Back in the fall, when a couple of Adidas heads were in town for the Long Ledge Jam, we had an idea to get a few of them and a few local-based friends to do a casual, multi-person game of S.K.A.T.E. over the Flushing grate flat gap. Here was a spot that you could run single clips over in your part maybe ~25 years ago, but in the ensuing quarter-century, pretty much every single flip trick imaginable had been done. It is probably up to par for some talented skaters to get competitive over. Unfortunately, due to a few logistical issues, it didn’t work out in the fall.
Last month, however, we made it happen. We got eight skaters to Flushing by noon! That was a miracle in and of itself.
Now, everyone is friends here. We didn’t wanna do any B.A.T.B-style rules. There’s enough stuff with refs out there. If your opponent and all us lurking in the background figured you didn’t need a re-do if you kinda hit the last half-inch of the grate on defense, it was fine. Street rules. Just friends playing S.K.A.T.E. Friends who are …really good at skating.
We put eight names in a hat and drew at random. If you won, your name got put aside to get put back in the hat for the next round. Last one standing wins. Going to drop these on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the coming weeks. Hopefully you enjoy them as much as we did making them.
Supported by adidas Skateboarding
Video direction: Greg Navarro & Mike Sassano
Editor & Motion Graphics: Greg Navarro
Title Design: Francesco Pini
Music: Beat Daddy
Producer: Pad Projects
Great read on the G.R.A.T.E. series! The “street rules” approach with friends really changes the dynamic compared to formal S.K.A.T.E. contests—it feels more like a session highlight reel than a cutthroat bracket. I was actually messing around with timing mechanics on SlimeKeyboardEscape between rounds, so the precision talk here hit home. One thing I’m curious about: when someone clips the last half-inch of the grate on defense and the group has to decide if a re-do is fair, do you ever disagree on the spot, or is there an unspoken hierarchy of who gets final call?