Colorado Longboarding - Brian Holden

                We started filming in Red Rocks, Colorado, a place known for its great views and concerts. As I was parking the car, I looked up and saw a gnarly path that was carved into the Red Rocks for accessing the amphitheater.  We hiked up to the path and scoped it out, knowing that it was going to be a wild ride. As I started to charge down it, finding that even the slightest over drift would throw you into the handrails, this made it very difficult for the shot, but also fun and challenging to land the perfect line. Patience was also required as visitors were consistently walking the path, we had to wait for the perfect gap of time and try and get the shot, then move on. A crowd actually started to develop as people started to notice the “crazy kid on his skateboard” charging down the ramp. We finally got the shot, headed to the other sections of the park, and got out. Then we continued to Kawika Omoto’s hosue and picked up the fellow injured skater who was stoked to come and film.

We headed to a neighborhood up in the foothills with a steep descent into a flat runaway, perfect for huge stand up slides. We filmed all over neighborhood using driveways, sidewalks, and paths trying to find some fun skate spots. After getting some fun clips for the video, I decided to bomb the entire hill, seeing how much distance I could get on the stand-up powerslide. After having a few close calls, I finally landed the trick, getting over 40 feet with the slide. Then, we remembered there was a slide clinic being thrown in Boulder, Colorado in a matter of minutes, so we headed to Boulder to meet Tom Stetler, the organizer of the clinic and get some fun slides in. It was truly one of the greatest skate days I have ever had.            

                A couple days later, we headed to film some urban shots in Downtown Denver; these were probably some of the harder shots for the film, one involving the 180 hippie jump with a grab over the railing. After a few crashes, I managed to pull it off, and head to the chain jump. The chain was not very high, but still got the best of me (see bloopers at the end of the film). I managed to bounce back, and stomp the hippie jump on the next try. Having all of the shots, we did some garage skating, and then ended the session.      

Deciding we had almost all of the shots finished, we headed up to film some mountain passes in Colorado. Upon arriving there, it started snowing at the top! Colorado is very unpredictable with the weather, but we decided to keep filming and capture the weather in all of its nonsense. Skating the pass on a wet road was exhilarating and made me constantly challenge my skills to skate each run. We got a bunch of snowy shots in, and then headed out.

The video was a ton of fun thanks to Mark Riley and Kawika Omoto for helping me film, Ron Lyons aka Ronnie Vegas for creating the sick beat for the intro, Never Summer for building the raddest boards around, Zak Maytum for letting me test his Venom wheels, and all of the stoked people I have met along the way.

The setup I was riding in the video was:

NS Soldier with Randall Trucks with 42's, Venom Sidewinders with Biltins Bearings, Red Venom Eliminators in the back truck, Red bottom / yellow top Venom eliminators in the front truck.

I will be testing out some Orange Retro Freerides for my next film, so watch out!