Well, Krans must be starting to feel at home in his new home because he pulled himself up a soap box this week and decided to let us all know how he really feels. From time at Woodward West, to upstart blade blogs, to thoughts on seeding for the new generation of bladers, he’s all over the place, doing his part to bring the blade-o-sphere to you in easy-to-swallow form. And now it’s time to take your medicine… — ONE
Summer Camp
Nothing brings back nostalgic summers of childhood like the smell of damp bunks, rank body odor and watered-down scrambled eggs. The only way to make that better is to include 14-foot half pipes, long curvy rails and ramps lined with the signature yellow and black Woodward tape.
This week, as documented on ThemGoods, the Valo team and friends spent some time at Woodward West, chumming it up with little bladers. Expect an edit soon.
Sad fact for the last week of the summer season: there were seven bladers there. Seven! Holy hell is that depressing, but that only meant the grom to pro ratio was outstandingly awesome.
All summer long, pro teams went to blade all the Woodward camps for the skating, trouncing on the gymnastics obstacles and shenanigans.
Last month the Nimh team was at WW, reaming that place a new arsehole. The Vibralux team is no stranger to Lake Owen. The Denial team logged some hours at Woodward in Pennsylvania.
Get a girl to shove a flute up inside her and you’ve got the complete deal.
“Are you too good for your home?!”
If there’s ever been one site that all rollerbladers should embrace, it’s Rollerhome. However, by the looks of it, people are avoiding it like a girl with a sore on her lip.
While the site is scant on content it’s huge in principle — a unified spot for bladers looking to blade.
The best single feature is the maps function. It allows bladers to add their own skate spots, whether park or street. That, hands down, means that bladers are no longer dependent on skateboarding sites to learn about spots, whether locals are friendly, and who lives where.
It’s what blading needs. Say for instance, your parents are dragging you on vacation to some obscure place. With Rollerhome, you could search out bladers and spots. That is, of course, if anyone uses it in that city.
It also has profile functions, news submissions and lots of other FaceBook/MySpace/Twitter/Digg functions but specifically for bladers. All good things.
The site has recently undergone some technical upgrades, but what they also need to do is get on their marketing and promote the site. I don’t know if I’ve been completely ignorant to it, but I only stumbled on it recently because of their Twitter page.
Roll Zine
The strongest part of the Roll Zine’s content is the regular essays on an array of topics. This month’s is on the impact of Mindgame on our sport and culture, and ushering in the latest generation of bladers.
The latter is important because of all the talk on message boards from degenerate mouth-breathers about the sport going underground, the “glory days” of skating, and any kind of mournful attitude about the status of our sport. The X-Games booted us. The media neglects us. Well, sorry, but it’s time to pick ourselves up and heal that skinned knee instead of crying about it for another 10 years.
If we want to see rollerblading expand, it’s going to take money. It’s like a Ponzi scheme — you need a shitload of money at the bottom to keep the top floating. Case in point: get enough little groms skating and the pros might be able to get something as simple as insurance.
Zine editor Brandon Ballog offers a simple, yet highly overlooked, solution: give your old blades away to someone interested in blading. Whether donating them en masse to programs like Tracy White’s or just passing along a pair to a curious kid at the park. Remember, everyday is Get Someone to Blade Day.
Who knows, those donated skates might spark a new, passionate blader. That means he/she will start buying blading gear, thus supporting skating companies, and making skating more visible to the general public.
Doing something is good. Bitching about it is pointless.
Ubiquitous Item of the Week
Slow motion. The Cool Kids. Stoopin’. Mackin’ on hoes. Pigeon’s asses.
Ahh, summer blading.
Comment of the Week
This week’s comment hits close to home for our esteemed editor-in-chief Justin Eisinger as he and soon-to-be wife, Jenn, move into a new apartment.
The Drunk Blade Game
Here are two blogs you should be following — Drunk Blading and The Blade Game. Run by Dean Coward and Keith Brierly, respectively, the blogs are never short of amusing blading content and all sorts of jackassery.
Here’s the first of what’s promised to be more Blade Game edits, chock full of familiar names:
Blading went a miss when we tried to make it cool and adding a sense of fashion, thus losing the aggressive side of blading. Most people who got in to skating did it for the look and how aggressive it looked on the street. Young kids dont want to skate and look gay in tight pants and pink blades. Ehy do you think blading has gone down hill sinse then. Look over the years and compare the difference, belive me Im a skater from the UK and know why blading has been pissed on. Make the change back to aggressive styles and blading might win over a few younger hearts.
awesome!
Hipster fashion is just a fad in general nowadays. There’s a mix of styles now which makes blading more broad anyways.
spreading the word about rollerhome as we speak! twitter,facebook,myspace….;)
Well, you know what I say? If you can’t beat em, join em. Blading needs more stuff like this in general. Hipster fashion a trend? I think not. One thing is for sure, the emos will continue to reign in our sport as the busy bees producing plenty of material. Like it or leave it. You know what Im saying, blading has become a fashion statement whether you like to BELIEVE it or not.
