Friday 30 September 2016

Lords Of The Swords 2016 With Triple Sword Skate Store - Part Six :Empire Out Back DIY




This week, Four Wheel Fools will be releasing photos from time spent with the Triple Sword Skate Store boys on this years Lords Of The Swords road trip competition. A spot each day until the awards night at Empire Skatepark on Saturday 1st October. Scroll down to see previous posts.

Each competing team is required to produce a short film of their weekend. This edit should document the tasks completed and have now been submitted for voting online at www.lordsoftheswords.com so get voting Triple Sword!
Here's our edit. Filmed by Wazza Munson and some of the crew and pieced together by Wazza. 





VOTE TRIPLE SWORD HERE

As I said before, we returned to the park a little behind the others and the sight that met us made me well up and I stood at the gate watching a bunch of skateboarders taking turns to fly around the virgin concrete of Empire Skatepark's latest and most eagerly anticipated redesign to date. The Out Back DIY. Three years in the making, this cozy back yard concrete bowl is testament to the continuing colossal enthusiasm and energy the owners and locals of the park have in ensuring it's longevity and at the same time build and skate something really RAD.
I am proud to say that I took a small part in mixing concrete and shifting sand when I had the time to give to it, but the bulk of the work has been done by Jack, Harry and Wazza with help from a number of others including some vital skills and advice from Delside's Paul Carroll and some of the people behind The Spot in Tottenham Hale during the final push. Enough gushing over it.

All Lords 2016 teams were invited to the lock-in party. Some of the usual suspects turned up too. The temptation of a freshy too much to resist. 
Both Potter & Munson joined Jordan in an assault of the biggest 1/4 and few others took up the challenge.
The sun set and the makeshift floodlights came to life, so the skating continued into the early hours of Sunday morning with sporadic shouting of the name "DAN!" from Toby in homage to Alan Partridge cutting through the night.... all night. I managed to sink a few tinnies as I shot the action around the bowl so I did worry about the quality of some of my photos! 


Oh, and Jarvis was out cold on the platform by the time we arrived. His position didn't change until the lights went out around 4am.







Carl Wilson - f/s lein tail
Carl Wilson - f/s air
Carl Wilson - f/s ollie

Jordan Thackeray - f/s feeble

Jordan Thackeray - f/s ollie

Jordan Thackeray - one foot transfer

Mark Munson - egg plant


Carl Wilson - f/s crail air

Carl Wilson - f/s invert


Jordan Thackeray - stale (1)
Jordan Thackeray - stale (2)





Jake Bolt - b/s disaster
Jake Bolt































































Jordan Thackeray - f/s 5-0 transfer



Fin MacBrayne - f/s smith

Lewis Fitzpatrick - f/s nosepick 

Luke Pearce - up to f/s 5-0

Philippe Da Rosa - f/s 5-0 transfer

Philippe Da Rosa - f/s 50-50 all the way round


Quite a sizeable group stayed at the park overnight. And as I assumed this wouldn't be a conducive atmosphere for sleep, I chose to relax in my car for a few hours not expecting to sleep. 
Surprised to find myself waking up around 8, I chilled out in the sun for a couple of hours  and took some photos until I was able to complete my morning ritual at Tesco.





Jason Goodwin - Boneless

Jason Goodwin - hip to f/s 5-0 grab


Lewis Fitzpatrick - f/s ollie

Lewis Fitzpatrick - f/s stale

Mark Radden - Boneless

Chief Filmer and Editor Warren Munson



Mark Munson - b/s carve round the jacuzzi 

Mark Munson - b/s tail slide revert



On exiting the supermarket's customer toilet, I found that it had rained very hard and stopped again in the five minutes I was inside. I drove back to the park hoping the clouds would clear and skating outside would be possible on the final day.
A very dejected crew were sitting out back contemplating their next move when I crept through the back gate. Talk of staying put and skating the indoor park or Better Extreme in Barking was being banded about but seeing as no rain had fallen since I returned and the sky seemed safe enough I had a go at convincing everyone that it would be a good idea to dry the Out Back section as best we could and see what happened before making the choice to leave Colchester and chance running into further rain. The reaction was positive enough for me to pick up a broom and sweep as much of the standing water towards the drain or the gate. whichever was closest and with help from some others 
, the bowl was dry enough to skate within an hour including a short shower midway through drying and another round of sweeping. We got a strong couple of hours in before the night before started catching up proper.










Jack Keyword - hip to f/s tail slide

Jay Sable - f/s rock



Mark Radden - Clunk-Click R&R

Mark Radden tucking up over the hip and bump

And so by 4pm Lords Of The Swords 2016 was at a physical end for me but the work had only just begun for me. Not really work, I love going back through cards packed with photos reliving the weekend over and over. I packed my gear up and helped tidy up the Out Back before sinking into my seat and closing my door on the world. 
 Lords had, once again been a very entertaining and productive three days spent with a great bunch of friends.












 #fourwheelfools #lordsoftheswords2016 #empireskatepark #uk #skateboarding #competition #roadtrip #vote #blog #new

Thursday 29 September 2016

Lords Of The Swords 2016 With Triple Sword Skate Store - Part Five : Delside



This week, Four Wheel Fools will be releasing photos from time spent with the Triple Sword Skate Store boys on this years Lords Of The Swords road trip competition. A spot each day until the awards night at Empire Skatepark on Saturday 1st October. Scroll down to see previous posts.

Each competing team is required to produce a short film of their weekend. This edit should document the tasks completed and have now been submitted for voting online at www.lordsoftheswords.com so get voting Triple Sword!
Here's our edit. Filmed by Wazza Munson and some of the crew and pieced together by Wazza. 








 Day two started early. After a couple of hours rest on the platform of a ramp, I went out back to sit in the fresh morning air. After a little while I was surprised to see Jarvis appear. He proceeded to bare foot drop in and disappear with his dad for an hour for a shower and a full english (he met us straight from work the day before and probably needed a some solids after the last night). I visited Tesco for essential comforts and a cup of coffee. Returning to find a disposable barbecue burning well with a large pack of sausages and a bag of diced onions ready for the fire.


 During consumption, the group cleared up in preparation for the evenings event and plans were made for the day to come. Andy returned with a fresh & fed Jarvis surprisingly promptly considering the distance covered and wished us luck. Luke disappeared for 10 minutes or so and when he returned he had hold of his own shit in a polystyrene cup.
Why he felt the urge to poo in a cup is beyond me but we all laughed in disgust for a while before urging him to get rid of it! He opted to try and throw it over the fence towards the railway line. He managed to get most of it on target. One nug did however drift left into the car park. We left in convoy for Delside without finding out what it might have hit.







 Nestled in a small patch of woodland separating a main road from an industrial estate this vision of concrete nirvana is inevitably, considering the builder constantly having new sections laid or dug and Paul, as expected was on his knees, trowel in one hand slapping lumps of 'crete on with the other. I handed Paul a donation and got on with mixing along with the rest of the crew. 






 Once we had cleared the mix we got to skating.
I managed a few good lines early on as I'd planned. This gave me the rest of the session to potter around the woods finding angles for some sneaky long distance shots and cover as much of the skating as I could. I love taking photos at Delside. When the weather's good, dappled light floods the space and gives the greens a real blast of vibrance.

 As I walked back to the group, apart from a few still skating most were now chilling out or helping Paul further. Jarvis, wine bottle in hand was slurring his way through an argument about whether or not he should call his mum and tell her he was in hospital. One of the non-skate based challenges. Easily convinced, a speaker was connected to his phone and dialling commenced.
As the ringing tone repeated over and over, people began to giggle and taunt Luke about how his mum was probably looking at her phone thinking "for f$&* sake! I'm not answering" And letting it ring. Luke was all "no,no,no! My mum always answers my calls!" as his phone clicked over to answerphone. Much laughter and further taunting followed.





Fin MacBrayne - foot plant
Fin MacBrayne - ollie
Dave Meacock - sweeper


Lewis Hall - set-up 5-0

Lewis sticks a boneless as Jarvis hides in terror

Mark Radden 

Further skating ensued and Lewis, celebrating his birthday smashed out lines ending with BIG f/s flips and blunt shuv fakies. We cleared up our rubbish and Jarvis licked up the beer he'd spilt on the transition before we left to get Empire ready for a party.


Lewis Hall - f/s flip




Rick, Radman and I stopped for fast food before collecting some flood lights from Rick's parents place. This was going to be the first time the new Out Back DIY was getting non-builder's wheels rolling on it. It was going to go off late into the night and as we arrived back at the park the sun was falling behind the town lighting a most excellent sight....







#fourwheelfools #lordsoftheswords2016 #empireskatepark #uk #skateboarding #competition #roadtrip #vote #blog #new