completed street course on the SPoT Facebook Page. If you're a fan of SPoT on Facebook, you already know that we sometimes do special sales and give out coupon codes there. Maybe there might be a special just for Facebook fans next week? Who knows? Maybe. The kiddie course isn't done yet. Photos from that coming up in a bit.
On the Win an All Expense Paid Trip to Tampa survey thing, I should have added, "Stay away from the Skatpeark of Tampa Party Team" as one of the options to prevent your skateboard career from derailing. When you come to Tampa, it's easy to get spinning in the party tornado, especially when 200 of your homies are all in the Ybor hotels or the Ho Jo. If the sauce is not your scene or you're trying not to make it your scene, a nice hotel for a decent price just a few minutes up the highway from SPoT is Days Inn. If you're just looking for a lower price room, a cab ride from there to the tornado in Ybor is probably about $15 or so. There's also another Days Inn on Dale Mabry that's across the street from Mons Venus. They don't serve booze there, just boobies. Boobies never hurt anyone's career. Anyway, you have some time left to enter the Tampa trip giveaway which comes with a hotel room and $500 spending cash, among other things. Since you're not skating, we will see you at all the parties that you get passes to.
I went out to shoot photos of the Kiddie Course construction and spotted Kris Markovich hanging out. Here's what things look like as of now. Gotta go, I have a conference call with 25 people from Fuel TV. 25 people??? Yep, mindblowing. It's about the live HD webcast for Tampa Am. They should put this phone conference on live webcast.
If your company has products on our site, you're welcome to a free ad in our banner pool. On your company's product page, only the ad from your company will show up. On all other pages like articles, photos, and skater profiles, your ad will display randomly from the pool of ads. The size is 970x100 and no animation is allowed. You can update it as often as you want. Email them to me at rob@skateparkoftampa.com. Below are some samples from a few companies that have sent some in already.
The main street course is done and skateable today. The kiddie course should be done late tomorrow or Saturday. Check out some construction progress: Street Course Construction and Completion 2009.
If you're in St. Pete tomorrow night, join us at Durty Nelly's for an event that The Finest Skate Shop is putting on called Skateboard Industry Night, appropriately abbreviated as SIN.
The winners for the Globe Cruiser completes have been picked. I know at least one of them is a local - Yonis came out on top. See you on the Booze Cruise this Friday. The first $600 worth of sauce is all on me. The trucks on these boards are called "Slant" as in my eyes. Sick.
What song is this in this Tampa Am promo video? That one dude, you know, the guy who will be at Tampa Am 2009 on December 3 at SPoT then
on Friday, December 4, doing a show in Ybor for our 17-Year Anniversary Party at Czar. Yeah, him. Oh, and there could be a little bit of ripping skating going on.
Today the staff at SPoT got started on putting together all the skateboard parts collected in the Shop all year long. Through your discarded skate stuff and contributions from your favorite skate companies, we build as many completes as we can and give them away to as many kids as we can find in the underprivileged neighborhoods in our area. We call this charity Boards for Bros. Check out a few photos from what we did today: Boards for Bros November 2009 Assembly.
If you haven't entered the Globe Cruiser Board giveaway yet, you have one more day for that. Tomorrow, all the emails go into a spreadsheet and get sorted random. The top two get a Globe Cruiser complete. On Friday night for the Booze Cruise, the first $600 of sauce is paid for by eBay shoe nerds who bought some of my old Dunks.
One commenter suggested we change the website every year like we do the street course. As soon as we get one of me for every construction dude out there, we can make that happen. Check out some street course construction that just started. In case you don't know, we have completely changed the street course every single year since 1993 when this place was born. This is the first year we've had a slab of granite, however.
Stalker Steve took some nice chill shots at the Harvest Jam this weekend. The skate ones are sort of like the bennihanna of photography, not that mine were any good either. I know we both can do better than that. Check them out: Stalker Steve at the Harvest Jam 2009.
A known hater on the Skatepark of Tampa Facebook page also has photos from the Harvest Jam. Thanks Kirk Hallinan. I'm putting you on the next cover of Frontside Grind Magazine.
