Sidewalk Skateboarding

UK SK8MAFIA, Autobahn Wheels and Venture Trucks hitman Dan Wileman is one of the best-known, and certainly best-travelled, faces on the current British skate scene. He made a name for himself in 2010 when he won best trick at the Euro Champs and then featured in Bristol’s Finest for the city’s Fifty Fifty skateshop alongside riders such as Flynn Trotman and Korahn Gayle.

Since then, things have quietened down for Dan, and, despite a spell as a pro for the now-defunct Crayon Skateboards, he has been without anything steady on the shoe front since 2009. A three-month stay in Puerto Rico in 2013 resulted in Jose Papingui Rodz’s scene DVD Paradise Fever, in which he destroyed a series of sweltering street spots.

Dan was born in Durban, South Africa, but he grew up in Bristol, in the south-west of England. Still only 27, he is now based in Barcelona for much of the year, where he works as a cook in a Belgian restaurant, but he gets back to his hometown at least once every three months as well as spending most of the summer there.

Riding with a regular stance, Dan remains Bristol through and through, a product of the same febrile scene that has produced riders of the class of Matt ‘Stalker’ Keal, Zak Pitter and best mate Danny Wainwright. His skating has continued to develop in Barcelona and he is still out on his board every day, exploring the East Coast lines that run all through the city.