No matter how advanced things seem, fundamental artifacts remain timeless. When stuff gets too technical, too big and too hard to keep track of — simple, refined skating stands out amid the stair-counting. It’s part of the recipe behind today’s moment for small companies and slimmed-down trick lists.
Ride On is a 1995 Deluxe promo that doesn’t get the same nostalgic love as say, Non Fiction or Fucktards do. It resurfaced during a ATCQ #musicsupervision wormhole that turned into a Joey Bast wormhole once his Silver part ended.
The promo struck a chord for more reasons than the #pants. While it probably won’t incite the “come out today and still hold up”-hyperbole that was discussed last week, it does seem oddly current and in tune with what’s going on throughout skateboarding’s more refined palette today, particularly in New York. From Huf’s one-or-two push lines that include nothing more than 180s, trashcans, streetgaps and maybe a kickflip, to a time when a really good 360 flip off a bump was “enough” to end a section off with — it all came back with a vengeance as we began to drift away from the age of after-black hammers and taking five years to film a video.
Added bonuses are Quim beginning his reign as the greatest two-5050s-in-one-line practitioner ever, front of Union Square lines that wouldn’t look out of place if they were HD in a 2016 Johnny Wilson video, Ethan Fowler skating Pier 7 unlike anyone famous for skating Pier 7 would skate Pier 7, and Ryan Hickey doing a four-trick Astor line that’s about half as long as the 44-second YouTube compilation of all his footage.