Bones UK tour
After receiving a text from Alan Glass at Shiner Distribution stating simply, “we've got a big problem”, I did wonder how well the Bones Wheels UK tour was going to proceed.
It turns out that the 'big problem' was merely that Richard 'French' Sayer was unable to perform his van driving duties due to certain inadequacies in the driving license department. Apparently, if you passed your driving test after 1997 then you can't drive a 17-seater minibus without taking a supplementary test which was neither likely, nor possible in the 2 day period that Alan had to sort it.
I allayed Alan's fears by stepping into the role of driver/photographer whilst French continued as purse-string holder/forbidder of bathroom stops/general piss taker and once again all was as it should be.
Along for the ride were various members of the US Bones Wheels team including Dakota Servold, Taylor Bingaman, Corey Glick, Yonnie Cruz and recent Slovakian recruit Marek Zaprazny.
Team manager and filmer Jared Lucas kept the crew on their toes whilst nonchalantly wielding 20 grand’s worth of Red Cam around the UK, seemingly oblivious to the sideways glances of an assortment of potential thieves.
The tour schedule included a couple of less trodden paths leading to demos at The Level skatepark in Brighton, and Preston's newest Frosty approved concrete addition, whilst retaining a few familiar staples in the form of street skating days in Milton Keynes and London.
Leeds and Brighton provided some more lesser-seen street and DIY destinations courtesy of valuable help from local spot guides Dale Starkie, Stevie Thompson and Andy Evans.
The crew all smashed it, with Dakota keeping it steady on the street, Taylor ruling on anything transitioned, Corey and Yonnie finding and killing rugged terrain and Marek basically skating anything with tech steeze.
The old Lloyds Bank has been a staple Leeds spot for years. I’ve witnessed a fair amount of bangers go down on the stairs and hubba, along with talk about the possibility of hitting the high bar out of the bank at the side. Fast forward to the present day, and it’s not only a reality but there’s also the prospect of computer game like combos transferring onto the short marble hubba.
Corey warmed up with a fs nose slide to fakie and a fs tailslide before nailing this 5050 to 5050 in 5 tries.
Once Dakota had started the Leeds city centre hype, Marek kept the ball rolling with this varial heel. The Henry Moore art gallery burglar alarm screeched at full volume the whole time Marek was trying this, which was obviously putting him off and ruining the footage and we knew it was only a matter of time before the police showed up. As luck would have it, the arrival of the boys in blue was timed to perfection as they turned the alarm off and were on their way over to give us the boot, when Marek landed bolts!
Local skater Stevie Thompson had been showing Corey and Yonnie the Brighton sights the night before this city centre kickflip. They returned with sketchy iPhone footage of pissed up skating on some rad looking spots. Fast forward to the next morning and as with any UK town centre on a summer weekday, the previously vacant benches and ledges were full of people taking up any available space. The chances of skating seemed very slim.
Enter Yonnie Cruz with his South American charm. After about 30 seconds of chatting to the group of assembled pensioners, mums and kids, Yonnie somehow persuaded them to move!
Corey wasted no time in one-upping his ollie from the night before by flipping from seat into bank as the rain started to fall.
As is often the way, after an exhaustive tour of Leeds’ main skate spots and either a quick boot from security or no takers amongst the crew, Dakota decided he wanted to skate something that wasn’t ‘a spot’. He bombed the hill before launching this long distance kickflip off the kicker and over ledge and stairs. Although I was shooting the photo from over 20 feet away, Dakota was going so fast he almost ran me over.
To my knowledge, few people have skated this extremely tight hip due to the fact that a) you get kicked out almost immediately and b) it’s a hell of a lot harder to skate than it looks. I’m pretty sure that even fewer people have got this much height out of it. You can just about make out Taylor’s improvised crack fixer at the bottom of the other hip, comprising of two flattened beer cans topped with an off-cut of grip tape.
Thanks to Dale Starkie’s expert directions and Face Time instructions on gaining access to the ‘Welcome to Leeds’ motorway spot, Corey was able to frontside tailslide and drop off into the bank.
Getting in and out of this place is not easy, but by the time you’ve navigated across motorway slip roads and swung off a vandal paint slathered fence 30 feet above a train track, skateboarding seems a little easier. Shout out to Dean Greensmith right here – those who know, know.
After skating with Lee Rozee the day before, we’d heard the sad news that the wasteland this DIY spot is built on may be redeveloped soon.
Taylor made short work of bs noseblunting the bank to ledge that’s way steeper and harder to skate than it looks. Props to Blinky and co. for building such a rad spot.
Yonnie had already ollied into this alleyway to multiple bank configuration whilst pissed up in the dark. The next day he came up with an NBD in the form of this Wallie. The sketchy thing is having to clear the lip at the top of the first bank. If you hang up, you run the risk of face planting straight onto the second bank. Yonnie kept smiling and nailed it with typical steeze.
We’d barely left Heathrow and headed down the A4 into London than the boys were asking to pull over and skate ‘That Tesco spot’ that everyone drives past.
As Dakota was getting the boot behind me, Corey picked off a few crook bonks on one of low bars.
The Euston bank spot seems to be ever popular these days, even more so since the introduction of the cage/bar configuration allowing for ‘into the bank’ ledge tricks. Tom Knox’s ‘almost’ bs smith 360 Ollie out in the Isle video credits gets brought up a lot by visitors and locals alike and so we took the bait. An uber bust as ever with the possibility of about 10 minutes per session due to over-zealous security; Corey went back twice in 2 days and nailed this last try fakie nose grind revert with the added nause of protests from incoming security.
Trying to steer clear of Southbank whilst on a tour in London is like suggesting that you don’t go to any pubs on a stag do. After postponing the inevitable for long enough, we gave in to the call of the hallowed, yet piss-stained Undercroft.
Marek had never been to the UK before, let alone London, so was hanging to skate all the iconic spots. After nailing a line consisting of a flip back tail on the up ledge and nollie inward heel down The Seven, he followed up with this flip backside noseblunt.