Stop #4 is complete and it was a stellar one. I rolled up to Fleetwood Skate Park just after 11am and it was already packed. The young kids were raring to go and the older dudes were showing their skills. It was gonna be a long day, but worth it.
Fleetwood skate park is one of the best parks for a contest. It was built in that bump to rail, bump to ledge, 3 block and hip to hip era that New Line Skate Parks went through in the early 2000’s. It’s not a big park but you can hit some serious lines there, and a lot of people have localized it over it’s time meaning there’s gonna be a ton of tricks that get stomped in this comp.
With almost 40 kids in the Beginner & Mini divisions we were in for a time consuming battle, but I knew that 90% of these kids were serious skaters that can rip. The 3 block got ollied by Liam Hansen to start off the Mini category (these are kids that are 10 years old or less) so we all knew it was on. Parker Sherwin was tossing 3 flips, Aiden Eastman was laying down primo stall varial flips, Django and Theo Caseley terrorized the whole park, and Liam Hansen ollied every gap in site. The finals for these young bucks was crazy and it wowed the crowd. My favourite part was Aiden Eastman popping an ollie over the 3 block for the first time ever. He was so stoked, and it choked me up to see how much it meant to him, and his whole family, to land. That is why I work so hard to make these events successful each year, to watch kids progress and grow and make goals for themselves to accomplish at the next year’s contests. That ollie made my whole year worth it.
When the beginners started it was already tight. Justin Fiorante started dominating the park hitting every obstacle and tossing in switch and nollie heelflips on flat in between tricks. I’m thinking, “This is beginner?” and it was only the first run. There was a ton of kids and they all skated really awesome. The top 6 made it into the finals – Justin Fiorante, JR Barron, Mark Melyukov, Tyler McKnight, Adam Lewis & Nick Bachmeier. Adam really knows how to skate a contest run and just worked the park with smooth and clean tricks and be consistent. Unfortunately on this day the guys that went for the hardcore tricks were landing them so he didn’t quite make top 3. Justin annihilated it the whole run but missed a trick, and JR Barron took advantage. JR laid down a flawless run with some tough grinds, flip tricks and a solid backside 180 over the 2 block. But no one could compete with Mark Melyukov that day. He kickflipped up the step up, over the 2 block and then over the 3 block all perfectly in a row to finish off his run. These kids are tiny, but amazing. What a comp!
The Intermediates were no worse, and they were ready to risk their lives for gold. Weston Hutchinson, Kai Searle, Dyson Mathews, Riley Allen & Luke Thodus made the finals. This was the first contest little Lukey made it out to all year and I was stoked to see that he was now 11 years old which meant no more Mini category. And I was even more stoked to see that he skipped over beginner and went straight to Intermediate. This kid is a machine and he is fearless. Front Board down the red rail over the 3 block, and front lip down the white rail over the bank. Both these rails are chest high on Luke, he’s a maniac. Dyson and Weston showed off their technical sides all day, and killed it but had issues in the finals. Riley Allen threw down what he could in finals with a bunch of boneless tricks and airs, but then dropped a perfect 3 flip out of nowhere which was sick. But all were no match for Kai at this one. He was on point all day long and deserved that win. This kid has skills.
The girls went out there and tried there hardest, Nana Kunugi and Kristen Landry were landing flip tricks, while Carrie Williams and Tienna Rivard utilized the whole park. Not much went down in the ladies division, but they all did well, and it was nice to see 4 girls skating.
Then there was Advanced. Fighter was in the mood to fly and blasted the hugest benny off the bank over the 3 block in his first run. Oh did I mention that he grabbed that with his broken arm? Brad was on a mission all day and hit a lot of sick tricks. Cisco Gooding made it out and threw his usual routine style runs filled with a mixture of grinds, flips tricks and tough quarterpipe maneouvers. Weston Ganger nosegrinded everything he could and did a few super funky tricks that blew my mind, while Graham Bonn reminded everyone how smooth he was at Fleetwood Park. But it really came down to Andy Anderson and Dustin Locke. Dustin has skated this park to death over the years and has a zillion ledge and rail tricks locked down, tough ones too, but Andy is Andy and he skates every obstacle he sees along with 500 filler tricks thrown in there as well. It was super tight at the end but Dustin Locke took 1st place. Backside tailslide and frontside noseblunt on the out rail, plus he finished it off with a nollie heelflip frontside noseslide on the out ledge. Sick runs from everyone, great contest.
We finished it off with a Best Trick Comp down the 3 block and red rail. Andy anti-flipped the 3 block but I wasn’t giving him any more prizes. Little McCauley got a t-shirt for a backside 50-50 down the rail, Graham Bonn got one too for a perfect hardflip 2nd try on the 3 block, Andrew Classon nollie crooked the rail and took a set of trucks for it, but Colin Gallagher got the Coastal Riders Deck with a ridiculous feeble to 50-50 down the rail. That rail is not long enough for that trick but he managed to make it work. Way to go dude.
Don’t forget to show up to Bear Creek Park on September 7th for the Grand Finale of Hippie Mike’s Tour de Surrey. Even if you’re not competing, come out and celebrate 10 years of success and fun times with the people I call family. We have all grown a lot together through these events each year and they’ve been full of great memories, but it’s time to end it, and change it up to something else for next year.
So please come join us for the last ever Hippie Mike’s Tour de Surrey contest. Find out who was the Most Improved skater from last year, and see who the last ever King of Surrey will be.
See you there
Results –
Mini – 1st Theo Caseley; 2nd Liam Hansen; 3rd Aiden Eastman; 4th Parker Sherwin; 5th Django Caseley; 6th Isaiah Stroud; 7th Austin MacBeth; 8th Braeden Nerpio & Presley Huska; 10th Kaelen Faux; 11th Joey Stone; 12th Dimias Abdul-Guani & Kyler Hoogland
Beginner – 1st Mark Melyukov; 2nd JR Barron; 3rd Justin Fiorante; 4th Adam Lewis; 5th Nick Bachmeier; 6th Tyler McKnight; 7th Damon Morgan & Josh Lewis; 9th Travis Howie; 10th Bachouch Michael & Kaelan Ruiz; 12th Braeden Ingram; 13th Donte Gullickson, Yoshe Durston & Joseph Madayag; 16th Terry Cho; 17th Bishop Rosie; 18th Bradley Dodd & Damion Wadsworth
Intermediate – 1st Kai Searle; 2nd Riley Allen; 3rd Weston Hutchinson; 4th Dyson Mathews; 5th Luke Thodus; 6th Keith Miller; 7th Jonathan Rewich; 8th Chadd Sinclair; 9th Yubo Wang; 10th Robert Wylie
Girls – 1st Carrie Williams; 2nd Kristen Landry; 3rd Nana Kunugi; 4th Tienna Rivard
Advanced – 1st Dustin Locke; 2nd Andy Anderson; 3rd Cisco Gooding; 4th Weston Ganger; 5th Brad Muscat; 6th Graham Bonn; 7th Mathew McCauley; 8th Jay Mykyte; 9th Colin Gallagher; 10th Graeme Schoenberger 11th Yuya Ishikawa; 12th Ryan Barron 13th Alex Savage