I met up with Jon Minta and Adam Howe on Saturday at the wastground in Ipswich to check out the new bar that's been built down there. It's made out of wood, so hopefully it won't get pinched for scrap metal like all the other blocks that were down there. Let's just hope the grubby urchins who frequent the place don't feel the need to smash it up either.
Adam Howe, switch frontside feeble. Jon Minta, nollie frontside crook.
Back on the nightshift in Colchester with Russell, Veran, and Sam Juner. At the first spot Russell decided to start the session by scraping himself along face first over a rough pavement, down the curb and into the road. This left him with only half a trouser on one leg, and a palm full of gravel. After Russell had picked the stones out of his hand, plastered the wounds, and got himself a new pair of slacks, we headed over to this spot on an industrial estate so Veran could show us how to do proper backide noseblunts.
Veran Tull, backside noseblunt
The new Stowmarket park definitely gets the thumbs up from me. It can be a bit of a nightmare when all the scooter kids turn up because there's a lot of stuff crammed into a pretty small area. Luckly we had Mark and John on hand to scream profanitys at them whenever
they got too out of hand.
Mark Munson, backside smithgrind. John Howlett, backside smithgrind.
The day didn't get off to the best of starts on Sunday, with a guy coming off his motorbike at speed on the A12, and subsequently dying in the road in front of Veran and Russell's car. The police had to come and deal with the crash scene before anyone could go anywhere, which left them to contemplate the scene for about an hour or so. Pretty gnarly start to the day.
Veran Tull, Post traumatic backside tailslide.
A quick skatepark session before a torrent of rain stopped play. Ben Jones managed to knock out a few ride up to backside lipslides to order.
Ben Jones, ride up to backside lipslide.
I thought it was time for my once yearly trip to Saffron, and decided to head over there on Sunday. As the sun went down I shot some photos of a bowl session with Munson and Chris.
Mark Munson, eggplant. Chris Crabtree, backside tailslide.
Sam's currently working on a video part for Russell Cowling's new video project, and by the look of the footage he's got so far, it should be a good one. Sam's attempt to film for the last video was cut short by an injury to his ankle, so hopefully he'll have better luck this time round.
I went over to Colchester for a night session with Russell and cohorts on Tuesday to skate some stuff Veron and Sam had found, one of which was the up sloped gate you see to your right. Sam manged to get a few smiths up the thing despite the mist making everything slippery, and mine and Russell's lights blinding him mid-trick.
Sam Juner, smith grind
On a mission to get more Dave Davies footage, we ventured over to Woodbridge to throw Dave across a huge driveway/road gap. Dave and Blackwell gave it a good go, but found themselves wanting for speed and had to admit defeat. After some talk of returning with Lee's moterbike to tow one of them towards the gap, Dave and Lee decided to play with the traffic for a while on a roundabout next to the spot and did some drop-ins off a wobbly sign.
Lee Blackwell, tail-drop
Minta had an operation on his ankle recently which basically involved hoovering out shards of broken bone that had been floating around in there for the last few years. Altough the operation was a complete success, and Jon is now back skating at full power, he is limited to about once a week as it still gives him quite a bit of pain after a session. His ankle was in a lot of pain at the time, and this was supposed to be a rest day, but Minta couldn't resist playing around on the block for an hour or so, and even managed to bag a new trick.
Jon Minta, backside nollie heel to backside tailslide.
After a fruitless search for spots around the streets of Ipswich, and a few soul destroying laps of LIDL car park racking our brains for somewhere to go, Dave navigated our two car convoy towards what he described as a kicker in front of a planter. Dave's description of the 'spot' turned out to be a touch generous to say the least. The 'kicker' was bearly a kicker at all, and seemed much too close to the planter for me to deam it skateable.Dave soon proved me wrong with a few effortless frontside 180s.
Dave Davies, frontside 180, Ipswich.
