Eastbourne Extreme 2008

Saturday 29th and 30th July 2008

Last years Eastbourne Extreme set the standards trickwise, so naturally this year was an improvement. With 5 of us Coast Bladers skating the main park most of the day we really didn’t get to see anything else that was going down, but aparantly there was mountain bike demonstrations, parkour demonstrations, and the water based events, but the main events in our eyes were the skate-park based events.

It was an adreneline packed weekend, and there were certainly some hyped up skaters, and BMXers. BMXer Ollie won the BMX competition and bagged himself a new BMX. His trump card trick was flaring the 6ft to flatbank. If you don’t know, a flare is basically a backflip 180 on a BMX. It took him a few attemps but he finally got it. Not that he would’ve lost if he didn’t do the flip, because he was ripping it up with lots of 540s, 360s and all kinds of tricks that I don’t know the names of (me being a skater and all).

I didn’t see the Skateboard event but from what I’ve heard, a skateboarder named Craig Webb won the competition no doubt with some amazing kickflips… I dunno. He secured himself a brand new skateboard.

The main event though, was the aggressive inline competition (well I would say that wouldn’t I). There were lots of flips, spins and some darn right sick tricks. Dan Hemsley, a Coast Blader, was her only on day one, so if you didn’t see him skate on day one you missed out. There were too many amazing tricks to name, but the one that got the crowd going was the bio flip over the back barrier of the 3ft. To understand how big this trick was, you need to know the ramp. The ramp is 3ft, but the back barrier is something like 7, 8, or 9 foot high. He used the 3ft as a launch ramp to launch himself over the barrier, which is a feat in itself, but doing a flip over it is just something else. He did the same trick last year, but this year it was much smoother and perfected. But because he wasn’t there for day 2, he missed out on the oppertunity of bagging some Valos.

Terry Valeriano, prettyboy/CoastBlader, also did a sick trick over the back barrier. He 540′d over it quite a few times, but on time he lost his sense of direction or something and ended up landing (somehow) a 720 over it. That was Terry’s winning trick. He won himself a brand new pair of Valo skates. That wasn’t his only win though, he also won the Money Grab High Jump competition. Basically, there was a high jump on the ramp, and terry had to jump it while trying to grab some 5 pound notes stuck to the end of a stick that Gary was holding above the high jump. He won himself some buck in that competition. Aggressive Inline was definately one for the crowd this year.

On the stage bands such as Paradyne, Last Standing Jedi, Connell and the Mainheads, and a singer called Aimee played for us all, because really, what is a skate event without some sick local bands? There was a demonstration from the Urban Shadows, parkour geniuses, who demonstrated the basics of parkour, before moving onto the more impressive stuff, like drop kongs of mega high scaffolding, backflips, and jumping over people. Check them out at WeAreUS.co.uk if you haven’t already. This years Eastbourne Extreme is definately an improvement from last years, and if it keeps improving, then it’s just gonna get better and better. Be sure to come down next year.

If anyone has any pictures or videos of this years Eastbourne Extreme send them to mac_crow_sk8@yahoo.co.uk or send them to Gary who’s e-mail is on the contact page. Pictures and videos greatly appreciated.

Writen by Cameron