saturday 29 august
Dom's Birthday Bash - New Milton
I hosted my customary Birthday Bash in New Milton skatepark this year, joined by fellow streetboarders Colin Horan, Paul Nash, Andy Garett, Tim James and James Kelly.
New Milton skatepark had only just opened a couple of months before - the most notable feature of this Maverick-built park being the "concrete wave" stepped rollover, located in the corner.
There's a kidney-shaped bowl at one end and the rest is split into 2 sections, including a step up lunchbox, street section and wide quarterpipe at the far end. The street section involves a rather nice down rail, hubba, plaza steps and euro gap.
Colin, Paul, Tim and James started the day in the bowl - Paul was trying long noseslides round the coping, Colin and Tim were throwing various airs off the hip of the kidney bowl, with James doing his trademark 180-noseblunts.
Andy worked his way around the park from launchbox to vert wall and grass gap to concrete wave, going huge with his signature bir air style before getting inverted in the wave...
I spent much of the day in the street section on the rail and the nearby quarter before I was joined by Colin and Andy, riding the concrete wave and throwing combo's down some of the long grindboxes beneath.
We all agreed that Andy comprehensively won the day's best trick with either of 2 massive tricks - initially blasting a huge air over the grass gap, before throwing a huge rodeo flip in the concrete wave...
Legendary stuff...! ;)
It was a great day spending many hours riding hard with friends and getting some footage down, cut all too short by the necessity to be home for the next part of my birthday - the BBQ! :D
The lads stayed the night, but everyone was too knackered and sore to skate next day, so people had a big breakfast and eventually went their different directions...
Little Baby Violet
<On a completely different subject, I feel I should talk a bit more about little baby Violet...
 Violet has been growing up quick as children do, learning new skills and developing day by day - a far cry from the tiny infant of the first couple of months! She is very happy and inquisitive, and loves her bouncer and getting out-and-about, visiting parks, baby classes, swimming - all the things a child should!
CJ & I both feel very lucky to have such a gorgeous, happy, healthy little bundle of energy, and are loving parenting - the good times and the bad ;)
Devon weekend with Rich & Lou
We all went for a long weekend with Rich and Lou down to north coast of Devon, sleeping in slightly-oval wooden huts with no elecricity, in a field on the exposed clifftops inbetween Delable and Port Isaac.
We had a good day exploring Port Isaac and walking the coastline there but the onset of a prolonged bad spell prompted an early return home - but it was good to get the vans doing camper duty again...
Andover skatepark with Adam and Paul
A week later, I called Flipside Boards founder Adam Walder and rider Paul Nash with the idea of checking out the newly-opened skatepark over in Andover, and we headed there for afternoon skate.
Essentially rectangular, it features a step-up launchbox, bowl spined to mini, hubba, flatbar handrail, battleship rail over driveway, gap with large ball feature and c-block.
 The sun beat down relentlessly as we rode the park, making for a roasting skate with all the reflection off the fresh 'crete..!
I started on the hubba and rail while Adam and Paul rode the mini and the bowl, everyone pulling bangers out the bag before moving on around the park...
It always amazes me how Adam can just jump on a board after months off, and bang out smooth tricks like he's been practising all week. Astonishing! ;)
There were far fewer people at the park this time and the average age was older than the kidfest we had expeienced previously at this park, and it was good to be able to ride without having to constantly be on the lookout for errant kids...
The c-rail was a regular feature, gentle enough not to throw you off balance and allow balance for combo's. Adam was using the quarter at the end for frontside airs, Paul manual-ing the driveway and I tried Miller Flips over the rollover.
Was great to see the guys, especially Adam as it had been a while, and get riding like the old days on such a fabulous day! Classic.
Happy Birthday Blog - you are 10!
And finally, I have noticed that this blog is now 10 years old! 10 years dedicated to bringing you quality content from our part of the streetboarding and snowboarding worlds :)
You lucky people! ;)
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