Weekends with Div Adam

This vert ramp is around the back of my dad’s house. I’d only been there once before and the whole park was under water; this was the first time I’d seen anyone actually skate there. Watching Div skate vert was something else; it was like watching someone skate street, but on vert. He does all of his grinds like he’s skating street; he properly stands up on them.

He did this ollie a bunch of times and the trick made a sick noise because the coping sticks out quite far, so when his wheels bounced off of it they made a loud ‘thud’.

My dad and his wife Sharon came down with their dog Pepper to watch a bit of the session; Sharon felt bad because she kept shouting over all the footage, giving Div props. She was also really concerned that he wasn’t wearing a helmet. I told her not to worry; he’d already drunk four cans of Strongbow that day.

Div was already trying this hip tailgrab when Horsley asked all the bikers standing on the platform to move as – when the sun came out – their shadows were obscuring the top half of the transition. On one attempt, one of the bikers went back to say bye to his mate just as Div dropped in; there wasn’t any time to get him out of the shot, but as it happened, Div was hyped on the one shadow of the solo cyclist and asked the guy to stay in position whilst he got the right tailgrab for the photo.

Is this technically a doubles photo? Yeah, I guess so. Doubles with E.T.

We planned to go to Bristol this particular Saturday as Div’s set up flew into the lake by Caldecotte Ditch the weekend before, so he had to go get a whole new set up from Shiner. We spent all day at Dean Lane; we took Mark Stern with us so those two drank beers all afternoon in the sun, and Div effortlessly shot another photo on some haggard transition. That night we went camping at Camp Hillcrest; everyone drank more beers, Div gathered up all the spare wood from around the field and had a massive fire that was still going the following morning. Him and Mark stared at the homemade ‘Caveman Telly’ until the early hours.

I missed this one as I had enough energy to walk to Primark over the road. If you look closely you can see my vacant camping chair in the background. Looks like he jumps pretty high too. Nice.

Oh, I was there for this one. I made it back from Primark empty-handed. He was trying to get the tailblock over the ‘w’ on the graffiti. He did this a bunch of times too; the one he was the happiest with was in a line where he tre-flipped a sort of hip first. That skatepark is pretty horrible.

There’s not a lot to say about this one aside from the fact it’s classic form on home turf. A mid session frontside air, higher than average in several respects.

NBD’s at Livi are few and far between and no one has taken this noseblunt down the infamous escalator before for one main reason; it’s fucking gnarly. As in ‘really fucking gnarly’.

Div had thought about doing this since he was 16 and chose this session in which to finally have it done with. He battled it out just before dusk and was riding away from it in what seemed like no time at all. To celebrate, he climbed into his van and undertook an overnight drive to Henley. What a beast.

Weekends with Div Adam