When We Was Rad: Skateboard History from UK Vintage Magazine

Nick Philip at work stickering the ramp with Anarchic Adjustment stickers back in 1988, before taking it to America. Zak Shaw looks on as local offers up a loco Twist from low to high…

slithering back in whenever and wherever he wished. He used the whole of the ramp with no holds barred: carving Bone-air, jamming Saran type things, snapping aggro Inverts on the other side then back for a tech¬nical lip manoeuvre on the other wall. Even if he hadn’t thrown in all the variations, watching him butcher the ramp with his carves would have been enough for me. Mental! Ever since his days of channel jumping at Meanwhile Greg Guillotte has been a gnarly risk-taker, and his performance at Chingford was no exception. Pure energy.

AGROUP
The A group was decidedly under-staffed. It consisted of Graham Marfleet, Greg Guillotte and Jason Ellis. Mike Canning, Scot Carol, Lee Reynolds and company were all absent. This didn’t affect the intensity of the action but only the length of time it lasted. Graham Marfleet is really pushing the limits these days and making some waves: he’s been around for ever but now people are starting to take notice. Lips, air contortion and street are where he is strong. Graham’s runs centred around airs from the high section to the low section — gnarly variations like X-down One Footer, Double Can-cans, One-hand One-footers and tweako Look-backs. The Lip was in there also: he did one Front-wheel Hop-drop where his foot flailed but he regained control and made it. Crowd elated, rider stoked: Marfleet tore — he stays on.
Continue Reading »

Everything here looks the same as before when you study the details in that overview picture. But I have a feeling things were beginning to change. Skateboarding was taking off again and BMX was about to undergo another transformation. This was the start of something different. In retrospect, I wish we had found more space for this over the years.

Nick Philip provided the words.

What do you want to know about the Chingford bike jam? Think: think of a question, and, using my inter-rider-related powers of ESP, I’ll answer it before your very eyes…

The answer to your question is… Yes, yes he did.

Amazing, hey! — You don’t seem too impressed. Well, let me expand. Bikes are many things to many people. I sometimes think that riding is one of the best things in the world because, like art, it is an expression not just defined by what you do but just as much by what you don’t do. The method, the means and the medium. You create an action and by doing this, by making it yours, you state that at this precise second in your life this is what you want to do. SO DO IT.

The riders at the Chingford Jam wanted to ride, so they rode. The jam was the second rider organised half-pipe jam in the UK and the first in the ‘INVERT’ series organised by Tim Ruck and Greg Guillotte. Sponsorship came from M-Zone, Swatch, Stussy, and Gordon & Smith: these guys put money into it so that’s cool. Paul Wright had resurfaced the whole ramp and added a low section with the same transition as the rest of the ramp, but with about a foot and a half cut off. Faze 7 funded that, which is cool too.

The low section was killer for lip tricks of course and surprisingly good for airs. The locals were jamming 5 – 6 feet airs with rad variations from transitions which were way under-vert. Some even making 540s.

The turnout was good: about 300 people, most with their bikes. When that kind of quantity are gathered together by one ramp it’s a LOT of bikes. The platforms had to be cleared as lip tricks were to be expected. Talking of lips, the stickers were out in force. There are some happening zine stickers these days. So much so that five minutes after the jam the lip was completely stripped of all but one type of sticker.

Nick Philip wrote this article of the “First Invert Series Bike Ramp Jam” at Chingford.

Something’s Happening, Bro’. It started at Crawley and it’s building up speed. The bike riders of this country are getting clued in. They’ve stopped expecting somebody else to organise their lives and they’ve started doing something for themselves. The Invert Series of half-pipe jams run by Tim Ruck and Greg Guillotte are already off the ground and there are more in the pipeline. Nick Philip went down to the Faze 7 ramp at Chingford to see what was going down. And so did a LOT of other people.

And away we go. To see what Nick’s up to now, take a look at these magical T shirts at the Imaginary Foundation.