It has been ages since our last “Weekend Viewing” recommendation! And it’s more because we let up on a good habit, rather than there not being anything to send your way these past…four years.
QS is far from a transition-based media enterprise — the “Sup w those two skatepark clips in the top 10?” comment from last week’s #QSTOP10 is evidence of the fact that at least some of our readership mirrors the office’s focus on flatground backside flips and 40-year-old Spaniards doing fakie crooked grinds.
A lot of transition heroes’ greatest feats go over our heads, but there are obviously exceptions to the rule, e.g. we’ll run back any of Oski’s Instagram posts a half dozen times, and Jawn Gardner is currently the funnest to watch skater on earth. We’re not trying to be dickheads, it’s just something we didn’t come of age around. (Though we will confess there is a tiny bit of truth to Roctakon’s three-year-old observation that “nobody looks unhappier than people who are really good at skating transition.”)
Another welcome exception was Mike Chin’s part in Tucker Glasow and Tristan Brillanceau-Lewis‘ amazing new video, Portland Public Skating 2. Given our remedial grasp of transition skating, if granted a wish to inherit anybody’s skatepark abilities, we’d be partial to being able to skate Burnside like Mike Chin. The entire part could easily translate outside of a skatepark, but Chin’s fun versatility has long been a source of admiration among fellow Oregonians.
You can catch Portland Public Skating 2 in full here (features a fire Brent Atchley section, too.) Most people don’t know much about skating in the city apart from Burnside and those few Bledsoe ledge spots, so it is a nice survey of a place with a rich skate history that often gets overshadowed by the single most famous D.I.Y. park.
