July 26th Dueling Events in NH

The course at Highlands. I'm pretty sure landing on dirt hurts more than on snow.


Backflip!

Last Saturday was a big day in Northern New Hampshire. Two events were going on and it was my good fortune to need to be at both of them. At Highlands Mountain there was a pro mountain bike slopestyle: the first Claymore Challenge. Highlands is really pushing freestyle mountain biking on the east coast with their progressive terrain--for this competition they carved a huge dirt slopstyle course in sideways snaking lanes--filled with gap jumps, a hip, a wooden quarter pipe, a huge wall ride, the Aaron Chase signature feature (which was like the mountain bike equivalent of a roof-shaped butter box), and a big booter at the end. I was at Highlands for Friday's practice and Saturday's competition, and while I saw a lot of backflips, I also witnessed a lot of spinning, supermaning and a move actually called the humper--all things that look pretty gnarly on a bike because if you fall there's a lot of metal to impale yourself on.


This is another reason biking is crazier than snowboarding: hiking back up with a bike. no fun.


Seat grabber.

Pro bikers came out from all over the US and Canada to hit the course, a fairly good-sized crowd assembled and DJ ZJ from Burlington's Lotus Entertainment spun tunes (mountain bikers are the most picky athletes about their music I have ever seen. no: Chicago, Britney Spears. yes: Rage Against the Machine, Metallica. Wait, maybe that's more obvious than I first thought?). The riders competed against each other for first place: bragging rights, respect from their peers, money, and a giant five-foot-long knight's sword. Second place: a smaller sword, and third, in no way a reference to the finisher's manly ability to spin and flip their way down a serious dirt course: a dagger.


Bikes.



Super leg kick.


I'm not sure how this actually works, but he landed it.


If I had a better camera, this wouldn't look blurry, but you get the idea. The wallride was big.

Results:

Pros:
1st: Cam McCaul
2nd: Andrew Taylor
3rd: Aaron Chase

Ams:
1st: Phillip Kmetz
2nd: David Blachura
3rd: Andrew Davies

A little further up 89 at the West Lebanon Skatepark was the second installment of Embasi's DC Crowned King summer skate series. This is seriously one of the raddest summer events in Northern New England--everyone comes out for this: a huge showing of the New Hampshire skate scene, local industry heads, tons of spectators and of course all the guys from Embasi. I ran up there from Highlands and caught semis and finals, and once again, despite humidity and blazing sun, young and old skaters alike were sessioning hard, having fun, and providing excellent visual entertainment.


The line up.


The quarter is always sessioned pretty heavy.

R. Kelly and John Huff were there representing the Embasi skate team. Huff was floating 180s over the stair set and was charging super consistently on the rail side of the park. Tyler Lynch was up from Vermont and was spreading his smooth style all over the place like peanut butter on dinner rolls. That guy never ceases to impress.


R. Kelly getting up there.


Tyler Lynch is ridiculous. And he's actually this blurry in real life. Some variation on back 1 tail stall front 1 out--whatever it was he executed it perfectly, leading to his eventual win of the comp.

With one Crowned King left (Saturday, August 16th), the intermediate group was vying for position going into the last event, where the top overall skater will receive a trip to Woodward. The older crew, well they're just stoked to skate, I think, right?

Thanks to Keith and the whole Embasi crew, those guys are awesome, as well as Mark and everyone at Highlands, and DJ ZJ for hanging out with me even though I came to NH directly from being stuck in the airport for two days and didn't have my luggage (ie clean clothes).

Burlington's New Vice

I had to steal these photos from facebook (thank you, Liam, for not only putting on bike polo but for the use of the photos), but this is my friend, Scott. He's a natual at bike polo. photo: Liam Griffin

This is the next big thing in Burlington. I know this because it has a facebook group with more members than most people have friends, and now on Wednesday nights instead of people waiting around to go to JP's for karaoke night, they're down at the waterfront biking around in circles together. Honestly, that's a better option in my mind because no one's singing that annoying 80's song with the lyrics "I'm gonna getcha getcha getcha...."


Bike polo groupies. I figured I could steal this one because I'm in it. photo: Liam Griffin

I tried it this past week and boy was I awful. I crashed into Joel twice, not on purpose, and got a rip in my shorts. And I wasn't riding a fixed gear and I had brakes. Score: bike polo 1, Mary o. I'm taking a week off while I snowboard in Oregon, but I'll be back after to let my team down by being the weakest member again next week.

Red Bull Manny Mania in Manchester, NH 6/28

Workin. Judgin. Getting easy. photo: Dave Durfey/skatetheory.com

Manchester, New Hampshire has not had a skateboarding contest since the 1980’s and the skatepark in the city has been abandoned by the locals due to poor construction and violence. Despite these factors, a local skate scene thrives in southern New Hampshire, and just as a new skate boutique opened this past month on Hanover Street, it was perfect timing to bring the skate community together.

Nate Jackson skated strong all day. photo: LAustin

Enter Red Bull Manny Mania, a contest with an emphasis on technical skating as well as having fun. New Manchvegas shop, Embasi (expanding into Manchester from their first location in West Lebanon), celebrated its Grand Opening on Saturday, June 28^th by partnering with Red Bull to set up skateable terrain in Arms Park on the river.

The weather all around New England was rainy, but it held off in downtown Manch for the duration of the contest. Sixty-five competitors showed up to skate the Red Bull custom-built many pad, a three part box consisting of a c box, an up down, and a flat box with a mini curb a third of the way down its length. There was a huge showing by the NH and greater New England skate community; skaters ranged from 10 years old to a group of 30-somethings, and came from as far away as Rutland, Vermont and Springfield, Massachusetts. The sessions began around 1pm and for the next few hours, the crowd was entertained by heats of skaters pulling out consistently technical and creative tricks.

Dillon Buss running the manny pad. photo: LAustin

The judges narrowed down the groups and in semis the skaters really stepped it up, throwing the kind of technical trickery that made the wise and hardened judges literally jump from their seats shouting. Mark Nicholson was consistently skating well, and last year’s Manny Mania Boston winner, Marshall Heath, was attempting tons of very challenging switch tricks, one standout being a switch heelflip manual. Dillon Buss was shredding every part of the pad, coming in with kickflip nose manuals, kickflip manual fs 180, and a couple grind in shuv-it out variations. Buss got tons of cheers from the crowd with fast and big wallies off the curb on the flat box.

By the time finals rolled around, the five skaters left were beat, but still skating like they were fresh. Marshall landed a nose manny nollie big spin and Nate Jackson was just killing it all over the place, landing too many tricks to name. Kyle Burroughs was skating super strong as well. But, it was Buss, who had come all the way up to Manchester from Cape Cod, who just kept landing everything (including a sick nose manual shuv-it manual), hitting a wide variety of tech tricks and big ollies over the curb.

Results:

1^st – Dillon Buss

2^nd – Nate Jackson

3^rd – Kyle Burroughs

Best Trick – Nate Jackson, ollie north manual trey flip out

A huge thanks to everyone who came out and supported Manny Mania—Chris, Nate and Keith from Embasi, Nelson for providing verbiage, Dave Durfey for supporting the local scene and taking photos, Surfolas for the photos and food and Lotus Entertainment for providing music.

Check the video:

The Celtics were fresh off a victory in the NBA finals and still found time to skate the manny pad. photo: Surfolas

Nelson blew my spot at least three times by telling the crowd I hadn't slept the night before, but he and Matt gave me a pair of frogskins later that night as an MVP award. photo: LAustin

Tall tees start young in Manchvegas. photo: Surfolas

This kid had style beyond his age. photo: Surfolas

Marshall Heath was last year's winner in Boston. He spent most of his time Saturday skating switch, nbd.

action action action. photo: LAustin

photo: Surfolas

Highlands Dirt Pipe 6/20

I'm a little behind on this one--three weekends ago I journeyed to the Highlands, a mountain bike mountain with lift access and tons of jumps and berms and whatnot for mountain bike enthusiasts to play around on. We were setting up for Matchstick Productions' shoot of Aaron Chase and co on the new Red Bull dirtpipe. For the mountain bikers, it was dirt-digging, step-downing, bike-riding fun, for me and Matt it was more rain-pouring, exacto-knife-cutting, brand-wielding intensity. I had a good time, despite the mental exhaustion and gnarly mosquitos. And I got to tool around the resort on one of the 50s, which was the best thing ever. I found a natual kicker on the side of the road and got pretty rad. It was awesome.

This picture, that I stole from a mountain biking wesbite (thank you Christopher Vanderyajt), is probably from around 11pm when Matt, Jenner and myself were attempting to set up the Red Bull logo on the front of the step down pictured. I'm not sure what I'm holding in the picture, but probably a lot of duct tape or something else that I'm wearily trying to figure out, while all of the mountain bikers around me are pounding Coors Light and airing over my head into the pipe. Long night, but considering this is what I classify as work, I was stoked to be there.