Thursday, January 30, 2014

NYC Courthouse Ledge #2: Adidas Team

After covering basically all of the facets of skating the NYC Courthouse, I've left the last two posts for this week for two specific videos. One of them is the Adidas team skating in NYC. Now even though Adidas is a mainstream company that you can say doesn't belong in skateboarding, what they've done in skateboarding is without a doubt pretty awesome. The primary ("American" maybe, though it's really made up of a good amount of internationals too) team alone is so stacked, but not stacked like DC or Nike with guys that are going to be in every contest. Not that contest skating is necessarily a bad thing, but the collection of guys on Adidas is supremely more tasteful to me than many other shoe brands. I think "tasteful" is an accurate word for what Adidas has been doing: the crew mixes up an eclectic group of styles, the shoes are classy and distinctive, and the videos they've consistently been putting out (including every single one of their tour videos) is exactly how I think tour videos should be. It may be the German roots or something but whatever it is the editors, filmers, and skaters at Adidas produce some of my favorite web clips.

Now that I'm done ranting on the tastefulness (last time I use that here, I swear) of Adidas as a whole, let's see exactly what the crew accomplished at the NYC Courthouse. Starting slightly after the 5 minute mark in the video, Lucas Puig surprises by coming in hot with a smooth-as-always switch flip back tail. I'd probably say that this is my favorite trick done on that main ledge at the courthouse, and I am fully embracing my biased support of the Frenchman. Dennis Busenitz of course comes through with speed - though it probably felt slow for him - and shrugs his shoulders on a back feeble, only to step it up with a sick back noseblunt pop out.
Some other rad skating ensues at different spots from Vince De Valle (gnarly boardslide!) to Nestor Judkins to Benny Fairfax (see what I mean about the team?) and then the official introduction of Mark Suciu pops up (SEE WHAT I MEAN?!?!). Just when you think all the ways of skating the NYC Courthouse have been explored, from the two ledges to the drop to manuals in between, Mark somehow thinks of a 3 trick line to perform. A narrow ollie over the edge of the column and a wallie 180 provide the set up for the perfect fakie flip into the bank. Sure it's ABD by Josh Clark, as mentioned a couple days ago, but that doesn't take away the gnarliness of the trick, much less the fact that it was the ender of a line too. And if that's not enough already, which I don't see why it wouldn't be, Mark seals the deal with a backside bluntslide 270 out on the ledge and twists back around with a bs 180 while dropping off the kinked bank (mimicking every viewer's smile of elation with the rollaway). Is he good or what?

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