UNM Spot #2: Nuclear Engineering Hubba

Rowan Zorilla, Barley grind 

The latest Baker ad I found in The Skateboard Mag issue 123 came with pretty awesome timing for this blog post, along with the release of Shep Dawgs Vol 4.  Most recently at the Nuclear Engineering Hubba, we have Rowan Zorilla, Baker's newest am, nicely adding to the spot's trick list with this sick Barley grind. The trick also happens to be his Shep Dawgs ender.  A Barley grind doesn't seem like the craziest of tricks to end a part with, but when you take it to a tall hubba like this, the ante is upped considerably.  Not too long ago there was also Leo Romero's kickflip front board at this hubba as seen in Made Chapter 1. (I didn't see the trick in his B-Sides so here's the clip straight from the epic Emerica video itself. Sorry Emerica, had to.) 

 

                                          

For what I believe is the only fliptrick onto this spot, Leo knee bending when both getting on the ledge and riding away helps show the height to this hubba, and the gnarliness of the trick in general. Then there's Albuquerque's finest, Daniel Lutheran, nailing two tricks at this spot in his Brainwash part below. With only a gnarly 5-0 grind in between the clips, Daniel effortlessly pulls a 180 nosegrind at 1:19 and then follows up with a sweet back overcrook at 1:27 (in a mini-line nonetheless!)

Again, please comment if I've missed any important tricks at this Nuclear Engineering Hubba. And refer to the picture below for my reasoning behind this spot's name.

The 10-stair itself is a pretty long gap. I'm not too surprised I haven't seen any fliptricks down the stairs, not only because of the limited run-up and long set, but because you don't go to the Bahamas to go skiing, if you're picking up what I'm throwing down.

 Now you can kind of see how far the run-up actually is in the picture above, as it extends just about to the doors to the building. But what's also noteworthy is the brief rough patch on your way to the ledge. There's easily enough space after the patch to get ready to pop, so as long as it's not a mental roadblock then it's really no big deal. The rest of the run up is as smooth as can be. And of course there's the classic sign trying to deter us from the spot. I give UNM credit for its placement though.

 Like I mentioned before, this hubba is tall. The handrail that runs down its side is probably close to the ideal height you'd wanna ride for most grinds. But that extra foot up makes quite the difference. You can really tell how the skaters need to pop up and out to ride this thing from watching the 4 aforementioned tricks. Even just the drop off at the end of the ledge seems daunting.

The ledge itself has definitely been waxed and grinded down pretty well before, so there shouldn't be too much forcing going on here. Though, as I'm not one to really grind hubbas like this, I really can't say as an expert.  

And just a couple more pictures to get a feel for the spot. 

And of course for the spot-searchers! This spot is in the SouthWest corner of the Central UNM campus within the group of engineering buildings. There's even a basketball hoop nearby randomly if you and the homies need to let off some steam from the session or something.

UPDATE: Upon rewatching A Happy Medium 2, it turns out Tyler Franz does in fact skate the stairs themselves and not the hubba. His half cab flip goes to show that once you see a spot in person it becomes instantly recognizable in almost every video you watch thereafter. 

UPDATE 2: Just as Taylor Smith goes pro for Foundation, coming off of two sick parts with Shep Dawgs Vol 4 and Tee-Hee, he was interviewed by Thrasher to show us this gnarly and super tall back tail down this very special spot. 

 

UPDATE 3: As Blake Carpenter goes pro for Toy Machine, he unleashes another crazy trick on this spot that looks way too easy when he does it: heelflip noseslide.

UPDATE 4: Nike released some unseen footage from filming during Chronicles 2, and Justin Brock gets a smooth front noseslide down the hubba.

UPDATE 5: Never noticed in my earlier days that Caswell Berry back smithed this hubba back in 2007 in his Feed the Need part.

UPDATE 6: Jordan Maxham gets weird and creative while keeping the gnar level high with whatever you would call this combo grind of a willy and a 5-0 seen in The Skateboard Mag 147. So psyched that he's finally pro and for his Sun Machine part!

Video of the Week: GX1000 Medellin

I already described my love for the Adidas team tour edits with that incredibly talented and eclectic group of skaters mixed with aesthetically beautiful editing. But at the same time, the utter rawness of the GX1000 edits are untouchable. "Raw" may be used quite often here but it's the perfect word for everything GX1000 puts out, from the street skating to the citites and spots skated to the fun and entertaining encounters the crew finds in their environment. The latest edit takes place in Medellin, Colombia, which can almost be compared to SF (at least with a few of those downhill-driveway spots), though more vibrant and colorful with its surroundings and much grittier as well. The city lends itself to an appealing edit (also because Medellin isn't too popular or overused with skate trips...knock on wood), but the crew of raw rippers works its magic. Some new Jake Johnson clips are always appreciated and Stevie Perez shreds so hard in the whole video, reminding me a little of Ishod with his total comfort on the board. Yonnie Cruz always comes through with a sick interpretation of the streets, as evidenced by his repeated ollies leading to a 50-50 and almost powersliding into a car at 1:16, as well as his synchronization at 4:43. Josh Velez surprised me at 2:32 with potentially one of the longest back lips and then officially seals the deal with a good two-story ollie or so at 2:57. The final bump into the older gentleman at the end sort of sums up how great the trip must've been, with locals as friendly as that. 

Also released were the B-Sides from Leo Romero's part in Made. Leo skated some crazy rails and put in loads of work into his part, which is given the necessary recognition with these clips. I would argue that Emerica is one of the best, if not THE best, at producing videos in general. The B-Sides are no different and often just about as exciting as the video part itself. The Berrics puts it best, calling Emerica's B-Sides as a "modern classic". While Leo deserves the credit once again for his sick part in Made, Emerica deserves the credit for continuing to put out the best skate videos.

Christian Vannella just came out with a part at the DC Embassy. I'm just going to say that the hardflip late flip and the hardflip backside nosegrind to manual 360 flip out were NOT the craziest tricks I saw (at least in my opinion). So take the time to witness Christian's craziness and remember his name.

In other skate video news:

Anton Arratia displays some super techincal ledge skating in his Mag Minute, along with other great tricks.

Shaun Gregoire released a new part via Pyramid County with some of his awesome style.

Stan Karbine's part in $14 The Hard Way was released and showcases his great use of pop.

Erick and Mikey Winkowski share a part filled with brotherly love...and some gnarly tricks as well.

Living in Newark, NJ and seeing this Ironbound edit from NJ Scum made my day.

Tony Hawk gets a Krooked guest deck and still shreds the halfpipe as well as any other guy out there today, showing why he's such a legend.

Speed Demons #3: Brandon Westgate

Everyone knows Brandon Westgate skates fast. Just look at this inhuman ollie from Emerica's Made and realize that there's no way he could make it up onto this loading dock without flying in from the car tow-in (besides the pop). Throughout all of his videos parts he comes through with that East Coast Powerhouse style of attacking spots with speed and pop. It's pretty rare to find a clip in his parts that doesn't involve some good speed to the trick.
Starting with Stay Gold, you can feel the speed with the pushing lead up at 0:47 as he gets ready to gap ollie between two banks spaced pretty far apart, banks that are typically only used for some manny tricks. Then at 2:12, Brandon begins the line by lofting a tre flip as the ground flies by and then pops a couple ollies in preparation for a huge gap to lipslide, finishing the line with soaring a front 180 much further past the stairs than necessary, all because of his speed. (This line is cleverly mimicked in Made with a fast gap to smith grind and a backside 360 down the stairs, once again sailing well beyond the last stair.) And at 2:35 you get the start of some high velocity SF footage, from sweet downhill driveway lines to the gigantic house-length ollie at 3:10.
In Brandon's Emerica Shoe Part, the downhill line at 0:46 starts off with nothing special in particular but quickly picks up so that his last ollie across the driveway is another flying moment. I haven't seen many people actually "push" going downhill, but Brandon does it in the line at 1:05 to prepare for a distance-covering frontside big spin, because there is never a thing as too much speed. And then at 3:06, to match his lines from Stay Gold, Brandon delivers two new and improved variations of some downhill lines from SF, of course zooming by at full speed.
One of the craziest clips I can remember from Brandon was the first one in his Real Street part, involving a tall ollie up onto a ledge from a small curb cut and then somehow managing to clear the length of an alleyway afterwards. It may not appear super fast at first but maintaining speed is mandatory to accomplish something like this.
And finally onto Westgate's latest epic video part in Made. The pushing in the title sequence alone is rather stunning because you know of just how fast he skates. The first 35 seconds of skating is all uncommonly fast, including some more sweet downhill SF lines, a couple gap to ledges, and an enormous street ollie. The 3 bleached-hair tricks are all super quick, including my personal favorite drop down ollie to prepare for the huge front 180 over the planter. Westgate's downhill frontside flip at the same sketchy looking spot as Trevor Colden's hardflip and Ishod's backside flip involves a serious switch hill bomb after he picks up a lot of speed from the run up. And then there's the double rail ollie into the bank at the school near the end of the part that again requires a bunch of speed.

Euro/Ditch Frontside Flips #1: Collin Provost

 

This was one of the craziest things I've seen in a while. I thought Anthony Schultz and Chad Bartie already stretched skating over full fences to its limits, but Collin Provost's ender from Emerica MADE goes above and beyond with an insane frontside flip over a seemingly-impossible Euro/Ditch gap. You know it's enormous when just about everyone else skates the lip of the ditch. If you haven't seen his part in MADE or the whole video for that matter, get the DVD and get on it ASAP!

Euro/Ditch Frontside Flips #4: Jeremy Leabres

Probably the most under-recognized trick in Jeremy Leabres standout first part for Emerica's Made was his enormous ditch/Euro gap frontside flip. (Watch the full video here and look at 2:38 if you don't remember the trick.) What's crazy to me is that this was the same gap that Westgate ended the video with when he 360 flipped it! Now I don't remember seeing the gap before but I definitely won't forget it after Westgate's crazy ender. But rewatching the video shocked me when that gap appeared underneath Jeremy's frontside flip. The angle doesn't do the frontside flip justice by itself; the clip works extremely well in Jeremy's part as a whole, but thinking of the trick itself, it's so much gnarlier than it appears. Here's to recognizing Jeremy's huge frontside flip and appreciating it a bit more.

SOTY 2013 Contender #2: Brandon Westgate

Brandon Westgate's part in Emerica's MADE Chapter One was unbelievable to say the least. Everything about the part was perfect, the kind of high quality skating you'd expect from the Emericans and the kind that deserves SOTY. There is no one with the same rugged, fast, and powerful style like Brandon has, or anyone that can skate the same spots he does. Words don't do this part justice, so after watching his ender above, rewatch his part again...and again and again. And again.

Besides this instant classic of a video part, Westgate also looks to be coming out with something of a clip for his new Emerica pro model as well as some always appreciated NYC footage through Zoo York's King of New York at the end of the year. These are just the cherries on top of MADE.

Skating the Unskateable #5: Brandon Westgate

By now, everyone's probably watched the new Emerica MADE video at least ten times by now and has witnessed the full-speed all out destruction left by Brandon Westgate. So if you don't know, now you know. But for those that knew already, it's clearly understood that Brandon Westgate is a spot-slaughtering machine. His extreme pop and fearlessness mixed with his ability to adapt to the harshest of surfaces has allowed him to set new standards for what spots can be skated, even if no one else will step up to those spots in a while. Below are a good deal of tricks that Brandon has made that has opened up new spots to skate or new ways to skate a spot.
In Zoo York's State of Mind he skate three spots in a row at 0:20 going UP instead of down (NYC Black Hubbas, the loading dock gap, and the tapered pyramid ledge spot). In Emerica's Stay Gold (above), Brandon finds a really innovative way to skate the manny banks at 0:48; no one's ever looked at the spot as actually using both banks together. Even ollieing into the bank at 1:00 was quite a new look at the spot. The SF line at 2:35 with the two stairway ollies going extremely fast was the first of many visits to that spot for ridiculous lines that only Brandon could do.  At 3:10 Brandon basically ollies the length of a house over a parking railing nonetheless and lands pretty far down in a slope. There's a gap to rail at 4:13 that Brandon lipslides that I'm pretty sure hadn't been skated before and other than Alex Olsen recently in Pretty Sweet still hasn't been touched. And then there's the ollie up at 4:19 that is just incomprehensible.
Soon after Stay Gold, Brandon came out with his Emerica Shoe Part where he finds another unique way to fly down the hills of SF at 0:46 with an alleyway ollie to finish the line. In the line at 1:54, Brandon finishes off a sweet line by 50-50ing a shoulder high rail off a natural sidewalk kicker. In a short clip of Brandon just Talking about the Westgate, he skates up two kinks of a pretty legit hubba. Definitely hasn't been done up something as legitimately kinked as that. Then there's Brandon's Real Street part where his first tricks involve him ollieing up onto an insane ledge all from a little sidewalk curb cut and then out over both the street and stairway. In his Mini-Bangin at the Berrics, Brandon 180s where no skater has before because no one would think of going from the 5 stair section out and over the tall bar off the far side of the bump section.
In Zoo York's latest promo video of True East, Brandon hits a super sketchy step up gap at 6:30 that clearly looks unskateable. He chooses to backside flip up it. Directly after that he ollies over the extremely tall bump to bar in ATL that I doubt no one else will hit in a while. And of course the ender ollie in Pittsburgh at 7:22 that is the definitive combination of sketchiness and gnarliness. No sane skater in their wildest dreams would ever picture ollieing something like that.
Finally, in Emerica's MADE Vol. 1, Brandon continues with his ridiculous SF sidewalk lines that only he can see with his experience there. There's a huge 180 over a flower patch after a quick drop down about an 8 stair. The crazy part of this would just be to visualize where in the world he could get speed from; dropping down the stairs beforehand does not seem like an option until Westgate does it. When the music first calms down for a little there's a very tall, sketchy curved ledge that drops down into another crusty hubba that he powers a 50-50 through backside. Later on in the part, Brandon ollies over a tall black pole off of a sidewalk bump (that blends into the background so a double take is usually necessary) that is unlikely for anyone else to even get the courage to skate straight on. There's the gigantic bump to bar against the full brick wall near the end that seems super hard just to keep speed up through, much less pop and land way down below. And of course the van-tow-in loading dock ollie up that defies all gravity. But of course Westgate follows his own laws of gravity.

Video of the Week: Emerica MADE

Emerica MADE: Chapter One

Let the skating speak for itself.