Matt Hensley single handedly blew up the street skating scene. I remember when I first saw his part in H-Street "Shackle Me Not" video I knew street skating had changed forever. He was the first person I heard use the term flatground and then I watched him just ride down a sidewalk and shred everything in sight. I spent the next month trying to learn that stuff and turning my shins into shredded meat chunks.
Matt is still doing cool stuff, playing accordion for the great Irish band Flogging Molly.
My skate bud Rob picked up one of these at Ohana recently and I thought it looked interesting. As usual he is pretty mellow about his gear but I rode his board for a second and thought I just had to get one. I picked up the 7.75 team deck and man is this board sick! Insane amounts of pop and it holds up to having an old fat guy like me doing lipsides on curbs with it. I broke 2 previous boards doing that trick. Do yourself a favor and grab yourself a Beer Run board, you will not regret it!
Every Friday I feature one of my favorite skaters. Today it is Mark Gonzales, one of the pioneers of street skating. Mark is the person that decided we could all slide down handrails on our skateboards as well as do darkslides, sliding on your grip tape instead of the bottom of your board. What a mad man. Watch this footage from 1991's Video Days and you will see just how far ahead of his time he was. You could drop this footage into a video today and it would be considered a great video, but this is from 18(!!!!!) years ago!! Just look at that board he is riding, it must be at least 9 inches wide. The other thing that a lot of people don't know about The Gonz is he ripped vert as well as you can see towards the end of this clip.
I was lucky enough to skate with Gonz once at the Vans skatepark in Milpitas a few years ago. Not only does he rip but he is a pretty cool dude. Enjoy the video.
Here is my 1 and a half year old son Jack with his first no help skateboard ride. Well I pushed and let go for a little bit. He is so stoked to be on the board. Anyone recommend a good board for a little grom?