Jeff Grosso returns for a ninth season of rants, obscure facts and all around skate nerdism with Jeff Grosso’s Loveletters to Skateboarding: Downhill. This sees Grosso, alongside Don Nguyen, Frank Gerwer, Bob Denike, Steve Olson and Levi Hawken, wax lyrical on the subject of going really fast down steep inclines on four wheels and a plank of wood. Obviously this is interspersed with plenty of archival footage which, as hill bombing is one of skateboarding’s deepest roots, goes way back to the 1960s. From grainy footage of blonde haired surfer types, to lycra-clad lugers (I have no idea if that’s the term you would use, but I’m going with it) trash talking the opposition, to the current crop of GX1000 lunatics, this is an ode to hills which is guaranteed to envy to the hearts of those who live in one of the flattest areas of South London.
Of course there’s plenty of good Gerwer hill bomb footage, though surprisingly his switch bomb schoolkid dodge and the classic Lombard photo are missing – luckily we have you covered in our top hill bombs article, which includes both.
It also offers him the perfect platform for his stream of consciousness absurdist comedy, pondering the question ‘Is Gerwer skateboarding’s Spike Milligan?’ As such, it seems only right to leave you with some words of wisdom from the man himself;
“We’re going to be talking about speed, we’re going to be talking about gravity, nine point two metres per second – square – today on the letters.”
Spend the morning procrastinating with more Loveletters, because you can and because being productive is overrated. This new Loveletters is also all the reason we need to share a clip of this fucking loonbag – Auckland resident Levi Hawken does not fuck about when it comes to bombing hills…