Will rewatch on my lunchbreak and get back to you asap with examples
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Thanks Thomas much appreciated. Will need these notes before I watch.
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I haven’t watched this yet, but it seems that we’ve been spoilt rotten with the Welcome vid and are now subconsciously comparing every new video to that.
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A trend that’s been bugging me recently, and it’s not just in this video, are ride on grinds. No shade at the skaters doing them, they can only skate the spots that are around them. But I think ride on grinds are a product of a depressing trend in major, highly-developed cities (like London, Paris and New York) where space is at a premium and new architecture is built on top of other buildings and squeezed in. More expansive, open spots aren’t really being built in these places so much anymore. Skaters are having to adapt to whatever they can find whilst also getting round defensive architectural innovations like blind bumps, skate stoppers etc. It leaves skaters skating a lot of curbs.
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Upon further reflection I withdraw my capitalisation of the word “major”.
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This is an interesting point that I’ve never really thought about. Ride on grinds are pretty much always on ‘new build’ spots; seems to be a real trend in city centres to have a set of stairs (usually blind bumped) with a flush ledge running alongside that you can swerve the stoppers to ride on to. Just thinking of the three popular ride on grind spots in the UK: the black City of London one Casper Brooker has skate a lot, the one in Leeds that Dale Starkie started that back 3 line with in Welcome vid and the one by Houses of Parliament and they’ve all been built in past 5 years. Did this sort of setup never really exist before or did people just start to register them as spots?
Not really sure what I’m getting at here but you got me thinking
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I think they have become a more common architectural features as they allow for better looking wheelchair accessibility.
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Regarding the Leeds one, that spot has been there for a long, long time and people only really started with ride on grinds there in the last few years (or at least filming them).
They probably also reflect skateboarding becoming more diverse - they’re often spots that people of all abilities can do something on.
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Ok interesting, just felt it looked quite modern and its only recently cropped up
And yeah accessibility is probably a big factor
We’ve been skating the Henry Moore ride-ons for years but it’s only been in the last couple that people have figured out more difficult tricks to film on them rather than just messing around doing 5050s
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This is also true. Skaters of most abilities are generally able to ride onto the ledges and it involves them in a ‘filming’ session that otherwise they may not have been a part of.
Interesting evolution of that spot.
I remember skating it not long after the new bit that is now ‘the spot’ first appeared in the late 80s. To start off, nobody really skated the stairs or the ride on grind bits because originally it didn’t have the glass wall next to the ride on grind bit. Because of this you had a knee high drop with perfect run up into the road and a ledge (the same thing skated from the other side).
It feels like the ride on aspects only became a thing once the glass panel was installed to curtail people ollieing off the drop and into the road.
Paul Silvester and Rob Burn both filmed lines on the original Henry Moore ledge (it’s opposite the even older ledge that Baines had the famous front nose in Koston 1’s Blueprint advert).
Tom Brown and few other people had footage in Neil Chester videos doing tricks off the ride on grind bit but using them as drops in the early 00s.
Feels as though ride on grind tricks only started in the last 5/10 years.
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What’s the House of Parliament one?
It’s got great flat ground so it’s the evening meet up point for games of skate
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When it opened, the top bit was pretty much the smoothest surface in Leeds so being able to do tricks off that old gap (now obscured by the glass wall) was a godsend.
It’s probably considered rough these days but back then it was the nearest thing we had to a plaza
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At the northern end of Westminster Bridge to the right, down like 6-7 stair? Been in a few edits
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the one that casper did the stand up grind shove-it with the raemers shirt on?
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That’s the one in outside Fenchurch Street station; the City one I was referring to in the previous post
This Parliament one maybe a little less recognisable in big videos but seen in numerous edits on Grey etc.
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Happened to be in Leeds that day, when it was being shot… CMOAC. It was strictly an A4, Hating Life filming mission that day, rather than a Blueprint one. Why I always confuse it for being a Hating Life ad, in my head.
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Savannah skates it in Palace 3rd wav
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