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| Q&A: Michael Brooke - Publisher, Concrete Wave Magazine (7141 Posts)
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First post
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On 6/24/2006
Chris W
wrote in from
United Kingdom
(82.42.nnn.nnn)
My first post here. Regular contributor at UK site www.middle-age-shred.com along with a few others. Will be returning regularly from now on.
My 'past & present' photos....(Hope they're not too big!)
Solid Surf Skatepark, Southport, UK 1979
Clitheroe Skatepark, UK June 2006
Know your roots...
www.solidsurf.co.uk
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dawn patrol
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On 6/23/2006
sparky
wrote in from
United States
(70.135.nnn.nnn)
I have lived on dawn patrol every morning for the last two years. I have to be at work by 5:45. So i wake up at 4am on weekdays and i go to the park down town, jump the fence(they lock it down between 11pm and 6am), rip for an hour, then go home get showered and go to work. it gets hectic keeping those hours sometimes, but it's worth it in my book. What's cool is the park is always empty, therefore no road hazards, and the stadium lights are out, but the city glow keeps it illuminated enough to just feel the breeze, and grind the s#@! outta the edges when there is dew.
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Idea for Conrete Wave sticker contest
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On 6/23/2006
Rich Sayers
wrote in from
United States
(64.168.nnn.nnn)
Michael,
How about a contest after that Sacramento park opens -- for the first person to slap a Concrete Wave sticker on the fullpipe interior, at least 1 foot over vertical. Get some advertisers like Abec 11, Pocket Pistols, Skaterbuilt and Tracker to donate schwag for the winner.
By the way -- I love the cover of latest CW and it's great that you have Caballero and Friedman features! Hope you can go to 120 pages by 2007!
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Granite Regional in SAC
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On 6/23/2006 Gary H.
wrote in from
United States
(17.221.nnn.nnn)
Here is the link to the SAC park: http://www.sacskatepark.org/ssa/
keep rollin'
-g-
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OH MY GAWD!!!!
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On 6/23/2006
Michael Brooke
wrote in from
Canada
(66.146.nnn.nnn)
HOLY &&*&#!!
that looks AMAZING
what was the cost to build this?
what is the square feet?
who designed this?
dawn patrol for sure!
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USA Today
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On 6/23/2006 chris olden
wrote in from
(75.8.nnn.nnn)
hey,
Not all of us "older" skaters are goin' to be riding
longboards this summer...
Our new park in Sacramento.
Too bad it's already 106 degrees, and it's not July yet.
Guess doin' the Dawn Patrol is gonna be the way.
chris olden
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mmmmmmmmmm beer
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On 6/23/2006
Michael Brooke
wrote in from
Canada
(65.93.nnn.nnn)
As much as I like beer, providing that much beer puts me into the promo budget of some of the shoe and clothing companies.
And since we've blown most of our promo budget on ______ and ______, I can't afford beer.
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Oh, say can you see all the beer served to me?
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On 6/22/2006
Joe Iacovelli's Probation Officer
wrote in from
United States
(205.188.nnn.nnn)
There's a rumor going around that Michael is buying beer for ALL the Americans who attend next week's Dovercourt Open slalom race in Ottawa.
I don't know who would start such a vicious rumor, but I love spreading it around. After all, vicious rumors are the most expensive!
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big boards
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On 6/22/2006 grindmaster
wrote in from
United Kingdom
(132.185.nnn.nnn)
yeah jbh, they were that big, i've seen the photos of the duke sporting a surfboard thats at least three times his height, and he was a big dude.
solid wood, no leash!
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What?
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On 6/22/2006
Steve C.
wrote in from
United States
(168.103.nnn.nnn)
Pretty good movie. Oh and Buddy, the quote you tried to repeat was slightly different than what you said.
It was "what I see selling right now in skateboarding is not wood and wheels, its the image." They then go on to say that it is messed up. In fact they say that the mags are trying to sell an image. Much different than "skating is all about the image." Skating is about skating, marketing is about the image. Cool vid.
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i too have seen that video
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On 6/22/2006
Michael Brooke
wrote in from
Canada
(65.93.nnn.nnn)
man, there are a few classic lines in that video...
i will review it again and post some..
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What image?
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On 6/22/2006
WT
wrote in from
United States
(205.188.nnn.nnn)
On 6/22/2006 buddy rawls wrote in
"Skateboarding is no longer about wood and wheels, but about image."
I'm doomed.
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push video (more)
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On 6/22/2006
buddy rawls
wrote in from
United States
(128.158.nnn.nnn)
I also enjoyed the comments regarding working on a single trick for 5 days, then catching it perfectly, in one shot, for the video.
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push video
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On 6/22/2006
buddy rawls
wrote in from
United States
(128.158.nnn.nnn)
Very cool. I especially appreciated the remark that went something like: Skateboarding is no longer about wood and wheels, but about image.
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thanks Trish...
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On 6/22/2006
Michael Brooke
wrote in from
Canada
(65.95.nnn.nnn)
thanks Trish,
Lynn Kramer is truly AMAZING...
I will see her next week in Ottawa.
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chicks rule
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On 6/21/2006
Utah Trish
wrote in from
United States
(71.213.nnn.nnn)
Just got my CW in the mail today. Nice interview of Lynn Krammer. I met her at the Texas Sizzler and she rocks. I also just got my DVD from the Texas race and had I kown that you were there in person Mr. Brooke, I would have shaken your hand! It was my first race and I really had no idea who you were. I met sooo many cool people and those Texas boys can put on a race!
I just want to say how much I love CW. I am a '70's kid that just started to skate again and CW is a great place to see all kinds of skate diciplines. I love watching the kids street skate but having a 'zine that shows it all is perfect.
Happy trails,
Utah Trish (Erickson)
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push
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On 6/21/2006 hc
wrote in from
United States
(71.139.nnn.nnn)
push (skate documentary)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW67LOz83_8&search=pool%20skating
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"I have one word for you...just one word: plastics"
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On 6/21/2006
JBH
wrote in from
United States
(165.134.nnn.nnn)
Actually, for mass consumption--which is, of course, what USA Today is all about--that's not a bad word. And urethane is, of course, a type of plastic.
What got me was the "18- to 25-foot balsa and mahogany boards" (!) Now, I'm no genius, but 18 to 25 feet of ANY kind of wood, even balsa, has got to be ridiculously heavy. I know the first Hawaiian surfers were pretty gnarly guys, but if those lengths are correct, how the hell did they get them INTO the water, much less paddle them hard enough to catch a wave? Is this one of those fanciful things like seeing someone in a movie pick up and carry a suitcase full of solid gold (which would weigh many hundreds of pounds)?
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Re: USA Today
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On 6/21/2006
Sumdumsurfer
wrote in from
United States
(71.107.nnn.nnn)
"and the wheels are made of softer plastic"
Heh, heh... so urethane's been replaced? Sorry, couldn't resist.
On a more serious note, today is Go Skateboarding Day. So... GO SKATE!
SK8/SURF 4 LIFE!
Sumdumsurfer
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USA Today Article on Longboarding...
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On 6/21/2006
Michael Brooke
wrote in from
Canada
(64.229.nnn.nnn)
it's on page 3 of the sports section...
Longboarding: The latest transportation trend among adults
Updated 6/20/2006 9:55 PM ET
By Sal Ruibal, USA TODAY
"Hey, Dad, can I borrow your skateboard tonight?"
If that's a sentence you have never heard, you probably haven't heard of longboard skateboards. Longboards are the hottest thing in skateboarding — for adults.
At the basic level, longboards are exactly that: longer skateboards, from 42 to even 80 inches in length, compared with regular boards that are 30 to 38 inches.
The biggest difference is these sidewalk surfboards are designed for comfortable riding, not X Games-type tricks on the halfpipe or at the skate park.
"A general rule of thumb is 'the longer the board, the older the rider,' " says Ken Perkins of Arbor Snowboards and Skateboards, whose Hawaii-influenced designs are among the most popular sold.
"It's not unusual to see 40-year-olds commuting on them. During the recent New York transit strike, I saw some Wall Street types riding their boards to work."
Longboards are more stable and smoother riding because the board is more flexible and the wheels are made of softer plastic, allowing them to roll over pebbles and rough concrete that could cause a trick boarder to crash.
"About 85% of skateboarders leave the sport by the time they reach 18," says Michael Brooke, publisher and editor of Concrete Wave, a magazine dedicated to longboarding. "The high attrition rate is due to the true difficulty of doing the tricks. They're very technical and sometimes dangerous."
In 1998, a U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission study said 80% of the then-11.4 million U.S. skateboarders were under 18. Seven years later, a report by Transworld Skateboarding magazine said skaters 6 to 17 represented only half the nation's 16.4 million skateboarders.
Hence the trend toward longboarding. It has become the No. 2-ranked skateboard activity in North America, according to a study by Label Networks, a Venice Beach, Calif., company that tracks youth culture trends. Street-style trick skating is first, and vert-park skating (half-pipe style tricks) is third.
"It is more utilitarian," Kathleen Gasperini, senior vice president of Label Networks, says of longboarding. "You can use it as transportation or have your dog pull you around the neighborhood.
"Girls — whose participation levels in longboarding are 2% higher than boys — love it because it is easier than dropping into a vert ramp and a lot more fun."
Transforming trends
As with regular skateboards, longboards have their gnarly roots in surfing.
In the early 1600s, Hawaiian surfriders used 18- to 25-foot mahogany and balsa boards. The modern 8- to 12-foot surfboard emerged in the 1930s. Today's highly maneuverable plastic-foam boards are as small as 6 feet in length.
Skateboarding went through a similar but more accelerated metamorphosis. Skateboarding was created in the late 1950s by bored surfers looking for something to do until wave conditions improved. They bolted skate wheels to planks and cruised beach roads and sidewalks, sometimes setting up slalom courses in parking lots.
In the 1960s, however, Tony Alva and his merry band of Dogtown surfer-skaters developed a skateboarding style that mimicked the swooping cutback moves of real surfing. Boards got smaller to accommodate their use in empty swimming pools. This evolved into halfpipe ramps and street-skate parks that emphasized riding on rails and ledges.
"That's when they threw the baby out with the bathwater," Brooke says.
Long days journey
Today's longboards are a return to those early days of road riding and slalom racing.
Some longboarders are even going to extremes — in a laid-back, longboard sort of way.
Adam Colton and two of his friends rode their longboards nearly 3,000 miles from Newport, Ore., to his home in Springfield, Va., last year. They skated more than 50 miles a day and had to tape their sneakers with thick layers of duct tape to keep them from disintegrating.
"The key to the whole trip was switching legs to push off, otherwise I would have had one huge leg," Colton says.
Colton, 22, and associate Adam Stokowski, 21, also from Springfield, are taking longboards in a completely new direction by choreographing dance steps to be performed on them. They are also taping promotional videos for a line of longboards.
"I hurt my leg doing tricks," the lanky Stokowski says. "My parents are really happy that I'm able to make a living with longboards."
Parents aren't a visible component of trick skating, but Gasperini says longboards are giving the sport a cross-generational boost. "In longboarding, you now have parents who used to do vert riding skating with their young kids," she says. "This is the first time that has happened."
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Go skateboarding day
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On 6/20/2006 David V.
wrote in from
United States
(143.183.nnn.nnn)
My son and I plan to carve up the hills of Rio Rancho, NM until our wheels fall off! If my boy has his way, we'll hit every skatepark along the way too! I tried to convince my boss that it's a national holiday--he wasn't bitin'! Guess I'll be playing hookie!
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GO Skateboarding day
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On 6/20/2006
Michael Brooke
wrote in from
Canada
(70.50.nnn.nnn)
what do you have planned?
it's tomorrow - WEDNESDAY
i have CW bash at cummer skatepark in toronto
3:30 to 5:30
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stats
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On 6/18/2006
buddy rawls
wrote in from
United States
(205.188.nnn.nnn)
at our local pay park (not public free park), the target mainstream market was missed completely. the target market is 14-25, or there abouts. At our park, we had a peak at 10yrs old and another peak at 37yrs. For our local scene, it matched my theory almost perfectly. Basically it is old skaters and their own kids, and their friends. A pay park falls outside of the target market, and that designing and opening one should really be studied a lot differently. If you use the models that are used for typical public parks, and apply them globally to a pay park, it is going to be a mistake.
target market, as a rule,
-does not pay to skate
-does not pad-up
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Mean, Median, Mode
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On 6/18/2006
Chris Chaput
wrote in from
United States
(66.116.nnn.nnn)
Slim, You're looking at it the wrong way. Let's say that all kids start skating at age 11 and all stop once they've turned 18. Assume that every year the number of kids that start is the same as the number that stop. There would be the same number of 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17 year olds, and the average age would be 14. There would be no 18 year old skaters (dads or otherwise), presumably because the activity was for kids and they stopped as soon as they became adults. The only way that the average age would go down is if the number of kids starting younger was greater than the number of adults who decided to stick with it.
As skateboarding becomes less of an age-specific activity, the average age will increase - which is exactly what is happening. There isn't any big trend in getting kids to start skating any earlier, but the number of carvers, cruisers, transportation style riders is on the rise. These numbers are expected to continue to rise as the availability of quality and hassle-free hard goods increases, and as more of the media is supporting the new/old generation of skaters who ride them.
In other words the age at which kids adopt skateboarding is much the same, but the age at which they stop is changing.
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Statistics 101
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On 6/18/2006 Chuck Gill
wrote in from
United States
(4.170.nnn.nnn)
"Median" is not the same thing as "average." Not by a longshot, in some cases.
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