The Switch Inward Heelflip You Never Knew You Needed & Other Happenings About Town

We began the decade by burning an impossible over a bench into memory — a trick that had, with a few exceptions, largely sat dormant for the better part of twenty years.

A couple kids got into doing pressure flips.

Then, for a minute there, the heelflip became the new kickflip varial flip.

Tallying every trick that had gone down at every gap became burdensome. The best real estate for a switch tre down D7 in 2015 was the part of a Johnny Wilson clip when the drums began to cut out of a Moodymann song. (Jk, that clip is one of the best things of the past decade. Switch tre is obvs beast too.)

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On Westgate, Nollie Flips, BSOTP12M, etc.

westgate nollie flip

Tween favorites and Leo Gutman aside, Westgate is the only legit Ishod withstanding case you could make for Best Skater of the Past 12 Months. (We’re not saying “SOTY” anymore to avoid any “There’s politics behind it bro!” proclamations from those privy to the obvious. BSOTP12M strives to be as objective as possible.)

His new Emerica part is obviously closer to the Gravity end of things than any plain old video part. However, Westgate’s superhumanness always gets brought back to earth because he does the best looking, most un-Battle of the Berrics-homogenized flip tricks of any young skater today. The terrain he does them on is sorta irrelevant; every part this dude puts out leads to a Kalis comparison, even if the spots they typically skate are nothing alike. Distinct-looking flip tricks are relatable because everyone knows the feeling of “Wow, that was a good one” on a trick they otherwise do a hundred times a day. It does not matter how much lower the bar orange cone may be set in our individual cases. (But maybe it does help that Westgate’s best examples aren’t done down stairs. Speaking of which, are there any #relevant stair skaters besides Reynolds, Herman and Forrest Edwards anymore?)

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