Four Wheel Fools : August 2016

Ben Jones - no comply f/s 5-0

This one's a bit overdue. Sorry about that!

It was finally here, the day of the first ever skate jam hosted by the blog.
This was something I had planned from day one of Four Wheel Fools, to make this not only something people hopefully read and viewed but also a brand. With a range of clothes, stickers and other paraphernalia displaying the blog's name. As well as events like this one.
So Four Wheel Fools t-shirts are AVAILABLE NOW and they've come up really well. And they've started selling too. Both Empire Skatepark's Triple Sword store in Colchester and Hardcore Hobbies in Bury St. Edmunds are stocking them and I have a Big Cartel shop online with all sizes and an offer of a free sticker pack with online purchases.
See the banner at the top of the page? Click it and indulge.
I hope to continue to print new designs on various products as frequently as I can afford, but the first run of t-shirts will have to do for now. And some were bought at the jam, the profit will go straight back into another run later in the year.
Keep your eyes peeled for news of new lines on here and the Twinstabook platforms.

Saturday July 30th was overcast to begin with but as I fretted about postponement an cancelation the skies cleared and the sun began to warmed the air. By the time the jam kicked off it was a blazing summer afternoon. Proper blessed!
I'd picked up the new FWF t-shirts from Striptees UK over in Diss on Thursday night and had packed a couple up as prizes along with all the other amazing prize donations from Navitas, Witchcraft, Hardcore Hobbies, Empire Skatepark/Triple Sword Store and Muckefuck. A massive collection of boards and other hardware, shirts, hoods, crews, wheels, bearings, stickers and hats. I was blown away by the generosity of all involved. I'd only described it as a small, local jam and asked for 'stickers.....and maybe a t-shirt'!
The cabling and access to the power source at the park was sorted on Friday, which on Saturday enabled music. That for me was key to a good session. That and a loud megaphone (this was kindly supplied by Tom Ellam). Skate jams are not meant to be quiet, reserved affairs. They should be loud and full of slams, snakes and shouting. Beers, and burgers. Sunburn and blood.
I got to the park - my local Bury St. Edmunds skatepark a good couple of hours before the barbecue needed lighting and laid cables. Power cables, from the source up to.... well that's the thing. Although I had been loaned 60 metres of cable and the required adapters I was still a good 30 metres short if I wanted the speakers close to the barbecue and prize table. Some quick thinking was required, along with some slightly suspect daisy-chaining of extension leads! We still didn't quite reach our goal, but the volume was sufficient to be heard above everything else.
With the barbecue now lit and everything else sorted out I tackled the painting of the back of the jersey barrier. The artistic friend I had asked to paint it had been unable to do it the night before so with my insufficient skills I scrawled three words with car paint on the concrete and left it at that.
2 o'clock came and the bowl platform began to fill up and by the start of the comp, a whole load of donations had been collected and the skaters went in on the bowl with intent.
MC duties meant I couldn't take as many photos as I would have liked, but I managed to get a few frames in before and during the comp. My partner Neen helped a huge amount in organising and setting up and along with John Bird, manned the barbecue and collected donations. Without this help the day would not have gone as smoothly as it did!
Lessons were learnt and improvements will be made. Prizes will be gathered and t-shirts printed before the Second Annual FOUR WHEEL FOOLS Summer Bowl Jam & BBQ.

Death Destroy Films promised to film and produce an edit of the jam, and Cerven came through! So the link is below, then there's some photos. Enjoy... we did.

EDIT HERE

THE PHOTOS

BEN JONES!!

John Thompson - b/s boneless

John Thompson - clipped & grabbed f/s grind

Kizz - grabbed f/s grind

Morri - long f/s 50-50

Luke Jarvis - f/s invert. He made one on the coping, but I was shouting at
him not pointing a camera at him!

Luke Jarvis - sex change hippy jump?

Luke Jarvis - f/s blunt

Carp fishing's Mark Munson looking down the wrong end of a cheep cheese slice wrapper

Munson getting fresh with Monty

Munson eventually got this back tail revert. Walking away bruised and battered

Mark Munson - no comply f/s tail slide

#FOURWHEELFOOLS #FOURWHEELFOOLSBBQ #PaulJacksonPhotography #bowljam #bowl #jam #new #uk #skateboarding #burystedmunds #hardcorehobbies #suffolk #blog

To commemorate the life of local legend Steve Bayless who devastatingly, left us earlier this year the U.K. Independent Vert Series organised a session at the recently resurfaced ramp at St. Neots in Cambridgeshire.
I've never skated or shot vert before and so the vert scene in the U.K. is a bit of a mystery to me. This I think is due in part to the huge difference between the usual skateboarding undertaken in the U.K. and vert skating. It takes a particular kind of person to ride a fourteen foot ramp with confidence and so, the majority of skaters just don't do it. We all know the vert that winds its way back through skateboarding history, but how many of us have actually dropped in and skated it? The last time I watched vert skating was probably the Bones Brigade tour at Leigh On Sea back in the early nineties!
There just aren't the ramps either. Parks we now have hundreds of, but vert ramps...
English weather doesn't help. And the expense of housing a ramp the size of a house is massive and so, there are few indoor parks with ramps in the U.K. Parks just can't afford to sacrifice the space.
St. Neots however, is an outdoor ramp, and it's a beast! The park sight has been the home of a vert ramp for many years. I remember Dom Tinkler telling me about the ramp that flooded frequently next to the river when I first moved to Suffolk. The latest incarnation, a big steel construction recently resurfaced with Skatelite is part of a much larger park built about 8 years ago. It is now known as Big Orange.
I arrived and asked the organisers if it was ok to get up on the platform. I was told in no uncertain terms that I should, so I climbed the ladder and set up on the platform.
I had a great time and the skating blew my mind!

Please feel free to leave a comment if you can name any of the skaters I cannot!