Wednesday 27 August 2014

Lords Of The Swords 2014



This last Friday saw the start of the fifth annual Lords Of The Swords competition. 
Basically a three day road trip across Essex visiting as many skateparks as possible winning points by completing challenges. Some skateboarding and some not! Each team must film all completed challenges resulting in a video edit. These videos will be available for public viewing online and you will be able to vote for your favourite edit. The best video, combined with total points scored will determine the winner. 

Having attended the Thrasher Magazine party at House of Vans on Thursday night and encountering a Tube strike I arrived home on Friday morning at around 4.30am and after a couple of hours sleep, headed out to the meeting place chosen for the start of the comp.
Arriving at Wharf Road car park in Chelmsford I was met by a grand sight. Over 20 cars (around 20 teams), all surrounded by skateboarders, mingling and larking around in exited anticipation of the coming weekend.














Challenge books and wax for all teams

This was the last I saw of the Empire Skatepark crew...
Zombie Brand's team(s). I count 23 members... This crew knows how to party hard!
Obligatory group photo
After meeting my team, S Club Stefan and organising an extra team member, Vince who's original team had apparently blown out the weekend I took a couple of shots of the start and said hello to a few folk. A smoke bomb was hurled in the air and we were off!



GO!




 Tyres screeched as 20+ cars full of skaters began to slowly disperse in many directions across the county.
I was under no illusion that we were in with any chance of winning on points so I was up for some skateboarding and some good times. I took the camera out a couple of times over the weekend but mainly concentrated on the skating so these photos represent a couple of stops we made and a few people we cross paths with on the trip. 
Day one sent us south east to South Woodham Ferrers and Rayleigh, then west to Harold Hill after finding a very wet Brentwood.
These next photos were taken at Delside, a DIY construction near Rayleigh. Much fun was had skating this spot. We even got to skate with the creator, Paul. A RAD skater and a very talented builder.


Jake - f/s grind
Paul - 5-0 fakie
Stefan - feeble fakie
Tom - f/s ollie
Vince - f/s lipslide

Joe - b/s boardslide
Tom - f/s smith
Vince - rock & roll slide

Paul - b/s lipslide. Yeah, we got those points!
 An evening session in Harold Hill at dusk ended our first day of skating. Our team was made up of a number of young members who, without drivers would not have been able to take part but, unfortunately this did mean we had to drop all of them home each night so our routes were planned from and to Colchester each day. On a positive note, this did mean I got a well earned night's sleep in my own bed!

Day two started one team member light as Tom had remembered that he had a day ticket for the Reading Festival. We met at Saffron Walden where various challenges were completed and we moved on to Thaxted mini ramp. 
Five minutes behind us were the Zombie Brand crew. Three cars full of people in various l
states of intoxication. This crew knows how to have a good time! 
   


Vince - b/s rocking the vert extension
Challenge: Try and work out who's high on what.... I take Jay, he's high on skateboarding!
Zombie getting the job done

1st time I've seen Luke completely inept of any skating ability


As Zombie left and Bradley Howe's crew arrived we moved on to Urbside where Vince failed to cross the river using the rope swing. Next was Dunmow before hitting Silver End for dusk. With no lights at the park, this was a short, but successful stop.

Jake - ollie over the spine, done.


For day three we started at Colchester bowl where Vince took in a stray dog for an hour before the owner finally claimed it, then headed out to Mersea Island where after skating the small park we all ate chips & ice cream before Jake got fully submerged for the points before we headed to Tiptree.  



This is where Stefan completed one of the non-skating challenges - to raise the team flag on the local lake's island. 








Finishing at Empire Skatepark in Colchester where we met the four or so remaining members of the Zombie Brand crew, reduced in number but still skating hard and getting the job done.
Our youngest member, Norbert competed the task of drinking a pint of milk followed by a pint of cola. This turned out to pretty messy due to first shaking himself up and then having the two liquids mixed thoroughly by Zombie Jay. This led, as expected to Norbert involuntarily expelling the curdled mess from his stomach quite abruptly.
Stefan then undertook the drink 8 pints of milk in under an hour. This challenge, although completed successfully also resulted to quite a lot of vomiting! On completion of this task, I left for home.
This was my first L.O.T.S. and won't be my last. Some of the most challenging skating that I've done and fun I've had in years. Loved it!




#LOTS #lordsoftheswords #skateboarding #skating #skate #uk #essex #photography 


Monday 11 August 2014

Hometown Saturday Session with some Real Dirty Boyz

At the end of an eventful week I met with some of the other Bury locals for a Saturday night session down the local and on my arrival Reece announced that I had been inaugurated into the Real Dirty Boyz crew and on that note I proceeded to hammer some favourites out on the park. 
After a couple of hours, new tricks bagged and a couple of slams taken I picked up a beer and the camera. 
From the beginning these weekend sessions have taken a mellow path with a fine balance of skating and chilling out in the sunshine listening to Reece talk crap. With most older users getting their party on, late weekend evenings bring a very quiet park and the perfect opportunity to try new lines and tricks. Often we end up in town after a good skate, but this time we all brought the essentials for a good night with us. 
I've recently purchased a couple of new lenses. A 16-35mm f2.8 wide angle and a           70-300mm f4-5.6 telephoto so this was the first real outing for them both. I'm very pleased with the results.






Aaron Clapham tweaks an ollie, oblivious of the end result 
Aaron Clapham - Airwalk (caught late)

Aaron Clapham - b/s 360
Aaron Clapham - tre flip
Reece Bartlett - mollie something flip


Ron really tweaks ollies over the pyramid. He's a tweaker.
Aaron Clapham - no-idea-flip
Meet Big Ron.  
Aaron Clapham - bigger flip
Aaron Clapham - step up 360 flip
Ryan Mitson - step up kickflip
Reece Bartlett
Ryan Mitson - f/s flip
Scott Feveyear - b/s flip

Follow the Real Dirty Boyz on instagram: @therealdirtyboyz

#uk #skateboarding #hardcorehobbies #therealdirtyboyz #dirtyboyz #burystedmunds #bse #skatepark #flashphotography #flash #photography #outdoors #summer #nights #skating #burystedmundsskateparkexperience