What a Summer

Sep 20,2013 / By Hippie Mike / No Comment

By the looks of the weather network, these awesome months of summer are soon coming to an end and we will be back into the unpredictable fall and winter days. But what a summer! This summer in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia was definitely historic in so many ways, 0mm of rain in the entire month of July – that’s never happened before, and how about the fact that not one skateboard event was cancelled or even postponed the entire summer due to rain? It’s insane since there are literally 2-4 events every weekend here. We live in one of the rainiest places in the world and when it rains it pours, but we live here because when it doesn’t rain it is gorgeous. What a Summer.

When you think back of your own memories that you made this summer what comes to mind? Did you travel? Were you extra active outside? Did you make a bunch of new friends? Maybe you just overloaded yourself with too many beers and BBQs. But I know what I think of is how many different skateboard competitions and demos that went down this year. Flip Skateboards, Girl x Chocolate, Adidas, Creature and Santa Cruz, Contests at Plaza, Railside, Bonsor, Tsawwassen, North Delta, The Battle at Hastings, Road Block, Go Sk8 Day, The Booze Bash, The Bowl Series, and of course the 10^th and final year of Hippie Mike’s Tour de Surrey – talk about being spoiled every single weekend. Skateboarding is definitely growing again and in the land we live it’s just natural to run a million events and know that each one will be popular. So many awesome events and great pros that came out to Vancouver and Surrey this summer and skateboarding was like a force of nature, it was a stellar summer, probably the best that I can remember.

So as these months cool off and the leaves change colour and slowly drop to the ground, think about what this summer meant to you and instead of dreading the winter, make the most of every sunny day we get and keep summer alive for the rest of the year.

It doesn’t have to end you know…

Extreme Sports Skateboarding

Flip-pin’ out in Surrey

Sep 16,2013 / By Hippie Mike / No Comment

Since I hosted the Grand Opening of Chuck Bailey Skate Park in May of 2011, I have also been a huge part of bringing some bigtime names and companies to Surrey to do Demos at the park – Krew, Shake Junt, RDS, DC, Girl/Chocolate, Element, and now Flip. It’s pretty sick to even have Surrey on the radar when these guys are considering coming to Canada and it’s classic that more and more companies are leaning to come to Chuck Bailey over the Vancouver Skate Plaza or Railside now. The coolest part of all the demos has been the respectful crowds, and in return the guys that come out have always given back some serious love with skill. This Flip Demo may have been the best demo for consistency and sick tricks and ironically it was all the young bucks skating. Flip Skateboards was always a super talented team but now the up and comers are taking over. Original Bones Brigade member Lance Mountain came out with Arto Saari as the grandfathers of the team, hung out for photos and signed autographs in the sunshine, and the young bucks threw down hard for the crowd. Curren Caples, Matt Berger, Ben Nordberg and Louie Lopez reminded the crowd how good they were over and over for about an hour and a half. Some sick tricks went down on the out rail of the 3 block, over the fireplace channel and on the bump to rail. All 4 of these dudes were solid all day. Trick of the day was probably Louie Lopez stomping a back smith grind varial heelflip on the out rail – just insane.

For those that showed up, you experienced an amazing demo full of young talent, and hopefully got to meet the 2 legends. For those that missed it, you definitely missed out…

I wonder what the next demo at Chuck Bailey will be?

Extreme Sports Skateboarding

RIP – On to The next Generation

Sep 12,2013 / By Hippie Mike / No Comment

Tsawwassen skate park was a blessing when it was constructed, not just because of how amazing the New Line design was, or how perfect the concrete ended up, but because it was in a place where there was so much talent in the skateboard world and as an added bonus it was in a place where it’s sunny 90% of the year. So this gave an extra advantage to all the locals to get super good at skateboarding since they had more chance to ride. I personally became a local to Tsawwassen park and skated hard there every day for years, and in that time there was a solid group of guys that shredded there – Mike Hastie, Paul Machnau, Sean Hayes, Graeme Betts, Jason Delaney, Dan Pageau, Shadd Trepp, Johnny McMartin and a few more. And with all of us representing what solid skateboarding was it was obvious that the next generation of Tsawwassen was going to be insane.

Watching the kids grow up was amazing, seeing them expand their horizons and step up to the next levels of skating, some got hurt, some gave up, and some are now some of the most recognizable names in the Lower Mainland. Ryan Lepore and Michael Ray have definitely been setting a standard as to how to skate super tech and land everything perfectly. They are the faces of Tsawwassen right now and they both rip it hard everywhere they go. Andrew Classon happened to move out there a few years back which was perfect for his style and he fit right in with that clique. With Antosh Cimoszko rocking the camera action all the time these guys just expanded their realms and got so good. I’m proud to know this group of skaters that are so amazing and super glad to have been a part of the old generation of rippers at that park. It’s a great place to learn, to get to know friends, and to escape the rain.

Check out these boys and some others in this crazy film put together by Jason Bergen simply named RIP…

Contest Results Eve Feaver Extreme Sports Hippie Mike's Tour De Surrey Skateboarding

Hippie Mike’s Tour de Surrey #10 – Bear Creek Park

Sep 9,2013 / By Hippie Mike / No Comment

It breaks my heart to say it’s over but what a perfect day to finish it off.

We hit up Bear Creek Skate Park on Saturday for the Final Finale of Hippie Mike’s Tour de Surrey and it all went super smooth. It was a super long day of course but that’s okay, everyone had a great time and no one got hurt, so that’s really all that matters. I had a fun time MCing like usual and was stoked on how many kids and parents came out to support the event. It has been 10 years of building a family and it is a family that I will always cherish.

The day kicked off with a whole bunch of true Mini’s from age 3-10 years old. And it proved itself ridiculous right off the bat as little Emmanuel blasted over the bank gap in the first run. It’s like the size of an 8 stair. Django and Theo Caseley shredded every piece of tranny in the park while Emmanuel utilized the stairs, rail and mini quarterpipe. Kaelen, Austin and Presley showed off what being a true Mini is about along with Caden Smith and a couple others, but it was the 2 regulars stealing the show with Aiden Eastman and Parker Sherwin. They both got flip tricks and pretty much go for it the entire time they’re on their boards. This one was definitely decided by the finals. Django took it over Theo – awesome!

17 Beginners were next on the agenda, and they were all lookin’ like pros. The usual 5 superstars threw down and made it to finals – JR Barron, Adam Lewis, Mar Melyukov, Nick Bachmeier and Justin Fiorante, but all the other dudes were hot on their trails, especially Josh Lewis and Damon Morgan. All the beginners skated really good and landed a huge variety of tricks. The best was how many of them popped ollies over the big bank gap, twice as long as the other one and a bit higher with a super tough runway. Mark Melyukov was killing it early but had a tough run in his finals, Nick skated super consistent all day and ended in 4^th place, but the Top 3 were untouchable. All 3 had almost flawless runs in the finals and they all got tech. JR landed everything he tried from flip tricks to grinds down the rails and even ollied the bank to finish it, Justin skated solid and utilized pretty much every obstacle along with throwing in a couple flatground flip tricks, and Adam played it cool by doing each trick frontside and backside on the ledges and down the stairs. He popped over the big bank gap no problem and then came back to frontside 180 down the other one. Solid runs, and his first ever 1^st place victory. Way to go Adam!

The Intermediates were very interesting to watch, a true blend of talents. 2 freestylers joined in for this one – Austin Shelton and Dillanger Kane – and they both went full hardcore on it making it to finals. Both of these kids are super tech and creative which makes it fun to watch. Old time local Max Stephans came up from Seattle just to be a part of the final Hippie Mike’s Tour de Surrey and had some good runs. Max was always talented and it was great to see him there again. Jon Schrack and Doogie Lester also killed it the whole time, all the Intermediates were sick but the ones that stuck out the most were Kai Searle, Riley Allen, Weston Hutchinson & Dave Brown. Dave’s one of my fav’s to skate with at all the old bowls and he brought his emotions with him to this contest. It was the best that I had ever seen him skate and he went full speed at every obstacle with sick old school style. I was stoked that he made finals. Riley was all over the park too with some creative manoeuvres but couldn’t beat Dave in the finals. It really came down to Weston and Kai. Both of these kids are so consistent it isn’t funny and they do hard tricks, flip tricks and ledge tricks all over the place. Weston has the big gaps better but Kai was so solid in his final run that he took the gold. Tight contest boys!

The ladies had their usual jam time and all 4 of them did their thing. Nana Kunugi stuck the only kickflip for the ladies, while Tienna showed he confidence on all the obstacles. Steph rode around best she could and Carrie finally skated hard again like the old times busting shovits and 180’s on the banks and even popping ollies down both sets. Good job ladies and thanks for coming out.

Then came Advanced…

13 dudes ready to rip it and then somehow I got called out by my good buddy Shadd Trepp to compete as well. So here it was as Hippie Mike competed in the final Hippie Mike’s Tour de Surrey, I only did 1 run and threw down a bunch of noseblunt tricks on the quarters for the crowd but it was a good little demo that they all deserved after so many years of just seeing me behind the mic. If there’s one place I don’t mind showing off at it’s Bear Creek Park. The real competitors though were all insane and they all wanted to take home a Top 3 plaque at the last stop of the tour. Ryan Barron stepped up his game and landed his tricks again, he even made finals. Calvin Dignard played it safe by sticking to the basics and landing every trick he tried. Jacob Drescher showed off his ledge and rail skills, along with a couple flip tricks. Fighter skated like he always does, but missed a couple moves in there. Mathew McCauley did his best against the big guys and stuck some smooth moves too. Yuya Ishikawa hit up the ledges and flatbar, while Justin James hit the transitions. Allen Handley and Jay Mykyte both did some serious tricks with sick style as well, and Brendan Nielsen spent the whole day trying to fs360 boardslide the shotgun rail. Cisco Gooding skated consistent like always with long flowing runs filled with switch grinds, blunts and flip tricks. Eve Feaver showed up to his first Surrey comp in years and skated BCP the way it was built, huge airs over the nipple and hips, and even a couple handplants on the big pyramid, but no one could catch Weston Ganger. 50-50 180 down the rail, flip tricks, grinds and gaps all over. Then he finished it off with a super long boardslide on the handybar. The competition was tight but Weston came out on top.

At the end of the day I finally announced all the winners from each category and we got photos of all the Top 3 with their plaques. I gave out plaques for Most Improved Skaters to JR Barron and Aiden Eastman who just destroyed it at every contest this year, and announced the last ever King of Surrey. The trophy went to Weston Ganger who definitely skated hard, solid and consistent all summer and took home a bunch of prizes at each event. He won this one too which made it it all make even more sense.

As people were cleaning up there was a Best Trick contest on the 4 stair setup for a signed Rick Howard Girl Deck that he left for me at Supra Distribution. Ryan Barron came through huge with a kickflip up the set and took that baby home.

We raised a fair amount for the Surrey Food Bank once again with

$451.00 and about 350 lbs of food and Marilyn Herrmann showed up as Executive Director to make a speech of how appreciated our donations always are. Another solid year for Hippie Mike’s Tour de Surrey.

A great series, 10 years of amazement, and no better way to finish it off then a solid contest at my favourite Surrey Skate Park – Bear Creek.

Thanks to everyone who came out to all the events over the past 10 years, I will remember you all…

Results:

Mini: 1^st Django Caseley; 2^nd Theo Caseley; 3^rd Parker Sherwin; 4^th Aiden Eastman; 5^th Emmanuel; 6^th Caden Smith; 7^th Presley Huska; 8^th Kaelen Faux & Austin MacBeth; 10^th Kaelen Ruiz; 11^th Aidan Borthwick; 12^th Rhys Eastman

Beginner: 1^st Adam Lewis; 2^nd Justin Fiorante; 3^rd JR Barron; 4^th Nick Bachmeier; 5^th Mark Melyukov; 6^th Josh Lewis & Carter Costic; 8^th Damon Morgan; 9^th Bachouch Michael; 10^th Donte Gullickson; 11^th Jean-Claude; 12^th Kevin Pamel; 13^th Nic Hrvacanin; 14^th Elesio Menta; 15^th Braeden Ingram; 16^th John Bastug

Intermediate: 1^st Kai Searle; 2^nd Weston Hutchinson; 3^rd David Brown; 4^th Riley Allen; 5^th Dillanger Kane; 6^th Austin Shelton; 7^th Zacc Lester; 8^th Jon Schrack; 9^th Max Stephans; 10^th Chadd Sinclair; 11^th Eric Ream; 12^th Robert Wylie

Girls: 1^st Carrie Williams; 2^nd Tienna Rivard; 3^rd Nan Kunugi; 4^th Steph Martin

Advanced: 1^st Weston Ganger; 2^nd Calvin Dignard; 3^rd Eve Feaver; 4^th Cisco Gooding; 5^th Ryan Barron; 6^th Jacob Drescher; 7^th Allen Handley; 8^th Jay Mykyte; 9^th Brad Muscat; 10^th Mathew McCauley; 11^th Yuya Ishikawa; 12^th Brendan Nielsen

Most Improved: JR Barron & Aiden Eastman

King of Surrey 2013: Weston Ganger

and a huge thanks to all the sponsors from 2013

Protest Skateboards

Coastal Riders

Amix Group

Concrete Skateboard Magazine

The Surrey Fire Fighters

The Surrey Food Bank

Vans

Ollie North

Our Beach Studio

Folk Skateboards

BLVD Skate Shop

Anti Social

West49

Have2Skate

New Line Skate Parks

Spectrum Skate Parks

Monke skateboards

The Dry Spot

Street Dreamz Board Shop

One Love Skate Shop

Ultimate Distribution

Centre Distribution

S&J

TimeBomb

Supra Distribution

Faceshots

Unit120

Chuggies

Mosaic skateboards

Chance skateboards

Element

Thunder trucks

Independent

Happy Hour

Analog

Elephant skateboards

Chocolate

Girl

Sk8 Mafia

Fallen

Birdhouse

Bones Wheels

Spitfire

RDS

Axion

DC Shoes
Circa

Almost

DVS

AXS Gear

Matix

LRG

ATM

Kitsch

Lakai

Gullwing

Sector9

Meridian Golf Par3

iJailbreak

Woodsmith Custom Cabinets

Ear Goggles

Youth Unlimited

Concrete Wave

Eswic

Moonrider Productions

DJ Cuzo

and The City of Surrey

See ya next year when we expand to other cities for the new series

Hippie Mike`s Super Tour

Contests Extreme Sports Skateboarding Upcoming Events

The End of an Era – Don’t Miss It

Sep 4,2013 / By Hippie Mike / No Comment

10 years is a long time to dedicate to one venture but every year it just kept on growing and growing. Ironically, when Hippie Mike’s Tour de Surrey first began there was only 5 sponsors and close to 100 people showing up to compete all the time. I started the event because I saw a lot of skate talent in Surrey but not enough recognition from the industry, and now we are completely spoiled with so much action. The longer it ran, the more options kids started getting each weekend for contests across the lower mainland that they could go to instead. Our number of competitors decreased a bit, but the amount of sponsors went up and up and up. The cool part is that after 10 full seasons and over 50 contests I am stoked to see a huge chunk of that original crowd still showing up every time. It brings tears to eyes to think that this Saturday marks the final Hippie Mike’s Tour de Surrey contest of all time but these tears are what make me who I am, some are from sadness and some are from joy.

There have been so many amazing relationships that were created through this series of events and so many little kids that I watched grow into men and still love to skateboard, some of them are even professional skateboarders now. I don’t regret anything about starting this event and I am super stoked that I made it last 10 years. I couldn’t have done it without the help of all my sponsors and I wouldn’t have done it if it weren’t for all the kids that loved it. It really is all for you guys.

Next year I will begin a whole new series called Hippie Mike’s Super Tour and it will reach out to multiple cities instead of just Surrey so that even more kids can experience this revolution. But until then, this is the end.

Please join me and the rest of the skaters in Surrey this Saturday as we end an era…

The final Grand Finale of Hippie Mike’s Tour de Surrey

Saturday, September 7^th, 2013

Bear Creek Park – King George Blvd & 84^th Ave

Starts at noon – goes all day…

everyone welcome

Contest Results Contests Extreme Sports Skateboarding

What A Battle!!

Sep 1,2013 / By Hippie Mike / 1 Comment

Another insane contest in the land of Vancouver, thanks Kevin Kelly for hosting Battle at Hastings IV as a World Cup event. This year changed the look of what this contest has been in the past. Having so many super amazing bowl rippers come up from the states made it a way more serious event with so much mixed talent. The local boys like Andy Anderson, Chris Macallum and Conlan Killeen ripped around like they usually do at Hastings, but Adam Hopkins and James Clarke were the only locs keepin’ up in this competition. Old time Locals Rick McCrank and Rob “Sluggo” Boyce reminded the fans that they still exist and both made finals. But the real dudes to watch were Cody Lockwood & Brad McClain. Both of these dudes were untouchable in the finals dropping tricks that just weren’t feasible all over the bowl and on the additional obstacles too. That’s right I said “additional obstacles”. Supra Distribution donated a huge clear Lakai Shoe Box full of shoes, Ultimate Distribution brought a crazy wooden barrel and Adam Hopkins went hardcore and built a tombstone channel that fit the 6 foot. Top 10 made the finals out of about 35 guys, and the judging was tough. I was a judge and it was hard to keep only 10 guys, they were scored over 4 heats but with their best and worst scores thrown away it was an average of the remaining 2, so if you didn’t have 3 killer runs you were at risk of elimination. A tough way to do it for sure.

Mason Merlino who won last year was on fire but somehow got left out of finals along with Charlie Blaire. They both skated so good but their scores didn’t average out enough. Shit went down on the Lakai box and the Tombstones for sure. Blunts, airs, grinds and slashers, both obstacles were demo’d by many. The Barrel didn’t see too much action but there wer a few solid air bonkers and nose picks on it. Sky Siljeg wallied into the bowl off of it to start one of his runs and that was pretty crazy.

The whole contest was insane, 200-300 people around trying to squeeze into Hastings Park without being in the way of the skaters, a ton of people filming and poaching photos, Rene Rene was on the mic, and the energy level was hot. I would tell you more about it, but you’re just gonna have to wait for all the videos to come out, but I will tell you the Top 10.

Battle At Hastings 2013 Results

Brad McClain – $6,000
Cody Lockwood
Frontside Kid – James Clarke
Adam Hopkins
Steve Reeves
Rob “Sluggo” Boyce
Sky Siljeg
Frank Shaw
Riley Boland
Rick McCrank

Here’s a couple photos that I snapped when I had a quick minute or two

Extreme Sports Skateboarding

Girl – Chocolate in Surrey

Aug 31,2013 / By Hippie Mike / No Comment

Just over 2 weeks ago Scott Fierbach from Coastal Riders called me up to tell me a dilemma – The Girl and Chocolate Team wanted to do a Demo at Chuck Bailey on August 30^th… At first I said no, not because I didn’t want them there but because we already had another event Top Grom set up for that day, and also to do a proper demo in Surrey you need to get approved by the city and obtain insurance and a permit; 2 weeks is really tight for that to happen. Scott spoke to Top Grom and worked it out that we could run the demo in the afternoon prior to their event. So the paperwork was filled out and I started working on my end to help get it approved asap. With Kevin McCoubrey at Supra Distribution getting started on the insurance portion right away, and the 3 of us working hard together, all of a sudden it looked like this was actually going to happen. So here we were now planning for a Girl Demo, little did I know at this time that I was going to end up being the MC.

This year marks the 20^th anniversary of Girl Skateboards so all the main guys were definitely coming – Rick Howard, Mike Carroll, Rick McCrank, Sean Malto, Raven Tershy, Cory Kennedy, Elijah Berle, and Mike Mo Capaldi. They showed up in pure skater style, over an hour late to a packed park full of skaters that all wanted to see these guys shred. Everybody sat down and chilled as soon as they arrived, everyone except Brad Muscat. But after busting a couple big bangers and getting props from the crowd, he too stopped skating and sat back for the show. It was a solid performance from all, Cory Kennedy utilized the entire park and put his feet on everything he tried, Malto showed off some tech tricks that probably no one else had done before on the flat ledges and skated solid the entire time, Elijah aired the volcano a couple times and shredded the bowl with Raven, and McCrank took over as he destroyed the whole place, street and tranny. This went on for over an hour and the whole crowd was super respectful by not skating and by cheering hard whenever something awesome went down. The riders stayed pumped and kept on landing stuff so the demo continued until finally everyone was tired enough to stop and do a little mingling with their fans. So Scotty lit up the Barbeque and fired off a couple hundred free hot dogs for the crowd.

It was a super awesome day and the weather was perfect. The skating was solid, the crowd was awesome, the demo team was cool. It’s funny when I think about it, when I was a young teenager and Rick Howard and Mike Carroll were 2 of my favourite skateboarders when they rode for Plan B and were just about to start Girl, I never thought for a minute that 20 years later I would be a guy that lived in British Columbia that everyone referred to as Hippie Mike announcing a demo for them. You never know what life’s gonna bring you and when…

Extreme Sports Skateboarding Upcoming Events

Battle at Hastings IV

Aug 28,2013 / By Hippie Mike / No Comment

This Saturday marks the 4^th Battle at Hastings, a solid hardcore bowl contest put on by Kevin Kelly and BLVD Skate Shop. All 3 of the first years were amazing and this year Kevin has World Cup Status which means a bunch more pros will be heading north to Vancouver for the event. $15,000 in prize money will be handed out amongst these shredders throughout the day. But the question is who will be the ones pocketing it?

Here’s the list of competitors:

Andy Anderson
Adam Hopkins
Adam Richter
Alex Sorgente
Anthony Hancock
Aiden Dansey
Brad McClain
Bryce Stark
Chris Klich
Chris Connolly
Conlan Killeen
Cody Lockwood
Charlie Blaire
Danny Tumia
Danny Hagge
Elijah Burle
Frank Shaw
Frank Faria
James Clarke
John Morgan
Johnny Turgesen
Keegan Sauder
Mike O’Friel
Mason Merlino
Nick Peterson
Riley Boland
Rick McCrank
Raven Tershy
Stevie Denham
Steve Reeves
Sky Siljeg

Last year Mason Merlino took the gold, but this one is gonna be super hard to repeat that. If you’ve ever been to Hastings Bowl then you know exactly why I say that. This bowl can take you out at any moment, as it proved last year by breaking Dave Priest‘s knee and separating Adam Hopkins‘ shoulder. It’s gonna be interesting to see if the Ams can keep up with the Pros this year as well, but most of the Ams are local to Hastings so they definitely stand a chance. Our eyes will be on our team rider Andy Anderson along with some other locals like “Frontside Kid” James Clarke, Conlan Kileen and the 2 Adams, but at the same time it’s gonna be tough to beat the skills of Keegan Sauder and Rick McCrank.

Of course there’s also that guy named Raven Tershy showing up…

The only way to know how unreal this contest is gonna be will be to show up and watch it.

Battle at Hastings IV

Saturday August 31^st @ 1pm

Extreme Sports Skateboarding

Big-O Back in Action

Aug 27,2013 / By Hippie Mike / No Comment

History starts over as of August 18^th, 2013.

After 2 years, the Big-O reopened in it’s new location 80 feet away from the original spot. It barely survived in the first place when it was stated that the stadium it is beside announced they were expanding, but being one of Canada’s most historic skate spots in Montreal some people got together and made it possible to see it relocated instead of demolished. Lots of legends showed up to check out the Rebirth like Louie Corbeil, John Cardiel, Norman Roy, Joey Tershy, Ron Chatman, Matt Rodriguez and of course Barry Walsh. It looked like it was a great event and well overdue.

Check out the full recap below from Expose Skateboard Magazine

http://exposemag.ca/big-o-pipe-family-reunion/

Contests Extreme Sports Hippie Mike's Tour De Surrey Skateboarding

Hippie Mike’s Tour de Surrey #10 – 2013 Fleetwood

Aug 26,2013 / By Hippie Mike / No Comment

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 1^st 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 2^nd 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 7^th 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 – 1^st Theo Caseley; 2^nd Liam Hansen; 3^rd Aiden Eastman; 4^th Parker Sherwin; 5^th Django Caseley; 6^th Isaiah Stroud; 7^th Austin MacBeth; 8^th Braeden Nerpio & Presley Huska; 10^th Kaelen Faux; 11^th Joey Stone; 12^th Dimias Abdul-Guani & Kyler Hoogland

Beginner – 1^st Mark Melyukov; 2^nd JR Barron; 3^rd Justin Fiorante; 4^th Adam Lewis; 5^th Nick Bachmeier; 6^th Tyler McKnight; 7^th Damon Morgan & Josh Lewis; 9^th Travis Howie; 10^th Bachouch Michael & Kaelan Ruiz; 12^th Braeden Ingram; 13^th Donte Gullickson, Yoshe Durston & Joseph Madayag; 16^th Terry Cho; 17^th Bishop Rosie; 18^th Bradley Dodd & Damion Wadsworth

Intermediate – 1^st Kai Searle; 2^nd Riley Allen; 3^rd Weston Hutchinson; 4^th Dyson Mathews; 5^th Luke Thodus; 6^th Keith Miller; 7^th Jonathan Rewich; 8^th Chadd Sinclair; 9^th Yubo Wang; 10^th Robert Wylie

Girls – 1^st Carrie Williams; 2^nd Kristen Landry; 3^rd Nana Kunugi; 4^th Tienna Rivard

Advanced – 1^st Dustin Locke; 2^nd Andy Anderson; 3^rd Cisco Gooding; 4^th Weston Ganger; 5^th Brad Muscat; 6^th Graham Bonn; 7^th Mathew McCauley; 8^th Jay Mykyte; 9^th Colin Gallagher; 10^th Graeme Schoenberger 11^th Yuya Ishikawa; 12^th Ryan Barron 13^th Alex Savage

1 … 12 13 14 15 16 … 49

Category : Skateboarding

Battle At Hastings 2013 Results