Part One:  Cruising ASR. 

Well, we’re back from the Action Sports Retailers expo.  Although the show was apparently “sold out” (according to the ASR press) it seemed small, even for a January show.  Certainly, there were less skateboard-related vendors on display than in recent years, but there were also a few present for their first-ever appearance at the big show.  The opportunity to meet and chill with our contacts in the industry is always a big deal for us at Silverfish Longboarding.com, and not just because it’s an excuse to cut out of work for a few days…

This ASR promised some fun and intrigue:  the recent activity around Randal Trucks would be highlighted by the introduction of another derivative truck on the show floor, the mainstream skate industry cabal would issue a report on their “blanks issue”, longboard builders including Mike Mahoney, Peter Hamborg and the Salmon brothers would be on the floor with displays, G&S had boards to display after “recovering” rights to the name on skateboards and it looked like the San Diego weather would be perfect for skating…

ASR began for me with an easy skate across downtown to the San Diego Convention Center, timed to get me in the door right as the show opened.  One thing about ASR we’ve learned:  one can save a lot of time by getting in before the crowds arrive and the marketers start getting wacky with the aisle-clogging schwag tosses, bikini-model photo ops and product demos.   I bee-lined it for the Press Room, snagged an iced V-8 and walked the entire floor to assess the scene. 

I ended up at the Honey Longboards booth, which would become my home base for the rest of the weekend.  Mike Mahoney was on the floor to display his handcrafted, hardwood veneer boards, including a brand-new Hybrid/GS slalom deck.  Like all his boards, the concaved, cambered deck features matched-grain veneers and a grippy, clear grit over the top.   More on this one, later.

My next stop was the Alpha Skateboard Company display, where I was met with mixed emotion:  we’ve been giving them and others positive feedback about the burly Alpha skate tool, but have been less than enthusiastic about their “longboard” truck that uses set screws against a shaved kingpin to prevent wheel bite.  After making both our Best of ASR and Worst of ASR lists in September, they were quick to advertise the one, but to ridicule our concerns about the other.  It turns out the truck hasn’t come to market yet, but they had a longboard set up with the trucks, so I invited them to come on out to the Silverfish Outlaw that night and dispel our concerns about a truck we’ve never been allowed to do anything more than stand on in a trade show.  Besides, it would be great to have them in the big group.  Ah, but the session didn’t sound like “we can get our street on”, so that was a scratch.

Moments later, I ran into Sam from Crimson Skates.  He had the line of Riviera Longboards in his booth, each adorned with the newest Randal Killer, the Paris Truck.  At first impression, it’s cleanly made and I could immediately see that the kingpins were longer than those in the first promotional shots we’d found to run on the ‘Fish.  My appointment with the truck designer was for the next morning, so I snagged a few shots, invited the crew to the ‘Fish session and headed for another new longboard company, across the floor.

The brothers running Soul Ryde are committed:  they moved from the East Coast to south coastal San Diego County to make their longboard dreams a reality.  Entering ASR for their first time with a splash that included a lobby display, they were showing off an entire line of hardwood decks that feature lasered, wood burn graphics.   Some of the boards featured artistic designs; others literally had photographs burned into the wood and some included exotic inlays such as purpleheart wood.  It turns out that you can send Chris & Mike an idea, or your own electronic artwork, and they’ll customize your hardwood board with the laser engraving. 

The G&S/Fibreflex booth was stuffed with product.  Debbie Gordon and Dave Anderson were stoked to show off their new line of old G&S boards, having just recently bought back the rights to the G&S name for skateboards and designs.  There, sitting quietly was a Black Tip with concave!   Sweetness with bright Randals bolted underneath.  They’ve got a whole line of G&S boards, including some minis and also Fibreflex reissues.  As I’ve mentioned on the ‘Fish, the era of the famed BoTuff product is over:  there’s no more of the stuff, so I had a chance to check out the ‘glassed 5-ply TeamRider repop.  It's a new look & feel for a classic park & pool ripper.

On the subject of Randal Trucks, up walked the King of Signal Hill, John Hughes.  We chatted a bit about the state of things in the biz, the recent go/no-go with Randal Fuller’s sale of his biz and their future plans.  As reported in our forums, John’s come on board with Randal to manage the product line while his boss focuses on new ideas he’s baking in the oven.  In the meantime, John professes he’s going to take a close look at the baseplate issues and will resolve the problems.   Hey, that’s not all:  Hughes has gotten together with Labeda to produce another UFO wheel.  It’s hand-poured with high-rebound ‘thane and just about ready to hit the market in more than one size.  We’ll keep on this one for you.

Unlimited Freighting Objects 

Now, the Hamboards display was just around the corner, but I couldn’t get there.  Beset by a gaggle of chattering bikini models, I chuckled at the benefits of lugging around a few thousand dollars of camera gear during an impromptu photo shoot that was going so well that no photos will be published, until it was broken up by a stern-faced matron from one of the fashion houses that had gone hunting for “her girls”, only to find them pulling a “Girls Gone Wild” with some stranger.  For a second there, I thought her face was going to crack in half when she realized my badge didn’t refer to a surfboard magazine!

So, from debauchery to the opposite:  the clean-living surf-dogs in the Hamboards booth.  Papa Hamborg was there with three of his boys, showing off their famous 80” monster boards to an eager line of international surf-shop buyers.   Peter has isolated the formula and process for a super-clear, tacky urethane finish on his decks that reminded me of the stuff GFHurley used for a while.  It’s grippy, even when wet, and maintains the surfboard appearance of the Hamboard.  The big rigs were visible from aisles away, but I was particularly intrigued to see the production versions of their “small board”, the 60” Fish.  When your Mini is a 60 and it uses 97mm Flywheels, it’s gotta be a Hamboard! 

Moving on, I partook in the goings-on at one of the fashion houses, while stocking up on the 24-oz. energy drinks that were being eagerly handed out, then chatted a bit with Chuey Madrigal.  Chuey reports he’s surfing a lot, life is good and that, even though he’s not skating that often, he’ll still shred John Hughes.  Ha ha!!  Hughes was standing there, shakin’ his head. 

That's not static electricity you feel... 

ASR always has something new, extreme or both.  Two that struck me on Thursday were the energy drink tablets and the Skate Bike.   The SuperFly energy drink people had this booth with brilliantly colored, bubbling tubes of taurine juice, and tray after tray of samples.   So check this out:  their little package has five fizzy tablets in it.  Each tablet, when dropped into a 16-oz. water bottle of your choosing, will create an energy drink with a full gram of taurine in it (just like a RedBull).   It tastes a little “diet”, since they’ve got to use a sugar substitute for sweetening (sucralose, in this case).  So, hey:  if one tablet makes one “redbull-power” drink, what would five do?  What if you don’t have water?  An aisle away, I watched a kid from some street skate company dump all five fizzers into a 24-oz. Monster.  

Maybe I should have tried the five-fizzer thing, because I just couldn’t get excited about the Skate Bike.  Primarily marketed to large resorts that can afford $600-$1,200 dollars for a toy to be rented to tourists, the Skate Bike utilizes a coil-over, oil damped shock to support a swing arm and chassis that can be mounted with water skis, snow board halves, street tires, knobbies for dirt or a hub-mounted electric motor.  Do you remember our coverage of “The Swiss Killer”?  Well, these aren’t as nuts, but they also come from the land of bored alpine skiers willing to try anything…

Somewhat burned out, I headed for the Honey Longboards booth, and the free internet café next door.  While posting a note to the ‘Fish forums, I was accosted by the yellow-headed lunatic, Jason, from Loaded.  Soon after, Pablo and old man Don also showed up and we yukked it up with Mike Mahoney for a few minutes before Longboard Larry also cruised up.   Introductions were made all around and I could instantly see the stoked chemistry between all these guys:  technically competitors but eagerly and openly complimenting each other on their ideas and styles.   This kind of thing isn’t uncommon among the longboard crowd at ASR –other than the largest of companies, it’s a friendly, interactive community we have.

Outside on the sidewalk, after the show had closed, Larry and I were chatting with Peter Hamborg while his kids traded boards with Don, Pablo and Jason, ripping around the sidewalks and street in front of the convention center.   Jason came rolling up on a Hamboard Fish, carved into a slide-stop and laughingly told Peter with mock offense, “[t]hese boards suck!  Look what it did!”   In a hard carve, Jason had split the crotch out of his uber-jeans (ah, the weathered look!), creating a very stylish exposure situation.  I learned later that he'd worn those jeans daily, without ever a wash, for a year!  Thems were some friendly jeans and, by the end of the night would be torn down to his knee, but this didn’t stop him from cruising across town, into a great Thai restaurant full of well-dressed tourists (“Uh, put those guys in the back. Tell me he didn’t just lean a skateboard on the tapestry!”) Or from trying to kick-flip the WeFunk Top Bone at Banana Bay (grrr…), later.    Fun and food ensued at the Thai joint, and then we headed across town for the Silverfish Session.

The ‘Fish Session at Banana Bay is an ASR tradition.  We invite ASR visitors to skate with the local crew.  Sometimes, only a few show and we skate one-on-one with friends like Rich Auden of Lush.  Other times, it goes off big and becomes an informal conference of the industry.  This was one of the big ones.  Longboard Larry and the Loaded crew joined up with the Soul Ryde guys, Mike from Honey Longboards, Michael Brooke, Bud Stratford, Becket Colon, the Freeline skate-thing crew, a group from UCSD and the Ninja Bomb Squad for two and a half hours of racing, carving and cruising.   In addition to everyone’s personal skate, Don brought his Vanguard with Paris Trucks on it for all to sample, Mike had several Honeys, including the new slalom board and his 43” kick tail model, Longboard Larry had his one-off, 36” Humu, his new bamboo slalom board and a few others, Chris and Mike brought several Soul Ryde boards and we busted out parts of the ‘Fish quiver, including the Pressure Drop 42, the WeFunk with Liquids, a Fibreflex 45Kick with Bennetts and a BRX with Forces and Speed Vents.    We passed boards around, traded rides and the sound of skaters cheering each other through the corners and banging elbows echoed throughout the ‘Bay.   We barely got out of there before the deadline to beat security, and I went to bed that night with a huge grin on my face.

Day Two of ASR was the hard one for me:  I had to be up early to get to work before cutting over to the show.  After Thai beers and skating, it just felt evil, mean and wrong to get out from under the sheets in bed, but I soldiered on.   Back at ASR, I met with the Paris Trucks and Riviera Longboards crew.  This was a great meeting.  I received some cool feedback about the input received from Silverfish members about the trucks and we chatted over the designer’s decision to add the “old school” drilling pattern to the Paris base plates.  The Paris trucks may be the first Randal Killer designed by a hardcore street and ramp skater, and some of that heritage comes through:  the Grade-8 kingpins are splined, as on an Indy Stage 9, and the hangers will come in an array of colored coatings.  We’ll post a whole array of photos in the forums, and will get these into the testing quiver, ASAP.

See the Gallery or Forums for a closer look at the guts of the Paris. 

It was also cool to hear the story behind Riviera Longboards: a guy that loves to skate longboards and snowboard saw an opportunity to design boards aimed at skaters in mainstream skating.  Shooting for a look that’s, “[l]ess surf than punk, than rock, than aggressive street”, the line will be marketed in street-skating shops across the country.  Personally, I was enthused to see how much thought has gone into these boards – other street companies have longboards with cheap Indy knock-offs, hard bushings and small, cheapo, clear wheels with monstrous cores.  These guys developed the Paris truck, gave it turny bushings and have 70mm, soft wheels on them.   I can just see the increased potential for crossover when new longboarders get on a board that works!  

It wasn’t long after I started to cross the floor after my meeting with the boys at Crimson that I began to get stopped in the aisles and interrupted by phone calls, from people that had skated in the session the night before—or that had just heard about it.  Some had regrets about missing it, others just wanted to set up another.  I just wanted an energy drink with a couple of those SuperFly fizzers in it.   Work awaited, however, so I slipped out of the show and rolled up the hill to the Silverfish World Headquarters Complex.

Back at the office, I nestled into my cubicle under the stairs to get some work done at “my job” (almost forgot about that) and made a serious mistake:  I slouched back for a moment and let my head touch the back of my chair.  That led to an unplanned, 45-minute nap.  The upside was that I felt recharged, so I got some stuff done and then headed down to ASR for some beers & socializing with the Bennetts, JT, Mike Early, Longboard Larry, Mike from Tunnel, Buddy Carr and, for a moment, Per Welinder.  While we were chatting, Brian Bennett reached into a canvas bag and pulled out the latest version of the Bennett speed truk.  Now, we showed you these truks in September, but the effect on the room was palpable:  several conversations stopped and folks walked up to ask about the truks.  Mr. Bennett handed one to Longboard Larry and, just for a moment, I saw the urge to bolt for the door flash in Larry’s eyes.  Gaining composure, Larry spent some time chatting with the Bennetts and got to see what we learned about at the last ASR:  the father and son team are smart, engaging and very focused on the production of the best products they can possibly make.

A search for Mexican food in the Gaslamp District for dinner scored a group of us a primo seat on the balcony of a restaurant that featured a band of roaming mariachi.  Note to self:  giving the Mariachi band requests for Mexican drinking songs will cause Michael Brooke’s ears to bleed.  At dinner, Buddy Carr and I discussed the pending Randal Killer truck in development by Tracker.  That’s moving along and will add another contender from the House of Balma.   The best thing for my digestion is 7 floors of smooth concrete, and that sounded good to Longboard Larry, too.  We skated non-stop for two hours and burned another great session into the memory banks.

The Final Day of the expo was to be a busy time for me.  First, a burned fuse in my wife’s car made me late for a meeting over coffee.  Then, as I skated up the sidewalk to ASR on my nearly-silent, 24” Humu with soft Tunnels, I crossed by one of the Convention Center’s traffic directors.   Apparently, the little fella was annoyed at my progress, because he yelled at me to “[g]et off that skateboard!”  Now, I normally respect The Man and all, but I’d just spent a few hours skating with WillJ a few nights earlier.  I resisted the urge to ollie onto his face (a level of control simplified by an inability to ollie) but rolled on with a wave and a grin.   Into the lobby I went, to find the Bennetts, Bruce Logan and Bud Stratford.   Two or three minutes later, a huffing, red-faced, 300-lb crossing guard accosted me.   Well, I see as I write this that Bud mentioned it in his article, so ‘nuff said. 

I met with the Bennetts for a closer look at the new “Gravity Only” Vectors and, especially, the continuing development of their speed truk.   We’ll have more photos and details in the forums, of course, but the biggest news is that Mr. Bennett has designed a urethane “Devo Hat” bushing that’s nearly the same, massive shape as the rubber units we showed you in September, but that performs with the high-rebound so essential to large-bushing speed trucks.  

 We also received a close look at the new 3-piece wheels developed by Gran Prix Skateboards with Rick Wilson (of Xtreme Wheels and streetluge racing fame).   Now ready for market, these wheels have been tested in high speed runs on Mt. Palomar, garage sessions and street bombs for the last several months.  The basic idea is that you’ll buy a set of hub/bearing carriers, plus an outer hub set with urethane, and then be able to replace worn wheels, or simply switch to other sizes, by inserting the reusable cores into any of the Gran Prix wheels.   They’ve got 75mm wheels ready to buy, now, and larger sizes coming out of the SoCal factory where they’re poured.  Check out the forums for more pics.

Soon enough, it was all over. The smart few cut deals to buy display items as the vendors packed up and bugged out.  I think the steal of the day was had by this dude that scored an 80" Hamboard for about what the running gear, alone, would cost.  He knew he scored...   

Within minutes of the end of the expo, the place is a deserted mess.  Vendors stack gear in the aisles, many of which are empty but for the aftermath of some confetti-laced promotion of some kind or another.  After all the excitement, hype and hoopla, it's like the whole place just deflates.  Every year, I swear I'll be out of the building before this happens, but I never make it.  

I ain't cleanin' it. 

I lugged my boxes of magazines, shirts, samples and skateboards up the block to my car, fending off the local kids looking to buy stuff on the cheap, then jumped in the Carrasco's limo for a lift up the block to another ASR tradition:  ale and food with Richy, Maria, Brooke and whoever else we can snag, all at The Field, an excellent Irish pub.  Big Bud Stratford, Chaput, Rene' Carrasco, Pablo from Loaded and his gorgeous wife, Debbie Gordon and a few others joined us.  We finished the show with more of the best part:  conversation and good cheer among friends.

So, it's not until September that we next meet at ASR.  We'll do it again, hosting a skate event, showing you "stuff" and finding something to complain about.  If all goes well, Kingston will be thawed and present, too.  In the meantime, Part 2 of this article will be a layout of photos in the larger format size we use in these front page articles.  More photos are also filtering into the gallery and forums, as time permits. 

Go Skate!